“Of course,” said Hanne. “Why didn’t I think of that? I hope it’s a pony.”

The walk down the narrow hall felt like a march to the gallows. Nina carefully adjusted a pin in her hair. In Fjerda, unmarried women didn’t appear in public without their hair bound in braids. All the propriety had given Nina a permanent headache. But her role as Mila Jandersdat had put her at the heart of the Ice Court, the perfect base from which to stage her miracles.

Hanne had seemed less sure after their stunt in the marketplace.

“Is it worth it?” Hanne had asked her that night in the privacy of their rooms. “There will be consequences for those townspeople. My father won’t stand for this kind of heresy. He’ll take more drastic measures and innocent people will pay the price.”

“Innocent people are already paying the price,” Nina had re-minded her. “They’re just not Fjerdans.”

“Be careful, Nina,” Hanne had said as she’d climbed beneath the covers. “Don’t become what my father claims you are.”

Nina knew she was right. Zoya had scolded her for recklessness too. The problem was that she knew what they were doing was working. Yes, there were plenty of fanatics like Brum who would always hate Grisha—and plenty of people happy to go along with them. But the cult of the Sun Saint had found followers years ago when Alina Starkov had risen to destroy the Shadow Fold and been martyred in the process. That was a miracle Brum couldn’t deny. Then there were the miracles reported from all over Ravka just in the past year—weeping statues, bridges made of bones. On both sides of the border, there were whispers that an age of Saints was beginning. The movement had been building for a long while, and Nina just needed to keep nudging it along.

Besides, if she hadn’t been here at the Ice Court, Ravka would have no knowledge of the invasion the Fjerdans were planning.

But at what cost?

She suspected she was about to find out.

The central room of their dwelling on the White Island was a grand affair—soaring walls of white marble, a vaulted ceiling, and a great stone hearth built to look as if it were framed by the twisting branches of Djel’s sacred ash. All of it a testimony to Commander Jarl Brum’s standing—something he’d had to fight to regain after the Ice Court had been breached and he’d been humiliated by a certain Grisha on the docks.

Now Brum was dressed in his uniform and had his traveling coat slung over his arm. He’d been preparing to journey to the front. His face was unreadable. Hanne’s mother looked vaguely worried, but that was almost always the case. A fire crackled in the hearth.