The princess hesitated. She took it, her touch surprisingly cool, and jumped lightly to her feet. The owl in the rafters hooted, and Aramis flinched and dropped Ranka’s hand as if it’d burned her. “I have my own business in the city.”

“You’re going alone?”

Aramis lifted her chin, her eyes glinting with a stubborn light. “Yes.”

“Princess,” Ranka said slowly, “have you absolutely lost your mind?”

One of the horses pawed at the floor and turned in its stall. Aramis folded her arms and tried to make herself look taller than her measly five feet. “I’ll be fine. And obviously you were plotting something, since you were sneaking around too. So let’s pretend this never happened. I’ll go my way and you’ll go yours. I don’t see the issue here.”

The issue is that you’ll get yourself killed. A prickling heat swept through Ranka.

“Princess. You saw what those witches are like—five of us were barely enough against two. You need someone to protect y—”

Aramis rolled her eyes and pulled out one of the strangest weapons Ranka had ever seen.

It was a small board the length of Aramis’s hand, fitted with thick leather straps and a firing mechanism—a tiny nock for a dart, elastic bands to fire it, a clamp to hold the dart, and a string. Like a miniature of the crossbows the Murknen favored, but without the arms. The princess buckled it to the inside of her wrist, loaded a slender, hollow dart, and looped the string around her index and her ring fingers.

“That’s very cute, but I don’t—”

Aramis pointed the weapon at Ranka, and flattened her hand.

Ranka threw herself to the floor just in time to avoid the dart shooting straight for her head. It slammed into the stable wall with a crack. Pale blue tranquilizer leaked down the boards, pooling on the floor.

“I know,” Aramis said darkly, “how to protect myself.”

Ranka pushed herself back to her feet, dusting the hay from her pants. “That would have been useful a few days ago.”

“Foldrey had it made after what happened with you and Galen. I thought he was being paranoid.” The princess’s face crumpled, but only for a moment. She pushed her shoulders back and leveled that blistering glare that had become so familiar. “As you can see, witch, I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

She brushed past Ranka with her head held high, but through the folds of her cloak, her shoulders trembled.

She needs this, Ranka realized. Aramis was the only one among them without a way to fight. She had no weapons, no power, no training. Even Galen, with his gentle heart, had a magic capable of toppling buildings. Even Galen had protected them in the end. She needs this, and it’s going to make her reckless.

“Wait,” Ranka blurted. “Let me come with you.”