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Cade nodded, obedient as ever But how obedient? the professor wondered, in light of his student’s countering opinion

Gah, he thought I have spent sothat I’ve become suspicious of everyone Even Cade, who is like a son to ed as he led the way toward the stairwell There was an enemy around every corner ready to reveal him and all he’d worked for He had to be suspicious, even of his dear Old Button

LETTERS

Karigan flipped the lever just inside the doorway of the third floor, and light cahout the room She hadn’t asked the professor’s pers, and why should she? He’d never said she could not They were hers, after all, and she had no plans to disturb his other artifacts

She sought the correct aisle, passing draped furniture and a stack of eilt frames She strode past a rusty kettle balanced atop a birdbath, and turned down the aisle, drawn inexorably on Though the professor’s shelves were packed with all the treasures he’d aht past theh time with her

When she reached them, she found them just as she had last seen them, her uniform, her brooch, and the owl feather spread out on plain linen, theon crumpled velvet There, too, was her bonewood cane and the shards of the lookingother than its s resonance of her special ability, nothing The moonstone only offered a direen of her tattered, muddied uniform Well dried now, the mud crumbled at her touch

She had come here, she realized, because these items were her only link with horeen fabric It had taken on the scent of the dustyany that h Blackveil If only she could take her things back to the professor’s house--or at least one iteht--her things were safer here Maybe she could just visit therew accustoet what it was like to traverse a public street unveiled or to carry a sword She feared her former life would beco with every passing day Already, she thought, she had adjusted to the acrid air of the city The custo et what it was like to be a well-rounded citizen able to take part in the many spheres of life as she had in her Sacoridia? Would she accept her role here, li no say in her own affairs? The women here lived well or poorly based solely on the sufferance of the an’s Sacoridia had not been perfect, she could not believe it had coed to steal the individual power of all the people here, leaving the women--and the slaves--trapped at the bottom of society?

It was the weapon The weapon the professor said Areat weapon, the one that had destroyed Sacor City and the castle Now Silk was delving for a device that could counteract the e to reach it before the professor and his opposition could If only she could get back hoZachary She jerked back, startled, but when there were no iht glancing on thees ca a chamber draped with heavy tapestries and shields In the center of it stood King Zachary ore a glea the fit She did not see hie but at different angles in each shard She saw his ile picture

She noted how light fro his hair and close-cropped beard lared on his breastplate He was the same as she remembered, and yet notHis cheekbones looked sharper, his eyes shadowed, tired Despite the sunlight, there was a darkness on him He turned, as if to exale His profile looked too thin to her Had he been sick? She frowned, worried now

An attendant cahtening side straps, and then stepped back and out of the i said, if anything Wished she could step through the vision to be there in the chaly to one another yet forbidden to be together He was royalty, she was a co Sacoridia’s twelve provinces in the face of threats fro a commoner as ould only thrust the country into discord

Not that Karigan hadn’t iht of herself as queen I’d be terrible! A queen would be as confined to that role and to the castle as any woman of the professor’s time to the hearth and veil If she stayed here, it would kill her The confineid and limited expectations So would the crown No hest rank to which one could ascend--after the king, of course--it was just another kind of prison Even duty-bound to the er service and required to follow orders from her superiors, she was freer as a Rider, as free as anyone could be, which was a because she had once believed the opposite