this hour there’s no one but us on this floor. Just keep your voices down. You’ll change into servant’s uniforms, and then we’ll stow you in the sick room for the Sparrows, long as there’s no need for it.” Ebrim shook out a plain roll of hide, and with a start, Fie realized it was a map of the palace grounds. “This can’t leave my office. Hawks check for it every day. Here’s where we are.” He jabbed a finger into a corner. “I have open repair requests for most every part of the palace, so you can go anywhere you need to search. Your first order of business is finding His Highness, right?”
When Ebrim looked up, Fie found a surprising amount of distress in the man’s eyes. He was younger than Yula by a good decade or two, his sandy-brown face clean-shaven but his dark hair still graying at the temples; likely he’d been in palace service before Jasimir was born and had watched the prince grow up.
Khoda shifted. “Our top priority is making sure the coro—”
“Crown prince is safe, then getting him out,” Fie interrupted. Khoda shot her a look. She ignored it. “I’m one of the Crows who came for him back in Pigeon Moon. No way he pulled that stunt off without help from your ranks, aye?”
Yula ducked her head. “His Highness was known for … intervening,” she said. “When the king was in one of his rages, or when a courtier wanted to show off how they toyed with us, His Highness would sway them to mercy as best he could. It cost him plenty of friends a royal could use. We owed him.”
“Aye. Sparrows were the only ones I saw mourning him for true.” Fie folded her arms. “We’ll need anything you can tell us about the coronation ceremony, too. If we can’t throw it off, the prince won’t have a crown to claim.”
Yula nodded. “They’ve had half my crew scrubbing down nigh every inch of the Hall of the Dawn. We’ll keep open ears.”
“There are some places they can’t possibly be holding the prince.” Ebrim scoured his desk, then picked up his pincers and dropped them on the Hall of the Dawn and the Hawk barracks. He added a pot of nails over the library, scraps of parchment over the servants’ quarters, and a small potted plant over the armory. “The library’s too open. Same with the armory, and we’d know if he’s in any of our buildings.”
Khoda stepped closer to the map, brow furrowing. “We’d be looking for a room that’s probably been cleaned out in the last week. It would be isolated, probably the only one on its floor in use, and somewhere one or two people could come and go without drawing much notice.”
“Let me look through our requests,” Yula said. “I’ll have a list for you this evening.”
“Our thanks,” Fie said, then squinted at the map as well. “Maybe look for aught that’s close to the royal quarters, too. Rhusana won’t want to inconvenience herself when checking on him.”
“Nor will that faithless bastard Hawk.” Yula’s face darkened. “All those years he’s been at His Highness’s side, and now he turns.”
That caught Fie like a sucker punch. Khoda must have seen, for he piped up. “I don’t know what the queen offered him. I can only hope it was worth it.”
My life. The knowledge burned at Fie like a coal caught in her throat. The price was not worth it, yet Fie had every intent to show Tavin the worth of what he’d bought.
* * *
That night, they narrowed down Yula’s list to seven rooms near the royal quarters, debating each by lantern-light in the servants’ quarters’ sick rooms as Fie reworked her chief’s string to add new teeth, more string, and a small clay Vulture charm-bead from Viimo. When she was done, it was long enough to be a belt, one she could hide under her plain linen shirt and royal servants’ golden sash if need be. She’d always found it easiest to call a tooth to life as it rolled between her palms, but the tooth just touching her skin would have to be enough. One glimpse of a tooth necklace and she’d give them all away.
They had only a few hours of sleep before Ebrim arrived with the toll of the palace hour-bells in the dim predawn, bearing repair request slips for each area. He also had day-old sweet rolls stuffed with dates and almonds for their