She had been standing in front of a golden table. Now she moved behind it and bent to smell the vase of vibrant coral roses she had placed upon it. Their petals looked like they’d been dipped in gold.

The queen’s face paled.

“They’re lovely, no? Bright as fire, but they have very little scent. Their beauty is all on the surface. I think I prefer wild roses myself. But these are very rare.”

“You took them from our grandmother’s garden.” Queen Makhi’s voice was barely a whisper.

“They were a gift. She likes a story well told.”

Now Mayu understood where the airship had landed that night, the scent of roses on the air. Tamar and Ehri had gone to Ehri’s grandmother for protection. Leyti Kir-Taban, Daughter of Heaven, was still considered a Taban queen. She had given her crown to her daughter when she was ready to leave off ruling and enjoy her old age. When her daughter had died, Leyti had given Makhi, her daughter’s chosen successor, her blessing. But Leyti could withdraw that blessing at any time. The roses—the flowers Mayu had so naively dismissed as mere sentiment—were bred in Leyti’s garden and nowhere else.

“Our grandmother should be careful in the garden,” said Makhi. “Accidents happen.”

“I know,” said Ehri. “That’s why we left an entire cadre of Grisha guards with her along with her own Tavgharad.”

“How solicitous.”

“I didn’t tell her everything,” said Ehri. “But I certainly could. You will take us to the labs, Makhi, or our grandmother will know why.”

“I’ll think on it,” said the queen, and without another word, she turned on her heel and departed.

“Do you think she took the bait?” Tamar asked when the queen and her guards were gone.

Ehri pulled one of the roses from its arrangement and replaced it in another spot, just so. “Yes. She can’t help herself.”

Mayu looked at the roses, then out the window to the sunny winter sky and the gardens beyond. She could only pray Ehri was right.

I’ll find you, Reyem, she vowed silently. I will.

20

ZOYA

THEY STOOD ON THE SHORE of the lake at the Little Palace, watching David’s body burn.

Inferni ignited the flames. Squallers protected the fire from the cold and damp. When the time came, Durasts would fashion a brick from David’s ashes. That was the ritual, the proper way of caring for the dead. When there was a body. When there was time. So many had been left on battlefields, had died in prisons or laboratories far from people who might tend to them, who might speak words of love and remembrance.

Who will speak for me? Zoya wondered. Nikolai? Genya? And what would they say? She was impossible and vain, bitter and poisonous as yewberries. She was brave. It didn’t add up to much.