Mouse stood with one foot on the step of the carriage, using one arm to brace herself on the door and the other to shield her eyes from the sun.

“Alright, Mouse?”

Mouse frowned at the grey-eyed guardsman who had just ridden up from the front of the line.

“What is happening?” she asked. “Why have we stopped?”

Bo glanced forward a moment, uncertainty dancing in his eyes, before turning back to Mouse.

“The road’s been flooded,” he said. “We’re looking for a way around.”

Mouse sighed in disappointment. Going around meant going back, and that meant their journey would be even further delayed than it already had been. Their troubles had begun with a cracked wheel and a lame horse, and this was on top of the fact that they were moving at a considerably slower pace slower than that by which they had come; their numbers were far greater now, and though Mouse was proud of the part she had played in seeing that the Empress’s missing knights were returned, she was somewhat less pleased by how much longer it would take them to reach the capital.

“What is happening?” Agatha’s voice came from inside the carriage as she leaned across the bench. “Why have we stopped?”

Mouse ducked inside the door, pulling it closed behind her as she sunk into her seat.

“The road’s been flooded,” she said. “They’re looking for a way around.”

Agatha stuck out her lip, plucking a mallow from the seat next to her and tucking it up with the others she had gathered from their floor that morning into the braid that formed a golden crown around her head.

The mallows had been left there as a gesture from Sir Frederick, a parting gift to Agatha—or at least that is what Mouse had decided. Though her mind had instinctively traced the lines back to the capital, to the little page girl standing at her door with a mallow in her fist, Johannes’ green eyes and purple cheek as he held out a pink-tipped flower to her, Mouse refused to acknowledge that any of these things might be connected.

It was all coincidence, she told herself, her mind playing tricks on her, looking for patterns that were not there and assigning meaning to the most inconsequential of acts.

She looked at Agatha, the girl's cheeks stained from crying and her sleeves damp with tears. The mallows were for her.

After some time, the carriage lurched forward, springing into motion once again as the caravan slowly turned back northward. They would have to go by way of Hallovie, Mouse suspected, passing directly through the town until they could circle back to the main road somewhere past the point where it had been flooded. How far they were, it was difficult to say, but judging from how long they had already been on the road and had small the rise of the Fjaelles had become, it was like to add at least half a day to their journey.

Mouse looked out the window as the carriage bumped along the uneven road, rutted here and there where wagon wheels that had sunk into the rain-softened earth were now memorialized in the hardened dirt. She counted the furrows in the earth, watching the green, grain, and fallow fields turn into a dense wood before turning back to field again.

Across from her, Agatha sat with her head resting against the door, drifting in and out of sleep as her head rocked from side to side with the movement of the carriage.

Mouse had managed to bring the girl around to reason, at least for the time, explaining that the most likely means of throwing off her engagement to Lord Hildimar, and therefore the best course of action, was not to run away, but to return to Kriftel and there court the Empress’s favor. “If Sir Frederick is willing to forgo a dowry,” she had explained, “the match may prove a better investment than your marrying Hildimar. Make yourself agreeable to the woman, and with any luck, her sense of economy will do the rest.”

Though Mouse had congratulated herself on such a plan, she now felt a sense of responsibility toward it. If the thing were to fail, she would have herself to blame and forever carry the guilt of Agatha’s unhappiness.

On the other hand, if it were to succeed, that meant there may be a chance for Mouse’s happiness as well. For somewhere in a hidden corner of her heart, she clung to the hope that one day, when her duty had concluded itself, her usefulness to the court worn out and her presence more a burden than a convenience, she would travel north across the narrow sound and be united once and forever with her Foilunder.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

She looked at the golden-haired girl slumbering across from her, her brow furrowing in dream as a murmur escaped her lips, and wondered where she was right now.

Did she go somewhere in dream as Mouse so often did, somewhere that smoke rose from the chimney of a great stone house while a voice drifted on the breeze singing words she did not know?

Mouse reached into her pocket, taking out the small wooden box and lifting the lid. Inside, the glass vial shimmered, the sunlight spilling in through the window to reveal the rich violet hue of the dark liquid inside.

A gift, the maid had said it was, but from whom? Mouse bit her lip, admonishing herself once again for failing to ask. It must have been sent either by Lady Margarethe or Lady Signy, that much she knew, but it would put her more at ease to know that it had come by the former.

Though Lady Signy had made certain attempts to make herself amenable, her loose tongue and brazen dishonesty in regard to her family was enough to lose Mouse’s trust and convince her that the two would never be friends. Add to this the girl’s role in encouraging Lady Agatha’s doomed affair with Sir Frederick, whether through careless neglect or deliberate machination, and Mouse could see little to redeem her.

Mouse watched the shifting hue of the dark liquid in the vial as a cloud passed overhead, momentarily blocking out the sun. It was beautiful but changeable, dark and dull one moment and glimmering the next, as if concealing some sort of hidden threat.

She was tempted to unstop the lid, to pour out a drop and dab it onto her cheeks as the maid had suggested, but she was afraid that the moment she did so, the carriage would pass over a stone or through a puddle, and the contents of the vial would be lost.

The carriage was now headed back in the direction of Pothes Mar, the Fjaelles growing taller rather than shrinking, and the earth growing more lush.

Mouse had been glad to leave the place. To her, the visit had been little more than a humiliation punctuated by her inability to secure an audience with the General, something the Empress had achieved almost at once upon her arrival.

Mouse did not have the confidence of one born to rule; she reeked of subservience and could no more easily command a man’s respect than she could command an army. And the awkwardness that followed in the wake of the Empress’s arrival had subverted whatever rapport she had managed to build between herself and the General’s household. Were it not for the discovery of Sir Hugo, Mouse might have considered the entire thing a failure, but as it was, she could return to Kriftel with her head held high.

Her one regret, more than disappointing her duty, was that she had not had the chance to apologize to Sir Conrad before leaving—or at least to express her regret that it was Bertram and not Leopold who would be joining them in the capital. She felt nearly as sorry for the knight as she did for the boy, and she made a solemn promise to herself that she would do whatever she could to help little Leopold, should help ever be required.

After an hour or two traveling back the way they had come, the caravan once again came to a stop, before taking up a road that turned eastward. The sun was behind them now, but they were riding away from the Fjaelles, meaning their light would last longer.

Mouse closed the little wooden box, tucking it into her pocket, and leaned her head back, closing her eyes.

She was thinking of the Empress and how odd it was that she should send Mouse north to Pothes Mar only to then ride north herself a few days later. What had been so important that she would abandon Lord Marius just as he was arriving and out her own decoy?

But before Mouse could come up with any answer to this, she found herself once again on Kingfishers’ Bridge, watching the blue water of the mighty Manau flow beneath her. She leaned forward, resting her arms on the low stone wall of the bridge and gazed into the milky blue water.

Her heart felt heavy and sad as she stood there, though she did not know why, and as she watched the river course below her, she felt the crushing weight of an irrepressible loneliness. She did not bother to look across the bridge for the great stone house. She did not listen for the sound of music. She simply stood there looking down into the water. How sad it was, she thought to herself, to be a little mouse so frightened and alone in the world, so timid and helpless.

She reached behind herself, to grab her tail for comfort, but she could not seem to find it. It was in that moment when she was distractedly grasping for her tail that someone crept up behind her and gave her a great push.

Mouse felt her body lurch forward as she woke with a jolt. Her heart pounded fiercely in her chest as she looked around, reorienting herself to reality.

She was in the carriage, she realized, and it had once again come to a stop.

Agatha blinked drearily from the other side of the bench, stretching out her arms as her mouth opened into a yawn.

“What’s happened?” she asked sleepily as she drew back the curtain. “Are we there?”

“I do not think so,” Mouse said, craning her neck as she peered out the window. There were a few small buildings scattered outside, but not the kind that stood on the grounds of Kriftel.

No, they were decidedly not at the capital, but where they were was more difficult to say.

Mouse opened the door, poking out her head to try and get a view of the road ahead, before pushing it open a bit wider, just enough so that she could wedge her shoulders out.

“Get back inside!” one of the guardsmen suddenly barked, causing Mouse to start and nearly lose her balance. “And keep the door shut!”

Mouse quickly ducked inside and fell back into her seat, pulling the door closed behind her. Agatha looked at her wide-eyed, clearly just as alarmed as Mouse by the guard’s unexpected outburst.

Mouse stared out the window, that funny feeling once again tugging at her—the chill about to set in, the dog about to bite.

“Agatha,” she said quietly, her mind returning to the flooded road that had diverted them here. “When is the last time it rained?’