“He’ll be for you,” Raffin said, “for I’m not my father’s son at the moment, and he doesn’t send stewards for me.” He laughed, then left her. “I’m glad you’re back,” he called to her, and he disappeared through an archway.

The steward was one of Randa’s dry, sniffy little men. “Lady Katsa,” he said. “Welcome back. The king wishes to know if your business in the east was successful.”

“You may tell him it was successful,” Katsa said.

“Very good, My Lady. The king wishes you to dress for dinner.”

Katsa narrowed her eyes at the steward. “Does the king wish anything else?”

“No, My Lady. Thank you, My Lady.” The man bowed and scampered away from her gaze as quickly as possible.

Katsa lifted her bags onto her shoulder and sighed. When the king wished her to dress for dinner, it meant she was to wear a dress and arrange her hair and wear jewels in her ears and around her neck. It meant the king planned to sit her next to some underlord who wished a wife, though she was probably not the wife he had in mind. She would ease the poor man’s fears quickly, and perhaps she could claim not to feel well enough to sit through the entire meal. She could claim a headache. She wished she could take Raffin’s headache remedy and turn her hair blue. It would give her a respite from Randa’s dinners.

Raffin appeared again, a floor above her, on the balconied passageway that ran past his workrooms. He leaned over the railing and called down to her. “Kat!”

“What is it?”

“You look lost. Have you forgotten the way to your rooms?”

“I’m stalling.”

“How long will you be? I’d like to show you a couple of my new discoveries.”

“I’ve been told to make myself pretty for dinner.”

He grinned. “Well, in that case, you’ll be ages.”

His face dissolved into laughter, and she tore a button from one of her bags and hurled it at him. He squealed and dropped to the floor, and the button hit the wall right where he’d been standing. When he peeked back over the railing, she stood in the courtyard with her hands on her hips, grinning. “I missed on purpose,” she said.

“Show-off! Come if you’ve time.” He waved, and turned into his rooms.

And that’s when the presence in the corner of Katsa’s eye took shape.

He was standing a floor above her, to her left. He leaned his elbows on the railing, the neck of his shirt open, and watched her. The gold hoops in his ears, and the rings on his fingers. His hair dark. A tiny welt visible on his forehead, just beside his eye.

His eyes. Katsa had never seen such eyes. One was silver, and the other, gold. They glowed in his sun-darkened face, uneven, and strange. She was surprised that they hadn’t shone in the darkness of their first meeting. They didn’t seem human. She couldn’t stop looking at them.