Then there was the strange blight that had struck north of Djerholm. Nina didn’t know where that had come from, a natural phenomenon or the work of some rogue Hringsa operative. But she did know there’d been murmurs it was the work of the Starless Saint, retribution for the religious raids and arrests by Brum’s men.

At first Nina had doubted that their miracles were making any difference at all, had feared that their efforts amounted to little more than childish pranks that would lead to nothing. But the fact that Brum had been devoting more and more resources to attempting to root out worship of the Saints gave her hope.

Brum stomped back to them, his face a mask of rage. It was hard to take him too seriously when he was soaked to the bone and it looked like a fish might wriggle out from one of his boots. Still Nina kept her head down, her eyes averted, and her face expressionless. Brum was dangerous now, a mine waiting to detonate. It was one thing to be hated or confronted, quite another to be laughed at. But that was what Nina wanted, for Fjerda to stop seeing Brum and his drüskelle as men to be feared and to acknowledge them for what they were: scared bullies worthy of scorn, not adulation.

“I’ll see my family back to the Ice Court,” he muttered to his soldiers. “Get names. All of the performers, everyone who was in the marketplace.”

“But the crowd—”

Brum’s blue eyes narrowed. “Names. This stinks of the Hringsa. If there are Grisha in my streets, in my capital, I will find out.”

There are Grisha in your house, Nina thought gleefully.

“Don’t get cocky,” murmured Hanne.

“Too late.”

They climbed into the roomy coach. The king and queen had gifted Brum one of the noisy new vehicles that didn’t require horses, but Ylva preferred a coach that didn’t belch black smoke and wasn’t likely to break down on the steep climb to the Ice Court.

“Jarl,” Ylva attempted once they were ensconced in the velvet seats. “What is the harm? The more you react to these theatrics, the more emboldened they will be.”

Nina expected Brum to explode, but he was silent for a long time, staring out the window at the gray sea below.

When he spoke again, his voice was measured, his anger leashed. “I should have held my temper.” He reached out and clasped Ylva’s hand.

Nina saw the effect that small gesture had on Hanne, the troubled, guilty look that clouded her eyes. It was easy for Nina to hate Brum, to see him as nothing but a villain who needed to be destroyed. But he was Hanne’s father, and in moments like these, when he was kind, when he was reasonable and gentle, he seemed less like a monster than a man doing his best for his country.