worries,” Henry said, and quickly filled Frankie in on what he’d found.

“You’re certain?” she asked. “Of course you’re certain. But what are we going to do?”

“Personally, I’ve always wanted to command a squadron of soldiers,” Adam joked, and then cringed at the looks everyone shot in his direction. “Sorry.”

“I was thinking that we go to Sir Frederick directly after supper,” Henry said. “Tell him what we’ve found, ask for advice, see what he thinks we should do.”

“What about my father?” Frankie asked.

“Do you think he’d believe us?” Rohan asked.

“I’m not sure.” Frankie bit her lip, lost in thought. “I just can’t imagine … I mean, everyone’s been saying for ages that we’re close to war, that Chancellor Mors has secret armies or new technologies to use against us, but I never thought it would be now.”

“My father always says, ‘When you expect something, you never see it coming,’ ” Rohan said.

“Your father is friends with my grandmother,” Frankie reminded him.

And even though it felt as though they were on the brink of war, as though they weren’t allowed to be happy, the four friends shared a brief smile at the thought of anyone being friends with Grandmother Winter.

Henry knocked nervously on the door to Sir Frederick’s office after supper, suddenly regretting his decision to talk to the medicine master alone. But then, it was his responsibility; after all, he’d been the one to discover the secret room.

“Yes?” Sir Frederick called through the door.

“It’s Henry Grim, sir,” Henry said.

“Come in.”

Henry opened the door and found Sir Frederick puzzling at a slide through his microscope, his desk littered with papers.

“I hope I’m not disturbing you, sir,” Henry said.

“Not at all.”

Sir Frederick waved a hand dismissively and pushed the microscope aside.

“Well,” Sir Frederick prompted, “what did you think of the Nordlands?”

Henry smiled weakly.

“It was different,” Henry said truthfully. “And Partisan seemed much more strict than Knightley. Actually, sir, I wanted to talk to you about something I saw at Partisan.”

Sir Frederick leaned back in his chair, took out his pipe, and told Henry to go ahead.

“Well,” Henry began, “last night I found this room where the Partisan students are trained in combat.”

Sir Frederick choked on his pipe smoke and Henry waited until his professor’s coughing fit had subsided.

“Go on,” Sir Frederick said. “You think you—ahem! Ahem! Sorry about that—found a room where Partisan trains its students in combat?”

“I don’t think, sir,” said Henry, “I’m certain of it. There was a wardrobe filled with weapons, and practice dummies with painted-on targets, and charts ranking the students in different forms of fighting.”

Sir Frederick was very quiet for a long while after Henry finished explaining what he’d seen. Finally, when Henry was afraid Sir Frederick would continue to sit there and say nothing at all, the professor cleared his throat and said, “I assume you have proof ?”

Henry’s cheeks flushed. “No, sir.”

“Is it possible,” Sir Frederick asked, “that you simply had a bad dream and woke up believing it was true?”

“I know what I saw,” Henry said stubbornly.

“But you have no proof.”

“No,” Henry said again, staring at his lap.

“And you’ve told your friends about this, I’d assume.”

“Yes, sir.”

“But no one else?”

Henry shook his head.

“Here is what I think,” Sir Frederick said, tapping his pipe on the edge of his desk. “I think the Partisan students wanted you to believe they were being trained in combat. I think it was a prank.”

“It’s not very funny, sir. No offense.”

“Nordlandic humor,” Sir Frederick said with a shrug.

For a moment Henry considered that it could have been a prank. That the students had set the whole thing up just to see who might be gullible enough to fall for it.

But of course that was ridiculous. It had been real. Henry knew what he’d seen. Those mannequins painted with red targets had been used—and recently. The lists were too meticulously kept to be anything but real. And those weapons. Even now, the gruesome blades made Henry shudder just thinking of them.

“I don’t think it was a prank, sir,” Henry said. “The Nordlands have broken the Longsword Treaty. Partisan is training its students in combat. I’m certain of what I saw.”

“Henry,” Sir Frederick said kindly. “I want to believe you. Truly, I do. But what you’re telling me is that you just happened to be wandering around out of bed, and you just happened to walk down a corridor and find a room full of weapons, and you don’t have any proof or any witnesses, but according to you, the Nordlands are