Chapter Twelve

As soon as the Volds were gone, I whirled on the minister, his cravat tugged loose, jacket open, his cheeks even redder from the alcohol. He rested an elbow on the credenza, the heavy oval mirror reflecting his sun-spotted neck. The tumbler, now full again, dangled from his fingertips. What was this? His fifth? His sixth?

“I can’t be their guide,” I hissed.

His pupils dilated, dark as beetle skin, and his breath burned. He raised his hands in mock surrender. “You told me to be clever. I was clever.”

“Send someone else. A guard. A stable hand.”

It wasn’t possible, I knew that. Most of the guards were still recovering from the stomach flu, and the stable hands were short staffed. “Send Stefan.”

At that moment, a shriek tore through the halls, and the king burst into the room. His shirt was untucked, his hair in clumps. He dropped to his knees and clambered forward, rucking up the rug. “The dark demon! He’s here!”

Stefan rushed into the room after him. “Your Majesty,” he said, hooking both arms around the king’s waist and hauling him up and out, up and out. “There you are.”

Fat tears rolled down the king’s cheeks. Like a cat being carried to the bath, he grabbed the credenza leg, the settee arm, the rug.

“Carry on,” Stefan huffed. “Just ignore us.”

The door clicked, and once again, we were alone.

A bond of camaraderie flared between the minister and me, a soap bubble, shiny and warm. The minister cleared his throat. “Stefan. He’s, erm, better. With the king.”

The bubble popped.

Because the king might have just barged into the minister’s rooms, but at least Stefan had taken care of it. The last time I’d managed the king, a steward had been the one to put him down.

My head went dizzy, drunk, like I was drowning. I pressed a hand to the windowpane, cool and smooth and real. “He knows.”

“Who?”

“Lothgar. Probably Erik, too. They saw me with the letters and—”

“I’ll send you with a separate letter. One of protection.” The minister paused, swigged from his drink, then nodded as if his word should be enough to protect me from the people who’d killed Hans.

“They’ll kill me,” I said. “Dump my body somewhere. I’ll never be seen again.”

“They don’t want war with us .”

“They brutalized a book!”

A knock rasped at the door, and Stefan popped his head inside, his hair ruffled, cravat askew. “Ugh. Sorry. I thought I had him, but he whacked me with a pillow and got away. You okay, Isy?”

“I’m fine.” Because I was fine. The minister couldn’t force me into this.

“Really?” Stefan asked. “You look like you’re going to be sick.”

The minister hiccuped and fumbled with the tumbler again, his knuckles now flushed pink. “The Hyllestad Treaty. It keeps us from allying with Volgaard. See?” He tapped his forehead. “Clever.”

“I don’t follow,” Stefan said.

“I told him last night to be clever,” I explained. “Now he’s trying to send me to be a guide for the Volds.” My stomach curled just saying it.

The minister squinted at the ceiling. “The Volds want to use the Sanokes as a military outpost to launch an attack on Larland, the same way Gormark did during the Grain Wars.”

“Oh,” Stefan said. “That makes sense.”

The Grain Wars started when Larland poisoned Gormark’s grain supply to drive up the price of their own. The creative price maneuvering worked…until bags of dried silver spire were discovered in an abandoned barn. The poisoners were caught two days later.

When Gormark came for Larland, they came for vengeance, they came for blood. They came with an offer the Sanokes couldn’t refuse—our independence for our help.

So, we smuggled Gormarkian soldiers onto our islands, hiding them on beaches and bluffs, stashing them in cellars, tucking them in taverns that teetered on the edge of salt-spewed cliffs, and when the winter-dark wind howled angry off the fjords, Gormark launched the full weight of their army at Larland.

And they launched it from the Sanokes.

Our independence became a footnote in the Hyllestad Treaty, a promise fulfilled with a whisper and two strokes of a pen, one of many concessions a weakened Larland had no choice but to accept.

Twenty years later, and Larland’s strength had warmed like the sun, but the terms of the treaty still stood—the Sanok Isles were an independent nation, and no person party to it could interfere with our sovereignty.

Most of the larger nations had signed on, using the treaty as an opportunity to forge trade and foster alliances. Larland was a powerhouse, and everyone wanted a piece.

As a result, the Sanokes’ independence was protected from most of the larger nations.

Most .

What would you do if someone powerful wanted something important?

He hadn’t been talking about Volgaard’s weapon, he’d been talking about an alliance.

An alliance that would pit us firmly against Larland.

“As a condition of our independence, we had to promise we would never assist another foreign nation in raising arms against Larland,” the minister of trade explained. “If we do, Larland has the legal right to repatriate us. But Lothgar said he was ready to take the islands by force if we declined, and he brought the manpower to do it. So, we face an impossible choice: ally with Volgaard and violate the treaty, or risk their hostile takeover.” His brow furrowed, and he tilted his glass to the glittering chandelier. “Is that dust?”

If you didn’t want to be slaughtered…

I pressed my thumb against the sweet pea petal Erik had picked. “So we’re pretending to ally with Volgaard to keep them from attacking while we search for the weapon Larland wants?”

The minister nodded. “Exactly. Lothgar wants to send his son, Erik, to scout the island. Erik is also his second-in-command. High up. Lots of power. Sending a guide is a way to get close to him.”

“Because you think Erik’s bringing this kingdom-shattering weapon on a scouting trip?” I didn’t bother to hide my skepticism.

The minister waved his hand. “I think sending a guide to…befriend their second highest officer is the fastest way to get that information. And who knows? Maybe he will bring the weapon on the scouting trip. It could be something they have to plant.”

Fine. That made sense. “Don’t we have a royal ambassador?”

“Lars is seventy-five years old. He’d never make the journey.”

Fair. “Actual spies? We have those?”

The minister winced. “Never got around to it.”

Bummer. Back to the ambassador. “Didn’t Lars have an underling? That weird boy. What happened to him?”

“He quit.”

“Let’s get him back!”

“Two years ago. Plus, I’d rather send you. You’re a woman.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

The furrow in the minister’s brow deepened, and he squinted at the chandelier. “I’ll have to call a maid to clean that.”

I gritted my teeth. “Why does it matter that I’m a woman?”

“The general has a son . You can use your womanly wiles to…” he waved his hand, “I don’t know. Woo him. Get information. He seemed to like you. Couldn’t take his eyes off you.”

Because he was trying to terrify me.

Still, sending a guide wasn’t a terrible idea. I almost had to applaud the minister for his creative thinking.

Almost.

The truth was, even if I had the minister’s protection, they might still try to kill me. It would be better to stay here, to work, to hide.

“We need two pieces of information,” the minister continued. “What the weapon is, and where they’re hiding it. Once you find those things, you can come back. I’ll send updates to Esbern and St. Kilda. See if you can steer them through one of those two towns.” He plucked Lothgar’s map off the credenza and extended the paper to me.

A cloud passed before the sun, plunging the room into shadow. The first drops of rain flecked the window.

The paper quivered between the minister’s fingers, a fire, a flame.

I wiped my hands on my skirts. “Jens-Kjeld comes back in two weeks.”

“I’ll cover for you,” Stefan said. “We’ll tell him you went to get supplies at the Merchant’s Market.”

My hands burned.

I’d be going undercover with the people who’d killed Hans, with people who might want to kill me.

The rain picked up, plinking the roof, washing the windows. The candles in the chandelier flickered.

I pursed my lips and said the only thing I could, “No.”