More than anything else, the sheer absurdity of the situation provided the greatest protection. No one would believe that a sheltered, self-indulgent princess would willingly scrub floors in the palace of her enemy. She doubted even Saldur’s mind would grant enough latitude to penetrate the illusion. Even if some people thought she looked familiar—and several seemed to—their minds simply could not bend that far. To conceive of the thought that Ella the scrub girl was the Princess of Melengar was as ridiculous as the idea that pigs could talk or that Maribor was not god. To entertain such a notion would require a mind open to new possibilities, and no one at the palace fit that description.

The only one she worried about, besides Saldur, was the empress’s secretary. She was not like the others—she noticed Arista. Amilia saw through her veneer with suspicious eyes. Saldur clearly surrounded the empress with his best and brightest, and Arista did all she could to avoid her.

On the road north from Ratibor, Arista had fallen in with a band of refugees fleeing to Aquesta, and they had arrived nearly a month earlier. The location spell had led her to the palace itself. Things grew more complicated after that. If she had been more confident in the magic, and her ability to use it, she might have returned to Melengar right away with the news that Gaunt was a prisoner in the imperial palace. As it was, she felt the need to see Degan for herself. She managed to obtain a job as a chambermaid, hoping to repeat the location spell inside the castle walls at various locations, only that was not working out. Closely watched by the headmistress, Edith Mon, she rarely found enough free time and privacy to cast the spell. On the few occasions she succeeded, the smoke indicated a direction, but the maze of corridors blocked any attempt to follow. Magically stymied, Arista sought to determine Gaunt’s whereabouts by eavesdropping while at the same time learning her way around the grounds.

“What have ya done now?” Edith Mon shouted at Arista as she entered the scullery.

Arista had no idea what a hobgoblin looked like, but she guessed it probably resembled Edith Mon. She was stocky and strong. Her huge head sat on her shoulders like a boulder, crushing whatever neck she might have once had. Her face, pockmarked and spotted, provided the perfect foundation for her broad nose with its flaring nostrils, through which she breathed loudly, particularly when angry, as she was now.

Edith yanked the bucket from her hands. “Ya clumsy little wench! Ya best pray you spilled it only on yerself. If I hear ya left a dirty puddle in a hallway …”