The queen cleared her throat and the startled creature dropped her broom and shrieked. When she turned and saw who it was, she gave a trembling curtsy.

“Sorry, ma’am, sorry. Cleaning the cobwebs is all. Cleaning the corners.” She curtsied again, a bent thing in home-spun drab.

“You may be excused,” Estora said calmly enough, though she wished to scream it. Beryl Spencer would not come if there were witnesses, especially gossipy castle servants, and she was due any moment.

“Aye, ma’am. Must get me broom.” The woman fumbled after the broom.

“Leave it,” Estora commanded. “I wish you to go now.”

The servant unfolded and stood tall. A pair of sharp green eyes peered at Estora from beneath strands of hair hanging over her smudged face. Estora blinked rapidly at the woman’s transformation from a simple servant to a personage with a commanding presence. Someone of intelligence and cunning, someone dangerous.

“Beryl Spencer,” she said on an exhalation.

“At your service, Your Highness.” She bowed, and there was a mocking edge to it.

“I’ve heard about your ability,” Estora said, “but I did not expect so direct a demonstration.”

“Connly emphasized discretion,” Beryl replied. “If anyone saw me, they saw only a simple servant with a broom. But then most people don’t really see servants. They are beneath notice.”

It was true. One might be aware of servants moving about the castle as they attended to their duties, but to most who carried on their more important work as ambassadors, officers, or courtiers, servants might as well be invisible. They were undistinguished, and indistinguishable.

The role Beryl Spencer had chosen to play was clever, but in a way, disturbing. Who else could disguise themselves as a servant and gain access to the entire castle? Estora shuddered. She was being paranoid again. It was Beryl’s special ability to portray a role that made her so convincing, and yet . . . Estora decided she would take this as a lesson in the security, or lack thereof, in the castle.

“It appears much has happened since last I was here,” Beryl said.

“Yes,” Estora replied simply. She did not doubt the Green Rider had already gleaned all the fine details of the assassination attempt and the subsequent wedding and who all the players were. She had, after all, skills beyond playing roles like that of a servant attending to her cleaning. Zachary had used those skills exhaustively, and Beryl had spent years as a spy in the court of Tomas Mirwell. It was these skills Estora now intended to make use of. However, she wondered what Beryl thought of her sudden marriage to Zachary and the confinement of Captain Mapstone. Would Beryl be willing to help her?

Beryl cocked her head, but gave away nothing. Estora felt uneasy under her scrutiny. “Thank you for agreeing to see me,” she said.

Beryl inclined her head. “You are the queen. I serve.”

For some reason, Estora did not feel reassured by the words. She imagined they were like the words Beryl had used with Tomas Mirwell before she betrayed him. She’d played her role in Mirwell fully, and Estora heard that many in Mirwell’s court feared Beryl more than Mirwell himself. She’d served as his aide, his enforcer, his interrogator. People disappeared, never to be seen or heard from again.

What were her true loyalties? Estora wondered. But Zachary trusted her, and she was, after all, a Green Rider. Would she have been called to the messenger service if she were disloyal to Sacoridia and its king?

“What do you wish of me, my lady?” Beryl asked. “General Harborough is pressing Connly to send me north.”

“Yes, I am aware of this, and you will not be sent without my say-so. General Harborough must answer to me.”

There was an almost imperceptible flicker of approval on Beryl’s face.

“I require your particular skills here for the time being,” Estora said.

Now Beryl looked intrigued. “How may I serve?”

“Have you ever chanced to meet my cousin, Lord Richmont Spane?”

“We have not met formally, but I am aware of him, of course.”

The way Beryl said “of course” indicated to Estora that the Rider knew something of his intrigues. Estora smiled. Beryl was in her way more frightening than Richmont ever would be, but Estora needed to trust her. She prayed that trust was well placed.

“I believe we’ve much to discuss then,” Estora said.

“It would be my honor,” Beryl replied.

SIGNET RING

The walking, or rather limping, proved grueling, and sweat streamed down Karigan’s brow. Even with the aid of the bonewood, she could not keep up with the swift pace Graelalea set, but this time, when she straggled behind, Ard or Telagioth would call ahead telling Graelalea to wait. Karigan did the best she could, and kept focused on the path ahead. Still, dancers with masks taunted her from the shadows. Once, when she looked dead on, the dancers melted into trees, their limbs swaying with the passage of a breeze.

Another time she looked, she became so besotted with the scene of dancers strutting to some dissonance that Telagioth had to shake her out of it.

“You don’t see them?” she asked him.

“See who?”

“The dancers. The masquerade.”

“No, I do not. I see trees, and they wear no masks.”

Karigan nodded and pushed on, resigning herself to the fact that she walked in two worlds: the one wrought by the poison of the thorns, and the other, the world as her companions saw it.