Yaest scowled at her. “Everybody knows, traitor.”

“Such a dog to the oracle’s prophecy.” Bri brushed the dust off her tunic. “It’s really rich, you, the brother of a witch hunter, calling me traitor.”

Carys stepped in front of Bri, blocking Yaest’s view of her. “Where are all these witch hunters now?”

“Some defected and came back to Swifthill. Others broke out on their own. Many went northward to join Balorn’s army once the late King Vostemur fell.”

“What?” Carys straightened. “How many?”

Bri’s mind flashed to the attacks in the Northern Court. Balorn had fae soldiers along with his army of blue witches, but Bri had just assumed they were all Northern Court soldiers. It made sense that the witch hunters would defect to the one lining their pockets with gold. Balorn was the one paying for red witch heads, after all. It was reasonable to assume that when the witch hunters stopped having heads to bring him, they’d try to secure their coin in other acts of fealty toward him.

“A few dozen I’d say, maybe more.” Yaest shrugged. “Though I think most fell in the recent battles on the border.”

“So it could be possible some of the witch hunters who returned to Swifthill were actually still loyal to Balorn too?” Bri asked, leaning past Carys and pulling Yaest’s glowering gaze back to her.

“Yes,” he said. “It’s impossible to know who has truly given up the life and who’s planted in Swifthill as a spy for Balorn—well, a spy for Norwood, now.”

“Shit,” Carys hissed.

Bri pushed off the wall. “We’re going to need a list of all your guards and anyone who has ever been affiliated with the witch hunters.”

Yaest stared at her, unblinking for a moment before nodding. “I’ll get it to you by this evening.” He gave Carys one more once-over and turned back to the soldiers.

Carys took a step closer to Bri as they watched him walk off. “This is not good.”

“It’s a mess,” Bri snarled.

“Shall I go talk to his mother?” Carys offered.

“Better you than me. I’m sure I won’t be warmly received into her home like you will be.” Bri scrubbed her hand down her face and across her shoulder. “I’ll go find Cole, see if he knows how to read the symbols on the dagger.” Her frustrated sigh ended in a snarl. The assassins could be anywhere and the person she’d sworn to protect actively avoided her. “Why did we agree to come here, again?”

Carys snickered. “Because you’re a good person and you care about people, even when it’s not in your best interest.”

Bri rolled her eyes. “Oh, right. That.”

* * *

The sprawling gardens circling the palace were a strange mixture of local and foreign cultivars. Green witches must have kept the more delicate flowers growing in the arid soil. Plants from the tropical South and alpine shrubs from the High Mountains mixed in the garden beds.

Ambling under an archway of dazzling Northern roses, Bri arrived at a kitchen garden of vegetables from the bucolic East. The evening sky radiated a purplish hue as whining birds cawed and crowded themselves into the thistly trees. Lizards scattered off the gravel trails at the thump of her heavy-stomping boots. Everything here was different—from the musky, spiced smells to that purple evening sky, to the copper red stones crunching underfoot.