it the first time she left for her tunnel, for her route took her across the bridge, and she had no supplies that night, remember?"
"Isn't Winged Bridge high enough that practically three fullrigged ships stacked on top of each other could pass under it with room to spare?"
"In a manner of speaking, yes," said Bann mildly. "I don't expect there's ever been a need to raise the drawbridge. Which means it's a drawbridge tower no one looks at twice. It's furnished and functional, supplied with pots and pans and a stove and so on. It would be just like Leck to station a man there with no work to do, wouldn't it? His kind of illogic? But it's empty now. According to Katsa, everything is under years of dust. Katsa broke in and took a knife and a few other things, but left the rest."
"I'm beginning to warm to this idea," Bitterblue said. "It'd do Saf some good to sit in a cold room, sneezing and thinking about his mistakes."
"It's better than trying to hide him in one of our wardrobes, at any rate, Lady Queen. And it would be the first step in moving him to Estill."
Bitterblue raised her eyebrows. "You seem to have plans for him."
Bann shrugged. "Of course, we would try to help him regardless, Lady Queen, because he's your friend. But he's also a person we could use."
"I believe his own preference, if he decided to run, would be Lienid."
"We're not going to force him to go anywhere, Lady Queen," Bann said. "A person who doesn't want to work with us is no use to us. He follows his gut. It's one of the reasons he appeals to us, but we know it means he'll do whatever he likes. Tell him about the bridge, won't you? I'll go there myself one of these nights to make sure it suits our purposes. Sometimes, the best hiding places are in plain sight."
THAT NIGHT, INSTEAD of pushing herself through more embroidery, Bitterblue found herself padding to the art gallery. She wasn't sure why she did, and in her robe and slippers, no less. Helda and Bann had gone to sleep, and Giddon had his own problems. She had a vague sense of wanting company.
But Hava was nowhere to be found. "Hava?" she called once or twice, in case the girl was hiding. No response.
She ended up standing before the hanging of the man being attacked by the colorful beasts. Wondering, for the first time, if she might be looking at a true story.
A click sounded and the hanging she was staring at moved, billowed. There was a person behind it. "Hava?" she said.
It was Fox who emerged, blinking at Bitterblue's lantern. "Lady Queen!"
"Fox," Bitterblue responded. "Where on earth did you come from?"
"There's a spiral staircase that leads all the way up from the library, Lady Queen," said Fox. "I was just trying it for the first time. Ornik told me about it, Lady Queen. Apparently it runs past Lady Katsa's rooms as well, and the Council uses it sometimes for meetings. Do you think I'll ever be allowed to attend Council meetings, Lady Queen?"
"That will be for Prince Po to decide," said Bitterblue evenly, "and the others. Have you met any of them, Fox?"
"Not Prince Po," said Fox, then went on to talk about the others. Bitterblue only half attended, because Po was the one who mattered. She wished she'd had Po chat with Fox before he'd gone. And she was also distracted because something else entirely had captured her thoughts: She was seeing, in her mind, a succession of hidden entrances behind wild, strangely colored creatures. The door to Leck's stairway, hidden behind the blue horse in her sitting room. The secret entrance to the library, hidden behind the wild-haired woman in the hanging. The strange, colorful insects on the tiles of Katsa's bath; and now, a door in the wall behind this horrible scene.
"Forgive me, Fox," Bitterblue said, "but I'm exhausted. It's time I went to bed."
Then she walked back to her rooms and collected the keys. Going out again past her guards, dropping down the appropriate stairs, winding through the maze, she tried not to rush, because it was silly, only a hunch, and it was foolish to hope too hard.
Inside the room, she went to the tiny owl in the tapestry, lifted the bottom of the great, heavy, woven cloth, and crawled beneath it.
She couldn't see a thing and spent the first minute coughing at