“Hello?” it said, in Lingian. “Giddon?”

Lovisa stood frozen. She felt as if her head were swelling up like a balloon. “Hello?” she responded in Lingian, not even knowing what she was saying.

“Who’s there?” the voice said, stronger now, more alert, switching into Keepish. “Hello?”

The room was as dark as all the punishments Lovisa remembered from her childhood, and it smelled the same too, cold and thick, like a chamber pot. Shaking, she crouched down to set the lamp on the floor, so she could light it.

A spark. Lovisa raised the unsteady, growing flame.

A young woman in a bed looked back at Lovisa. She was small like Lovisa, dark-haired and plain like Lovisa, with big, wary eyes and a stubborn, determined set to her mouth. Her skin was browner than Hava’s or Giddon’s, but paler than Lovisa’s. She looked like . . . she looked like the Lienid prince who’d had the Graceling boyfriend. Prince Skye.

“Who are you?” the woman demanded of Lovisa, in nearly unaccented Keepish. She glared, expecting an answer. Lovisa stared back, unbreathing, unbelieving, because this could only be one person, imprisoned here in her family’s attic.

“Have you come to help me escape?” the woman asked, pushing her blankets back and swinging her feet to the ground, standing, facing Lovisa. She was Lovisa’s same height and she was wearing one of Lovisa’s favorite pairs of pajamas.

Staring at this vision, Lovisa understood a number of things at once. Why her mother had left class early the day the Monseans had arrived, then been late for an important dinner. Why her parents were fighting, because of course Benni would never stand for this. Why it no longer mattered what her father had been planning to store in this room. How serious this was, for this was a capital crime. It was the kind of crime that could start a war.

She also understood that now she, Lovisa, was responsible for the Queen of Monsea. And she couldn’t help this queen escape, because Pari Parnin was waiting outside the door. She couldn’t help this queen escape, because, where would she take her? She couldn’t help this queen escape, because her family would be ruined. Her parents imprisoned, maybe even executed, their wealth confiscated by the Keepish government, and Lovisa’s name, her brothers’ names, infamous, synonymous with scandal and shame, not just in Winterkeep but across Torla, and on the Royal Continent too.

My mother ruined our lives, she thought.

“Well?” said Queen Bitterblue. “Are you freeing me?”

Lovisa needed a plan. “Yes,” she said, improvising. “But not right now.”

“When?” said the queen, stepping forward. “Where am I? Who are you?”

Pari Parnin knocked on the door. His voice was a whine. “Let me in, Lovisa.”

“Who’s that?” said the queen sharply.

“I’ll get rid of him,” said Lovisa, moving toward the door. “Then I’ll come back.”