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And, for that, Brook had been grateful

That gratitude had faded, however, as days stretched into weeks, and weeks intointo his skin until they were practically iht places to look for theh, allowed herself to believe that nothing had changed between them because of it In her eyes, they were the same Brook and Aron they’d always been

But that wasn’t the case, she was re his otherwise perfect co was the same anymore

"You don’t know I could be the best marksman in Ludania You wouldn’t want to waste a skill like that on horse duty, would you?"

"It wouldn’t exactly be wasted, we need the horses as badly as we need another gun herself tightly, her teeth just starting to chatter "Until we find Charlie, that’s all thatuntil several sets of eyes turned in her direction

Aron got up andboth hands in ive I’ll be a stable boy, or whatever you needone ar her close to hi into hi the temperature, and she felt like a moth, drawn to that kind of heat

"We’ll find her," he proainst the top of her head, his voice growing distant and thoughtful "If it’s the last thing we do, we’ll find her"

xii

There had to be some sort of mistake

I repeated those sa after we’d left the confined walls of the rank cottage and Florence had taken us to his er, but vastly cleaner and more homelike It had real floors, real wooden walls, and s had

But no matter how hard I tried to deny it, I’d seen the h no one else had been able to read the scribblings in that unfae, I had I knehat it said I knew that whoever had written the notes had inside information, dates and times of each of my stops Information that only someone from the palace could have known Information that had been meant to be secret

Someone had betrayed me

Florence sat with his elbows on a table made from unfinished lu strange shadows over his sharp features andfrom his scalp "Get Her Majesty some soup," he snapped at the woman who’d quietly slipped into the rooaze lowered, in the saher status was speaking in our presence During Sabara’s rule