He hadn't been lying. The shock of it spread over Niccola's skin like cold water seeping through her clothes, as the footsteps drew close enough to make out the jingle of chain mail and the occasional thump of a spearbutt. Isaiah still had not removed his unseeing gaze from the wall. Something glistened on his cheek. At the sight of that first tear track, Niccola's scattered thoughts resolved and settled.

"Your door's locked," she said. "And no, I'm not going anywhere."

"They'll break it down if she tells them to."

His stony apathy was fraying. Pekea crawled into his lap and headbutted him with a distressed chirr, but he continued to ignore her. Niccola slid off the bed. Heat pulsed through her body as she strode to Isaiah's plush reading chair and wrenched it away from the wall. Her strength surprised her. Three moons of scrubbing dishes and pumping water had come to some good after all. The rug beneath her rippled as she propelled the chair across it. It hit the door with a thud. Niccola tipped it and wedged it under the door handle, effectively barring the door. She scanned the room again. Isaiah's desk was too full to be of use, but his night table was also made of solid wood. She retrieved it and hauled it to the door, too.

Isaiah pulled his knees up and hugged them, hiding his face in his arms. By the time the guards stopped outside, Niccola had used a dresser to complete her barricade.

A fist knocked on the door. "We've been sent with instructions to escort Niccola Landau off the premises," said the guard, a woman with a voice that betrayed something else. Her next words confirmed it. "Isaiah, I'm sorry."

The guards were on their side. A fierce pride warmed Niccola's chest, coexisting with the anger there as her opinion of Isaiah and dislike of Meribah were vindicated in one fell swoop. But more importantly, she could play this to their advantage. She leaned close to the door so her voice would reach the guard.

"I am Niccola Landau," she said, "and you might want to open yourselves to negotiation, because I am not leaving, and you are not getting through this door."

Silence greeted her words. Then one guard's armor jingled slightly, replied by the other. This continued back and forth until Niccola realized they were speaking with their hands. She stood back and crossed her arms, waiting. Isaiah had not moved. If anything, he'd curled up tighter, like a weight the size of a building-stone pressed him to the bed and threatened to crush him if he dared so much as lift his head.

When the guard spoke again, it was quietly and close to the door. "To what extent did you barricade it?"

"You are facing a bolt, a wedged chair, and three people's weights worth of furniture."

"We will both be in deep trouble if we are forced to seek backup and break through that. The queen does not appreciate replacing doors."

"And yet, here we are." An insubordinate smile crept across Niccola's face. She had power in this conversation, and it felt infinitely better than being pinned beneath Meribah's shifting words and too-sharp eyes. It set her limbs alight and tempted her to flirt with recklessness as she weaponized the guards' positions against them. Two advantages of a poor royal family were their paucity of guards and preciousness about property damage.

The guard sighed, just audibly, then leaned close again. "Look. I don't want to do this, but we have no choice against an order from the queen. What are your terms of negotiation, and how do they benefit us in this situation?"

"Tell them I escaped when I heard the guards coming."

"There are few other exits, and they are all guarded."

"Which one are you from?"

"Myself? The gardens."

Niccola's smile widened. Just her luck. "I escaped through the gardens, then, because I was forewarned before the alarm was sounded and slipped through while you were absent. I promise you I can escape the palace without notice from there."

"Without notice?"

"There is an unguarded servant's door behind the last gazebo."

The guard stood in silence for a long time. Then there was more hand-speak. At last, she returned to the door. "We can work with that, but need one promise first. If we are found to have lied, both of us will lose our jobs."

"I will make my presence invisible until such a time when I can escape."

More quiet jingles. This exchange was brief.

"My companion here will be on watch at the kitchen gate tomorrow morning," said the guard. "He can let you out there before the queen and king rise. Come before dawn."

"You have my word."

They left. Niccola stepped back from the door.

"Unblock it," said Isaiah shakily.

Niccola wheeled to face him. "I said, I'm not—"

"She's going to come speak with me. My mother. When the guards give her that story."

"Then she can contend with a locked door just the same."

"You don't understand." He was close to tears. "Please."

"If you expose me—"

"I won't. I promise."

He didn't seem to be lying. With a last long, suspicious look, Niccola pulled the furniture away from the door. She'd scarcely returned the chair to its corner when ominous footsteps started up the stairs at the end of the hallway. Meribah.

"Get under the bed," whispered Isaiah. The desperation was raw in his tone now. "And please. Whatever you do, don't make a sound. Whatever she does to me."

Niccola froze. Finally, it dawned on her what Isaiah was asking. She swallowed hard, then whispered an affirmative as her voice failed her. The bedcovers hung low off the bed's sides, concealing a deep space beneath. Niccola scooted under it with little trouble. The floor was frigid. Still, the space was well-shadowed, and backed by walls on two sides; even if Meribah peeked beneath, she would not see a dark-skinned, blue-dressed person there without a light. Isaiah walked to the far wall and extinguished the lamp.

In the darkness that followed, Isaiah whispered something. Niccola heard Pekea jump to the ground and run beneath the reading chair to hide.

Meribah walked menacingly slowly as she approached the door. Her voice, when she spoke, was a half-octave lower than it had been in the dining hall. "Isaiah, open the door."

An icy chill tightened Niccola's skin. That was not a request.

Isaiah obeyed it. But his mother did not step inside.

"You knew I was coming. Light it, or I shall be left with no choice but to presume you are still hiding that presumptuous woman."

Isaiah said nothing, just walked back to the wall and re-lit the lamp. Niccola shrank further into the shadows.

"I told her she had overstepped," said Isaiah. "She left immediately."

"You should have thought twice before bringing such an ill-mannered crow-keep into this palace in the first place. Did none of what I've taught you cross your mind?" Niccola's nails nearly drew blood from her palms as Meribah advanced on her son. "Or did you like how she flatters you? I see you've done a right job convincing her of your competence, unless this was all a ploy for you to embarrass yourself at dinner. You are not to see her again, do you hear?"

Niccola practically heard Isaiah's head snap up. "You said I could choose whoever I wanted."

"I allowed you such freedom on the condition that you make a decision fitting of this realm's royal image, not throw your duty aside for the pleasure of fraternizing with rabble-rousers. You agreed to that condition. You will adhere to it now, or suffer the consequences."

Isaiah's voice shook. "I am adhering to it. She is the most competent out of everyone I met at the ball. She is smart enough to run a realm, and savvy enough to go toe to toe with Madeira and negotiate without Calis losing ground. If she is insolent towards you, it is because she cares deeply about something and will fight to stand up for it. I respect that. You wish for me to take over the throne when you wish to retire from it? Then that is who I want to do it beside."

A slap like snapping wood echoed around the room. Isaiah stumbled back.

Meribah's voice dropped to a hiss. "You are fortunate that Madeira wrote this morning to inquire again about Calis's plans of succession. If your father and I had time to find and fake an adoption, I'd turn you out of the palace tonight, you useless, witless, insolent excuse for a burden on the family name. I am ashamed to call you my son."

Isaiah attempted to retreat from her, but she followed swiftly, with a snatch of fabric like she'd caught his collar.

"You will write a letter tonight," she said, voice smooth and dangerous, "to a highborn woman who fulfills the one condition I set out for you. I will return tomorrow morning for you to run it by me. If I approve of your choice, you will retain the power to choose your partner. This is your final warning. You are fortunate that your father and I are so busy that I would rather not spare the time to find your bride for you."

She released him with a shove that sent him stumbling.

"And not a blot of ink on the paper," she said. "If there is any imperfection in the letter, rewrite it. If you prove to me that you've learned your lesson, maybe I will consider letting you out to mingle with your market people again."

With that, she strode out the still-open door and slammed it behind her. A bolt snapped shut on the other side.

Isaiah collapsed in the middle of the floor.

Niccola scrambled out from beneath the bed as fast as her arms could carry her. Isaiah sat motionless on the carpet, his head tipped down. Niccola barely made it to her feet before she dropped to her knees at his side.

"Talaks cross my path," she whispered. "You never told me your mother was a monster."

Her hands skipped over him for lack of certainty on where to check for injury first; that slap could have broken skin. But the worst injury wasn't physical. It never had been. She knew that now.

"Don't," said Isaiah when her touch finally landed on his shoulder. Niccola froze. His voice, so sharp a moment ago, was utterly toneless.

"Isaiah?"

He didn't reply. Niccola could only see his face in profile, but it too had emptied, like he'd detached from the world and gone somewhere else entirely. The Isaiah she knew was no longer here. Niccola struggled to her feet again. There were no spare blankets in the room. There was no spare anything in the room. She retrieved the top-quilt from his bed instead, her hands shaking almost too hard to gather the fabric. Isaiah didn't move as she draped it around his shoulders. Pekea reappeared from beneath her chair. She approached her master at a slink and nudged his hand through the blanket. His head lifted slightly. Seeing it, Pekea nudged him again, then found and crawled through the opening of the blanket into Isaiah's lap.

The lamp at the back of the room sputtered in a draft. Niccola got up again and shut the window, then locked and re-barricaded the door. Isaiah pulled the blanket tighter around himself. He had begun to shake. Niccola dropped beside him again and nearly reached out to rub his back before remembering he'd told her not to. She stuffed her hands in her lap instead. She wanted to say something so badly, but whenever she tried to process what, only one line came back to her.

"I don't want you to write that letter, either," she whispered.

Isaiah curled up, scooping Pekea against his chest. Whatever had gripped him after his mother's attack had begun to thaw. The shaking intensified, uncontrollable. His whole body was shaking. When Niccola heard his breath catch, she couldn't take it anymore. She put a hand on his back, tentative at first, then reached further when her touch unlocked stiff muscles and intensified the fragility now emerging in the aftermath of the dissociation she'd nearly lost him to a moment ago. When Isaiah leaned into her arm, Niccola pulled him into a hug. He turned his face into her shoulder and just sobbed.