Horrified, Ayla tried to imagine such a creature. Something . . . stronger than Automae? More violent? Even less human? Storme was right, it sounded unbelievable. Except something he’d said had caught in Ayla’s mind. It looks like they’ve been drinking ink. Ayla knew exactly what that looked like, because she’d seen it before. Crier’s friend Rosi, the one whose fiancé had been murdered. Ayla hadn’t seen much of Rosi when she and Crier visited Rosi’s manor. The two Automae girls had spoken privately, Ayla dismissed to stand outside the door. And then, on their way back to the palace, Elderell had happened: Ayla had watched, helpless, as Rowan was killed by an Automa guard. In the wake of Rowan’s death, Ayla had forgotten all about Rosi’s odd behavior, her ink-stained mouth.

Until now.

Ayla noticed Queen Junn didn’t seem at all shocked or even unsettled by Storme’s words. Her eyes were alight with something, but it wasn’t fear.

“What of their minds?” Junn asked. “If they’re launching organized attacks on the trading caravans . . .”

Storme shook his head. “Thing is, the attacks aren’t organized. I honestly don’t think they’re trying to sabotage our heartstone supply. I don’t even think they’re aware of what’s inside the trading caravans; I don’t think they have the capacity to be aware of anything at all. They’re attacking the caravans because they’re there. If it were a traveler’s carriage, a single rider, Automa, human, a commoner, the sovereign himself, the outcome would be the same. These creatures are mindless. If something crosses into their territory, they will kill it.”

“And what is their territory?” Junn asked.

“The border between Rabu and Varn,” said Storme. “And some parts of Tarreen, apparently. Why they’re so concentrated in southern Rabu, I don’t know.”

But I do, Ayla realized. I know why.

“It’s Kinok,” she said, drawing their attention. “Ever since the Southern Uprisings, he’s had a lot of followers in the south.”

The Southern Uprisings. When hundreds of human servants across the southern estates had planned to revolt on the same night, at the same time, so the Automa nobles couldn’t help or warn each other. But somehow Kinok had found out and warned the nobles far in advance. The humans’ plan hinged on the element of surprise, and there was no surprise. The uprisings were quashed fast and bloody. And Kinok was a hero.

But Ayla and Crier had discovered that Kinok had been able to predict the uprisings because he’d been the one to instigate them. He’d used his web of connections to spread false information, manipulating the humans of the southern estates into planning a rebellion doomed from the start.

“He’s been tricking his followers into replacing heartstone with a substance called Nightshade,” Ayla continued. “It looks like heartstone dust but black. He tells them it’s a more powerful heartstone, that it’ll make them even stronger, sharper. But I’ve seen its true effects.” She told Storme and Junn about the visit to Rosi’s. She recounted Rosi’s black-stained tongue, her body starved to bones, her shaky, erratic movements. “She wasn’t violent, but it can’t be coincidence. Maybe if you consume enough Nightshade, you turn into . . . that.”