“Well, give it a look, then.”

She snorted but set to work. Moments later she shot to her feet with an excited yelp. “Got it.” She clutched a smaller wooden box to her chest like a trophy and grinned at me. A lock on the front suggested the box held valuable contents, such as an emerald ring. Genevieve curled her fingers around the lid and pried, but it refused to open. “This lock isn’t budging.”

“Then someone got their money’s worth.” I wove through the maze of costumes and fabrics and joined her as she examined the box. “Do you know anything about lock picking?”

She glanced up and gave me a questioning look. “Why would you think I would?”

“You know how to trick ride, and you made your own saddle. Who knows what other nefarious skills you might have acquired?”

“I have other skills. Lock picking isn’t one of them, unfortunately.”

I held a flat palm open toward her. “Give it to me. I have an idea.”

“Oh? Were you a cat burglar in a previous life?”

“Perhaps.” I fluttered my lashes and offered a saccharine smile. “Give it over.”

The princess shrugged and slapped the box in my hand. I took it to Z’arta’s cutting table and set it down. “I need a pick. And a mallet.”

“Those aren’t your standard sewing tools, are they?”

An idea bloomed to life. “The tent wagon. They have mallets for pounding in tent stakes. Wait here, I’ll be right back.”

I turned for the door, but Genevieve grabbed my shoulder and tugged me back. “I’ll go with you.”

“You should stay here and make sure no one catches us with that box.”

“What if you run into someone out there and need me to translate?”

Unable to find a reason to disagree, I sighed and motioned for her to follow. After snatching a candle from the table, I lit it and together we crept into the night. Outside, the circus had gone quiet except for a few couples who huddled close to the fire at the center of the wagon ring. Sticking close to the shadows, the princess and I hurried toward the tent cart. When we reached the rear end, I knocked on the door. Moments later one door swung open on creaky hinges. “Hello, Stefan.” I recognized his straggly gray curls and bowler hat. “We need to ask you a favor.”

“Cosa vuoi?” he asked. Flickering light from my little candle emphasized the deep wrinkles in his face when he frowned. I glanced at Genevieve, hoping she’d understood his question.

Apparently, she had because she babbled something and made a gesture I interpreted as her swinging a mallet. Stefan harrumphed but disappeared into the tent wagon’s gloom. A dim light from an oil lamp revealed Stefan was not alone. His helper, Laromé, sat on the floor, holding a fan of playing cards. Another stack of cards lay in a haphazard pile on the floor, and several wooden chits teetered in uneven heaps. Laromé flashed a smile and flicked his fingers in a brief wave. Moments later, Stefan returned, toting a mallet and a slim, pointed bit of iron.

I blinked at Genevieve, surprised at our luck. “This is perfect. What did you tell him?”

“I said my horse had gotten a rock in its shoe, and I needed something to chisel it out.”

Impressed, I patted her shoulder. “Good thinking.”

She grinned. “Tereza may have gotten the looks in our family, but I got most of the brains.”

Chapter 16

Once we had returned to the costumes wagon and locked the door behind us, I positioned the little locked box on the cutting table so its backside was braced against the wall. I shoved the pick’s tapered tip into the lock’s keyhole and lined up the mallet. Raring back, I swung down hard and struck the pick. With a bang and metallic squeal of protesting parts, the box’s lid popped open.

The princess gaped at me. “How’d you know that would work?”

“A friend showed me. We were locked together with pirate manacles, and this was how she broke us loose.”

Her mouth fell farther open. “Pirates?”

“Slavers. They were going to sell us on the black market, but Malita helped me escape.”

The color drained from Genevieve’s face. “I—I didn’t know.”

“How would you?” I shrugged. “With a few exceptions, the last few months haven’t been especially easy for me. Your sister’s kindness was a rare, if short-lived gift. I’m indebted to her.”

The princess’s shock disappeared, replaced with a dark scowl. “She’s not always so kind, once you get to know her.”

“I can only judge based on the evidence I have. And since you refuse to talk about whatever it was that made you run, what else can I say?” A jumble of jewels and gold spilled from the box into my hand when I tipped it over. Stepping closer to the oil lamp, I searched for a glint of green.

“You won’t believe me. No one ever does. Everyone treats Tereza like...like she’s flawless, incapable of inflicting pain.”

“I know very well about being deceived by those closest to you.” I glanced up from my treasure search and met her stare. “Gideon betrayed me to his uncle. He delivered me into that evil bastard’s hands, knowing he was going to steal my powers. That man would have taken my birthright and given it to his son.”

She gasped and pressed a hand against her lips. “No.”

I swirled a finger through the remaining jewelry in my hand, pausing when something flashed green in the lamplight. “Oh, yes.”

“But Gideon adores you.” Meeting her gaze again, I saw something cross her face: a momentary flinch of pain. Her eyebrows knitted together. “And you adore him. I could see it the night you came to play games in our apartment.”

I smiled, sharp and bitterly. “People are complicated, are they not? Things are rarely what they seem on the surface.”

“So, you two aren’t...you know.”

I stifled my laughter because I sensed she would shut down if she thought I wasn’t taking her seriously. “What? In love?” I shook my head. “I don’t know what we are. We’ve come a long way together, and he’s mostly restored my faith. But we’re all capable of horrible things.” I pinched a ring between my fingers and held it up for her inspection. Light shone through the stones, and they glimmered a delicious, rich green. “We’re capable of redemption and forgiveness, too, I hope.”

I passed the emerald ring to her, and she cupped it in her palm, studying the gems. “I don’t know if I believe that. If you knew the terrible things—”

“You don’t have to tell me, but if you ever want to talk, I’ll listen. You might find we have more in common than you think.”

Glancing up, she bit her lip and shoved the ring into my hand. “I’m going to take the mallet back to Stefan and check on Mika.”

She might have been on the verge of sharing something personal, but I knew from experience that trust wasn’t something I could simply earn. It also had to be given, and perhaps the princess wasn’t in a generous mood. Still, I sensed things had changed between us—the constant tension had eased a bit. Understanding her need for some time alone, I didn’t push her to talk. Instead, I simply nodded. “I’ll leave the lamp on for you.”

After slipping out of my ridiculous velveteen knickers and the other bits of my borrowed costume, I crawled into my sleeping pallet in my underthings and drew the covers up to my chin. In the nighttime quiet, the thud of my steady heartbeat pounded in my ears. Sleep clutched at me like the tentacles of a gentle octopus, tugging me from the surface of awareness into the dark depths of oblivion.

***

At some point, I must have slept because when I awoke, I felt as though I first had to crawl through a foggy tunnel before reaching consciousness. An immediate sense of wrongness swept over me, and I sat up and rolled onto my knees. Something echoed in my memory—a sound, distant and muffled. What had it been?

Nighttime silence pressed against my eardrums as I listened for whatever had brought me awake. Genevieve had not returned. The absence of her heavy breathing and the utter silence of the camp felt ominous and foreboding. Perhaps she was still commiserating with her horse, but a suspicion that something had gone wrong burned within me, growing hotter and more urgent by the second.

My heart quaked, dancing frenzied pirouettes as I reached for the wagon door, cracked it open, and peered outside. I closed my eyes and strained to listen for anything, any clue as to Genevieve’s whereabouts, but only the quiet susurrus of wind blowing through a distant patch of trees replied. “Sher-sah,” I called, a harsh whisper. “Where are you, you big brute?”

After waiting several worrisome moments, a familiar low rumble greeted me, and a reflection of the stars from the evening sky sparkled on Sher-sah’s polished frame as he approached. “Where’s Genevieve?”