Both letters ended the same way. Po and Katsa hadn’t seen each other in months, and neither of them had seen Bitterblue in over a year. Both intended to come to Bitterblue as soon as their work could spare them, and stay as long as they could.

Bitterblue was so happy that she curled herself up in a ball on the sofa and hugged a pillow for a full minute.

At the far end of the room, Fox had managed to climb to the very top of the tall windows, bracing her hands and feet against the window frames. There, she rubbed at her own reflection vigorously, polishing the surface to a high shine. Wearing a divided skirt of blue, Fox matched her surroundings, for Bitterblue’s sitting room was blue, from the carpet to the blue-and-gold walls to the ceiling, which was midnight blue and stenciled with gold and scarlet stars. The royal crown sat on a blue velvet cushion in this room, always, except when Bitterblue wore it. A hanging of a fantastical sky-blue horse with green eyes marked the hidden door that had once given passage down to Leck’s rooms below, before people had come in and done something to block off the stairway.

Fox was a Graceling, with one eye pale gray and the other dark gray, and she was startlingly pretty, almost glamorous, red-haired and strong-featured. Her Grace was a strange one: fearlessness. But it was not fearlessness combined with recklessness; it was only a lack of the unpleasant sensation of fear; and, in fact, Fox had what Bitterblue interpreted to be an almost mathematical ability to calculate physical consequences. Fox knew better than anyone what was likely to happen if she slipped and fell out of the window. It was that knowledge that kept her careful, rather than the feeling of fear.

Bitterblue thought such a Grace was wasted in a castle servant, but in post-Leck Monsea, Gracelings were not the property of the kings; they were free to work where they liked. And Fox seemed to like doing odd jobs in the upper north floors of the castle—though Helda did talk about trying her as a spy sometime.

“Do you live in the castle, Fox?” asked Bitterblue.

“No, Lady Queen,” answered Fox from her perch. “I live in the east city.”

“You work strange hours, don’t you?”

“It suits me, Lady Queen,” Fox responded. “Sometimes, I work the night through.”

“How do you get in and out of the castle at such odd hours? Does the Door Guard ever give you a hard time?”

“Well, it’s never any trouble getting out; they’ll let anyone out, Lady Queen. But to come in at the gatehouse at night, I show a bracelet that Helda’s given me, and to get past the Lienid at your own doors, I show the bracelet again and give the password.”

“The password?”

“It changes every day, Lady Queen.”

“And how do you get the password yourself?”

“Helda hides it for us somewhere, in a different place every day of the week, Lady Queen.”