The haunt kept his back to the archon as his expression twisted with distaste. He said, “Simo, at once. Just you, me, and the deputy courier. The others will remain here.”

Simo knew his business, which was to get a party together swiftly and yet also with the prince’s safety in mind. “Of course, Your Highness. But I insist we take Xilsi and Jirvy. Ipis, you will use the afternoon to train Kem. Your Worthiness, it will be a steep climb, so best you stay with Fulmo and make sure the archon knows what will suit His Highness the best.”

“A child!” muttered the haunt with disgust.

Xilsi and Jirvy emerged with their weapons, handing Simo his own kit. Fulmo handed out leather bottles, filled to the brim and sealed with caps. Besides being able to carry three times as much as anyone else, he tasted everything for the prince. As everyone knew from The Crafty Cannibal Cooks and the Sweet Little Girl, poison was the most commonplace murder weapon used in the palace to eliminate rivals.

The five of them made good time climbing out of the valley of the lake on a path that twisted and turned up the western face of Olu Ridge. Xilsi easily kept pace scrambling up at the front with Elen. The warden was a strong and energetic woman. Elen had thought her as young as Ipis but, over the days, had realized Xilsi had one of those piquant faces that make a person look younger than they really are.

The two women halted at a switchback to await the others. Simo had paused on the path below because the haunt had stopped to admire a towering tuft of late-flowering feather-grass. Jirvy stood lower down, bow in hand, scanning the hillside. His gaze flickered upward, toward the two women.

Xilsi stiffened. “What a relief to walk alongside a calm-minded person like yourself, Deputy Courier.”

Elen glanced between the two wardens, so far apart and yet clearly, intensely aware of each other, and said neutrally, “It must seem a rougher path than the well-paved witch roads you usually travel.”

“We wardens don’t call them witch roads.”

“My apologies.”

“I know provincials call them witch roads because they’re able to withstand the Pall and its Spore, and I certainly don’t care what you provincials call them, but some who walk around with sticks up their asses”—Xilsi gave a careless wave in the direction of Jirvy—“will sourly protest they are properly known as imperial roads, as opposed to ordinary roads. Not to change the subject, but I thought up here in the hills during the moon-bright, we’d see Spore.”

“Irruptions are rare in this area. Maybe the composition of the dirt, or the type of rock that builds the bones of these hills. Maybe just the elevation.”

Xilsi looked her up and down. “You’re a strange one, for a deputy courier.”

“Am I?”