Throwing back the covers, I changed from my still-damp dress into a clean one. As I tossed the old dress to the floor, a crumpled paper tumbled from one of the pockets. I scooped it up, unfurling it to reveal one of the Ambriellan boy’s flyers. Had he slipped it into my pocket?

Something had been scrawled across the top of the paper. I stared openmouthed at the word, then bolted from the room.

“Kiva!”

She catapulted off the couch, but before she could ask, I thrust the flyer in her face. Her eyes locked on the word at the top. Catternon. “That’s the password,” she said. “The one for communicating about the Ambriellan rebels in the Verian Hills. Where did you get this?”

I grinned, quickly filling her in on my run-in with the boy in the Colorfalls. Whoever he’d been, he hadn’t run into me by accident.

“We have to go see him tomorrow,” I said.

“Will Razel let you out of the castle?” Kiva asked. “And what in the Saints’ name happened earlier?”

I gritted my teeth at the mention of the queen but told Kiva everything.

“Zyuka!” she snarled, throwing her hands down onto the table before her. From my spot where I’d dropped onto the couch facing her, I let out a low whistle. Kiva rarely spoke Korovi.

“Agreed,” I replied, though I didn’t know what the word meant. “I should have expected it. Besides, I’m supposed to be keeping my head down, and challenging her wasn’t the best way to do that.”

“She sent your guards home! She’s trying to isolate you and make you easier to control.”

Was this why she hadn’t set the wedding date? She wanted to break me first? Caliza had said Razel didn’t make threats, but clearly, something had changed. She’d looked unhinged. “She’ll come after you next. It’s probably why she let you stay.”

Kiva snorted. “I’d like to see her try.”

Her confidence ate away at the anxiety inside me. “I won’t sit here like a pawn for her use. I’ll convince her to let me go.” I spread the paper out between us, pointing at the title. “I think this advertisement is real. It could be a good cover for coming and going from the castle.”

Kiva leaned closer. “A lab assistant?”

I nodded. “More than that, he might be able to help us hatch the egg.” She looked up at me, her lips already parting to tell me it was a foolish idea. I hurried on. “No one knows how, and the information’s not in any book I could find. So I need someone who can figure it out on their own.”

“You want to experiment on it?”

“It’s either that or do nothing.”