A moment later Evie emerges outside. It’s quiet, dark, and deserted, save for the noise from inside the tent and the exaggerated shadows dancing on its walls. Evie casts her gaze about, searching for the girl, but she’s gone.

Several yards away from the tent hall a pile of stones forms a small dome atop the earth. Evie jogs over to it. Steps descend below the surface of the grassy terrain, leading to a single wooden door that’s open, just a crack. She slips down the short steps without a sound, peering through the opening in the doorway.

A single amber candle flame lights the room inside, as well as pale moon rays allowed entrance by a tiny window in the stones just above the surface of the ground. It’s a wine cellar, barrels and casks stacked atop one another in tight quarters.

Evie watches the serving girl dip a hand down the front of her dress and close her fist around the handle of a punch dagger she’s concealed there. The blade is no bigger than a badger’s tongue, but a razor edge catches the candlelight. The serving girl jabs down into the top of one of the barrels, twisting the tip of the blade to create a tiny hole in the wood.

It is then that Evie sees the object held in the serving girl’s opposite hand; a small uncorked vial filled with a liquid as dark as pure anise extract.

Treating the vial as if she’s pinched the neck of a poisonous snake just below its head, the purple-eyed girl carefully tilts it above the almost imperceptible hole she’s made in the top of the barrel. She allows just one drop to escape. It falls through the pinhole at a perfect angle, not even so much as staining its edges.

Evie widens the crack in the doorway just enough to allow her slender frame to slip through.

Then she slams the door shut behind her.

Those dying violet eyes find her like the lash of a whip. The girl’s body tenses, her fist raising the punch dagger while her other hand corks the vial and places it carefully atop the barrel.

“I don’t think you’ll be able to roll that entire barrel back to the Revel alone,” Evie says.

“I’m stronger than I look,” the girl assures her in an even tone.

Evie grins. “I certainly hope so.”

The girl quickly turns away from the barrel so that she’s facing Evie. Her dagger-wielding fist flies, attempting to drive the blade through Evie’s throat.