“We’ll only need an hour.” Aramis strode across the stable and threw her shoulder against a barrel of hay. It slid free, revealing a hatch in the stable floor. Aramis yanked it open, and the scent of salt flooded the air.

Foldrey stepped forward. “Princess, let me go instead. I’m failing you, letting you chase trouble like this.”

Aramis softened and patted his shoulder. “No, you’re following orders. Here’s a new one for you: go home and sleep, Foldrey.”

He looked down at her, and only her, as if Percy weren’t even in the room. For the first time Ranka wondered who had raised the twins while their parents had been running a kingdom. It had to be a complicated thing—to love a child, knowing someday you’d have to take her orders and step aside as she barreled toward harm. His jaw worked.

Before Foldrey could argue, the princess hiked her skirts and leapt into the tunnel. A dull thud sounded below, and Percy followed.

Foldrey remained for a while after. He closed the hatch and knelt there, his expression troubled, his eyes fixed on something only he could see. “I’m doing what I can for them, Alus. Even if they won’t—even if it doesn’t seem right. But lately… I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

He blew out the lamp and left.

There was a witch. A dead witch, important enough for the princess to investigate, for the captain of the royal guard to pay for silence.

What if…

Ongrum would tell her to remain in the palace. But Ranka had made the mistake of not putting Vivna first when it mattered. She would not repeat that mistake with Yeva.

Ranka opened the hatch and leapt into the dark.

9

THE TUNNELS GLOWED.

Seaswept’s salt mines had been abandoned centuries ago, leaving vermin to make their home where the humans had once walked. An endless stretch of stained white walls and unlit offshoots yawned around Ranka. The tunnels were narrower than the copper mines humans had carved through Witchik—cramped, wet, and sloping—but they were built to last.

But swirling through the tunnels, so faint she nearly missed it, was the reek of decay.

Something else was down here. Something not quite dead, but close.

Something that felt like it was waiting for her.

Ranka shook herself and switched her focus on to the tunnels.

Light flickered ahead. Ranka hadn’t seen Percy or Aramis with a torch, but it was definitely fire lighting their way, casting garish shapes that twisted and danced on the walls as they hurried along. Aramis moved like a noble even in disguise, her head up, shoulders straight, but Percy walked with a rolling gait, footsteps soundless, fingers hovering over his hip, ready to draw out a hidden weapon.

He moved like a predator.