“Separate?” said Benjy. “No, why?”

“Not a lot of humans here. A pair might look suspicious.” She paused, pretending to check over a spread of delicate cakes and pastries. Next to it, a font of liquid heartstone, deep red, for the Automae. “Meet me on the other side, at the palace steps, in a few minutes. Remember to hide your wrists. Don’t get caught.”

“I’ll do my best,” he said dryly.

Ayla kept still until he disappeared into the crowd, then headed off in the opposite direction, moving parallel to the eastern edge of the courtyard. She was thankful for her size. In the port town she’d stood out, but here, nobody would think twice about a small human girl carrying an empty platter through a crowd of glittering festivalgoers. The guards would assume she was just another servant heading back to the kitchens. Ayla tried not to worry about Benjy, focusing instead on slipping through the crowd like a shadow. Benjy would be fine; he could take care of himself. All they had to do was cross the courtyard and get to the palace steps. That wasn’t hard.

Ayla should have known better than to think a foolish thing like that.

She was so close—the palace steps were in sight, and the palace beyond them, rising like a colossal crown of bone, its highest tower the height of the city walls behind it, all spiraling turrets and towers that tapered into swordlike points, a palace like a mouth of bared fangs, well suited to the queen who held the throne. The thin arrow-slit windows glowed with yellow candlelight, flickering. Ayla couldn’t breathe for a moment. Her brother was somewhere within those walls. She was so close to him, only a few hundred paces away from the palace doors. By dawnbreak, they might already be reunited.

She strode forward and then faltered. An odd weight on her head, something catching in her hair. Not a hand. She reached up and her fingers found something delicate, metallic, fluttering, alive. One of the Made butterflies had landed on her. Ayla repressed a shudder, knowing it wasn’t a real insect, but there was something deeply unsettling about the sensation of its spindly legs on her scalp. She shook her head hard and the butterfly lifted off again, bobbing away into the smoky night. Ayla stared after it, frowning. Unlike the other butterflies, this one kept . . . glowing. Pulsing yellow, more like a firefly than a butterfly.

Wait—

A gloved hand wrapped around her wrist. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

Ayla sucked in a breath. A royal guard stood over her, eyes glinting behind his white mask. He jerked her closer to him, startling her into dropping the platter. It hit the flagstones with a loud clang.

“Who let you in?” the guard demanded.

“I’m a servant,” Ayla tried. “I must have lost my ribbon. I’m sorry for the trouble, I’ll leave immediately.”

“You will not,” said the guard. “You’re coming with me.”