at our weakest. There was so much power in the night, ribbons of moonlight that pooled in my palms and seeped into me, and I channeled it into the bowl. Isabelle’s thigh pressed against mine as she leaned in closer. A ring fell into my open hands.
“His name is Gabriel,” she whispered. “He gave that to me.”
And there he was, my magic plucking the leftover pieces of him from the ring. Everyone, especially artists, changed the world wherever they went. Imprints of power left behind. I dropped the ring into the bowl.
“As I said, I can’t divine, but I can try to scry him.”
My lungs were too tight, my breaths too fast, the flutter in my heart too heavy, and all of it felt wonderful. Divining was all about the details, the magic a touch less controllable and its power several touches less than Lord Sun’s. There were as many possible futures as there were stars. I hadn’t divined since I was a child, the wrong stars were all that I found. Scrying was safer.
A chevalier in armor light as ash. A one-handed sword in a hack’s worn-down, bandaged hands. He ran a palm down the sword, magic bubbling and burrowing into the steel, and handed the chevalier the hilt. The blade thinned and lengthened, deadly sharp point bright in the sunlight of a battlefield strewn with bloodied wheat.
“You have a month before Kalthorne,” a rough voice said. “You must be prepared.”
“He’s alive,” I said, voice raspy. “He will be for a while. I saw him with his chevalier in a wheat field.”
Were we going to war, or was that training? If we went to war, what would happen to my brother Macé? Varlets weren’t fighters, but they were always with their chevaliers.
I shook the image from my mind. We couldn’t go to war. The army was all country kids, and to fight Kalthorne, we’d need more soldiers. They’d have to offer up money for joining, and then most of them would still die and not get the payout, and everyone who was a hack would get called up to work. Emilie would be on the edge of the battles looking after the wounded. My brother Macé would be a varlet. They’d need them to replace the ones who died.
He’d die. I couldn’t let that happen again.
Laurel, I thought, eyes fluttering shut. I breathed in magic and channeled it into the bowl with an exhale. I have to help Laurel and all of us who’d die.
The nobles wouldn’t. They rarely did, even though it was only a king who could declare war.
I want to help Laurel stop Henry XII. I want to save us. I opened my eyes, face awash in moonlight, and an image, not in the bowl but in the glass of the skylight above me, ghostly and larger than life, shone. How do I find Laurel?
An older man in a soldier’s uniform. Wrinkled hands pinning a laurel leaf to a shirt collar. Worn boots walking the perimeter of the school at night, no one else nearby.
Thank you, Mistress Moon.
I let the vision die and turned to Isabelle. “I can’t see anything else. Just that.”
“Let’s get you to bed.” She pulled a cloth from her pocket, pressed it to my nose, and cupped my cheek. “You’re worn out.”
* * *
Late that night, it was easy to find the guard who’d given me the wooden laurel leaf pin and let me inside the day I’d swapped places with Emilie. I’d used the midnight arts to disguise my face. Still looked like me but more like Emilie than me, and it wasn’t like I was important. He’d not remember.
He was pacing before the servants’ gate, whistling a tune I didn’t know, and he stopped when I stepped from the garden path. He spun, fists up fast for his age. A proper soldier.
“I’m sorry for startling you.” I laughed like I was embarrassed. Vivienne said when girls did that, it took men so off guard, they were more likely to be quiet and listen. “I have a slightly odd question for you, if you would oblige me?”
He bowed at the waist, the low dip deep enough for a comtesse and too deep for me. As if it weren’t midnight and this weren’t odd. “Of course, Madame. I would be happy to be of assistance, but perhaps I should escort you back inside?”
“No,” I said, enjoying the taste of a word I had so rarely gotten to say. “We should have this