She whirled. Joran stood before her in his black uniform, his face furious, his eyes slitted in suspicion. Someone else must be guarding the prince tonight.

Nina’s thoughts skittered wildly through her head, a panicked rush, birds startled from the quiet.

Are you really doing this? She had time to wonder before her mouth blurted, “Commander Brum told me to meet him here.”

She was Mila now, lip trembling, hands wringing.

Joran’s fingers hovered over his whip. “The commander would never violate these rooms with the presence of a woman.”

Nina grasped the bone darts in her sleeve. She didn’t want to kill Joran, but she would if she had to. The trick would be making it look like an accident. His body was healthy, untouched by any death or decay for her power to exploit.

“I’m not proud,” she said, letting tears fill her eyes. “I know what I have agreed to.”

Joran scowled. He never showed emotion around Prince Rasmus, and the anger transformed his face, making him look like the brutal witchhunter he was.

“He said he would be back early,” she continued. “But the others came instead.”

“I don’t know what game you’re playing at, but the commander will hear of it.”

“He showed me the secret path across the ice moat,” Nina said, feeling the darts slide between her fingers.

Joran stopped short at that. No one knew the secrets of the ice moat except the drüskelle. “That cannot be.”

She would have to be precise. Two darts through the inner corners of his eyes, driven directly into the brain. She could extract them before she left and hopefully keep any blood or mess to a minimum. It would look like he’d been taken by some kind of fit.

Nina stepped to the left, maneuvering so that the light shone directly on Joran’s face to aid her aim—then paused.

“Those are relics.” Bones spread out on an altar cloth, laid atop a trunk for clothes. A woodblock carved with the rough shape of a sun propped against the wall.

Joran tried to move his body to block her view, but it was too late.

“That’s an altar,” Nina said. “To the Saints. That’s why you’re not with the prince tonight. You came here to pray.”

Joran didn’t deny it. He stood as if rooted to the spot, motionless in the way of an animal sensing danger. He didn’t know the half of it. She could kill him now. Quickly. Easily.

“Whose bones are those?” She kept her voice gentle, easy, as if she were asking about what he’d had for dinner last night and not heresy committed within the walls of the Ice Court.

Joran opened his mouth. She saw his throat bob, the words seeming to fight their way out. “Alina’s,” he rasped. “I … I bought them down in Djerholm. I know they’re probably fake, but—”