in the water, right on the horizon. A creature or a vessel or something, she didn’t know, but she could not look away from it, so she dragged her feet out of the sand and stepped closer. Perhaps one step more, and she’d be able to see what it was. She stepped, and she stepped, until the water came up to her knees, and then to her waist, her skirts whirling around her as the tide lapped in and out. And still she kept walking, because something was out there, and she had spent so long standing and waiting, rooted to the ground, and she had to know. Soon the girl was floating, and the land she knew so well was far behind, a line on the horizon too, but she still could not make out what was across the water.”
“She swam to the other land?”
“No,” Aurora said. “She drowned, trapped between the two. The current tugged at her legs, and she couldn’t keep her head above water. There was nothing left of her but her footprints, sunk into the sand on the shore.”
Finnegan was watching her closely. “And that’s your favorite story, Rora?”
“Not my favorite,” she said slowly. But she had always loved it, morbid child that she had been. Something about it had stirred her heart. “Don’t go into the unknown. That’s what I think it’s meant to say. But it never felt that way to me. It seemed more . . . don’t go unprepared. That girl spent years standing and watching. Maybe she should have spent those years learning to swim. And either way, she died where she wanted to be.”
“She died on the way.”
“She wanted to see what was out there, to be swallowed by the ocean. And she was. I think I’d rather be her than the girl waiting on the beach forever.” She bit her lip. She had said too much. Finnegan would surely mock her for her romantic naïveté. But instead, he smoothed her hair off her shoulder. His fingers grazed her neck.
“You’re not her,” he said. “You’re here, aren’t you? And you were wise enough to take a boat.”
She twisted around slightly to look at him. He was very tall, she suddenly realized. Almost a foot taller than she was.
“Shall we move on?” he said. “You haven’t even seen any of the paintings of dragons yet.”
The dragon art was all movement too, rushing flames and fiery eyes. Aurora stared at the creatures, hypnotized by the colors, the power, until she noticed the shadowed figures cowering in the corners of the canvas.
She dragged herself away.
They were walking back to the palace when Aurora saw him. Messy brown hair, a familiar walk, hurrying through the crowd. The brief glance sent a shock of recognition through her.
Tristan.
She stopped so suddenly that Finnegan half walked into her. She twisted in the direction she thought he had gone, but the boy had already vanished. And it couldn’t have been Tristan. He was across the ocean, fighting his revolution. There were many boys with brown hair, and his face had hardly been distinctive. It couldn’t have been him.
“Rora?” Finnegan said. He turned too. “What did you see? One of John’s men?”
She could not tell him. How would he react, if he thought one of the rebels was in his city? “No,” Aurora said. “No. I thought—I thought I saw Nettle. But it wasn’t her.”
Finnegan did not look like he believed her.
ELEVEN
NETTLE WAS IN HER ROOM, BRAIDING HER LONG BLACK hair in a crown around her head. She glanced up as Aurora knocked and pushed the door open.
“Aurora,” she said. “What is wrong?”
“Can I trust you to keep a secret? If I ask you something . . . can you promise not to tell Finnegan?”
“It depends on what it is.” Nettle’s hands were bent at a painful-looking angle as she pulled the strands at the nape of her neck into the braid. “If you are planning to turn against him, you probably should not inform me. If you wish to tell me that you think he is terribly rude, then your secret is safe.”
“What if I need you to find something out for me? Something that’s not about Finnegan. Just something that I don’t want him to know about. Yet.”
Nettle paused in her braiding. “What has happened?”
“I think I saw Tristan.” It felt ridiculous to say it aloud. “In Vanhelm. Today. I mean, I can’t be certain, but . . . it looked like him. But he’s in