Worst-case scenario, they died a bloody death before they even made it inside the city walls, taking Kinok’s secrets with them. Worst-case scenario, Ayla would never see Storme again, and he would never know she’d died so close to him, so close, her body at the bottom of a harbor just outside his door. He would board ships above her, sail across her grave, and he would never know. Worst-case scenario, the queen wouldn’t find out about Nightshade until it was too late.

Of course, there was one other person who could tell the queen, tell anyone, about Kinok’s plans. One other person, and Ayla’s mind wouldn’t let her forget it. A thought kept repeating itself, demanding acknowledgment: She knows. She could still do something.

Crier knows. And then it hit Ayla—as it had been hitting her over and over again since yesterday morning, when she’d first heard the whispers circulating on the docks, in the small marketplace, outside the Black Gull, everywhere she went—as it had been hitting her over and over again, a series of gut punches, each one a sick terrible swoop, leaving her breathless—

The date of the wedding between Scyre Kinok and the daughter of the sovereign of Rabu had been pushed up. Unknown reasons, people whispered to each other. I heard something about an attempted coup, someone would whisper, and then someone else would reply, No, no, I heard that wasn’t true. I heard a servant went mad and tried to burn down the palace. No, no, that’s not true either, do you just believe everything you hear?

Crier was getting married today.

Today.

The ceremony had probably already begun. Not that Ayla was thinking about it; not that she cared. Not that she was thinking about the way Crier used to look at Kinok, wary at best and fearful at worst. Or about the way Crier edged closer to her, Ayla, whenever Kinok entered a room.

Ayla kept her head low, trailing a good ten paces behind Benjy as they followed one of the narrow, veinlike roads that fed into the wider road connecting the port town to the city gates. She was thinking about Storme and the Queen and nothing else. She’d traded one goal for another. One mission had failed. (Was it really less than two weeks ago that she’d last seen Crier? That their eyes had met for one terrified instant before Ayla dropped the knife and ran?) No matter. She had a new mission. She was going to stop Kinok, stop him from growing even more powerful, tightening his hold over Rabu. Whatever it took.

To do that, she had to find Storme, and tonight was her best chance. Varn was celebrating the Great Maker’s Festival, an annual holiday in honor of Thomas Wren and the other early Makers, the creators of the Automae. All of Thalen had been thrown into chaos, the frenzy of preparation. The city gates were open wide for the streams of travelers and merchants and vendors and festivalgoers from all corners of Varn. Ayla and Benjy didn’t even need to sneak in. As the sun began to set, the crowds growing ever thicker, they simply walked through the gates with everyone else.