Mouse looked down at the sheet of parchment in her hands, reading it for what seemed like the thousandth time, though it was likely nearer only the hundredth.

But alas, the words scribbled thereupon held no more meaning to her than the first time she had laid eyes upon them.

“Agatha,” Mouse said to the girl who lay upon the bed dangling a piece of string torn from the curtains in front of a grey striped cat that she had found wandering the hallways. “Do the words ‘Adalbert’s scythe’ mean anything to you?”

“Hmm?” Agatha murmured absently, smiling at the cat as it batted at the string with a paw.

“Adalbert’s scythe,” repeated Mouse. “Does it mean anything to you?”

“How is it written?” Agatha asked without looking up.

“Oh, nevermind,” Mouse sighed, crossing to the window on the other side of the room.

The window looked out over a dim alley that ran between the southeast tower and the wing of the castle where Mouse’s rooms were housed, and though it let in little light, a bit of sun could be seen through it if one stood in just the right place.

Mouse held up the parchment, searching for signs of some hidden message, some concealed pictographs scratched across the surface that might be visible only in certain light, or when the reader was just desperate enough.

But there was nothing there apart from the same bewildering collection of words that had stood upon the sheet from the outset: “Adalbert’s scythe, Yndis Vale.”

The letter had been signed with the initials B.O.L., a false name, one among many, that the Empress employed when she wished to conceal her identity. It stood for “Blood of Lothar.”

“Blood of Lothar,” Mouse shook her head in irritation. As much sense as the cursed letter made, it should be equally apt for the initials to stand for “Bane of Lucidity.”

“What about ‘Yndis Vale,’” Mouse called over her shoulder to Agatha. “Does that not signify anything you might know?”

But Agatha, too deep in fascination with the cat to give her attention elsewhere, merely shook her blonde head.

Mouse’s fingers toyed with the edges of the parchment. Why could the Empress not simply use a cipher like a normal person? she asked herself, chewing her lip in frustration. She supposed the only explanation must be that the Empress was in want of ways to torture her from afar, and if that were indeed the letter’s purpose, it had quite succeeded in its object.

Just then, a knock came at the door, and Mouse quickly folded the letter, tucking it into her sleeve.

“Your Majesty,” the same curly-haired page who had delivered Mouse the letter bowed. “I bring greetings from Lady Signy. She prays that you are well and well-settled.”

Mouse smiled at the boy.

“I am at least one of those things, if not the other, I thank you,” she replied.

The boy looked at her uncertainly for a moment.

“Pray, do go on,” Mouse urged.

“My Lady Signy begs the favor of your company," the page said, his eyes wandering to the room behind Mouse and pausing somewhere to her left. "That is, if Your Majesty is not otherwise engaged.”

Mouse glanced behind her, following the page’s gaze to where Agatha lay upon the bed, drawing the string across the covers for the cat to chase.

“Indeed, I am not,” Mouse replied to the seemingly distracted page. “And I gladly give you leave to send word to your lady that I will join her at once."

"That is very well, Your Majesty," the page said somewhat vaguely.

Mouse waited for the boy to go, but he made no move to leave.

"Will there be anything else?" she asked, rousing his attention back to his addressee.

"Oh, yes," the boy said, regaining himself. “Lady Signy kindly suggests that you dress for the weather. Linen, rather than silk, she says, may be more appropriate for the day."

Mouse nodded her understanding.

“Very well,” she said. “I shall see that I dress appropriately.”

With a bow and one last longing glance behind Mouse, the page departed from whence he had come.

“Did you hear that, Agatha?” Mouse said, turning to the girl. “Linen, rather than silk.”

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Agatha lifted her blue eyes to Mouse questioningly.

“Am I to go with you?” she asked, lowering the string that the cat at once pounced upon.

“Certainly,” said Mouse. “You are my lady, are you not?”

A smile pressed Agatha’s rosy cheeks upward.

“Oh, yes,” she said, sitting up. “I am.”

“Then why don’t you help the maids find what they are looking for while I send word to the guard,” Mouse suggested gently.

“Linen, not silk,” Agatha repeated cheerily, climbing down from the bed.

Mouse nodded patiently at the girl.

“Oh, and Agatha,” she said with a smirk. “Next time someone comes to call, I’ll thank you to stay well out of view.”

“Are you certain you will not don your crown?” Agatha asked as they left the maids. “I dare say you look a good deal more commanding when you wear it. And I think it grants a rather pleasing shape to your face.”

“No, I thank you,” said Mouse. “I hardly think it necessary to look commanding just now, and I am in no hurry to part with any more of my hair in its removal.”

“Very well,” said Agatha. “But do not blame me when all the handsomest knights ask my favor instead of yours.”

Mouse laughed.

“Agatha,” she said, “I give you leave to bestow your favor upon every knight between here and Cresthaven. You may have them all without a word of argument from me.”

They proceeded down the cavernous halls of the keep, a guard of a dozen or so men in attendance, following after the page who only nearly led them the wrong way twice on account of not being able to keep his eyes in front of him.

He led them outside, where a warm day awaited, guiding them down the steps of the keep and through the bailey until at last they arrived at a place near the stables where a row of horses stood saddled and waiting.

Mouse’s hand instinctively seized Agatha’s arm.

“Gods,” she murmured under her breath, “say it is not so.”

She had been prepared to spend the day out of doors, in proportion to the page’s suggestion, and she would have been glad even to spend the next several hours walking. But riding, well, she had not done that since she had come back from Silver Lake, and she was certainly in no hurry to resume the act of that failed play.

“Agatha,” Mouse said, turning a pale face to the girl, “mayhaps you can tell Lady Signy—”

But she was interrupted by the sudden appearance of a slight, ashy-haired girl in burgundy linens who came running up to Agatha, greeting her with a kiss.

“I am so glad you have come,” she beamed. “Your Majesty,” she bowed to Mouse. “I beg you will forgive my manners. It is only that Lady Agatha and I have already become fast friends,” she said, squeezing the girl’s hands delightedly in her own.

Mouse did what she could to swallow down the dread that was rising within her at the sight of the horses.

“Lady Signy,” she said, presuming as much. “I am both delighted and honored to receive your invitation.”

“I hope you do not mind that I have taken the liberty of choosing our mounts,” the girl said, not bothering to explain why or how she had arrived at the notion of taking them out on horseback.

But then Mouse remembered how distracted the page boy had been when he had come to deliver his lady’s message and wondered that he hadn’t merely forgotten to convey this very important fact.

Mouse looked in dread at the horses that stood behind Lady Signy, each appearing somehow taller and more untame than the one next to it. And though all stood docilly, at least for the time, Mouse could not imagine any would be the equal of Passavant.

“I know that Your Majesty prefers a mare,” continued Lady Signy, running a hand along the neck of a chestnut horse that threw up its head at her touch, “and we have not many here at Pothes Mar. But I do hope that Leonor will be to your liking.”

A mare, thought Mouse as she watched Lady Signy offer the horse a few sweet words to calm her, of all the creatures that crawl upon the gods’ green earth, why must she give me a chestnut mare?

“Lady Agatha,” the girl said, taking Mouse’s silence as approval, “you will be on Favory.” Favory was a beautiful cream-colored palfrey that looked practically as though it had been bred for the sole purpose of carrying a fair-haired beauty like Agatha.

Mouse looked begrudgingly at her own mount that looked like it had been bred to kick people and bite them on the shoulder when they weren’t looking.

“And I will be on Commander,” Lady Signy said, standing next to a tall, dark horse who suddenly seemed to fit his name.

“There are horses for your men in the stables,” said Lady Signy, indicating the nearby structure that looked nearly like a small keep in its own right. “We can wait here until they are ready.”

Mouse stood staring in front of her, scouring the ground for a stone or a stick or some other thing she might trip over on the way to her mount. If ever there was a time to fall down and break her leg, this was certainly it.

“Alright, Your Majesty?” someone said, bumping themselves into Mouse’s shoulder.

Mouse looked up to see Bo.

“Let me ask you something, Bo,” she said grimly. “Just how sharp is that blade of yours?”

“Come on, then,” Bo said with a laugh. “It won’t be that bad. The Empress loves riding, remember?”

Mouse gave him a look that she hoped would convey just how little amused she was by his jest.

“I’ll have you quartered,” she threatened, dropping her miserable gaze back to the grass and digging the toe of her shoe into the wet earth.

“Well, you’ll be sitting a horse either way,” Bo smirked. “Do your worst, I say.”

Mouse looked up at the guardsman’s freckled face and shook her head.

“Remind me again why I brought you,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him.

“Because I asked really nicely,” the guardsman said.

I’ll bet he asked nicely, thought Mouse. It had been the Empress who had given him leave to go to Pothes Mar, not her.

“Look,” Bo said, clapping a hand down on Mouse’s shoulder, “just put your heels down and relax your legs. The horse will do the rest.” He waited for her to nod her understanding. “And if that doesn’t work,” he said, “just scream for help.”

Mouse shook the guardsman’s hand from her shoulder and smacked him on the arm.

“Oi! That’s my bad arm,” Bo cried in protest.

“Oh, it never was,” said Mouse, shaking her head at the grey-eyed guardsman as he ran after the rest of guard who had already gone into the stables.

Mouse watched the guardsman disappear inside the walls of the stable. But she now found herself in absence of any means of further delaying her fate.

Ladies Signy and Agatha had already mounted their horses, and as Mouse approached her own mount, she saw the former withdraw her shrewd dark gaze.

I am being watched, thought Mouse. If ever there was a time to prove Ludger wrong, to show him that someone might indeed mistake her for the Empress on horseback, this was certainly it.

She drew a deep breath and lifted a hand to the horse.

You are the jewel of Aros, she whispered to herself as she stroked the mare’s silken neck, rider of noble Passavant and the Great Dread Leonor. You will not cower at the task put before you; you will conquer it. Just pray that today no one decides to shoot at you.