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Churning confusion and boiling anger settled into a sick feeling in the pit of Ashi’s stomach. Benti … Aruget … whoever the changeling was, there was hard truth in his words. Geth had vanished, Midian was gone, Ekhaas and Dagii were far away. Vounn wouldn’t be able to help her either. She’d already told her what she would have to do if Tariic’s soldiers came for her. Aruget would look for Geth and the rod. Her usefulness was over—it was time to retreat from the fight.

“Pater d’Orien,” she said. “Vounn told him I may be called back to Karrlakton. He’s agreed to use his dragonmark to take me there.”

“Then I hope he’s willing to see late night visitors.” Aruget eased the door of the room open again and peered out cautiously.

Ashi caught his arm. “Wait. What’s your real name?” she asked.

He smiled and his ears flicked. “Whatever one belongs to the face I’m wearing,” he said.

They moved swiftly between floors, dashing down the stairs and ducking into doors whenever a guard appeared—and there were more guards roaming the halls than Ashi had ever seen before.

There was no point going back to her chambers. Daavn would have anticipated that. Vounn had probably been woken already. Ashi was doubly glad she’d kept the meeting a secret. The lady seneschal would at least be able to tell the truth in saying she had no idea where Ashi had gone.

“How do we get out? The exits are going to be guarded.” Ashi murmured in Aruget’s ear as they crouched in another dusty room, waiting for a guard to pass.

“If you can’t be silent,” Aruget answered with a sly smile, “make a lot of noise.”

He led her away from the grand areas of the castle into a region of narrow corridors thick with the smell of cooking. They were near the kitchens. “When Ko kidnapped Vounn, he brought her this way,” said Ashi. “Tariic won’t forget to guard the back gate.”

Aruget’s ears twitched. “Kitchens contain many interesting things.”

“Knives.”

“Cauldrons. Kettles. Noon paste. Korluaat.”

She looked at him questioningly. He shook his head. “This is something I’ll do more quickly alone.” He hurried her past a wide, high vaulted passage that led to the even wider caverns of the kitchens and down another. A pair of big doors, plain and scarred from frequent use, emerged from the gloom. Wet footprints showed on the stone of the floor—the doors opened to the outside of Khaar Mbar’ost and they’d been used recently. There would be guards on the other side.

Aruget went to a smaller door in the wall of the corridor and pushed it open, scanning the darkness inside. “Storeroom. Wait for me here and be ready to run. If I’m wearing a different face, I’ll wink. If I don’t come, get out on your own.”

Ashi stepped into the storeroom and was enveloped in the smell of unseen vegetables. She glanced back at Aruget. “Ko couldn’t see in the dark as Geth. How can you see in the dark as Aruget?”

“Let me keep some secrets.” He closed the door on her, leaving it open only a finger’s width. His footsteps, so quiet that if he hadn’t been wearing armor she probably wouldn’t have heard them at all, went back along the passage.

Ashi squatted down in the shadows and tried to recapture the same patience and alertness she’d felt while waiting for the meeting on the rooftop. “Ashi, daughter of Ner,” she murmured under her breath, “son of Kagan, son of Tyman, son of Joherra, daughter of Wroenna, daughter of Maal …”

Time stretched out. Patience didn’t come and there was no need to stave off weariness—Ashi didn’t feel like she’d ever sleep again. She should have asked Aruget to bring a knife from the kitchen for her. A crude blade was better than no weapon at all.

There would be questions when she returned to Karrlakton. The lords of House Deneith would want to know why she had come back so suddenly. What would she tell them? What could she tell them? What would she do—?

Running footsteps echoed in the passage. Ashi pushed herself to her feet and backed into the darkness of the storeroom. But when the door swung open, the dim lights beyond shone