How would her brothers ever be able to understand what was happening to their lives right now? Who could explain it, really, besides her? Who could ever understand what they were going through, besides her? And how could she understand it herself, if she was too afraid to look at the truth?

“Wait,” she said. “It’s my house. I’m coming.”

Chapter Thirty-six

Divide and distract. That was the plan: Get as many of their team onto the Cavenda property as possible, then create distractions. Locate the storehouse. Find out how many people are on the grounds, how many are armed, and where they’re situated. Convey that information, probably via Hava, to the people still waiting outside—Lovisa, Giddon, and the Queen of Monsea, the three of the party unlikely to be able to show up at the gate pretending to be someone else. Then, decide what to do next.

It was a flexible plan, adaptable. Giddon spent his life throwing himself into loose, open plans, then sorting out the details as he went along. This would be no different.

The walking path to the water at four in the morning went past a glacier, but all Giddon saw was a stretch of darkness that blotted out the stars.

The fastest and most discreet route to the Cavenda house was by boat. A friend of Nev’s family, Saba, had a boat with black sails and knew how to navigate the route up the coast in the dark. Remembering that the route eventually led to Kamassar, Giddon tactfully asked no questions about Saba, who he guessed was a smuggler. “You can trust her discretion,” Saiet said, which Giddon believed.

Saba would sail them to a cove with a cavern she knew. From the cavern, they could climb to a forest and walk to a road and head north. When a stone wall appeared on the left, that was the sign they’d reached the Cavenda property.

Hava would go over that wall, because Hava had the Grace to hide herself from anyone on the other side. Then, sometime later, Nev would arrive at the property gate, offering her services as a traveling animal doctor.

“I could poison the animals,” Hava had offered, “so they’re more likely to invite you in.”

“No,” Nev had said firmly.

“All right, well, at least I’ll break some of the furniture,” she’d said, since the next part of the plan involved Davvi appearing at the gate to offer his services as a traveling builder. Davvi had laughed at Hava’s joke, but Giddon had been pretty sure she wasn’t joking.

—

As they neared the water, Bitterblue turned and touched her hand to Giddon’s chest. In the darkness, she traced a path all the way to his face and touched his beard gently, flushing him with heat, happiness, and that unshakable sense of disbelief that it was happening.