“We come from Monsea,” Katsa said. “We crossed the mountains through Grella’s Pass.”

This was met with silence, and a widening of eyes. Katsa sighed.

“If that’s hard for you to believe,” she said, “you’ll find the rest of our story no less than incredible. Truly, I’m unsure where to start.”

“Start with Leck’s Grace,” Bitterblue said around her mouthful of bread.

Katsa watched the child lick crumbs from her fingers. Bitterblue looked as if she were approaching a state of rapture that even the story of her father’s treachery couldn’t disturb. “Very well,” Katsa said. “We’ll start with Leck’s Grace.”

KATSA TOOK not one bath that night, but two. The first to loosen the dirt and peel off the top layer of grime, the second to become truly clean. Bitterblue did the same. The storekeeper, his wife, and his two eldest children moved quietly and efficiently, drawing water, heating water, emptying the tub, and burning their old, tattered garments. Producing new clothing, boy’s clothing, and fitting it to their guests. Gathering hats, coats, scarves, and gloves from their own cabinets and from the store. Cutting Bitterblue’s hair to the length of a boy’s, and trimming Katsa’s so it lay close to her scalp again.

The sensation of cleanliness was astonishing. Katsa couldn’t count the number of times she heard Bitterblue’s quiet sigh. A sigh at being warm and clean, at washing oneself with soap; and at the taste of bread in one’s mouth, and the feeling of bread in one’s stomach.

“I’m afraid we won’t get much sleep tonight, child,” Katsa said. “We must leave this house before the rest of the family wakes in the morning.”

“And you think that bothers me? This evening has been bliss. The lack of sleep will be nothing.”

Nonetheless, when Katsa and Bitterblue lay down in a bed for the first time in a very long time—the bed of the storekeeper and his wife, though Katsa had protested their sacrifice—Bitterblue dropped into an exhausted sleep. Katsa lay on her back and tried not to let the calm breath of her bed companion, the softness of mattress and pillow delude her into believing they were safe. She thought of the gaps she’d left in the story she’d told that night.

The family of the storekeeper now understood the horror that was King Leck’s Grace. They understood Ashen’s murder and the events surrounding the kidnapping of Grandfather Tealiff. They’d surmised, though Katsa had never told them explicitly, that the child eating bread and cheese as if she’d never seen it before was the Monsean princess who fled her father. They even understood that if Leck chose to spread a false story through Sunder, their minds might lose the truth of everything she’d told them. All of this the family marveled at, accepted, and understood.

Katsa had omitted one truth, and she had told one lie. The truth omitted was their destination. Leck might be able to confuse this family into admitting the lady and the princess had knocked on their door and slept under their roof. But he’d never be able to talk them into revealing a destination they didn’t know.