“You were right,” Aisling said comfortingly.

“Of course I was right,” she snarled. “I can feel the night air. It’s coming down.”

Already, the carefully placed guards within the crowd were herding everyone out of the room so that no one would see Wynter’s meltdown. But not Arbor. Never Arbor.

“They’ll be back,” she said finally.

Wynter whirled on her, dropping her hand from where it’d crossed the barrier for the very first time. “And how can you be sure?”

Arbor lifted her chin, not bowing to Wynter’s moods. It was why she had first begun to keep her around. Everyone else complied with all of her madness. Her unruly tempers and tantrums and outrageous fits. She was a visionary—that much was certain—but with no one to temper that madness, to hone it into something valuable, she would fizzle before it could get anywhere.

Which was where she came in. “Because we’re still here.”

Wynter waved her off. “You think you and Prescott matter that much?”

She didn’t know, truthfully. Fordham was enigmatic on a good day, but their relationship meant something. “Yes.”

“Maybe,” Wynter acknowledged.

Aisling shot Arbor a narrowed-eye look. Arbor returned the look with an easy smile, sinking into her lush hip.

“I’ll write to him,” Arbor said. She had already planned to do so, but it seemed prudent to let Wynter think it was her idea.

“Yes,” Wynter said at once. “Use one of my birds to get the word out to him.”

“I’ll have to be careful not to mention you,” she said as if it were a second thought.

“Of course. Make it your own mind. We don’t want him to know that you work for me.”

With. With you.

Though she didn’t correct her. She never did.

“As you wish,” Arbor said. Aisling opened her mouth, likely to protest, and Arbor barreled over whatever she was going to say. “I’ll get with Pres now and figure out how to craft something in the morning once we’ve learned of their disappearance.”

“Thank you, Arbor,” Wynter said, reaching out and taking her hand.

Arbor forced herself not to recoil. Wynter was a means to an end—that was all.

“We all believe in your vision. I’m only your tool.” She bowed her head to the princess.

“Where would I be without you?”

Buried in her own mania, for certain. It had been Arbor’s suggestion to get all of this moving. To use Wynter’s influence to capitalize on the last month of unforgivable grievances against anyone who wasn’t titled. Arbor and Prescott had been all but forgotten in the melee of the trade drying up. They needed support for what they planned to do to right this wrong. Wynter had the influence and was influenceable on her own as well.

“We’ll never find out,” Arbor responded and then backed out of Wynter’s presence.