“Lippin will be here any minute,” Rhori said, glancing at Etana’s bejeweled watch.

She grabbed the pen and notebook from the garden bench and scribbled:

Rhori nodded before writing:

“All right,” she mouthed.

Leaning back on the wall of Ma and Pa’s cottage, she stared at the steep slope of Mount Crog.

Two more days to go.

If Areg had been killed in the meantime, Ultek wouldn’t keep a victory like that to himself. The news would be announced from every rooftop in every town. It would be printed in every paper, including school and temple newsletters. The “Wanted” posters would be scraped off the walls of buildings. He’d summon her to recover his listening device. And to gloat.

“Hey, you two!” Mayka called from the kitchen. “Mind if I join you outside for a bit?”

Rhori darted inside to push Mayka’s wheelchair out.

Etana smiled for the first time in five days.

She loved Mayka with all her heart, as did Ma and Pa, but the way Rhori doted on her was the purest, most selfless kind of love she’d ever seen.

About a year ago, he’d caught sight of an aged nobleman zooming by in an imported motorized wheelchair. It had been a revelation.

Rhori asked Lippin to help him make such a contraption for Mayka. Lippin produced a brilliantly simple design for a manually propelled chair, and then Rhori spent all his evenings over the next seven or eight months building it.

Bulky but stable and undeniably elegant, the chair couldn’t give Mayka the independence she craved, seeing as someone had to push it. But it allowed Ma and Pa to show her Iltaqa and the surroundings. Mayka was able to attend the temple prayers. She met new people and made friends.

Rhori’s next goal was to save enough—no matter how long it took him—to buy her a smuggled level-two model she could propel using her chin or mouth.

“Did you hear the latest?” Mayka said as Rhori parked her chair next to the bench. “Gullie stopped by this morning and said everyone was talking about it.”

Etana stiffened.

Was Mayka going to say something about the realm-wide hunt for Areg? Was she going to express her sympathy for him? She should’ve warned her sister about the watch when she warned Ma and Pa! At twenty, Mayka was an adult, and it was time Rhori and her started treating her as such.

“Eia will try to bid for the Treasures of Xereill List again,” Mayka said.

Etana slumped back with relief. “Didn’t we fail miserably last time, before the war?”

“That’s because we’d bid with the jumping dance.” Mayka huffed with sarcasm. “Every realm under the stars has a jumping dance! But now we’re pitching the crawling dance. It’s unique. It’s authentic. It’s really, really old. When the jury sees it, they’ll fall off their chairs.” She paused. “And roll in the aisles.”

As Etana and Rhori laughed, Mayka pointed at Etana’s watch, and then pressed her index finger to her mouth.

Oh. Rhori had told her about the device. Of course, he had—thoughtful as ever.

Lippin arrived a few minutes later, with a small case filled with tools. Mayka kept on talking about the crawling dance while Rhori’s friend removed the dial and the back, and poked at the mechanism.

“See this chip?” He pointed his pincers at a tiny dotted plate. “It’s a position tracker.”

“What does that mean?” Etana asked.

“It means Chief Ultek knows where you are at all times.”

Etana knitted her brows. “With what precision?”

“Hmm.” Lippin looked past her, thinking. “I’d say they know in which town and which neighborhood you are. Maybe not in which house. But I can’t be sure.”

Rhori studied the chip. “So this device can’t hear what we’re saying, right, seeing as you’re talking freely?”

“It doesn’t look like a radio transmitter,” Lippin said. “Besides, I see no microphone, not even the tiniest one. It won’t be able to pick up sounds without a microphone of some kind.”

Etana leaned forward. “Lippin, this is so helpful! I have no clue what a microphone is, but it’s such a relief to know I can talk freely with those I trust. Thank you!”

“Why do you think Chief Ultek didn’t give her a watch with a tracker and a listening device?” Rhori asked.

Lippin shrugged. “Hard to tell. He might’ve thought this was enough for his purposes. Or maybe he didn’t have enough funds or the right connections to acquire more sophisticated equipment on the black market.”

“How ironic,” Etana said.

Rhori smirked. “Yep, banning level-two tech does have its inconveniences.”

When Lippin left, Rhori carried the yawning Mayka upstairs and then returned to the garden.

Etana hadn’t budged, her eyes glued to Mount Crog.

Planting himself next to the bench, he leaned back against the wall. “Want me to walk you to the Gokk House, or are you sleeping over?”

“I’ll sleep here,” she said.

“He’s alive.” Rhori gave her hand a squeeze. “You’ll see, he’ll be at the meeting place on Third-day night.”

She kept silent.

“That… trick you did in Town Hall Square,” Rhori spoke again. “Do you think you could do it again? It could come handy.”

“Maybe… one day.” She sighed. “I hope.”

“Have you tried since then?”

“Many times.” She paused, recalling how frenzied—and hopeless—each of her attempts had been. “It’s like I’ve lost the gift, the very ability to do that kind of thing.”

“You can’t know that.”

Her head dropping to her chest, she confessed to Rhori what she’d been loath to admit to herself. “That connection I’ve always had with the universe… The way I always knew—felt—what time it was…” She drew in a breath. “It’s gone.”

“It might come back.”

She skewed a bitter smile. “Ultek’s watch—I actually use it these days to organize my work.”

Rhori wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “You can’t go with me to Mount Crog. You know that, don’t you?”

She frowned. “Why not?”

“Come on, Etana—it’s much too risky.”

“Just because I’ve lost the ability to mesmerize—” she began.

“It’s not just that.” He hesitated. “You’ve recovered physically, but you’re probably still too weak to climb a steep slope. Besides, what will you do with the watch?”

“I’ll leave it at the Gokk House.”

“Ultek will know something’s off on Fourth-day morning when he realizes the tracker hasn’t moved in hours.”

Etana looked away.

Rhori was right in advising caution… But how could she not go to Areg?

As she pondered her options, a clear female voice came from the other side of the garden fence. “Hello?”

“Who is it?” Rhori took off toward the fence.

“Is this the Tidryn house?”

“Yes, why? Who are—” Rhori shut up mid-sentence.

Etana craned her neck and peered.

The wonky garden gate squeaked as it opened. Etana could make out two faint silhouettes. Then she heard a dull thump. Rhori had dropped to his knees.

“Your Royal Glory.” Rhori’s voice was deep and filled with subdued reverence, as he greeted the late visitor. “May Aheya bless your endeavors.”

“May your deeds please her, sir,” the woman said in response.

Your Royal Glory…

There was only one vestal in Eia whose title included an honorary “royal.”

The Royal Prioress Aynu Eckme.

Areg’s childhood friend.

“Will you honor us by coming in?” Rhori said.

“Thank you. Do you mind if my steward waits here by the gate?”

“No, of course not.”

Long skirts rustled and a few moments later, a tall beauty in a dark-blue cloak—the “angel” who’d chanted on the scaffold in Town Hall Square—stood by the bench.

Etana bowed deeply.

“Dame Gokk said I’d find you here.” Prioress Eckme touched her brow and bowed.

Etana pulled the string with Areg’s ouroboros over her head and offered it to the vestal. “Lord Sebi said to give it to you.”

“Keep it.” Prioress Eckme closed Etana’s hand around it. “You’ll return it to its owner.”

Grinning, Etana slipped the pendant around her neck and under the high cut of her dress. Her skin prickled when the smooth metal of the serpent coil slid down her throat and into the valley between her breasts.

It felt as if Areg was touching her by proxy.

With an unusual clumsiness in his gait, Rhori came to stand next to Etana. He kept his gaze down, stooping a little, as if he wanted to make himself smaller… so that Prioress Eckme wouldn’t have to look up at him.

Oh dear. Rhori was the respectful kind, but Etana had never seen him act with this much respect around anyone. Then again, he’d never met anyone as venerated as Prioress Eckme.

“Your Royal Glory,” Etana said, “may I ask how you knew to look for me?”

She drew her brows. “What do you mean?”

“I’m a laundry maid.” Etana shrugged. “A menial nobody.”

“To Areg’s friends, and to his many supporters,” the vestal interrupted her, “you’re a hero. You’re Etana Tidryn, the laundry maid who found a legal loophole and tried to save Areg. I’m in awe of your ingenuity and courage.”

Etana’s cheeks heated with pride.

After Etana bundled up her watch and stuck it in a clay pot in the kitchen—just in case—she and Rhori recounted the events of the execution day to Prioress Eckme. Over the next half hour, the vestal asked many questions. Every now and then, she glanced at Etana in wonder. Then she asked if she and her steward could join Rhori on his ascent of Mount Crog.

“How much do you trust your steward?” Rhori asked.

“I’d trust him with my life.”

He nodded. “Then I’ll trust him, too.”

“We’ll be here on Third-day at dusk with money and a few useful items,” Prioress Eckme said.

And then she bid Etana and Rhori goodbye and followed her steward into the night.