When will I? How will I? Am I a coward who refuses to believe what’s plainly true? Didn’t I see some of it with my own eyes?

She went to sit with Bitterblue and Giddon at the table, answering their questions woodenly. Yes, she could draw a floor plan of the northern house and a map of the grounds. Yes, there would be caretakers at the house, and probably guards too, who might or might not recognize Lovisa. Yes, they’d probably heard her kidnapping accusations, because signal messages always generated rumors. Yes, she knew that someone with the initials LM had written a letter to her father about the Monsean envoy overhearing something in the storehouse, but she didn’t know who LM was.

All the time, she ran an image through her head. Over and over, she forced herself to watch her father carrying Pari’s body across the attic to the roof.

—

The next day, Saturday, Ledra’s head magistrate arrived at the Magistry in Torla’s Neck. Queen Bitterblue went to meet him and present her evidence. Hava and Giddon went too, because they were known Monsean delegates who could confirm that the queen was who she said she was.

Lovisa stayed behind. “I don’t want the Ledra Magistry anywhere near you,” Bitterblue said, “until I’ve made it clear to them that everything you did, you did to save my life.”

To Lovisa, it felt like the beginning of the end. She’d burned two houses down. She’d attacked her mother. The Ledra Magistry wasn’t going to brush that off.

She was sitting on the hay again, watching the moon move across the sky, when they returned. She heard their voices, the cheerful back-and-forth of three people still surprised to be returned to one another. How tired Lovisa was of their happy ending.

A few minutes later, Bitterblue came into the barn by herself and stood there before Lovisa, her hands folded over the handle of a lamp. It was funny, because even though she still wore Ferla’s coat, Lovisa had come to think of those sleek furs as belonging to the queen.

“How’d it go?” Lovisa asked, not caring.

“You won’t be charged with a crime,” said Bitterblue.

Lovisa was stunned. “Are you sure?”

“The Magistry understands now what your parents did to me, Lovisa, and why you had to act.”

“Thank you,” she said weakly, surprised at how much lighter it made her feel.

“No need to thank me. My own court is forever in your debt.” Then the queen was quiet, for longer than was normal. She stood there looking serious.

“What is it?” said Lovisa, suddenly understanding that there was more, and that it was bad. “Aren’t they charging my parents?”

“When the head magistrate gets back to Ledra tomorrow, he’ll charge your father.”

“My father,” Lovisa repeated, mystified. “Isn’t my mother at least an accessory to his crimes?”