Micah dismissed that with a wave of his hand. “No. Wine doesn’t work on you. I tried that already.”

Well! Raisa thought. You are being uncommonly frank.

“Why can’t you be satisfied with having every other girl at court falling at your feet?” she asked. “Why do you always want what you can’t have?”

“Why aren’t you asking me who was responsible for the seduction amulet, if not me?” he countered.

“Because I don’t have to,” she said. “Tell me this—why would your father want you to seduce me? Was he trying to cause a scandal, to prevent my marrying a southerner?”

“Well,” Micah said, rolling his eyes. “That would be a side benefit. The last thing we need is to have you marrying a southerner.”

“I don’t understand this. Your father is magically bound to the Line of Queens. Why is he able to act contrary to their interests?”

“How do you know he is? Acting contrary to their interests, I mean,” Micah said. He scanned the volumes on the nearest bookshelf. Running his hand along the dusty spines, he examined his palm, then wiped it on his trousers. Somehow it made him seem very young.

“Blood of the demon, Micah. Spelling the princess heir against her will? That is treason. What did he hope to accomplish?”

“My father expects we will be at war before long,” Micah said. “As soon as the civil war in Arden has ended.”

That was just what Amon had said. “So? What does that have to do with me?”

“We have to win against the southerners at all costs. That might mean discarding some of the archaic rules that have made us weak.”

“Me, I like some of the old rules,” Raisa said. “Such as rules against treason.”

“You know the Church of Malthus sees wizardry as heresy, right?” Micah said. “They burn wizards in the south.”

The Church of Malthus had the reputation of being humorless, stern, and conservative. Raisa knew that much. But she’d not known their position on wizardry.

“We’ll need all of our weapons if Arden attacks us,” Micah said. “We have to win. The clan must be made to see reason. We need unfettered access to the tools of magic.”

“You had that,” Raisa said, weariness trumping diplomacy. “And you made a mess of things.”

Why did they have to talk about this now? She felt tired and irritable, confused by this conversation, under siege by everyone. “Look, can we just go see what my mother wants so we can all go to bed?”

Micah raked back his dark hair. “I just wanted you to know that none of this is my idea. I’m hoping that you can…that you’ll keep that in mind.”

Her intuition pricked her again. Why was Micah Bayar giving this speech, taking her to see the queen in the middle of the night? What if she didn’t want to go?