Hours later, Jesalyn finally decided to break to get dressed for dinner, and the girls were free of her for a short time. Maelia lowered her eyes to the ground and then walked out behind the Queen.

Cyrene and Avoca waited for everyone else to leave before they stood and left the Queen’s chambers. The hall was mostly deserted when they emerged, but they kept their heads together and mimicked the indulgent way the other ladies-in-waiting conversed. They followed Maelia back to her room.

Maelia firmly closed the door and then threw her arms around Cyrene. Her cheeks were wet when she pulled back. “I never thought I’d see you again,” she gasped.

“Of course you’d see me again,” Cyrene said. “I could never leave you behind.”

“What happened in the woods and then Strat?” She wiped the tears from her face. “You were there, and then you were gone. The Royal Guard captured Ahlvie and me. Then, they wouldn’t tell me what happened to him.”

“He’s with us,” Cyrene told her. “We got him out, but you were meeting with Kael at the time. There was no way for us to get to you without everyone getting captured.”

Maelia nodded. “I understand. In combat, you always sacrifice one for the sake of many.”

Avoca visibly brightened. “Finally, someone who understands.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t think we were introduced.”

“Oh. Right,” Cyrene said. “This is Avoca. She helped me escape the attack by the Indres and brought me to safety. She and her friend have been with us since Strat.”

Maelia frowned at that news. It had taken her a long time to trust Ahlvie. She had never adjusted to the addition of Orden, and she would surely doubt him even more after finding out what he had hidden from them.

“I’m not sure about bringing on new people, but did you say Indres?” Maelia asked with wide eyes.

“Yes. Turns out myth is coming to be reality,” Cyrene told her.

Maelia shook her head. “This is a lot to take in. Indres and then other people saving you…us.”

“Avoca is a friend,” Cyrene confidently told her. “She knows our mission and has agreed to help.”

“I know that I do not trust easily, but do you not find it convenient that she showed up to help and then brought you to safety?” Maelia asked.

Avoca crossed her arms. “My people live separate from Aurum. We reacted to the threat and got your friend out as fast as we could. We had a military force. I am a soldier. That was my charge, and I completed it. But I will fight for Cyrene, no matter what. Do not insult my honor.”

Maelia stared at her for a moment and then nodded. “I, too, come from a military family. I understand the conviction.” She turned back to Cyrene and looked once more like the lost girl who had helped Cyrene on her first day as an Affiliate. “So, what is the plan?”

“The plan is the same. Get to Eleysia. We have a bit of planning to do beforehand, but we want to make our getaway at the ball.”

“Prince Kael is in the castle. He’s been desperate, looking for you. If he finds out that you’re here, he’ll tear the castle apart, stone by stone, to get to you.”

“Well, we’re not going to give him that opportunity,” Cyrene told her.

“Wait…how did you get into the castle in the first place?”

Cyrene sighed and rolled her eyes. “Orden.”

“Did he commit high treason or something?”

“No. Lord Barkeley Iolair received a summons to appear in Court from King Creighton.”

Maelia furrowed her brows.

“Apparently, that is Orden’s real name, and he is cousin to the King.”

“I knew something was off about him!” Maelia cried.

“Yes. Well, we’ll have to deal with that another day. In the meantime, we need to find a suitable exit strategy for the ball, find a boat to take us to Eleysia, and”—Cyrene couldn’t hold back her giggle—“suitable clothes that will knock Jesalyn speechless.”

Maelia smiled. “I think I know just the thing.”

Maelia figured out where Orden and his guests had been given rooms and then started out in that direction with Cyrene and Avoca in tow.

“I’ve been here a week. Of course, I wasn’t allowed to leave the castle or venture onto the grounds, so when I wasn’t with Kael or Jesalyn, I searched for an exit.”

“And did you find one?” Cyrene asked hopefully.

Maelia looked grim. “Nothing that isn’t heavily guarded.”

Once they reached the rooms, Avoca made them keep walking past the door that Maelia had pointed out. They stopped a safe distance away.

“I’m going to go in first, see if the coast is clear, and then give you the signal to come in. I don’t want anyone to recognize you.”

They waited impatiently while Avoca disappeared back down the hallway. It was the first time Cyrene and Maelia had been alone since the night they were separated.

“Maelia, I’m so sorry I left you,” she whispered. “I should never have done that. I should have fought at your side.”

“No. Don’t apologize. We told you to go, and if you had stayed, then we all would have been captured. Where would we be then?” Maelia asked. “Back in Byern.”

“And then I couldn’t get you out in Strat.”

“You’re here now,” Maelia said, grasping her hand and smiling. “We’ll get out this time.”

Cyrene threw her arms around Maelia one more time and sighed.

Avoca whistled softly down the hallway, which was their signal. The girls broke apart and walked briskly to the door.

“You’re not going to like this,” Avoca said. Her nose was wrinkled in disgust.

“Like what?” Cyrene asked.

She found out as soon as she entered the massive quarters that Orden had been given by the King. They dwarfed Maelia’s rooms threefold and were swathed in deep blue and gold. But the smell was undeniable.

“You’re all drunk!” Cyrene cried.

Orden, Ahlvie, and even Ceis’f sat around a couple of clear crystal bottles with dark amber liquor. Their clothing was disheveled, their eyes were glossed over, and they were taking turns in laughing boisterously.

“What in the Creator’s name?” Maelia whispered, shaking her head.

“You found her!” Orden cried in triumph.

Ahlvie staggered to his feet and then stumbled toward Maelia. “So…so glad you’re ba-back,” he said before breaking out into laughter.

“That is quite enough,” Cyrene said.

She stormed across the room and snatched the bottles off the table before they could stop her. Avoca took them out of her hands and went to place them out of reach.

“What exactly is the meaning of all of this?” Cyrene demanded.

Maelia sighed. “I should have guessed they would be in this condition. The King drinks day and night. The first night we were here, Prince Kael returned to the rooms in a worse state than this.” Her cheeks colored lightly, and she looked away.

Cyrene’s jaw tightened. She had seen Kael drunk before. The night he had propositioned her in the castle. The thoughts made her blood run cold.

“Just lay off, Cyrene. We were just having a bit of fun,” Ceis’f said. He looked the least intoxicated of all the guys, but if he was addressing her without biting her head off, maybe she should keep him drunk.

“We’re not going to get anything accomplished with you three drunk,” Avoca spat. “We have a mission. Soldiers shouldn’t drink on the job.”

“We’re not soldiers here, Ava,” Ceis’f said.

It was the wrong thing to say.

She glared at him. “We are always soldiers until our mission is completed. Has your training left your head this quickly? We are not safe in here. We are trapped like mice. And the King purposely got you intoxicated to let your guard down. How can you trust him?”

“We can’t bloody trust him!” Orden bellowed, rising to his unsteady feet and glowering at the lot of them. “And he didn’t purposely get us intoxicated. We purposely got him intoxicated. Do you know the kinds of leading questions he was asking to try to get to me? You don’t. You don’t know anything!”

Everyone stared back at Orden in utter silence. Orden was known to have a temper, but only when Cyrene pushed him past his limit. Otherwise he was a mild tempered man with a flair for adventure.

Cyrene had always wondered why he had agreed so easily to help them and why he had insisted on coming along. But she had been thankful for his help at the time. Now, it seemed there was much more to his story.

“What sort of leading questions?” Cyrene asked carefully.

“None of your ruddy business.” Orden pushed past the lot of them and grabbed a bottle from where Avoca had deposited it. No one moved a muscle.

“Truly, I think it is our business. You led us straight to the capital knowing that you were cousin to the King. You must have known he would call on you,” Cyrene insisted.

“I haven’t seen my cousin in nearly fifteen years,” he spat. “I’m no longer an Iolair. I gave up that name a long time ago.”

“But why?” Cyrene asked. “I know that we all have our secrets, but we’re in the thick of it with you now.”

Orden tipped back the bottle and took a long swallow before addressing the room. He looked grim. “Aurum has a hard fought history to say the least. The throne is won through force more often than bloodline. There’s no guarantee that if Queen Jesalyn gives Creighton a son that he will be king one day. He may not look like it now, but twenty years ago Creighton was formidable. I regret to say that I idolized the pig, but I was just a boy at the time. I was there at his side when he murdered the reigning monarchs and took the throne for his own. When he finally had the throne secure as his own, he let it known that he had married in secret during the war, and his new bride was my sister, Lissa.”

Cyrene flinched. “He married his cousin?”

“It’s not unheard of, but generally frowned upon. But who would challenge him?” Orden asked. “I tried, of course. Tried and failed. But Lissa stepped in for me and had me sent away for a time instead.”

“And this is the first you’ve been back since then?” Cyrene asked.

“No, I came back a few years after that. Lissa was about to have her child. By then, Creighton was taking up with at least three other women at court. We parted on…less than pleasant terms, and I decided that this was not the life I had chosen.”

There was a deafening silence when it seemed Orden had finished his sad tale.

Ahlvie cleared his throat. “What happened to Lissa?”

“She died,” he said bluntly without explanation and no one could bear to ask how. “So, you see, I would never have brought you here if I’d had another choice. Creighton is doing this to get to me. He wants to know where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing since I left, but it is easier to play to his vices than to actually dodge him. He is still as calculating as ever.”

Cyrene still wondered what he actually had done all that time away, but it didn’t feel like the time to pry. He had given them a lot more than she had expected.

“Which means we need to leave as soon as possible,” Cyrene said.

“Yes. There’s no way he’ll let me out of his sight before the ball. I still think that’s our best option.”

“He’s right,” Maelia agreed softly. “I won’t be able to get out before then either.”

“So, we need a way out,” Cyrene reminded them. “And Kael cannot see anyone other than Maelia that he would recognize or he will know what is happening.”

“We can’t let that happen,” Avoca said.

“The Prince goes into the city every day,” Maelia filled in. “He won’t be a problem here until dinnertime or later.”

“Even better,” Cyrene said. “If all goes as planned, in a week’s time, we will be sailing out of the country with no more complications. Be ready when we do.”