When Snip gave no answer, she went into the menials’ latrine. Inside, the shelter was divided into two tiny compartments. In one, a stand held a basin, a pitcher, and soap. In the other, a short bench with a hole sat over a bucket, fragrant with use. After relieving herself, she washed her hands and then her face, and came out into the cold early-morning air with water glistening on her skin. Snip gave her dripping hands a sharp look. Like the other menials, Snip had a kerchief-sized linen towel clipped to his belt. Elen’s lack certainly marked her as a person who did not come from the palace. With a curt gesture of dismissal, Snip hurried back into the camp, leaving Elen to her own devices. Perhaps Snip was refusing to speak to her because, in Snip’s world, a provincial deputy courier ranked far below a palace servant and thus required an interlocutor’s services in order to speak to anyone who lived or served within the palace.

Elen walked beyond the ring of beasts to survey the promontory as the sun rose behind it. The towers looked unchanged, the statues unmoving, all six present although she was too far to see their features. But she was surprised to see every warden, including Kem, standing on the path and staring back the way they’d come from Lancer’s Ridge. Then she saw why.

The prince came walking up the path at a measured pace, as if he had gone down to the holystone post that marked the turnoff to Three Spires and was now returning to camp. No one was with him, even though it was a significant walk down and back for an exalted scion of the palace to take all alone.

The wardens stared tensely, as if they’d been ordered to keep their distance and were expecting him to explode into a shower of sparks at any moment. Hemerlin stood a few steps behind the wardens, hands clenched and gaze fixed on the approaching prince. Elen couldn’t tell if the old menial was staring with apprehension or with suspicion that something wasn’t as it ought to be.

The prince’s face and body looked the same, but Elen couldn’t shake a nagging sense that his gait and posture were different, more relaxed, and with less self-important swagger. Probably she was only seeing what she wanted to see.