Shifting toward a different understanding of her situation, Bitterblue studied the room. The only furniture was the bed. There were no lamps. She thought the thick rug might be the source of the unpleasant smell. She saw a chamber pot peeking out from under the bed. The window was high in the wall, too high for Bitterblue to reach.

And the door is locked, she told Giddon. And you’re not here. And I’ve been left with no food or water or lamps, and someone has taken my rings.

Something inside Bitterblue was becoming interested and still. She shuffled back to the bed, noticing the distinctly Keepish softness of the silk of her sheets, the bright Keepish shade of crimson. Pulling the covers around her shivering body, she lay down, then proceeded to think. About her drowned men; about zilfium, and people importing it from her mountains. About why someone in Winterkeep might want the Queen of Monsea locked in a room.

—

She woke to the tiniest sound, a scratch or a scrape, and sat up fast. The room looked the same, but the light had become more diffuse. She could see a pale blue sky through her window.

Then she saw something gleaming white on the rug. Someone had slipped a piece of paper under the door.

Well. At least that’s something.

Steeling herself against the pain, Bitterblue climbed down to the rug again and crawled to the door. Po told me once that there’s no shame in crawling, when you can’t walk, she said to Giddon, picking the paper up.

It was a picture of Bitterblue City, a print, one she’d seen before. In fact, she’d sent Mikka and Brek to Winterkeep each with a copy. This version of the picture, however, had been altered. Her castle and the bridges all flew flags, drawn in graphite, that hadn’t been in the original. Some of the flags showed a scene of silbercows in the ocean, a gigantic, underwater creature below them: the flag of Winterkeep. Some of the flags showed hills rising to a mountain peak, and above the peak, a single star shaped like a sword with a cross guard. Giddon had drawn this flag for her. It was the new flag of Estill.

Bitterblue’s hands held the paper tightly, for she could not help but understand this. It was a declaration of war.

PART TWO

The Keeper

The creature who lived at the bottom of the sea gazed at the little metal egg with the sparkly ring and pin, fondling it with the tip of one of her tentacles.

She hadn’t pulled the pin yet to see if anything happened. She was waiting for the moment when she really needed cheering up. She thought it would come soon, for she did not like her new, disrupted world.