“Some are hoping for more land, loftier positions. The young ladies are sent by their fathers to try wooing Prince Talin.”

“Not Ceren?”

Ebb lowered her voice. “Ceren has always been determined to marry a Varenian.”

That seemed odd, considering how he felt about Queen Talia. But my thoughts had snagged on Ebb’s remark about someone else. “And Talin?” I asked, trying to sound mildly disinterested. “Does he favor a particular lady?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” she said, glancing at me from the corner of her eye.

Ebb was a bit too shrewd sometimes. “Do you have any siblings?” I asked to change the subject.

I caught her smile in the mirror. “An older brother, milady.”

“Where does he live?”

The smile evaporated, and I knew I’d asked the wrong question. “He’s here, in the castle.” Ebb set down the brush. “Can I get you anything else?”

I excused her, but the nagging feeling that something was wrong followed me later when I covered myself in a thick wool wrap and headed out into the corridor. I’d only done a little exploring on my own, but I had some sense of my way around now.

The halls were cold and deserted at this time of night. I passed the occasional servant, and they politely acknowledged me with a nod of the head and a quick bow or curtsy, but aside from the guards scattered along the corridors, I was mostly alone. The lunar moss torches glowed very faintly, bathing everything in their eerie blue glow. I felt like some sort of strange deep-sea creature sensing my way through the dark; someone could be standing right next to me, and I wouldn’t know it.

I was starting to lose my nerve when I saw a pale light ahead in the gloom. It whisked past the corridor I was in and down a narrower one. I hurried to follow it, thinking it was another lord or lady who could direct me back to my chambers, but quickly saw that it was Ceren, carrying a lantern emitting a soft green glow. His white-blond hair trailed behind him as he rounded another corner.

I only hesitated for a moment. If he caught me, I’d tell him I was on my way to visit Lady Hyacinth and had gotten lost. Fortunately, my slippers were soft-soled and made no sound on the stone floors, and my nightgown hardly rustled when I moved. Ceren took another turn, and I hung back long enough to peer around the corner before following him. His long black robes scraped the floor as he walked, like nails scritching at a door.

We were deeper in the mountain than I’d ever been before, the floors sloping down more steeply as we went. The corridors were smaller here—I could touch both sides if I stretched my arms out, and the ceilings barely cleared Ceren’s head. I hadn’t seen a guard for a while now.

I gasped when something fluttered in my hair: a moth, tangled in the strands. Ceren turned and raised his foxfire lantern, and I pressed myself flat against the wall, praying he couldn’t see me in the shadows. I had no logical excuse for being this deep in the mountain other than following him, and the realization that I had put myself in a very dangerous situation struck me. Ceren could do anything to me down here, and no one would hear. I may as well have been a dozen miles away from civilization. My heart rate quickened as I felt the weight of all the stone surrounding us press in on me.

I could die in this tunnel, and my body might never be found.

When Ceren turned back around and continued on, I slid down against the wall, taking deep breaths to steady myself. I couldn’t linger long—Ceren had taken the only light with him, and I was completely blind without it. I rose shakily to my feet and felt for the next corner, but I was too late. He was gone.

I blinked into the blackness. He couldn’t have disappeared. It was just dark, I told myself, and there was probably another corner up ahead. I continued to feel my way along the wall, hardly daring to breathe. Suddenly the wall fell away, and the air around me was cooler, less oppressive. Ahead of me, I could see something shimmering on the ground.

And then I heard it. Water.

As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw the green light of Ceren’s lantern bobbing in the distance. I took a cautious step forward. I was in a giant cavern, with a vast underground lake spread out before me. Farther ahead, I could make out more faint green lights and shadows passing in front of them. Ebb had made it seem like no one in the castle would willingly go near a large body of water, including Ceren, but there were other people here. Why?

I kept my hand against the wall of the cave, which was only a foot or two from the water’s edge. Several times I could feel the coldness seep into my slippers as the water lapped gently against the stone shore. The green lights were closer now, but I still couldn’t make out the voices of the shadowy figures. I crept as close as I dared, until I could just make out the people’s silhouettes in the dim light, and crouched behind a column formed by a massive stalagmite.

“How long were you under?” I heard Ceren ask.

“Seven, maybe eight minutes, Your Highness.” The voice was that of a child, thin and high-pitched and frightened. “Please don’t make me go again. It’s dark down there, and so cold.”

I couldn’t make out Ceren’s next words, but they were gruff and angry.

The child spoke again. “Ten minutes? But my brother—”

Another man’s voice cut the child off. “How long do you need, Your Highness? We can buy more time with a larger air bladder.”

I crept out cautiously from behind the stalagmite to get a better look. I could just make out the sack and hose I’d seen in Ceren’s workshop, but now the bag was filled with air.

“I won’t be able to gather enough oysters in seven minutes. Of course, that’s assuming there are any to be had. The Varenians claim they’re impossible to find, and evidently only one in a dozen will have a pearl. I need more time.”

“We’ll keep working on it, Your Highness.”

“Of course you will. I’ve already told Talin about the test. You have a week to get it right.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” the two voices said.

So Melina was right. With a device that allowed Ceren to breathe underwater for ten minutes, he could dive far more efficiently than any Varenian. True, some of our men had been known to hold their breath for that long, but not while hunting. The longest I had ever stayed down was five minutes, perhaps six during the incident. And if Ceren was able to create more devices, he could easily use his own men to harvest the pearls. He would not only render the Varenians obsolete, he would cut us off from our only source of income.

Ceren would be the death of us all, just like Melina said.

I shifted back into my crouch behind the stalagmite just as Ceren’s robes resumed their swishing. He was only a few feet away when something stirred in the water.