A robed figure lights a candelabra on a narrow altar behind him along the wall. The massive top half of a face protrudes from the stone above it, the forehead obscured by a primitive crown. The carved lids of the eyes suggest a squint, but their stone sockets are empty.

If there are cameras in this court, they are not kept here; there is no hint of modernity in the room and, other than the altar, no furniture.

“Did you know . . .” the figure at the altar begins, startling me.

It is a woman.

She’s also common. She moves elegantly from one taper to the next, fingers encased in black gloves.

“That long before these caverns became shelters and prisons . . . they were a hunting ground? In a time when that was all there was. Hunters. Hunted.” She sets the last taper in its cradle and turns toward me as Nikola moves aside. “And now here we stand, millennia later, you and I.”

She’s not just common.

She’s a hunter.

Don’t trust Nikola. He’s in league with them.

Do the revelers in the tunnels outside have even the slightest idea? How much arrogance does it take for a prince to host hunters within his own court?

And how much deceit?

“I have what you want,” I say.

“I’m glad,” she says. “I’m so pleased you’re here, Audra.” Her English is perfect, with only the barest hint of an accent.

“I’m sorry, have we met?”

“Only in the broadest sense.” Her eyes lift. They are pale, nearly amber. “Though I feel I know so much about you. So very much, from so many sources, so few of them firsthand. Ivan, of course, most recently.”

I blink.

And then I realize that this can be only one person.

The Historian . . .

Is a chick.

My mind revolts. The Historian, a woman? What kind of irony—and twisted misogyny—is that?

“You’re surprised,” she says mildly.

“I thought you’d be taller.”

My thoughts, meanwhile, have careened from order. Thinking I’d be meeting Nikola, I was prepared to hand over a single item: half of the Scions’ map. The other half is with Piotrek, to be delivered to a location for pickup once Claudia reports I have arrived at a pub on Kazinczy Street alive. Preferably with some kind of guarantee that Luka will be safe wherever in the world we go.

That, at least, was the plan.

Which is all moot now.

Now any one of these robed figures could kill me—shoot, stab, strangle, garrote me on the spot—and retrieve the documents from my fading memory without ever seeing them in person.

I tamp down the rising tide of panic that threatens to take out my knees.