“I see no good coming from this,” Granny Cross broke in before Tatiana could respond to her captain. “There is only darkness ahead.” Her dark gaze went to Galfreya. “Can you pierce it, sister?”

Galfreya looked down into the small scrying bowl set in front of her on the table. She spoke a word and the water began to eddy, but before an image could form, she felt as though a knife had been plunged into the back of her head. She cried out, falling back into her chair, her hands going to her temples where the sudden flash of pain had lodged.

Tatiana was closest to her. Rising quickly, she put her arm around Galfreya’s shoulders.

“What is it?” she asked. “What did you see?”

Galfreya grimaced and massaged her temples.

“It’s not anything I saw,” she said. “It was . . . it was Geordie.”

“Geordie?”

“The human fiddler at my revels.”

Tatiana nodded. “Oh, yes, him. Your lover.”

“He’s not my lover.”

“But you’ve—”

“Yes, we’ve been intimate on many occasions, but his heart belongs to another. It belongs to a woman he thinks he can’t have.”

“I see,” Tatiana said, although she obviously didn’t.

“That woman is Jilly Coppercom, one of the women Joe Crazy Dog is trying to find.”

Tatiana returned to her seat and said nothing for a long moment.

“Tell me what just happened,” she finally said.

Galfreya wasn’t given the chance. A figure appeared on the conference table directly in front of her—a small red-haired woman, sitting on her haunches. Swanson rose so quickly his chair fell behind him. Two throwing knives appeared from under his jacket, one in each hand. By the door, the guards lifted their crossbows, aiming at the woman. It took Galfreya a moment to recognize her as Christiana.

Christy Riddell’s shadow. Geordie’s sister.

Christiana pointed a finger at the guards without ever taking her gaze from Galfreya.

“Don’t even think you can use those on me,” she said, her voice conversational and pleasant. She pointed with her other hand at Swanson. “Nor you—the big boy with his knives. The first person to try is going to find out just how hard it is to walk around with his weapons up his ass.” Then she smiled at Galfreya. “See how calm and reasonable I’m being? Did I come in here kicking ass? No. But I warned you what would happen if you screwed around with Geordie, and unless you’ve got a damn good explanation for what just happened to him, you’re going to find out that there’s a lot more to a shadow than some bit of darkness you can roll up into a corner and forget about.”

“Your Majesty?” one of the guards by the door asked Tatiana, looking for direction.

“Do you know this woman?” Tatiana said.

Galfreya nodded. “Unfortunately, yes.”

“Then stand down,” she told her guards.