Brella had her defensive face on, the one she had worn back in the city. The smooth planes were jagged, her freckles like chips of ice on a mountain face.

“If you’re not happy out here,” she drawled coolly, “feel free to go back to the dungeons.”

Scratch could have fought. It was tempting, but she knew better. It wasn’t her place to be angry here. Not her place to complain. If she were in charge, she could breathe; but Brella commanded here, so Scratch pressed her anger down—kindling to light a fire when she was safe.

“I’m fine.” She squeezed her grimace back into her gums. “Really. Just adjusting.”

“Please do. You need to be at your best out here.”

“For the bandits?”

“Yes, and . . .” Brella’s shoulders lifted, just a touch. “You might be tested.”

Scratch’s mind flashed to the day a war medic had smeared her blood across a piece of fabric to determine whether she had Campfire Flu.

“Tested?”

“The Between is a really, really special place. The fae are protective. Hopefully, if you stay near us, you won’t have anything to worry about. But if you get too far . . .” Brella spread her hands. “They might give you a test.”

“Ah.” Scratch had a pretty good idea of what sort of test this might be. “And passing looks like surviving, right?”

“You got it.” Brella wiped a hand across her forehead, depositing a little trail of dirt. Now that the sun had risen, Scratch could see the circles under Brella’s golden eyes, little pouches of darkness dampening her dappled face. “Anything else we should cover before we keep moving?”

Of course there was.

There were still holes. How did these two merchants expect James and Scratch to rescue Frances on their own, with no backup? This was a lark at most, a hopeful little gambit that would, best case scenario, get them all killed quickly. Besides, if the king was plotting against his own daughter, where would Frances be returned to? Would Scratch save her princess’s life, only to have Frances spend the rest of her years as a fugitive? And what of the rest of them? Would she, James, the princess, and the Shaes make a bandit camp in these woods, smoking pink flowers until the king keeled over?

When Scratch added the confusion over Frances’s potential escape to this hellish tangle, she found herself clutching a string connected to the biggest snarl of her life.

The only certainty so far was that these Shaes, whoever they were, couldn’t be trusted. At least, not entirely. Their explanations were too neat. Their plans were wildly inconsistent, too straightforward in some places, too loose in others—our thing? Really? Still, Scratch had seen enough liars to know that the business with the Between, implausible as it seemed, had the ring of truth. Liars? Certainly. Friends of the fair folk? That, too.