As she pushed out of bed, her thoughts returned to the great hall, to the footsteps and the shadow under the door. Who had seen her nighttime explorations? And when would she feel the consequences of their knowledge? Whoever it was, they hadn’t raised the alarm instantly, as she might have expected from a terrified Forester. Perhaps they were intimidated by her status—or frightened. Or … or perhaps they simply weren’t alarmed. What if the person who had spelled the gates shut was the very person who had followed her?

Another thing to worry about, she thought, as if I didn’t have enough already.

It was dark still, but she could feel the morning creeping behind the storm cloud like a cloaked assassin. She washed in her mother’s basin and donned a plain wool gown from Livia’s chest. How long since she’d had anything of her own? Even those items she’d arrived in belonged to the temple, in truth. And the mask—that had been stolen too. In the first gray light of dawn, she tied her hair in a high bun and looked inside the circular locket on the chain around her neck. The mirror inside was clear. Dark circles shadowed her eyes as she frowned at her reflection in the resolutely unmisted glass. Did Emris care about her at all? She felt like his was the one other life on which she had managed to leave her mark. And yet … sometimes it seemed that nothing she did had consequences, and that now that she had disappeared from that world it was as if she had never been there at all. As if she were a ghost.

The day was young and, beneath the yaps and yowls of the hounds, the castle was quiet as the grave, everyone nursing sore heads from the festivities, no doubt. Her cane tucked carefully under her arm, Constance crossed the courtyard to the north tower and tried the door: unlocked. Stepping softly up the stairs, she heard heavy snores emanating from the bedchamber on the first landing. She set her eye to the keyhole. Dr. Jonas Thorn had collapsed on his neatly made bed. He had removed his coat and shirt, leaving his back bare. Constance was surprised to notice deep scars crisscrossing the smooth, pale skin. Long ago, she realized, he had been whipped.

She shook her head and climbed the rest of the steps, passing doors to the other empty chambers she remembered from her childhood: the intimate dining room, the music chamber, and the comfortable living quarters once used for the Duke’s private entertainment. She paused to catch her breath on the final landing before opening the door to the solar. It was time to find out the truth about her father.