“We’ll leave now.” Aramis rose, ink-stained fingers tapping a rhythm against her thigh. She looked at the noble boy. “I hope you’re done.”

“I wasn’t,” he said mournfully. But he didn’t argue, just stuffed a roll in his mouth and leapt up, trailing at the princess’s heels, that unsettling scent of snakeskin curling in the air long after he’d left.

Galen watched them go with a funny expression on his face, his fork frozen in midair. There was a look there that Ranka didn’t understand—frustration maybe? Betrayal? It faded, and Galen turned to Ranka with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

“I apologize for my sister’s rudeness,” he said with a tired edge to his voice. “She and Percy are always running off toward trouble.”

Ranka nodded, her eyes lingering on the space Aramis had just occupied. Galen turned back to the other guests, inquiring politely about their lives and poking half-heartedly at his food. Cold crept over her. Aramis had just left the room in a dash—and it seemed for all the world like Galen didn’t care.

Wasn’t he their leader? Their future king?

Disdain curdled in her mouth. If he was this uninvolved in the affairs of his own palace, she was doing his people a favor by killing him. Here was a boy raised with a kingdom at his fingertips—and he squandered it. He would be useless in finding Yeva and the other missing witches.

She would start, then, with the ones who did seem to have a keen eye fixed on the happenings within the palace walls—the noble boy and the princess.

And she would start with winalin.

7

For two days no one came for Ranka. She spent her time in her room, watching the sea, straining for the whispers floating down the hall. At night she ghosted the palace halls for signs of Yeva—and found nothing. No mention of a stray witch, no trace of her scent on the clothes of guards or wafting down corridors that surely led to concealed dungeons.

And no gold pins.

It didn’t make sense. Even if Yeva wasn’t here, if someone in the palace had ordered her kidnapping, surely there would be mention of her?

Unless they didn’t take her. Her throat tightened. Unless Foldrey was telling the truth, and the palace had nothing to do with her disappearance at all.

No. Ongrum said they’d targeted Yeva because she looked like Ranka. It had to be the palace. If not the twins, then someone working for them. They couldn’t lie to her forever.

Still—it disturbed her that they left her alone. Her only visitors were the servants bringing her meals. On the third day, as a woman set a plate of greens and sea bass by her door, Ranka leapt up. “Where is everyone?”

The servant blinked. “I’m sorry?”