“You’ll think of something,” said the princess, and she strolled off into the darkness, leaving Scratch entirely, achingly alone.

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Scratch had lost track of time. Maybe it was the Roselap. Maybe it was the grief. Maybe it was the pants. Whatever the cause, the night was silent and still when she made her way back to the barracks.

The guard at the door nodded in greeting. “Bowstring was looking for you.”

She grunted acknowledgment as she slipped indoors and found her quarters. Of course James had been looking. He had probably been worried. She knew a spike of guilt, quickly blotted out by a petty slash of rage. James Ursus, that green-eyed aristocrat, would never have had this problem. If he had been born with a tenth of her drive, he would have been a knighted commander by now.

But James didn’t have any desire to take command. He had chosen to support her instead. Oh fantastic, now she felt guilty again.

She released herself from her pants, not bothering with any of the pre-bed grooming rituals James had foisted upon her, and stubbornly closed her eyes.

Scratch didn’t have sleepless nights. After her first few weeks at the Academy, when she had realized that her name and appearance were, as her peers so helpfully informed her, lacking, she had trained herself to sleep on command and wake early. Her secret tools were two cups of hot water, which she procured from a motherly kitchen maid who had loved to fuss over her runty, underfed form. She would down the water at lights out, allowing the heat to soothe her to sleep. In the morning, when the urgency of her bladder woke her in the predawn hours, she rose quickly and quietly, with enough time to ensure her cot was neat, her fair hair tightly restrained, and her demeanor cheerful before any of her peers had even opened their eyes. Soon, she didn’t need the water to fall asleep instantly or to wake before the sun. Her body, like Scratch herself, had learned to adjust.

So she slept, against all odds. And it was a peaceful sleep. All two hours of it.

“Up, Keyes!”

She jolted awake, blinking away the afterimages of closely held torchlight.

“Branch?” She peered at the three men surrounding her: one with fire, two bearing swords. “Hester? Gultin?”

“I said up! And put on some clothes.”

She scrambled out of bed and fell directly onto a pair of pants, which she promptly wriggled into.

“Can I do my boots, or—”

“Do your boots!”