“She won’t let me do it,” Cole said, the warmth in his voice sounding strained. “I think she’s waiting for you.”

Bri tapped her horse with her calf, urging it to move faster. They picked up the pace, skirting around the edges of the city, where only a few curious people watched them pass.

“You want me to convince her to remove her arm?” Bri asked incredulously.

“I can’t keep healing the wound forever. There is not enough chaewood in the entire Western Woods.” Cole let out a frustrated sigh, clearly having had this conversation before. “Fae healing can only do so much. Wounds left untreated and unhealed will still kill you.”

Narrowing her eyes at the looming castle, Bri rubbed a hand over her tight neck muscles and sighed. Delta was the most stubborn sort of soldier, even worse than Bri herself.

They trotted through the open far gate of the city and up the trail toward the palace. A herd of goats scattered into the golden shrubs. The road narrowed, creating a land bridge as the earth fell into a sheer drop on either side of them. On the high plateau, the palace was protected from all angles. The attackers must have snuck in disguised as guards or servants. There’s no way a cavalry would get across this bridge unnoticed, and it would be an impossible climb to scale up the cliffsides circling the palace grounds.

She looked out over the rolling landscape, filled with sawtooth plants and spindly trees, stretching out toward a strip of sapphire blue. Golden sand beaches beckoned from the white-capped ocean waves beyond. She wondered how long it would take to ride out to the sea. The heat blurred the landscape, bending it like a mirage, making the idea of a swim all the more enticing.

Bri spotted a silhouette in the gardens, a solitary person staring toward the horizon.

“And the Princess? Is she all right?”

“I think everyone is still reeling from her mother’s assassination,” Cole said diplomatically. “I’ve been prescribing many remedies to members of the council to calm their nerves . . . though the Princess hasn’t accepted any.”

Bri understood the meaning that Cole delicately tiptoed around: Princess Abalina was uninjured but far from alright, and apparently just as stubborn as her cousin when it came to accepting aid.

She wondered if Abalina still looked the same. It had been many years since the Princess had attended a royal engagement in another court. Abalina was there the night of Neelo’s poker game in Saxbridge, but Bri and Tal had waited in the parlor a floor below and never caught sight of the Princess. Her stomach tightened as her mind drifted toward her twin. They’d had long-lasting arguments before but nothing like this. Talhan had looked at her like she was a traitor for coming to Swifthill.

She shook the thought from her head and twisted back toward Cole. “Did they catch any of the attackers?”

“None remain alive.” Cole adjusted his spectacles, angling his head to keep the sun out of his eyes. “There were dozens of them, though. Some escaped.”