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squeezes my hand. “Them Menaiyans as came here seemed to be good men; they didn’t flirt with the girls and they didn’t kick the dogs. They’ve put a guard on you, but that’s kept your brother off, hasn’t it? I think your prince will be a good man as well.”
    I nod, and Redna hugs me tightly. I carry her words with me as I leave, but I cannot take much heart from them. Most of our guards are kinder men than my brother.
    Jilna is waiting to dress me for dinner: one final banquet in honor of the betrothal and my departure. She helps me into my gown, shaking her head at the state of my hair. When I am ready, she turns to me almost hesitantly. “I’ve something for you—just a little thing to remember me by. I know you’re going to a great court, and you won’t have much use for the likes of this, but—”
    “Jilna,” I interrupt. “What is it?”
    She presses a pouch into my palm, then clasps her hands together tightly, watching me. I pour its contents into my palm. A small, worn silver pendant on a thin chain tumbles out, shining in the lamplight. At the center of the oval pendant is an engraved many-petaled rose. I swallow, my throat constricting. This is a family heirloom; a bit of wealth passed from mother to daughter through the generations. But Jilna has no daughter of her own to give it to.
    “It’s beautiful.” I close my hand around the gift. “Thank you.”
    Jilna looks back at me, her face alight, and then takes a quick step forward to wrap her arms around me. “Don’t cry, dear heart.”
    I take a few watery breaths, leaning into her, and then step back. She lets me go gently, watching as I fasten the chain around my neck. “I’ll treasure it always.”
    “Aye, well, if you lose it, I’ll send my spirit to haunt you the rest of your days,” Jilna warns. “That was my mother’s fore it was mine.”
    “Bring her with you then,” I say, grinning. “I’d like to meet her someday.”
    Jilna gives me a little shove. “Get on with you. You’ll be late for dinner.”
    I doubt anyone would notice or care, but I hurry out the door regardless. Afterwards, in the later hours of the night, I stand in my mother’s apartment, watching the flame-thrown shadows flicker across her face. She sits in a brocade armchair, a goblet of wine held loosely in her fingers. She looks to me like some dark predator—perhaps the fabled black cats of the Western Forests, as large as our wolfhounds. When she smiles, her teeth bared, I feel a chill run down my back.
    “I will ask you one last time,” my mother says without preamble. “What are you hiding from me? Why did the king have a guard set on you before anything happened?”
    To keep my brother off? But she would never believe that. “I don’t know. Perhaps he has enemies.”
    “Who would they be?”
    I shrug. “He wasn’t worried until after the betrothal.” It had been my Menaiyan quad that raised the alarm that night. In their story, a soldier had been passing down the hall when he heard a strange sound, as of wood shattering. Immediately, he knocked on my door to make sure all was well. When his hammering received no response, he tried the handle. By then his shouts had roused other guards (the rest of his quad who were standing beside him, I suspect) as well as those who slumbered in the rooms near mine; so it was a number of people who saw the broken shutters and the princess lying senseless by her bed.
    “You don’t know what happened that night?”
    I shake my head. Some believe an owl hit my shutters, but Jilna tells me that most believe the Fair Folk had come for me; the soldier’s knock and sudden entrance saved me from being carried off. The truth seems far less comprehensible to me than either of these possibilities.
    “Surely you remember something.”
    As I watch her, I think perhaps I should tell her, perhaps she would know something about the man and his unknown enemy … but surely she would have spoken had she any idea. Or