Someone knocked on the door before Isaiah could do more than freeze. He got to his feet slowly, with a spooked expression that set off all of Niccola's internal alarms.

"Outside, now," he whispered. "See to the crow."

Niccola tossed the cushion she'd been sitting on onto his bed and crossed the room in a heartbeat to test the door to the balcony. It was unlocked. The last things she heard before she eased it shut behind her was the rattle of the room's other doorknob, and a woman's voice that she recognized as the queen's.

"Isaiah? Are you in there?"

Everything went silent when the door closed. Niccola pressed her ear to it, but it was solid wood and let only the muffled garble of voices through. She withdrew again and looked around. He'd said to see to the crow, and nothing would provide her better cover. The balcony was a simple one, perched on another room, overlooking a long wing of the palace below. In its most sheltered corner was a rook-house on an old wooden table, with a perch above and food and water beside it. Niccola peeked into the house. The crow was there, eyes shut and feathers fluffed in a way that told Niccola she was unwell.

"What's your name?" said Niccola. It was customary to ask, whether or not the bird responded with an actual name or something more distracted. This one, though, did not respond at all.

"I was told you had taken ill," continued Niccola. The language of the crows was less coarse at a murmur, like a mix of their softest caws and a foreign human tongue. "I might be able to help. Would you let me see you?"

When she checked the rook-house again to gauge the response, she found the crow awake, watching her. Something about that gaze, the lay of the crow's feathers, and the silence of her thoughts was familiar. Niccola pulled back sharply as a chill ran up her spine. "It's you?"

The mute crow continued to watch her without responding. Suddenly ill at ease, Niccola unwound the scarf she was wearing and held it for a moment, debating what to do. So this was where the crow had been for the last week that she'd been missing. This was her home. Had Niccola not known better, she would have suspected this was her sister, drawn to both a palace and to Niccola for their familiarity, even in lapsed form. But Phoebe's crow would carry the same white patching on its feathers as she'd worn on her skin. Niccola had checked this crow before, stroking her back for any sign of dye or fading. There had been none.

But this crow was still sick, and acting strangely. Niccola approached again. She reached a hand into the rook-house with another reassurance, then whipped it back as the bird's beak missed it by a hair. A low rattle rebuked her. The crow struggled to her feet, limping forward like she meant to escape. Niccola took her scarf in both hands. She waited for the crow to edge out onto the table, ready to fly, then lunged. In a flash, she'd cast the scarf over the crow's back and caught her feet, sweeping her close so her back rested against Niccola's chest. The crow squawked wildly, wings unable to beat beneath the restraint. She tried and failed to peck instead.

"Got you," said Niccola in a low voice, not bothering with crow-language this time. "Now, let's see where you're from, hm?"

Varna banded all its bred and trained birds, and most messenger-crows in the Ring of Thirty were Varnic. Madeira's small breeding stock was marked the same way. Niccola checked the crow's left leg, but found it bandless and striped with scars. The bird bucked in her arms.

"Calm down, or you will damage your feathers," Niccola scolded. "I am not here to hurt you."

The crow rattled back.

Isaiah had said this was his messenger-crow. Niccola had never heard of a properly trained messenger without a band, unless this one had simply lost it. Possible, but unlikely. In most cases, crows without bands were simply wild crows.

One of the crow's legs shifted differently than the other when she bucked again. Niccola already suspected injury—the bird would not be fighting so strongly if she was sick—and already had a guess as to where she would find the wound. It would help to have a second person here, but she could manage alone. Niccola transferred both the crow's feet to one hand and gripped her neck firmly with the other, turning her onto her back. Matted feathers confirmed her suspicions. She flicked the end of the scarf around the crow's neck and, from there, deftly turned the rest of her scarf into a restraining jacket that would let her inspect the injury without damaging feathers or letting the crow injure herself. If she were home, she would likely anesthetize the bird lightly, but she had none of her crow-keeping supplies here.

The crow, unlike most once wrapped cozily, continued to rattle, hiss, and struggle. Niccola knelt on the stone balcony and tucked her between her knees. Before she could touch the injury, though, the crow jerked her head loose and dealt Niccola a savage peck to the arm. Niccola cursed. The crow gave an almighty twist, but did not manage to break free. Ignoring the new wound, Niccola returned to her inspection. Buried beneath the crow's feathers were two long gashes with puncture wounds at their upper ends. Niccola peered at it. She had seen similar damage done by birdhooks before, but this injury was too big for one of those. The size of a large fishhook instead.

The crow twisted fiercely again. This was going to prove too much stress for her.

"Fine, I will let you go," said Niccola. She flipped the crow over and flicked off the scarf. The bird flapped painfully to the table and dove into her rook-house. She was behaving very oddly. Niccola got to her feet and brushed feathers from her dress, then shook out her scarf. She would have to wash it now. Folding it with a flick, she returned to the balcony door and put an ear to it again. Silence greeted her from the other side.

At least she had an alibi if the queen was still present. Niccola pulled the door open. The room beyond was empty save for Isaiah, who sat against the opposite door with his head down. He startled and looked up at the sound of Niccola's entrance.

"How is she?" he said.

"Injured, but not badly. You can tell your crow-keep to give you silvermint for her water to stave off infection, but that should be enough."

Isaiah's brow furrowed. "That's it?"

"She was quite... temperamental for such a minor wound."

"So I've been told. Thank you for confirming. I was getting worried."

He had not yet gotten up, nor asked about her admission to being Varnic royalty. For the first time, Niccola noticed the slump in his shoulders. He'd sat taller before.

"Was that your mother?" she said.

"You said you were royalty."

It was a diversion. An obvious one, but justified: she should have known she would not be able to escape questioning. Niccola retrieved her cushion from Isaiah's bed and returned to her seat in the middle of the room. "I wasn't lying."

"Am I correct in interpreting, then," said Isaiah, "that your missing sister is the crown princess of Varna?"

The words dropped the floor out from under her, though some part of her had known they were coming. So he knew how it worked. How it didn't matter that Niccola was older, more experienced, more diplomatic. She could be the most perfect candidate ruler Varna had ever seen, and it would not matter, because the Varnic royal family had a barrower line, and they valued it highly. So highly, they had blinded themselves to other skills just as relevant to the raising and training of crows. Hearing it from Isaiah made the sting Niccola had carried since childhood all the more potent.

"By magic only," she said. She did not try to soften the coolness in her tone. If he already thought her second to her sister, she had less to lose by way of reputation. "But yes."

"You sit on the throne?"

"In most functional ways."

"Why is it, then, that you are here in pursuit of her?" Isaiah's face was unreadable again, and it hurt, to think that he might think less of her. She was not supposed to be vulnerable to these thoughts. Before she could speak, Isaiah finished, "Your parents both passed four years ago. If you are the acting ruler of Varna, why are you here, pretending to be a serving-woman when you suspect there may be a necromantic threat in this corner of the Ring of Thirty? In whose hands did you leave your realm?"

Niccola stilled. Isaiah now echoed the only people who had ever come close to talking her out of pursuing the woman in the sketch: the nobles who'd told her to stay on the throne, as there were others more equipped to search for Phoebe... and others less equipped to lead the realm.

She had even believed them, at the time. But then she'd returned to the rest of reality and seen how others looked at her sideways and began to whisper among themselves. About how a non-barrower could never have a barrower child. How the realm's reputation would fall without a crow-speaker on the throne. How the Varnic ruling line would end with a whimper. And how Niccola herself had been responsible for her sister running away. Enough of those whispers, and Niccola's belief faltered. Enough secret meetings among nobles to which she was not invited, and it failed.

If they were going to think of her so, fine. She would wear that role they cast her into. She would don it personally and proudly so that they would never again be able to mock her with it, and then she would leave. If they wanted her sister, she would give them back her sister. It was her own arguments with Phoebe that had driven the latter out of the palace anyway, into the forest where she subsequently disappeared. If Niccola died while pursuing her, that would only make up for her failings. And it would leave Varna in regret. Then, at least, she would die with pride.

"I left it under the rule of my aunt," she said. "She can hold a throne."

"And you came to Calis alone in search of a member of my family?"

"I did."

"What will you do if you catch her?"

Niccola smiled coldly. "Is that a question you want to know the answer to?"

"Only to know if our interests are aligned."

"If my sister has lapsed, I plan to request a trade to bring her back again."

She watched Isaiah process that. A barrower lapsed after three moons' missed offerings, but that form was not necessarily permanent. If the correct crow could be identified—often by its attachment to places or people from its human life—a trade could be made to return it to human form. A trade with the same rites and the same stakes as the creation of a barrower lineage: a life for a life.

"And if she is not lapsed?" said Isaiah. "If she was prey?"

That was a question she would not give him the answer to, and not only because he may not want to know. Niccola had no plans to tell anyone.

"If my sister is no longer alive," she said, "then let us simply say that neither Calis nor Varna will need to worry again about whatever or whoever killed her."

She expected Isaiah to bristle at that, but he did not. "I should rightfully be turning you over to my parents for threatening a member of my family or the integrity of the Calisian judicial system right now," he said.

His calmness said everything she needed to know. Niccola smiled sweetly. "And will you?"

"I would only do that if I told my parents anything, ever. As it so happens, I don't." Isaiah pushed himself up off the floor and moved to his desk, where he gathered paper, ink, and a pen.

Niccola raised her eyebrows as he handed these to her. "And what is the purpose of this?"

"We are working together now, are we not? You will get nowhere in my family without me, and I will get nowhere in my search without your sketch from the diviner. If we are going to keep each other's secrets, the least we should do is properly plan."

Niccola set herself up for notetaking. "An excellent idea. We will need a way to meet regularly, first of all. I cannot continue posing as a crow-keep when you have one in your palace who can handle such a simple injury."

For the first time since she'd returned to the room, a sharp smile cut across Isaiah's face. "You feigned courtship well enough at the ball. Well enough, in fact, that I nearly mistook it as genuine. How stands that skill outside of a dance?"

Niccola stared at him, her mouth half open, words lost somewhere between her mind and her tongue. Isaiah's smile—that infuriating, contagious smile—intercepted her thoughts and spun them around in a manner she was not used to at all.

"Are you trying to genuinely court me?" she demanded.

"Perhaps. You forget I am in a desperate position."

"Am I a last resort, then, born of desperation simply because I bring a political connection you are trying to forge?"

"No. I like your mind."

Niccola gaped at him. He just smiled as he returned to the desk and snapped his fingers. Pekea hopped off the chair she'd returned to and joined him. Isaiah penned a note on another, smaller piece of paper, tucked it into a ring in her collar, and said, "Kitchen." Pekea hopped off the desk and scooted away.

"Sending for snacks?" said Niccola.

"I don't see why not, if we'll be here for a while."

"I can't tell if you are genuinely flirting, or simply trying to curry my favor."

"Why can't it be both?"

"You are insufferable."

His smile split into a grin. "I'm an only child. I need someone to tease, and I daresay you're good at returning the intellectual challenge."

For all Niccola's indignation, it was impossible to keep down a smile. This exchange had the unique property of putting her off-balance and at ease simultaneously. She would never say it, but the joy of this particular intellectual challenge was one they shared.

And he'd sent for snacks.

"You trust me a great deal for everything I've told you about my motives," she said.

"Trust is a strong word."

"You don't give it out so freely?"

This time, his smile faded. He turned away, pulling open a drawer by his bedside and retrieving—of all things—needle-felting materials and a half-finished bird small enough to fit in his palm. "I rarely give it out at all," he said, as he retrieved his reading pillow from the wall and dropped it against his bed instead, somewhat closer to Niccola. He sorted out the felting supplies beside him. "I can currently name two exceptions."

"And who might those be?"

"Verde and his wife."

"Where do I fall on the spectrum?"

Isaiah lowered his hands and contemplated her, like he could see her face and was reading it closely. There was something disconcerting about knowing that a mask composed of facial expressions would do her little good under his scrutiny.

"Your conviction is reassuring," he said at last. "And I sense you will speak your mind when you think something, whether or not I agree with it. There is something to be said for that consistency."

The unknown sentiment she'd felt before returned in force, strong enough to identify this time. He said he did not trust easily, which meant there was something pleasing about having earned at least enough of it for them to be having this conversation. Even if he was only acting out of desperation.

"Are most people not so consistent?" she said, in case those were runaway thoughts and not representative of reality.

"You'd be surprised." He sat back and picked up the felted bird and needle, then nodded to the paper in Niccola's lap. "Shall we, then? At this rate, we'll need a date tomorrow just to get started."

"If you propose it, it's going on the list," said Niccola, and wrote it. "Date tomorrow. Palace gardens, or a walk in town?"

"If I'm kept in the palace, I will probably break something. Zina Mizrahi has delightful harvest sweetbreads at this time of year."

"Enough said. I will have to complete morning chores first, though. Noon?"

"Noon at the market entrance. Come hungry."

Niccola returned his grin. "I presently eat scraps for most meals. I can always manage that."