It was a rare moment. Her mask was off; only the evening shadows came between us. But even with some complex emotion naked on her face at last, I couldn’t read it. Her heart spoke an intricate language I had not yet learned.

“Be careful in Ardence, Amalia.” Her voice dropped low, almost to a whisper. “Someone is playing a deep and dangerous game there, one I don’t yet understand, and I don’t doubt they’d kill to keep it secret. I am sending you into a dark room without knowing what lies inside, and counting on you to find a way to make light.”

I let out a long breath, releasing my anger into the sea air. “I expect I’ll bump into everything, break things, and make a mess. But I’ll do what I can, Mamma.”

She nodded, her mask back on. “Then we’ll see what you can do.”

Unease grew in my gut as the miles opened between me and Raverra, exacerbated by the bouncing of the coach. The flat, sunny fields and tile-roofed farmhouses around us had never seen the sea. It was an open country, empty of secrets, every surface kissed with light. I yearned to be back in my shadow-hoarding maze of brick and water, perhaps bent over wire and books and crystals with Istrella, or attempting to unravel the Ardentine kidnapping mystery with Marcello from safely outside city-destroying distance.

Marcello. He’d hardly said a word to me since the Council session last night, and those few words had been stiff and formal, the necessary business of our trip. He rode alongside the coach on a blood bay mare, supervising the small detachment of soldiers sent to guard us on our journey, but he avoided my window as if looking on it would burn him.

I knew I needed to talk to him. But what could I say? I’m sorry for the cruel things I said, but they’re effectively true?

I didn’t know how to tell him we couldn’t court anymore when we’d never been courting in the first place.

Istrella rode by his side, chattering and pointing at things, occasionally lowering the artifice glasses that sat on her forehead to peer at some object or bird through them. Zaira’s voice drifted down from the coachman’s bench, barely audible over the rumble of wheels and the clatter of hooves, chatting with the driver; she’d asked to sit up beside him, and they seemed to be entertaining each other immensely. It should have been a cheerful journey. But every time I thought about the purpose of our trip, a sickening gulf opened in my chest.

I’d always expected to return to Ardence someday, but not like this.

It occurred to me, as I glanced at the man seated opposite me in the carriage, that he might well be thinking the exact same thing.