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undine. He had sent word to Hilad and Lyskar as well, though he hadn’t yet heard back.
    Armand took Danielle’s hand, and then they traveled a while in silence. They were coming up on the city wall when Armand said, “I tried to stop Lirea. I was . . . I couldn’t reach her. I’m sorry, Father.”
    The pain in his voice knotted Danielle’s chest. Like Talia, riding behind in a second carriage, Armand still blamed himself. “The undine are too strong. Lirea could have killed you. Beatrice wanted you safe.”
    “As do I,” said Theodore.
    Armand shook his head, but he said nothing further. When they reached the palace, they found Father Isaac waiting just inside the gate. With him stood the king’s healer, a silver-haired old man named Tymalous. Tymalous didn’t even wait for the carriage to stop before climbing inside to check Beatrice’s bandages. He muttered to himself, then pronounced her safe to move. With the king’s help, they carried the queen to a small cart.
    “Bring her to the chapel,” said Father Isaac.
    Danielle started to follow, but an angry wail demanded her attention. “Jakob!”
    Nicolette, Jakob’s wet nurse, hurried across the courtyard. Danielle’s son kicked and squirmed in her arms. Nicolette’s eyes were shadowed, and the shoulders of her dress were stained with tears and snot.
    As always, the sight of Nicolette was bittersweet. The same magic that sped Jakob’s growth in the womb had left Danielle’s body unprepared for motherhood, and she had never been able to nurse her own son. Nicolette was a marvelous nurse and a loving mother to her own children as well as the prince, but seeing her with Jakob always made Danielle feel as though she had somehow failed her son.
    Danielle pushed such thoughts aside as she lifted Jakob from Nicolette’s arms and rocked him, whispering and bouncing him in her arms. She smoothed his sweaty blond hair back with one hand and kissed his forehead. His cheeks were speckled red from the force of his crying. His voice was painfully hoarse, rasping and pitiful. She held her son tight, and for a moment nothing else mattered. “I have you,” she whispered. “You’re all right. Mama’s back.”
    Armand reached out to wipe tears from Jakob’s chubby cheeks. “Has he been this charming the entire time we were gone?”
    “He started crying yesterday afternoon,” Nicolette said, her voice raspy. “Hasn’t calmed since. Hardly slept two winks the whole night.”
    “Yesterday afternoon?” Danielle repeated. That was when Lirea had attacked the ship.
    “He’s been fed, changed, rocked, and nothing soothes him.” Knowing Nicolette’s devotion to little Jakob, she had probably stayed with him all night. “I even sang him that song he likes, the one about the octopus’ shoes. Sang until I could hardly croak another note, but he wasn’t having it.”
    Jakob nuzzled his face into Danielle’s shoulder, and a hiccup interrupted his cries.
    “Is it true what they’re saying?” Nicolette had turned to watch the cart carrying Beatrice to the chapel. “Did the merfolk try to assassinate the queen?”
    Other voices drew Danielle’s attention from her son. While she had fussed with Jakob, others had approached, forming a loose ring around Danielle and Armand. Peter, the apprentice falconer, cleared his throat and said, “I’ve a brother who sails on the Virtuous, Princess. If the merfolk have declared war, will they—”
    The gardener, Laurence, slapped Peter with a dirt-crusted hand. “The undine have been friends to Lorindar for a century. Isn’t that right, Your Highness?”
    “They say this was a rogue mermaid, an assassin hired by Allesandria to avenge some imagined slight,” said Rebecca, one of the women who worked in the laundry. “They mean to—”
    “A lone mermaid did attack our ship,” Danielle said. Rumors would spread regardless of her words. At least this way the rumors would have some basis in truth. She glanced at Armand,