Nina almost felt sorry for this woman, a helpless mother wanting only to give birth to a healthy child. But once Rasmus had been born and weaned, she’d sent the Grisha Healer who had helped her to her death. She couldn’t risk anyone learning of what she’d done. Only Linor knew, her dear friend, a friend so beloved the queen had refused to let her travel with her husband to the front. I need you with me, Agathe had said, and a queen’s need was as good as a command. Linor’s husband had died on the field of battle and Linor had remained year after year on the White Island, her grief turning bitter as she tended to a selfish queen and her sickly son.

“When I was a little girl,” said Nina, “I fell into a river. It was the dead of winter. I should have frozen. I should have drowned. But when my parents found me lying on the banks nearly two miles from where I’d fallen in, I was warm and safe, my cheeks pink and my heartbeat even. I was blessed by Djel. I was touched by his far-seeing. Ever since then, I have known things I have no right to know. And I know this: Your son is not cursed.”

“Then why does he suffer?” Her voice was pleading, all dignity lost to desperation.

A good question. But Nina was ready. As a Grisha, she’d learned to use the dead as her informants and her weapons. As a spy, she’d learned to do the same with the living. Sometimes all they needed was the right nudge. She spoke the words she knew the queen would want to hear, not because of what the dead had whispered, but because of the need she’d felt when Matthias died, the terrible longing to believe there was a reason for her pain.

“There is a purpose to all of it,” she said, a promise, a prediction. “And to your suffering as well. Djel spoke through the waters today. Your son will heal and grow strong and he will find greatness.”

The queen drew in a long, trembling breath. Nina knew she was struggling to keep tears at bay. “Leave me,” she said, her voice quaking.

Nina curtsied and backed from the room. Before the doors closed, she heard a sound like wailing, as the queen went to her knees, her head in her hands.

11

ZOYA

NIKOLAI AND ZOYA WERE SILENT as they descended the stairs, the gloom heavy after the unnatural brightness of the Darkling’s prison.

Outside, a full moon hung low on the horizon, its light staining the night blue. The white gravel of the path back to the Grand Palace shone bright as spilled stars. They didn’t speak until they were in Nikolai’s sitting room, the door safely closed behind them.