I sank to my heels, bracing a hand against the slick rock of the tunnel. Deprived of my magic… It had been the Winter Queen who’d taken it. Who else could accomplish such a feat? And in all likelihood, it was my fault for putting myself in danger. Why else would he step outside the safety of the castle walls?

But why, knowing I was all right, had he continued into Trollus? Was he here to make an alliance with his father? To surrender? Or another reason all together?

I couldn’t see Martin’s face in the darkness, but his breathing was loud enough for me to reach out and pull him close. “You need to go to the twins,” I whispered. “Tell them where to find the Duke – they might be able to defeat him.” I swiftly gave instructions to the camp and the signals to use so they’d know he was no foe.

“What about you?”

I gave him a gentle shove down the road. “I’m going after Tristan.”

The gate stood open, Guilluame’s corpse and one other lying next to it in a pool of blood. Though it had been hours since I’d left the king fighting the sluag, the streets were still empty, the citizens of Trollus bound by curfew.

Pulling up my hood, I kept to the shadows, avoiding the patrols of guards armed with sluag spears. The main gates to the palace were flanked by armed trolls, as were the side entrances. Sitting on my haunches next to one of the towering pillars of the stone tree, I contemplated how I might get inside. Then, from behind the palace, blossomed a familiar glow.

The glass gardens.

Only royals and members of the Artisan’s Guild were allowed to light the gardens. The guild members would be subject to curfew, and I sincerely doubted Thibault was in the mood for a whimsical stroll. Which left only one, or rather, two, other candidates. And they might just be willing to help me.

I entered through the hidden gate at the rear that Tristan had once shown me, the glass brilliant with the unearthly beauty of troll-light. I dreamed of them often, but even the limitless bounds of imagination had failed to capture their beauty. It was a place one needed to be in order to experience, and though I’d explored them countless times during my time in Trollus, I knew that if I spent the rest of my life walking through them, there would always a new detail to discover. The curve of an unknown flower. The vaulting height of a tree. A dewdrop balanced on the tip of a leaf.