It doesn’t matter that her brief attempt at destroying Ser Voyne has been interrupted. What matters is her own hide. If even the prioress, who surely believes in the Constant Lady with some honest piece of her heart, is as wary as Treila feels, then Treila cannot count on miraculous salvation.

“I have never in all my years,” the prioress says at last, voice grudging, pained, “seen any indication that the Lady or Her attendants give a single shit what happens to Her worshippers. And I can’t believe She would choose to start here, now, with us.”

The faceless nun is silent, stunned.

A bee hums beside her ear, and Treila jerks aside. There is nothing left for her here; she slips out of the chapel, in search of a way out.

13

13

Ser Voyne is nowhere to be found, and Phosyne is left to her own devices. She can find no joy in it. Her body still shakes. Her head still hurts. She should eat the honey Voyne has left her, but every time she tries, her body rebels. The floral aroma goes to her head and she nearly vomits.

So she doesn’t eat the honey. Instead, she watches out her window, and tries to think.

When thinking doesn’t work, she sneaks out.

It’s not hard. Her guards are missing, and the room directly below her is empty. It’s easy, from there, to pick one of the lesser-used staircases and creep down and out into the yard. It’s early evening now, the air dancing with the steady pulse of glowing flies, and there is hushed laughter in the air. Laughter. Phosyne tastes hope on her lips, but it transmutes to something far more sour, and she presses herself up against a stone wall and holds her breath.

Something is wrong. She doesn’t quite know what, but she saw the tableau down in the yard at noon. She thinks she saw Voyne fall to her knees.

That, and the lack of her guards—those recent, desperate additions—it adds up to either greater fear, or the removal of fear. Neither make sense.

The great hall glows with firelight, and she creeps closer to peer in through one of the many small windows. She is not alone, but there are only a few others peering in; not the crowd she would have expected. Good behavior, for what should have rightly been a mob.

Inside must be stifling, even though she can see no more than ten bodies within, crowded around a table. She sees the king, in his finery, and Ser Leodegardis, in his stoic remove. Prioress Jacynde is not there. Ser Voyne is, stone still with some form of shock, and Phosyne doesn’t like that look on her brow.

It looks broken.

The chamberlain is there, too, and the marshal, and the four guests. And those four guests . . .