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He remained perfectly still as I followed a surprised Cornelia out of the study.

ISMENE STOOD NERVOUSLY in the entrance hall, looking around. She seemed very small in her delicate yellow dress, with her dark shoulders gleaming and her hair coiled with jewels.

I hurried toward her. “Ismene, what are you doing here?”

“I can only stay for a minute. I must get back before anyone notices I’m gone.” Her voice shook anxiously. “First, I want you to know that I had no idea Nina told him that you were coming. I would never have done that. Second, you should know that he’s going to have you brought to him. I heard him telling soldiers to fetch you today, before, before”— here she glanced around the hall—“his Grace can spirit you away somewhere.”

I felt the color leave my face. “Today, you say?”

“Yes, maybe this morning. He seemed impatient.”

“Thank you for telling me this,” I said. “You took a risk coming here.”

She nodded. “I would not want anyone else to endure what—what we put up with.”

I reached out and grabbed her hand. She squeezed mine in return.

“There is one other thing,” she said. “It’s what I meant to tell you earlier but couldn’t. If you need a place to go, I’ve heard—” She looked around again, as though making sure no one was listening, and then leaned in and whispered, “There is a place for women who have fled Corlivo, a sanctuary, near a small village called Mareus, near the inland sea, at the foot of the mountains. It’s a secret, and no one who isn’t one of us can ever hear of it. I hope to make it there myself someday. But if you need a place to start a search for your mother, I thought you would want to know about it. Perhaps that’s where she went.”

“Who told you about it?” I whispered.

She twisted the fabric of her dress around her finger. “I had a mentor at Casa Aeris who disappeared without a trace one night. No one ever said a word about it. It was as though she had never existed. I kept asking about her, and no one would say anything. I almost thought I had gone mad and dreamed her up. But one day an old woman who works in the kitchen at Aeris pulled me aside. She said, ‘Ulpia has followed the moon’s path to safety in Mareus. Let her go from your mind and don’t ask any more questions.’”

“I will find this place,” I said, tightening my grip on her hands. “Come with me.”

“What?”

“Right now. Instead of going back to the palace, leave with me today.”

If there was a sanctuary for Corlivo women, nothing would stop me from searching for it. I hardly dared dream it, but perhaps I’d find my mother there.

“You’re saying I should just leave?”

“What are you waiting for? Permission? You’ve already snuck out. Why go back? What is there for you? Jovinian will use you and then send you back to Corlivo. Could that be better than a chance at freedom and a new life? We’ll go to Mareus together.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know. Could I do such a thing?”

Why not? The more I thought about it, the more certain I felt. I needed to get out of the city, and the small, unremarkable town of Mareus was not a place anyone, including Jovinian, would expect me to go.

“I think you could do it. I think we could go together.”

“But you don’t know anything about me. Nor I you. We’re strangers.”

Something in her frightened, dimpled face made me think suddenly of Kyra. “We’re not strangers. We’re sisters. You were willing to risk your own safety to warn me about Jovinian. Neither one of us wants to see that garden again.”

Her face showed an agony of indecision. “By the Goddess, what will happen to us if we’re caught?”

“We can do this,” I said.

She thought for a minute. “We mustn’t tell anyone about the sanctuary. Especially not—men.”

At that moment, Sebastianus thumped into the hall. “What’s all this about?” he thundered. “Who are you?”

Ismene shrank back.

I took her arm in mine. “This is Ismene. She is coming with us when we leave the city.”

“The hell she is,” he said.