To their left were cliffs that dropped to the water. Sometimes the path turned into wooden footbridges that crossed deep ravines. It was plain that the queen didn’t like the footbridges; she bolted across them, squeaking in alarm when they shifted or swung under her feet.

“They’re designed to move with the wind,” said their guide, who was as small as Lovisa and the queen. Lovisa wondered if Ona had chosen this girl on purpose, to make them feel safe. So they’d be more easily taken in?

“How much farther is it to the bath?” Lovisa asked.

“Maybe an hour,” the girl said, “at this pace.” She led them off the path and away from the water, uphill, into a grove of trees. She kept glancing with big eyes at Bitterblue, which meant that the gossip had already begun. Bitterblue was eating, for Ona had given them bread, fruit, nuts for their journey. In fact, Bitterblue hadn’t stopped eating since the moment the food arrived. She chewed slowly, with a kind of reverence. Because my parents starved her, Lovisa thought.

Their route steepened. At a high break in the trees, Lovisa stopped and looked back, trying to catch sight of Flag Hill.

“What is it?” asked Bitterblue, stopping with her.

Lovisa shook her head, wanting, needing to be left alone as she tried to find the place where her house had burned, and the Gravla house too. Needing to see with her own eyes what she’d done. Wishing she could spot her brothers, which was absurd, of course. But all she saw were hints of peaked roofs and more trees. She couldn’t find it.

“Are you all right?” said Bitterblue.

“Fine.”

“We’re almost to the bath,” Bitterblue told her gently.

“Don’t patronize me,” said Lovisa.

—

Lovisa had been to most parts of Ledra, usually transported in the Cavenda airship, which dropped her down exactly where she meant to go. She’d never been in the woods an hour’s hike north of Ledra, in a grove of conifer trees with a floor of uneven stones. Nor had she ever been instructed to keep to the higher stones so as not to leave footprints.

It was foolhardy to follow a stranger into a forest, leaving no trace. But Lovisa had given up on sense. She’d given up on curiosity too. When the rocks turned to a visible path of packed snow, leading through the trees to a small, stone building with a neat wooden door, Lovisa only felt impotent and tired. How little she knew about her own home.

They entered the building to find an elderly Keepish woman reading a book, surrounded by lamps and braziers, her feet propped on a desk. She narrowed her eyes at Bitterblue, then Lovisa, then flicked an inquiring glance at their guide.

“Ona says hello,” the guide said.

“Hello, Ona,” said the woman.

“She says these two want a bath, then a conversation with Vera.”