The fifth object of the hour—a chair pillow—smacked against the wall of Isaiah's room as he paced back and forth like a caged animal. His foot hit a previously thrown pillow, which he snatched up and promptly threw again. It struck the window, making the glass rattle fiercely. That window was unlocked, but led to nothing but a three-story drop. The balcony too remained accessible, but his mother had ordered the removal of all the closest branches on the tree outside, and stripped Isaiah's bed. He'd slept curled beneath spare clothing the night before, shivering and feeling scarcely human.

After that, he'd given up trying to keep a clean image. Books, pillows, and personal effects he hadn't taken with him littered the floor of his room. He'd donned his most comfortable clothes that morning, knowing full well his mother would tell him to change out of them before coming to see her, and not caring in the slightest. And that was if she called him today at all. She'd always used wait times as a power play, leaving him to pace his room, trying not to spiral, for anywhere from hours to days before she deigned to see him. It had worked too well in the past, driving him into a pit of despair that stripped him of his fight. This time was different.

Unable to sleep, he'd dismantled his room in the last half-day. Drawers stood upturned, their contents scattered. He'd flung all the pillows from his bed and chair; dumped the paper, pen, and inkwell from his desk out the window into the garden below; and tested every clothing item he had for its rope-making potential in the event that he had to escape again. Only the routes he paced across the floor remained clear.

He'd be forced to clean all this up. The very thought tempted him to say no just to see what would happen. He'd already done enough to lose the last of his freedom, and he knew he was stronger than his mother. Even if his shoulder still ached from his capture the day before. If Meribah Cantor came to slap him again, he no longer knew if he would take it, or snap and lash out in return.

The window rattled again. Isaiah froze. In the silence that followed, something chirped outside. He crossed the room in a heartbeat and flung back the latch. Pekea dove straight into his arms, chirping up a storm as he swept her up and hugged her close.

"You got away safe," he whispered.

She wormed out of his arms, making for his face with single-minded determination. When she slithered onto his shoulder, she sniffed across the bruise on his cheek, then around his head and over his shoulders.

"I'm fine," he said, stroking her wings before scooping her down again to check her, too. She chirped in protest. "Hold still."

She must not be hurt, because she flatly refused to. When she'd screened him to her satisfaction, she chirred and snuggled across the back of his neck. Her head lifted, sniffing the air. The chirrup that left her then was one she'd begun to make when greeting Niccola, as though assigning her a name. Isaiah's throat tightened. When he didn't respond, Pekea nose-poked him and made the sound again.

"She's not here," he said.

Whether Pekea understood the words or simply his tone, he would never know. She heatbutted the side of his neck.

"I'm stuck here, Pea."

His lack of movement was not satisfactory. Pekea leaned forward the way she did to guide him, directing him towards the door. She made another squeaky noise of frustration when he didn't obey. She slithered to the ground. Isaiah frowned as she scuttled to one corner of the room, where a furious rustling and the scrape of wicker indicated she was burrowing behind his blanket chest. "Pea, what are you doing?"

She jumped to his bed a moment later, triumphant. Isaiah crossed the room and sat on the mattress. Pekea approached him like she expected to be scolded. She shied back when he reached towards her, so Isaiah put his hands in his lap and waited for his guide dragon to set something very gently on top of them. He picked it up. It was a beaded silk slipper.

"Pekea, what did you steal?" he said in horror. "Is this from the ball?"

She headbutted his hand, driving it and the slipper against him, then took it in her mouth and tugged.

"Hey. Let me have a look."

Isaiah lifted it out of her reach to inspect it with both hands. The slipper clearly belonged to someone of high class: the silk and stitching were both of exceptional quality. The soft leather sole gritted beneath his touch. This had not been cleaned after it had last been worn, which meant it had been worn immediately before Pekea made off with it.

Definitely from the ball, then. He had no idea who'd worn it, though, and little way to tell, short of bringing it to a wayfinder. Calis's wayfinders were all occupied with more important things right now. Isaiah leaned down and tapped the leather sole against the floor. It was quiet. The dancer who wore it would have been silent on the dance floor, but that described many women from that evening, short of those who'd proved to be shod in harder soles when they'd stepped on his toes.

The slipper passed through Pekea's reach again as Isaiah straightened up. She snatched it unexpectedly, yanked it from his hand, and climbed halfway up his chest, shoving it at him.

"Pea, what are you doing?" said Isaiah crossly.

The dragon chirred furiously in response.

"You want me to take it? Then tell me who you took it from."

Pekea made her frustration audible. She dropped the slipper and just stood for a moment with her front claws on his chest. Then, very slowly, she lowered herself until she was lying flat against him, still upright, and tucked her head sideways against his collarbone. She made the name-sound again.

Isaiah froze. "Niccola?"

Pekea sprang up, snatched the slipper, and thrust it at him again. Isaiah sat with his mouth half open, not sure whether to scold the wings off of her or burst out laughing. Pekea had stolen a shoe from Niccola on the night of the ball. Of course she had; she'd gotten out of her crate, which meant she'd almost certainly seen Niccola steal him for the longest dance of the night. Nothing made Pekea more jealous than seeing someone else with her master when she wasn't allowed to be. Before she could escape him, Isaiah scooped up the dragon and hugged her again.

"You absolute twit," he whispered. "You know I'm going to have to return this to her now."

But more than that, he had a way to track her down. Niccola had mentioned wearing beaded slippers on the night of the ball, when he'd asked her to describe herself. If Pekea was so attached to this one, it had to be Niccola's.

Steps started up the stairway at the end of the hall outside. Isaiah shoved the slipper in his pocket, glad he was wearing loose pants that would hide it. The jingle of a pair of guards approached his door. Their presence drained Isaiah's elation as reality sank in again. Yet it didn't take him down this time. Something had changed. He gripped the slipper and stood up, Pekea returning to her place on his shoulder as he moved to the middle of the room. One guard fiddled with the lock on the door and swung it open.

Isaiah smiled coldly at the silence that followed. He could picture both guards taking in the chaos of his upturned room. "Come to get me?"

The usual claws of fear had tightened around his lungs, but something else slipped through them. He was being recklessly cocky, but finding the slipper had loosed a part of him that would normally have stayed silent. In its own way, it pierced the suffocating palace walls. He had a link to Niccola in his hand. A way to find her, and a reminder that she existed along with the rest of the outside world. He would be damned if they tried to take that away from him.

"Your mother wishes to speak with you," said one guard, while the other shuffled their feet beside him.

Isaiah's eyebrows flicked up. Neither guard was the gruff man who'd manhandled him yesterday morning. He wondered if that roughness had crossed a line. In his parents' worldview, it reflected poorly on the royal family to have a son walking around with visible bruises, and he stood in short sleeves now, yesterday's bruises on full display. Isaiah hoped viciously that some visitor or dual citizen of Madeira had seen his capture. The more his parents had to answer for, the better positioned he might be to curry favor with their ally-enemies.

Both guards stepped forward. Isaiah stepped back. "I'll walk by myself this time, thanks."

The guards paused, reinforcing Isaiah's suspicions. That, or they weren't used to seeing him in anything but a button-up. Bruises weren't the only thing on display right now, and he certainly hoped the outcome of all the sparring he'd ever done with Margaret would add intimidation value to his near-suicidal non-plan. Isaiah gave the guards a pointed look.

"We were told to fetch you," said the second guard, maintaining a neutral tone that did not match her failure to advance again.

"And I'll come, if I'm allowed to walk on my own. Get out of my room."

To his shock, both of them shuffled back. Isaiah followed, heart punching him in the breastbone at the risk he was taking. He kept one hand clenched around Niccola's slipper. The other curled into a fist, braced for the trigger of hands on his arms. He heard one guard's hands lift, but shot her a fierce look. She dropped them.

"The dragon stays," said the other gruffly. "That's orders."

"Pekea comes with me, or I don't come."

"The queen—"

"Can take it up with me if she has an issue with my guide dragon."

To his utter surprise—again—that shut the guards up. But then again... why wouldn't it? He was still a royal. Most of the palace guards liked him far better than they did his parents, and that influence was sure to have lent him credibility in the barracks. Isaiah began to walk down the hallway, hackles still raised, waiting for the guards to grab him like yesterday, but they only followed tamely.

Niccola was right. He had power here.

Pekea pressed close around the back of his neck, another reminder that he wasn't alone. The thought of someone grabbing her and pulling her off sent a surge of protective anger through Isaiah's body. That was enough to stave off the panic that normally crippled him in these circumstances. It was the first time in his living memory that the walk from his room to the throne room in the company of guards did not reduce him to a shaking wreck by the time the throne room doors swung wide.

The whole hall went silent as he walked in. He could imagine his mother on the left-hand throne directly ahead, her silence no doubt accompanied by an unpleasant expression as she realized he was escorted but not held, in informal clothing, with visible bruises, and Pekea on his shoulders. Isaiah fixed his gaze where that throne would be. When he and his escort stopped before the throne dais, his mother did not even bother to address him first.

"You were told to leave the beast behind when you brought him," she said to the guards.

"I gave a different order," said Isaiah. He sounded calm: a minor miracle. His mother's voice was enough to stir up a storm of trained fears inside him, threatening to make him sick. He held his head high and refused to show it, but she'd know. She always knew.

"Your order means nothing," she said icily, and Isaiah battled the urge to drop his head or lose the stance he clung to. He could not give his mother the satisfaction of breaking him in front of so many people, and her voice alone was enough to bring him dangerously close. Isaiah took a breath and focused on Pekea's warmth instead. The real fight had arrived.