It was a clear, cold day. The hills were yellow with winter, dotted with those tiny white wildflowers (probably stardrops, Crier thought, remembering an illustration in a botanist’s handbook), and her mare was trotting along at a steady pace. The sky was a high ceiling of blue, smeared with clouds like white paint. The icy wind felt good on her skin. She’d never gone this long without bathing, and the chill made her feel clean. On a whim, she decided to name her mare Della, after a character in an old faerie story. Della was a servant girl who stole her cruel mistress’s dress and snuck into a royal ball, and the youngest princess fell in love with her instantly. The princess and Della were married the very next week, and the cruel mistress was forced to attend the wedding and watch as the servant she’d treated so terribly became a member of the royal family. It was all very satisfying. Things didn’t work out like that in real life, but Crier liked the story.

She made good time to Rosi’s manor. By late afternoon, Crier and Della crested one of the hills that ringed the manor, which sat in the cradle of the hills like a jewel set in gold. Or—it usually did.

Crier frowned. Every other time she’d visited, even the day after Rosi’s fiancé, Foer, was assassinated by Queen Junn, the manor had looked . . . well, like people lived there. There were always servants around, tending to the orchards and the horse pastures and the livestock pens. Candlelight glowing in the windows, lanterns lit outside the manor gates. But now . . . there wasn’t a servant in sight. The pastures were empty, the horses nowhere to be seen. The livestock pens were empty of pigs and goats. The lanterns were dead. Crier squinted: even the orchards looked overgrown, the ground littered with fallen, unharvested fruit.

Her stomach sank.

The last time she’d seen Rosi was just a few weeks ago, when she’d come to pay her respects after Foer’s death. At the time, Rosi had been suffering the side effects of Kinok’s Nightshade. Her lips and tongue had been stained black, her body skeletal, her veins standing out against her skin. She’d been manic, unable to concentrate on anything for more than a few seconds. She hadn’t seemed to care about Foer’s death at all.

Rosi . . . what’s happened to you?

Slowly, Crier led Della down the hill, the mare picking her way through the crumbling outcrops of rock. It took nearly an hour. By the time they reached the manor gates, the sun was low in the sky, beginning to disappear behind the hills. The closer they got, the more nervous Della seemed. Her ears were laid flat against her skull. She kept pawing at the ground like she was asking to stop.

Crier wasn’t faring any better. She couldn’t explain it, but it felt like her skin was prickling all over, hypersensitive. She had a death grip on the reins. She didn’t want to be here. The silence of the manor was like a living thing, heavy on her shoulders. There was still no sign of any servants. Even the wind had gone silent.