“I don’t think she knows,” said Bitterblue, “though we should ask, later, when she’s feeling better. Lovisa is overwhelmed. I haven’t even told her yet that her father drowned our men. And I’m afraid she found Katu’s ring and identification papers in her father’s desk. She thinks he’s dead.”

As Bitterblue turned her own rings on her fingers, Giddon studied her troubled face, guessing what she must feel about that. “Surely not,” he said quietly.

She lifted serious eyes to his. “We need to find out.”

“We will.”

“How soon can we get to that house?”

“It’s a few hours by sea,” said Saiet. “We can arrange a boat for you, and we should talk about how to get those of you with no particular magic onto the property,” he said, with a deferential glance at Hava.

“I could appear at the gate under the guise of a traveling animal doctor,” said Nev.

“There’s a traveling everything, here in the north,” said Davvi. “I could be a traveling builder.”

Bitterblue was rubbing her braids the way she did when her tiredness was turning to achiness.

“Let’s decide tomorrow,” said Saiet, noticing. “Tonight is a night for going to bed early.”

Of course, if Davvi had worried about the Monsean delegates sleeping in the barn, his objections to the Monsean queen doing so were all the more earnest. When Bitterblue insisted that she’d slept in haystacks before, Giddon and Hava both started laughing.

“What?” said Bitterblue. “I have! You wouldn’t believe the places I slept with Katsa, when we were running away from my father. Katsa can balance herself on a plow blade and have a good night’s sleep.”

“You’ll have a bed in the barn,” Giddon said. “A very comfortable one.”

“But it’s true that it may not be fit for a queen,” said Nola quietly.

“It’s fit for me,” said Bitterblue. “And I’ll feel safest close to my friends.”

—

In his own tiny, warm room, Giddon lay in his bed, closed his eyes, and listened to the wind blowing fiercely around the barn. It muffled all other sounds, making him feel like he could be private with his thoughts. Of course, he began to cry.

This is who I am now, apparently, he thought to Bitterblue, who was in the room next door. He never had to pretend-talk to her again if he didn’t want to. And he didn’t want to. Should he speak to her? How could he, with Katu’s fate unknown? He needed to let her recover and he needed to give himself time to come down from his own sense of overwhelm. He let his tears run, knowing that there was too much baffled happiness coursing through his veins for him to sleep anytime soon.

His door clicked open and closed. Light footsteps crossed the floor.