“Not taken to the King immediately?”

“Does no one here pay attention to what is happening in the court we serve?” asked Mistress Finney. It was a rhetorical question, and no one in the mews dared to treat it any other way, remaining silent while hoping they looked suitably attentive. “The King and the Abhorsen left for their holiday this morning. A well-deserved one. Their first holiday! Ever! You could all learn from their example. Hard work—”

She broke off as another hawk flew in, briefly settling on the landing perch before spying Mistress Finney. Upon seeing her, it immediately flew to her fist.

“Hello, my beauty,” said the falconer, forgetting her rant. “Come in from High Bridge, have you?”

Lirael hurried up the steps to the mews. She flexed her replacement hand as she did so, marveling at how well it worked. When her own hand had been bitten off by the Disreputable Dog almost seven months before in order to save her life from the ravening power of Orannis, Sameth had promised to make her a replacement. He had lived up to that promise, and shown he was indeed a true inheritor of the Wallmakers’ engineering ingenuity and magical craft, though it had taken him a long time to get it right, with much tinkering and adjustment. It was only in the last few days that it felt entirely normal to Lirael, really just like her own flesh-and-blood hand.

It was mostly made from meteoric steel, but Sam had gilded the metal, and unasked had added an extra layer of Charter spells atop the ones that made the hand work and even feel like flesh, so it also glowed faintly with a golden light.

Already, many people were calling her Lirael Goldenhand.

Lirael didn’t like the name very much, or the soft glow from her golden fingers. She had worked out how to unravel the part of the spell which provided the light, and planned to do so as soon as she could without hurting Sam’s feelings. Having an artificial magic hand attracted enough attention as it was, without the soft golden light as well.

Though she had to admit to herself it was probably too late to avoid attention. It seemed everyone in Belisaere knew who she was. She’d gone out incognito numerous times, wearing a broad-brimmed hat and gloves and simple, unadorned clothes rather than her distinctive surcoat that bore the silver keys of the Abhorsen on a blue field, quartered with the golden stars of the Clayr on green. But this disguise, if it could be called that, never worked for long. People always discovered her true identity.

Just the day before she’d tried to wander through the market near Lake Loesere but she’d had to give up, because so many people were following her around, and the store traders kept giving her whatever she inquired about for nothing, in gratitude for saving the kingdom from Orannis the Destroyer. Within fifteen minutes she was so overloaded with a sack of blood plums, three bottles of wine, several different cheeses, a wheel-like loaf of fine white bread, and a giant bunch of asparagus that she had to retreat to the palace, trailing a crowd behind her.