rows of seaflowers, and Ayla glanced behind them every few moments to check for guards or other servants. But there was no one, and they reached the cliffs unheeded.
It was colder so close to the ocean, the rocks slick with sea spray. Ayla’s arms were pebbled with gooseflesh.
Rowan was already waiting for them on the cliffs, silhouetted against the night sky and the ocean. Her silver hair tumbled over her shoulders and she looked still and calm as always, but when they drew closer Ayla could see the shadows under her eyes and the careful way she was holding herself, as if she had a hidden injury. Ayla forgot her own discomfort and hurried forward.
“Rowan!” Ayla said, joining her on the edge of the cliff. “Gods, I thought you wouldn’t be back for weeks.” If at all. “What happened? Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine,” said Rowan dismissively. “And—nothing happened.”
Benjy made an impatient noise and Ayla held up a hand to silence him. “We weren’t followed,” she said. “Even if we had been, nobody could hear us over the waves. You can tell us.”
“That was me telling you,” said Rowan. She sounded even more exhausted than Ayla felt, her voice empty. “That’s why I’m back so soon. Here’s what happened in the south: nothing.”
Ayla frowned.
“I don’t understand,” said Benjy beside her.
Rowan sighed and sat down heavily on the rocks. Ayla immediately dropped to her knees beside her, halfway to panicking, but Rowan waved her away. “It’s fine, Ayla. Just some bruising on my ribs. Makes it hard to stand for too long.”
“But what happened,” Ayla insisted. “It can’t have been nothing. You said there were two hundred gathering in the south, a full moon, you said—”
“I know what I said. And I know what I heard, and who I heard it from—a person I thought was a reliable source. But I’m telling you, when I reached my contacts in the south, I found nothing. There were no uprisings. There were never going to be any uprisings.” She looked between them, her face grave. “The humans on those estates hadn’t even heard the rumors. My contacts knew nothing. I came for a rebellion and walked into normal day after normal day. It was all a lie.”
The three of them were silent, Ayla and Benjy struggling to make sense of Rowan’s story.
Benjy spoke first. “But who would have spread a lie like that? Who stands to gain from it? Some leech trying to confuse the Resistance, make us doubt each other? Maybe even provoke us into fighting with each other instead of the enemy?”
“I don’t know who it was,” said Rowan. “But I think this was less of a provocation and more of an experiment.”
“What do you mean?” said Ayla.
“I mean that whoever created this falsehood, whoever wanted me to believe there were going to be uprisings to the south . . . I think they did this because they wanted to know where I get my information and then where I spread it. I think they wanted to track the connections between members of the Resistance. To see who talks to who, who follows who. They wanted to map us.”
Benjy said something in response, but Ayla didn’t hear it—her ears were roaring, and it wasn’t the sound of the ocean waves crashing against the rocks.
They wanted to map us.
She had a pretty good idea of who lied to Rowan about the uprisings.
But how?
She didn’t realize she’d spoken aloud until Rowan said, “I don’t know how. I don’t know which of my contacts I can trust anymore. All I know is that we have a mole. And we—the entire Resistance—is in danger.”
“Who did you first hear about the uprisings from?” Ayla asked quietly.
“I don’t reveal names,” said Rowan. “But . . . I will tell you that it was someone from within the palace. A servant.” She looked away, a muscle flexing in her jaw. “Someone whose information has always been true. Someone who has never led me astray before.”
“And that person? Who did they hear it from?”
She shrugged. “In the past, they’ve mentioned only where she was stationed.”
She. “And where was that? Where was she stationed?” Ayla’s heart was pounding. She leaned forward, eyes intent on Rowan’s face. Some part of her already knew what she was about to hear, already knew the answer, but she asked anyway.
“My contact said she’s a scullery maid,” Rowan said cautiously. “Stationed in the laundry room.”
“Do you know something?” Benjy asked Ayla, catching the look on her