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My stomach rolled, because Erik hadn’t said those words out of kindness. It had been another little cruelty: keeping her as whole and unblemished as a porcelain doll, to dress up and show off as his shiny possession. It was why he’d sent her here with rose-carved items, too—so she might never escape the reminder.

“We’re going to get you out of here,” I breathed, the words tinged with the guilt I didn’t know how to express.

She smiled sadly. “I can’t leave, Alissa.”

“Our ship will return us to the mainland the morning after the final jolly,” I said, desperate now. “We’ll have to get you on board without Holden finding out, but then—”

“You don’t understand,” she interrupted, her expression resigned. “After Erik’s guards arrested me, they put me in your cell.”

I winced, not just at the image of Perla, huddled in the prison from which she’d freed me. But at her phrasing: Your cell. As though it was still mine, a home I’d vacated but hadn’t renounced. A place that would one day welcome me back.

“I spent my nineteenth birthday behind those bars,” she continued quietly. “And Erik said I wouldn’t see my twentieth unless I swore an oath to him.”

“An oath of service?” Goren drifted closer, joining our side of the room.

Perla shook her head. “An oath of non-desertion.”

Goren frowned. “You’re not a soldier.”

“No.” A huff of laughter escaped her, as sharp as glass and just as fragile. “After how I’d manipulated the gentry during Rose Season—had fooled even him—Erik said I was the truest courtier he’d ever met. He was therefore permanently dispatching me to join a foreign court as a tribute from Daradon.” Her wide eyes met mine in the dark. “I made him an oath that I would stay here, without fighting or trying to escape. I swear, Alissa, that was the extent of my vow. But if I break it . . .”

She didn’t need to finish. Even Goren, who’d probably never encountered such an archaic piece of jewelry this side of the sea, seemed to understand what breaking her vow would mean: the loss of her hand.

His brows furrowed further—and this time I knew it wasn’t Perla he was scowling at. “Then break the band.”

“I can’t.”

“All right.” Goren uncrossed his arms and reached for her wrist. “Then I’ll—”

“No, please.” Perla staggered back, fear flashing in her eyes again.

Goren stalled, his hand outstretched. And her plea—sounding so wrong on the tongue of someone so self-possessed—stopped him from reaching for her again.

“Erik’s not here,” he said. “He can’t find out.” Because that was the only way a person could be punished for breaking their vow: if their treachery was discovered. And the risk of discovery was usually enough to guarantee compliance.

But as Perla’s oath band caught the light, I frowned a little. This band didn’t look like Garret’s, which had been a solid steel circlet, symbolizing a shackle. Instead, odd little bumps hilled over the circumference of Perla’s band—making it appear more like a device than a piece of jewelry. It reminded me of the traps Creakish farmers set along their fields to catch large pests.

The moment the thought struck me, a soft hum drifted into my awareness. I’d heard that hum in the treasure hall and had attributed it to Perla’s pocket watch.

Now I realized where it was truly coming from. And realized, too, that Perla’s was not a regular oath band.

“Erik doesn’t need to be here to punish you,” I said in horror. “Does he?”

Perla’s throat bobbed. Then she lifted her chin in defiance of her own fear. “There are steel thorns inside the band. Unless the mechanism is reset with a key every evening during the last three minutes before midnight, those thorns are set to release. To—” Her voice cracked; she cleared her throat. “To puncture my wrist.” She met my eyes, her steely gaze a contrast to the gruesome image she painted. The image of this band acting literally rather than symbolically. “The lock is so sensitive that a specter can’t mold to it; the incorrect pressure would trigger the mechanism. Only one key exists. And Erik gave it to Holden.”

I experienced a sinking feeling as I remembered that rose-and-thorn trinket dangling around the general’s neck. Not a trinket at all. The key to Perla’s freedom.

Goren swore under his breath.

“Ansoran courtiers came to Banarrat willingly in the past,” I said, shaky from Perla’s information. “Why would Holden agree to Erik sending him a prisoner?”

“Because Holden wants to reinstate the tribute system,” Goren answered, echoing what Valeria had once told me. “This is his chance to show Rheya what Erik is offering Banarrat. Friendship, and a return to the customs she condemned.”

Because as long as Ansoran courtiers resided here, it was understood that the monarchy would never march on Banarrat. But since Rheya had long ago stopped supplying courtiers, Holden clearly believed there was no longer a guarantee.

“And Erik,” Goren added with dark meaning, “wants friendship for another reason.”

I clenched my jaw in understanding. Perla is not our problem, Goren had claimed. Yet she was more connected to our task here than we’d imagined; Erik must have been using her to gain good ground with Holden, hoping to obtain from Banarrat a gift of his own.