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“To get out of the castle, as much as anything else.” Sunbeam huffed a sigh. “Duchess Homicidal Intent has been in a foul mood since she escaped from the spike trap.”

Yudit finished tying off the line. “Since she what?”

“I had tae stall her till ye git here,” Lulach said. “So I tellt her thare was a problem with one of the deathtraps. The room with the spikes that spring oot of the walls and floor. I said the spike washing mechanism wasnae working richt, and when she gaed in to check, I bumped the door shut and pretended I couldnae find the key.”

“Smart,” I said approvingly. Although if Gruoch was in a temper, it didn’t bode well for our efforts to convince her to sign off on our plan.

That had always been a risk, frankly. Gruoch was in a temper more often than not.

“We might as well get it over with,” I said. “Let’s go see the duchess.” I stepped forward and gave Sunbeam a hug around the neck. “I did miss you, you know. No other horse can compare.”

“Well, of course they can’t.” He leaned his head into me, nearly knocking me over with his affection.

When I was younger, Sunbeam had been my favorite steed. I’d ridden him whenever I managed to sneak outside. We roamed around the countryside, beyond the reach of Gruoch or anyone else, while I pretended to be a knight doing great deeds. Dozens of imaginary castles were stormed, hundreds of terrifying monsters were defeated. Every haystack was secretly a troll. The windmill on the big hill became a dragon. I always lost against the dragon. A lance made out of a stick can’t do much damage to a stone wall, which was probably a good thing for the local supply of milled flour.

One reason I loved to ride so much was that it let me get away from the flowers when they got too overwhelming. I discovered early on that they grow more slowly when I’m on horseback. We sometimes left little more than a trail of dandelions in our wake when Sunbeam sped up to a canter. When he galloped his fastest, we left nothing behind us at all.

I think horseback riding confuses the fairy gift. Flowers blossom everywhere I go, but when a horse takes me somewhere, did I go there, or did the horse do that while I sat still? Should the flowers grow on the ground, or on the horse itself, the way seagrass sprouts on the hull when I travel by boat? By the time the gift came to a decision, we were already moving on.

“Hey, Lulach,” I said, “do you know what kind of seagrass has long, bright green leaves and little translucent flowers growing in clusters? Like a row of semicircular petals.”

“Sounds like a Zostera species,” he answered. “Eelgrass of some kind. Why?”

“Just wondering.”

By then we’d crossed the boardwalk and were stepping onto the town’s cobbled streets. It was around midafternoon, not that I could see the sun. There were undoubtedly people out and about, but with the fog blocking our vision and quieting the noise, for a moment it felt as if we were the only ones there.

What little I could see of the place hadn’t changed much in the time I’d been away. The buildings stood at slightly crooked angles, their whitewashed walls darkened by years of soot. A potent stench immediately registered to my nose as the scent of home—a mix of peat fire smoke, sheep shit, and not quite fresh fish. Everything was a little chillier than it had been in Tailliz, and a little damper.

It felt like stepping into a well-worn pair of slippers.

The feeling of isolation didn’t last long. When we passed through the town square, the stallholders were out hawking their wares. If a bit of fog were enough to keep the merchants from their trade, the economy of Ecossia would immediately collapse. A few of them nodded to Lulach and Sunbeam, who must have been there often, but no one took notice of me or Yudit until a white-haired man working a fruit and vegetable stand gave my sister a hard stare.

“That’s niver wee Alexandra, is it?” he said.

“No,” she replied. “I’m Yudit.”

“Yudit! I’ve nae seen ye sin that great stuir fallae cairit ye off! Be ye here tae stey?”

The “great stuir fallae” who’d carried us off was Sam, Queen Jacqueline’s brother. It was part of a bet they’d made with Gruoch. He picked up the six of us, three under each arm, and hauled us all the way out of Ecossia and over to Tailliz.

If they’d lost the bet, Gruoch would have cut their heads off.

“We’re just passing through,” I said.

He gave a start when I spoke, and peered at me closely. “Drusilla? Fur why be yer locks sae short, lass?”

“They’re headed up to the castle to see the duchess,” Sunbeam said before I was forced to come up with an answer. “Wish them luck.”

The costermonger’s face darkened. “Tak care in that place. Ye ken hou gruesome ’tis thare.”

“We’ll be fine,” Yudit told him. “She’s our sister. We know her better than anyone.” Personally, I thought knowing her well should have made us more worried, not less. Before we left, I bought a bunch of carrots for Sunbeam, which he accepted as his rightful due.

Gruoch never played her deadly games with the locals. She was cunning enough to realize that would lead to a mob at her door with torches and pitchforks. As a general rule, only visitors from afar served as her contestants, people that no one knew and no one cared about.

It was an open question in my mind whether she’d regard us as locals or strangers. She might still be angry; I doubted we’d be able to count on family sentiment working in our favor. So it was with some trepidation that we headed for the path up to the rocky outcrop where the castle sat.

The mist thinned as we gained in height, and by the time we reached the rows of empty gibbets, we could see the redoubt of the duchess in all its hideous glory. The castle I grew up in has been compared to many things. An enormous squatting toad. A dead hyena with its legs cut off. But everyone agrees that it is, without doubt, the ugliest fortress in Ecossia. Some chance, unhappy combination of features produced a result that was both grotesque and vaguely predatory. The slumped walls, mottled with lichen, and the gaping maw-like gate. The near-complete lack of windows, which only drew more attention to the two that stared out of the façade like squinting, mismatched eyes. No wonder Winifred had become obsessed with letting in more light.