“Signal messages are passed from station to station. The message is spelled out in flashes of light and every station in range receives it. Then those stations send it along to the stations in their range, and so on. It spreads out like a web. And it isn’t just the stations. Anyone in range who sees the mirrors and knows the signal language will also know. A lot of amateurs keep signal stations and pass things to each other.”

“I see,” said Bitterblue. “It sounds messy.”

“Messages do get garbled. We send them twice.”

“What will you say?”

“For now, only the things we know for sure. That my parents kidnapped you. That they killed Pari Parnin. That my uncle is missing. And I won’t mention where we are,” Lovisa said shortly, then said little else for the rest of the night. Lovisa could stare at the ceiling for hours, various hard expressions crossing her face. It was obvious she was trying to work out some knot inside herself. Bitterblue wished her well with it, but said nothing, for she had a knot of her own. The knot was in the shape of Giddon.

And it wasn’t a knot, really. It was an entire neat coil, like the ropes the sailors wound into loops and hung on pegs on the Monsea. It was the stars that wound themselves in ropes around the earth; or seemed to, for really it was the earth that turned, spinning inside the stars’ grasp.

Bitterblue had been too preoccupied to look at something, so she’d ignored it. While she’d ignored it, it had spun along merrily on its own course. Now she was paying attention. Bitterblue was good at knowing the difference between her body and her heart. One, she gave; the other, she didn’t. Pella had been right about that. But these feelings she’d been having about Giddon, the ones that flushed her with heat but also comforted her, weren’t coming just from her body. Nor were they new, or even particularly surprising. Honestly, she was a little embarrassed at not having noticed them before.

Somehow or other, Bitterblue had missed the moment when she should have started guarding herself against loving Giddon. She couldn’t backtrack now. She loved him already. It was too late.

But what did it mean? What was going to happen? Nothing? All the things?

What if he didn’t love her? What would she do, left alone with all this feeling?

Worse, what if he did love her, and, as always, she shied away? I do not want to hurt him, she thought. He’s my best friend. I have to do differently, or I’ll lose him entirely.

In the morning, they woke to silence. No wind, no falling ice.