“Yes, sir,” said Ayla, and heard Benjy’s mumbled “Yes, sir” behind her. The guard stepped aside, allowing them to pass through the gates, and they were in.

The palace courtyard was half the size of the one outside, and it was clear this part of the festival was organized not by commoners but by the queen. A shallow moat surrounded the courtyard, the surface dotted with white rose petals and floating lanterns; you had to cross an arched stone bridge to reach the festivities. Ayla could hear the gentle rush of a fountain somewhere, and she noticed a group of musicians at the edge of the courtyard—Automa, not human, Ayla saw with a twinge of surprise. The song they were playing was much slower and softer than the riotous music of the main festival—a song suited for conversation, not dancing. More white rose petals blanketed the ground like snow, so pretty that Ayla almost felt bad crushing them beneath her heels. And . . . Ayla frowned, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. It looked like there were insects darting around above the crowd, lighting up the night—large insects or maybe tiny birds, but that wasn’t it. The way their wings kept winking in the lanternlight . . .

They were Made. Golden, gossamer butterflies the size of Ayla’s entire hand. Swooping around, floating like sparks in the night air. Artificial creatures with minds of their own. Ayla thought back to the Made objects she used to see passed around in secret in the market at Kalla-den: pocket watches that tracked the movements of the stars and planets; daggers that folded up to be smaller than a thumbnail; chunks of pink salt that could supposedly grant you visions of the future if you tossed them in the belly of a fire and inhaled the smoke. Half of them were fake, and the other half only worked part of the time.

Of course, Ayla knew of one Made object that was very, very real.

It had belonged to her, after all.

For the thousandth time since escaping the sovereign’s palace, Ayla felt the urge to touch her sternum, the phantom weight where her heavy golden locket should have been. It had once belonged to her grandfather Leo; then her mother, then her. Until recently, Ayla had thought the most remarkable thing about the locket was its tiny inorganic heartbeat. Crier had been the one to discover Leo had stored his own memories inside it. A drop of blood was all it took to witness those memories, walk through them as a silent, invisible observer.

Gripping the platter with both hands, Ayla tore her gaze away from the Made butterflies and led Benjy across the stone bridge and into the fringes of the festival crowd. “We should separate,” she breathed. Leeches everywhere, gods, her skin was crawling. Her heartbeat felt impossibly, dangerously loud, even though she knew there were other humans here, that she was not alone, that Varn wasn’t like Rabu. It was one thing to know that. Much more difficult to actually believe it.