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Leska paused. “I hope it is small.”
    “This group must be powerful, though, to have caused such a fuss.” Rinka sighed, toying with the curtains. They were emblazoned with the royal crest—the sea serpent, long and coiled. The Somerhart family’s sigil. “I confess, I worry that if there was ever a war, we faeries would fall. The land listens to humans, it recognizes them as the rulers of Cane. The king could easily use his bound mages to work the land in his favor, and against us.” She let the fabric fall. These were not thoughts she welcomed, or suspicions she had ever wanted to give credence. And yet how could she not think them, considering Leska’s ominous warnings and the queen’s peculiar behavior?
    “How could we possibly fight against the land itself, if it comes to that?” Rinka said.
    Leska was quiet for a long time. “Countess, I’ll leave you to your thoughts, but I will say this: Peace is important to me, and if I can help one of those tasked to maintain it, then I’ll do so gladly.”
    Rinka turned, an uncertain smile on her lips. “You are comfortingly forthright, Leska.”
    Leska inclined her head. “As are you, Countess.”
    “Why can’t all the world be this way? It seems a simple thing.”
    “To that, I have no answer. But I do know we don’t all have to like each other in order to live with each other. And that’s what I want to help others understand.” Leska made for the door and then turned back, considering her. “So you have met the king, then?”
    Rinka bristled, thoughts of war abruptly forgotten. “It was only one time that I saw him. Only once. And even that was an accident. I did nothing wrong.”
    “Of course you didn’t,” said Leska.
    “You believe me, don’t you?”
    A pause. Then Leska said, “Yes, but I’m not the one you have to worry about. The queen has spies. They move about like birds, and they do her bidding without question.” She frowned, thoughtful. “Be careful, Countess.”
    Rinka stepped away from the window. “I came here to represent my people. To work toward peace and understanding. That’s all.”
    Leska gave her a small smile. “I know. That’s obvious to me. Now, come. They’ll be waiting for you downstairs.”
    Rinka followed her, and somewhere along the route to the Great Room, where they did much of their work, Leska left for one of the western towers, for her studies, and Rinka was left alone. And though she knew her heart was true, that she meant what she had told Leska, she nevertheless found herself holding her breath each time she turned a corner, and hoping, for reasons she couldn’t put into words, to see a face she knew she shouldn’t want to see.

5
    I T TOOK SOME TIME for Rinka to hear from her father, and when a letter from him did arrive, two days after her tea with the queen, Rinka left it on the table in her sitting room for hours before finding the courage to open it.
    There was no greeting, and certainly no hint of affection. Only Kaspar’s erratic scrawl, the one that manifested when he was writing while in the grip of great emotion.
    The only reason I have not come to bring you home , the note read, is a desire to maintain both our reputations. I will not insult you—or myself—by dragging you out of the capital like an errant child.
    I hope you are proud of what you have done.
    “And I hope you’re proud of yourself, Father,” Rinka muttered, glaring at the paper, “for driving me to deception.”
    Then she crumpled up the letter and threw it into the fire.
    *    *    *
    One morning, a month after the faeries’ arrival at Erstadt, news arrived from the eastern highlands, near the border of the faery lands. A school there had been attacked by a group of faeries who had been stirring up trouble in the highlands for quite some time. The mage teachers—and the human students—were being held hostage until, according to the faeries holding them, the crown admitted to crimes of abducting faeries