Micah looked different from the last time she’d seen him. His hair was shorter, cropped into a student cut. His face seemed thinner, as if he’d lost weight, though it was hard to tell under the cloak. But he was as breathtakingly handsome as ever, his dark eyes shaded by his black brows, shadows layering the fine bone structure of his face.

He also looked scuffed up and bruised, as if he’d recently been in a fight.

Micah glanced down at the man on the floor. “Brava, Your Highness,” he said. “He’s really very good.” He drew off his leather gloves and slapped them thoughtfully against his palm. He was trying to radiate confidence, but his hands shook a little.

“Well, he can’t be that good,” Raisa said, trying to sound offhand. Trying to control her own shakes.

“On the contrary, he is. He just underestimated you. We all did. We’ve been looking for you for months. I should have known you’d be down here with Corporal Byrne. And that your copperhead father was in on the conspiracy.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Raisa said. Damn, damn, damn, she thought. The Bayars would welcome an opportunity to be rid of the Byrnes and Lord Averill, to remove those voices from the queen’s ear.

“We thought it peculiar when a cadet from Oden’s Ford visited Lord Demonai, and Demonai went to the queen,” Micah said. “So when the girl left, we thought it worthwhile to have her followed. She came straight back here, to Grindell Hall. With a focus that narrow, it didn’t take long to pick you out.”

“And so you sent an assassin after me,” Raisa said.

“Four, actually,” Micah said. “The other three were waiting downstairs while Rivers came in to find you. They were puzzled that you didn’t come out when the library closed.”

“Why kill me?” Raisa asked, figuring she might as well know before she died. “Was it because I jilted you at the altar, or…”

“Well,” Micah said, “we Bayars are very sensitive about being jilted, after that episode with Queen Hanalea. But my father also worries about your rebellious nature and your close connection to the clans. You even look like a mixed-blood.”

“I am a mixed-blood,” Raisa said, lifting her chin.

“Mellony is also, but she doesn’t look like a copperhead. She looks like her mother. So my father has set his sights on her. He would like to see a more malleable queen on the throne. He has been unsuccessful in persuading the queen to disinherit you, and needs to get you out of the way so his plans to marry me to Mellony can proceed.” Micah said all of this matter-of-factly, his black eyes fixed on her face.