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The tension built between us for three long breaths.

Then Goren sighed, scowling. “Relax, Highness. Your sweetheart can handle herself.”

I bristled at that term—sweetheart.

But Keil just said, “Yes, I’m well aware.” Then he ambled toward me, holding out a folded letter. “Lye said to pass this to you. It’s from the Coal Quarter.”

I drew upright. Perhaps Mara had been sighted.

“Go.” Goren rolled up his sleeves for his own training session. “We’re done for today.”

I cast him a dark glance, then strode out into the gardens, Keil by my side.

“So you decided to train after all.” He slipped his hands into his pockets, clearly trying not to look too pleased. “I see you and Goren are getting along.”

“Oh, excellently,” I said, ripping into the letter. “We spent the first session making each other friendship bracelets.”

Keil sighed around a smile. “Goren means well.”

“He means to make me suffer,” I muttered.

“That, too. I can tell him to—”

“No,” I blurted, halting. No running to Keil whenever your feelings get hurt. I refused to break that rule two minutes after our first session. “I can do this.”

Keil looked me over and nodded. “I have no doubt, my lady.”

With that settled, I unfolded the letter. But rather than information about Mara, there was only a single line, addressed rather audaciously to Highborn One and Highborn Two.

And underneath it, a set of coordinates.

My specter flurried with sudden, unexpected victory. “Raff passed on the message,” I said, breathless. “Calytrix agreed to a meeting.”

I looked up at the towering structure embedded within this stretch of grassland, the wind slapping at my cheeks.

“What is this place?” I asked, unnerved. By the light of a sickle-moon, I saw that a chunk was missing from the top of the structure, fused stones piling on one side.

I’d seen houses destroyed by fire back in Daradon, but they hadn’t looked like this.

“It used to be a war fortress,” Keil said, a dagger glinting at his belt. He’d worn his armor for this excursion, which we’d made on horseback. Keil’s personal coach was currently touring the city, occupied by a heavily cloaked combat mannequin dressed in lavender tulle. The decoy wouldn’t hold up under inspection, but if Mara truly was trailing me, it was better than nothing.

“The Orrenish did this?”

Keil shook his head. “I meant the Great War.” So this devastation was wrought when the First Emperor Saxon had conquered the land. “It was destroyed by ithoric, the explosive.”

I shivered, the wind rippling my blouse, as we inched through the crumbling entrance. The smell of rot pervaded the atmosphere, moonlight trickling through the cracked bricks. Our footfalls echoed up the dilapidated staircase, and I stepped carefully, avoiding debris.

“Why would Calytrix want to meet here?” I asked quietly.

“I suppose it’s far enough from the city that we won’t be overheard.”

“Are we sure that’s a good thing?”

He rounded the stairwell ahead of me, the light silvering his profile. “We’re about to find out.”

We arrived at the vast upper level, where one side of the ceiling gaped open to let in a slash of wind. The space was empty—a bleak picture of mulch and collapsed beams, the tomb-like quietness unsettling my specter. I toed away a loose rock, then paused. I squatted, frowning, and brushed the rubble aside.

Light caught the engraving, and my breath hitched.