disguise?
They passed through an open stone court and the palace doors into a vaulted entry several stories high. The palace was made of the same clean, white, unadorned stone as the Ice Court walls, and the whole place felt as if it had been hollowed out of a glacier. Nina couldn’t tell if it was nerves, imagination, or if the place really was cold, but her skin puckered with gooseflesh, and she had to fight to keep her teeth from chattering.
She entered a vast circular ballroom packed with people dancing and drinking beneath a glistening pack of wolves hewn from ice. There had to be at least thirty massive sculptures of running, leaping beasts, their flanks gleaming slickly in the silvery light, jaws open, their slowly melting muzzles dripping occasionally onto the crowd below. Music from an unseen orchestra was barely audible over the gabble of conversation.
The Elderclock began to chime ten bells. It had taken her too long to get across that stupid glass bridge. She needed a better view of the room. As she headed for a swooping white stone staircase, she caught sight of two familiar figures in the shadows of a nearby alcove. Kaz and Matthias. They’d made it. And they were in drüskelle uniforms. Nina suppressed a shiver. Seeing Matthias in those colors settled a different kind of cold into her bones. What had he thought when he put it on? She let her eyes meet his briefly, but his gaze was unreadable. Still, seeing Kaz beside him gave her some comfort. She wasn’t alone, and they were still on schedule.
She didn’t risk so much as a nod of acknowledgment, but continued up the stairs to the balcony on the second floor where she could get a better look at the flow of the crowd. It was a trick she’d learned in school from Zoya Nazyalensky. There were patterns in the way people moved, the way they clustered around power. They thought they were drifting, milling aimlessly, but really they were being drawn toward people of status. Not surprisingly, there was a large concentration eddying around the Fjerdan queen and her attendants. Strange, Nina thought, observing their white gowns. In Ravka, white was a servant’s color. But that crown wasn’t anything to sniff at—twisting spines of diamonds that looked like branches glowing with new frost.
The royals were too well-protected to be of use to her, but not far away she saw another whirl of activity around a group in military dress. If anyone knew Yul-Bayur’s location on the island, it would be someone highly ranked in Fjerda’s military.
“Nice view, isn’t it?”
Nina nearly jumped as a man sidled up beside her. Some spy she made. She hadn’t even noticed him approaching.
He grinned at her and placed a hand at the small of her back. “You know, there are rooms here set aside for a little fun. And you look like more than a little fun.” His hand slid lower.
Nina plunged his heart rate, and he dropped like a stone, conking his head on the banister. He’d wake up in about ten minutes with a bad headache and possibly a minor concussion.
“Is he all right?” asked a passing couple.
“Too much to drink,” said Nina airily.
She slipped quickly down the stairs and into the crowd, moving steadily toward where a group of soldiers garbed in silver-and-white military dress surrounded a portly man with a luxuriant mustache. If the constellation of medals on his chest was any indication, he had to be a general or close to it. Should she target him directly? She needed someone of high-enough rank to have access to privileged information—someone drunk enough to make ill-considered decisions, but not so drunk that he couldn’t take her where she needed to go. By the ruddy look of the general’s cheeks and the way he was swaying on his feet, he looked like he might be too far gone to do anything but take a nap facedown in a potted plant.
Nina could feel the minutes ticking down. It was time to make her bid. She nabbed a glass of champagne then moved carefully around the circle. As a soldier separated from the group, she took a step backward, directly into his path. He slammed into her. He was light enough on his feet that it wasn’t much of a hit, but she gave a sharp cry and lurched forward, spilling her champagne. Instantly, several strong arms reached out to brace her fall.
“You clod,” said the general. “You