and see the last room stands empty. There’s nowhere for anyone to hide. No one else lives here. Just Dimia, and she doesn’t have the Godseye, or the moon hair. She’s telling the truth. I walk back to her.
“I know it doesn’t mean much, coming from a Tregellian, but I liked your king,” I say softly. “I saw him where he came here.”
“Merek liked Tregellan. He had plans to introduce some of your ways in Lormere.”
For a moment her words puzzle me, and then I realize why. People don’t usually refer to their sovereigns by name.
“Did you know him?”
She turns to me. “Briefly.” Her cheeks flush pink and she stares into the distance. “I worked at the castle for a while. He was kind to me.”
“He looked like he’d be a good king.”
She nods, her face crumpling again. “He would have been,” she whispers, tears making silvery tracks down her face. “Forgive me.” She takes a deep, shuddering breath and closes her eyes. When she opens them they fix on mine. “Tell me everything. What else do I not know of what’s happening in Lormere? You said he was hunting the religious.”
As I reel off the litany of the Sleeping Prince’s crimes, her face becomes more ashen, her posture more slumped. Lortune, Haga, Monkham. The Bringer turned Silver Knight and the sacking of the temples, the heads on spikes, the hearts on display. The slaughter of the religious, the burning of the food stores. The golems.
Then I tell her about the refugee camps. The people on the roads. The soldiers and their brutality. I feel sick as I recount it, my mind returning to that abandoned doll, that single shoe. Now I think I know why someone would leave a shoe behind.
When I’m finished she drains her goblet in one, her eyes blurring with tears again. “And what is the Council of Tregellan doing to help Lormere?”
“What do you mean?”
“What aid have they offered? Men for an army? Weapons? Food? Medical supplies?”
I shake my head. “The army we have is new; it’s conscripted. The men weren’t given a choice, they were told to fight, and most are still being trained. Women may have to fight as well, if it comes to it. As for food and medicine, we didn’t…” She stares at me and I feel my skin redden again. “But some people did escape, as I said. The camps—”
“Camps you described as ‘hellholes’?” she interrupts me, and I fall silent. “The Sleeping Prince is killing innocents, and your people have closed their borders. Mighty Tregellan, that is so democratic and civilized, turns a blind eye to the murder of a king and his people. Instead it looks to its own house until the blood splashes its doorstep? Because of the last war, I take it. Because we deserve it, for winning then?”
“No, of course not.” But even as I protest, I wonder if she’s right. Why didn’t we act earlier? Why didn’t we offer more help? I don’t say it aloud, though. “No one was ready for this. The Council has been trying to negotiate with him.”
“You can’t negotiate with monsters,” Dimia says flatly. “Believe me. You can only act.”
Suddenly I feel deeply ashamed of my country. I shake my head, unable to meet her eye. “I’m sorry to be the bearer of such bad tidings.”
“And I’m sorry I’m not who you were looking for.”
We both lapse into silence, and I listen to the rain beating down. It’s going to be a miserable walk back to the town. “I’d better go,” I say eventually, reluctant to leave the warmth of her cottage.
She looks at me. “You’d do better to stay. It’s vile out there. You’ll be blown into the sea before you’ve left my garden.”
“That’s too… You don’t know me. I could be anyone.”
“So could I. We’re even. Sit,” she says, nodding to a chair by the fire.
Because I have nowhere else to go, and because I’m tired, and because I’m at the end of my tether, I do, lifting her book and placing it over the arm. She refills her glass and holds it to me, and I take it, sipping the contents. Wine, rich and red, tasting of smoke and dark berries, coats my tongue. I take another sip and hold it out to her, but she waves her hand, so I keep it, cupping it in my palms.
“Why don’t you tell me why you’re looking for a girl from Lormere,” she says finally. “You said she