“Everyone gets a choice,” I add firmly. “If they don’t want to fight, we’ll still give them all the protection we can. But I don’t think it will be a difficult choice, after everything. They’re angry—let’s give them a chance to use that against the people who took everything from them.”

Erik nods slowly, eyes intent. “But if you leave now, King Etristo will have no reason to keep S?ren alive—unless he sells him back to the Kaiser out of spite,” he points out.

Only minutes ago, S?ren told me that if I had the chance to save Astrea I should leave him behind to do it, but now I have that chance and I know that I can’t do it.

“I can get more people,” Erik says after a moment. “There are other camps—one in Timmoree, one in Etralia. They might not be as big as this one, but they’ll still be sizable. I can go and try to recruit more people and at least make sure they aren’t being treated as badly as they are here. And it will take some days to get to each and return to Astrea. That will buy you time to get S?ren out of that dungeon, time to get a message to Chief Kapil in Vecturia to take him up on his offer to help. It’ll mean playing their game a little longer.”

“I think I can manage that,” I say dryly. “After the Kaiser, it should be easy.”

“Maybe it would be if there weren’t also an assassin to contend with,” he reminds me, which is a fair point.

“I’ll be fine,” I say, waving a dismissive hand. “How soon can you leave?”

“Within hours,” he says. “The rest of the Gorakians have been ready to go since we got here. They don’t like it in Sta’Crivero.”

After what Erik said about the way they were mistreated and spit at, I can’t blame them.

“How will we keep in touch?” I ask him. “Gods forbid anything goes wrong, but it would be nice to have some kind of communication plan in place if it does.”

Erik nods, face drawn tight in thought. “Let me talk to Master Jurou,” he says after a moment. “He has some inventions that he’s been keeping to himself, but one of them might work for that.”

“What sorts of inventions?” I ask, suspicious. “You said he was an alchemist, didn’t you? Doesn’t that involve creating gold?”

At that, he smirks. “Of a sort,” he says. “How do you think I’ve been paying King Etristo for the privilege of fighting for your hand?”

All I can do for a moment is stare at him. “Master Jurou created gold?” I ask slowly.

“Of a sort,” he repeats. “It’s close enough to fool the King, but the illusion of it might not have held for much longer anyway.”

I shake my head. “Magic or science?” I ask him.

Erik shrugs. “As I understand it—which is admittedly very little—it’s a bit of both.”

THOUGH I’D LIKE NOTHING BETTER than to hole up in my room all day and plan for our eventual escape from Sta’Crivero, I find myself instead preparing for a walk in the garden with Coltania. Her invitation was quite insistent and I’m hoping I can convince her to hurry her truth serum along in order to get S?ren out of prison as quickly as possible.

Artemisia sits in one corner of my room, polishing her ever-growing collection of daggers, while Heron tries to mend one of my dresses. Skilled as he might be, it’s difficult to hide how many jewels I plucked off to give to the children in the camp.

After what S?ren and Erik said about Sta’Crivero’s drought, I can’t help but worry that Artemisia’s Water Gift might make her a target. But she’s only one girl—she couldn’t do much good for them in the long run—and it would mean King Etristo showing his weakness, which he would be unlikely to do for such a small reward. Still, I’m glad that we’ll be leaving this place soon.

“Tell me again what Blaise said when you told him our plan,” I say to Artemisia from my spot at the foot of the bed, pillow clutched tightly in my lap.

Artemisia rolls her eyes. “I don’t know how you expect me to quote him any more directly than I already have. He said, ‘All right.’?”

“That was it? Nothing else?” I ask.

“He asked what you needed him to do. I told him to get your letter to someone who could get it to the Vecturian chief. He thanked me and took the letter plus the food and water I brought for him and I came right back,” she said, her voice clipped and impatient. It’s a warning not to push her any harder, though it’s a warning I ignore.

“But how did he look when he said it? Did he think it was a good idea or was he begrudging about it?”

She slams her dagger down on the ground beside her with a sharp thud that echoes through the room. “He looked like he was hot. And thirsty.”

To that I don’t know what to say. Part of me wants to apologize, but I suspect she would call me a fool if I did. What would I be apologizing for? Letting him leave the palace? He’s dangerous and he has no desire to change that. All I can do is try to make sure he doesn’t hurt anyone else.

A knock sounds at the door and Heron and Artemisia are on their feet with their weapons drawn before I can so much as blink.

“I doubt an assassin would bother knocking,” I point out, but Artemisia waves for me to be quiet and crosses to the door herself, opening it the same way she always does—with the point of her dagger in the guest’s face. This time, it’s a very alarmed Erik on the other side of her blade. When she sees him, Artemisia gives a loud sigh—as if he’s inconveniencing her by not trying to kill me—before reluctantly lowering her dagger.

“Erik,” I say, when she steps aside to let him in. “Is everything settled for your trip?”

He nods, glancing at Artemisia and Heron. “Do they know everything?”

Before I can answer, Artemisia jumps in. “I think it’s a stupid plan, but Heron thinks it’s brave,” she says.

I frown at her. “You told me you thought it was a good plan,” I point out.

“I did not say that,” she says with a snort. “What I said was that it was marginally better than marrying someone with no personal stake in Astrea besides lining his pockets.”

“Well, from you that does actually sound like a ringing endorsement,” Erik says wryly.

To my surprise, Artemisia laughs. She looks surprised by it as well and frowns before sitting back down in the high-backed chair and returning to polishing her collection of daggers.

“If either of you wants to come with me, I wouldn’t mind the company,” Erik adds, his gaze lingering on Heron.

Heron meets Erik’s gaze, and it might be my imagination, but I think his cheeks turn a bit pink. There’s enough of a pause that for a moment I think he might agree, but he eventually shakes his head. “Our place is with the Queen,” he says finally. Selfish as it might make me, I’m glad he says it. I don’t know what I’d do without him and Artemisia.

“Apparently, you aren’t the only ones who feel that way,” Erik says with a sigh before turning to me. “My mother has also decided that she wants to stay with you, which I’m trying not to take too personally.”

I smile. “I’m glad to have Hoa with me,” I admit. “I feel like I’m only just beginning to know her.”

Erik rolls his eyes. “Yes, yes, she said the same things about you,” he says, sounding somewhat put out. “She also said that the Sta’Criveran attendants were dressing you too garishly for a queen and she needed to stay to put a stop to that.”

I shake my head. “She isn’t my lady’s maid anymore and she has plenty of other worries to tend to now, I’m sure, as the mother of the Emperor.”

Erik shrugs. “You would think, but she says appearance is important for a female ruler—more important than it is for a male one, since it’s what she’s judged on first. Apparently, you need her help more. Which is truly saying something, since she was my Gorakian translator.”

I raise my eyebrows. “How will you manage without her, then?”

He frowns, screwing his face up in concentration. “En kava dimendanat,” he says. “That was either ‘I’ll be all right’ or ‘I have a fat donkey.’ But I meant the former. All of my donkeys are terribly scrawny.”

I laugh. “Maybe ask her to write down some phrases before you go?” I suggest.

He nods, then says, “Oh, I nearly forgot why I came here in the first place.” He digs into his pocket, pulls out two identical nuggets of gold, each the size of my thumb, and passes one to me. “A gift from Master Jurou. It’s called a molo varu,” he explains.

“Is this some of that fake gold you mentioned him making?” I ask, lifting it to my eye and looking carefully.

“No, that is the genuine material. Only it’s been…shall we say, tampered with?”

I shift my gaze from the piece of gold and look at him instead. “Tampered with how?”

Erik waves a dismissive hand. “He explained the whole tedious process to me, through my mother of course, but even translated it was quite unintelligible. The gist of it is that gold is a malleable metal. With enough pressure…” He trails off and sticks his piece of gold into his mouth, biting down hard on it.

Beneath my fingers, I feel my own piece of gold shift. I nearly drop it altogether. When I hold it up, I see a set of teeth marks shallowly indented in the gold’s surface.