The footpath to the city led first past the Cliff Farm, which, despite its beautiful, glass-windowed barns, smelled earthy and sour, just like farms at home. With a slow, deep breath, Giddon made a promise to himself to get through this day without saying “Hava!” reproachfully more than three times, including the time he’d already done so at breakfast.

He said, “She is a bit—”

“Braggy?” interrupted Hava. “Cat-obsessed? Nosy? I’m not going to be queen.”

Giddon had been waiting for this. “Hava,” he said, “I promise that won’t happen.”

“I won’t do it,” she said insistently. A tear ran down her cheek, then vanished. Giddon recognized the signs, the strange wavering in the air if you knew to watch for it, his own sudden disinterest in looking at her too closely. She was using her Grace, probably hiding more tears.

He swallowed the gorge that rose sometimes, if you were too aware of what she was doing. Then he turned back to admire Quona’s house, as if it interested him, as if he weren’t trying to give her a moment to gather her composure. The house clung to the cliff, looking like part of the landscape. Its windows gleamed. On the roof, above a single, small window, sat Quona’s airship. Its balloon was long and gray, decorated with many tentacles, a representation of that creature that had some significance in Winterkeep. Some legendary sea monster? Giddon couldn’t remember.

When he glanced back at Hava, she was still changing her face. “I know you won’t be queen,” he said. “No one knows who your father was, Hava. Even if they did know, they wouldn’t expect you to be queen. Bitterblue had protocols in place in case of her death, and they don’t involve you. You know that.”

“I would leave,” she said, her voice cracking.

“I know you would,” said Giddon. Then he used all the strength he had to keep from saying more. Not to beg her to stay, not to forbid her to run away; not to impose any will that wasn’t her own, because that was the surest way to lose Hava. But he needed her to stay. He needed it so badly that he clenched his fists around the map he was carrying, to keep from reaching out to hold her there.

“It was an unfortunate thing for Quona to say,” he said. “But she said it in ignorance. It was also unfeeling,” he added, “to all of us, given the circumstances.”

“I hate her,” she said again.

“I’m not wild about her myself. But I think she means well.”

“I don’t. I didn’t believe a word she said. Every word was insincere.”

“Well,” said Giddon. “I do believe she likes cats.”

Hava snorted. She was showing him her real face now, complete with tears. She raised a sleeve and smeared them away. “This is awful,” she said. “I hate this.”