• • •

Over the next couple of days, she was frustrated that neither the professor nor Cade invited her to the mill where she could fully work on strengthening her wrist. She thought to ask the professor if she could go on her own, but a safe, private moment to do so never presented itself, since she saw him so rarely. She supposed she could always sneak over to the mill on her own, but doing so felt like it would violate the professor’s trust, and that was one thing she could not afford to lose. She could not say for sure, but she did not believe Cade and the professor ventured to the mill either. Perhaps with all the unrest following the sabotage on Dr. Silk’s road in the Old City, the professor did not want to be caught engaging in perilous behavior should any suspicion be flung in his direction.

It was hard for her to know exactly what was going on outside the house, except for whatever Luke told her when she visited Raven. Close to a hundred men, he told her, had been rounded up for questioning, and rumor had it that an Inquisitor had arrived from Gossham to lead the interrogations. The number of Inspectors and their Enforcers patrolling the streets, he added, remained uncommonly high.

The professor told her nothing, let on nothing, but he was quieter than usual during the rare times she saw him at meals, indicating to her the level of his concern. Of Cade, she saw only glimpses.

There was nothing she could do about it, so in the privacy of her bed chamber she practiced with her bonewood and bided her time gazing into her mirror shard, but to no avail. She spent hours in the professor’s library poring over his atlas of the empire, this one free of Arhys’ scribbles. Viewing her own world redrawn and transformed once again exacerbated her feelings of loneliness and sorrow, but she resisted caving in to them, reminding herself she’d find a way home and change this future from the past.

She could not help but stare at the portrait of Amberhill at the front of the book, with his aristocratic face rendered in flattering detail. How did he come to be emperor? she wondered over and over. How could he betray his king? She had never cared for his haughty ways, and while every aristocrat she had ever met vied and schemed for power, she had never sensed in Amberhill the monster who would wreck so much of what was good in Sacoridia to create this empire of his.

When she got home, she’d destroy him if she had to, to prevent him from bringing about this future. If she didn’t make it back? Then she’d make him answer for it in the here and now. She’d avenge her family, her friends, and the realm. Yes, she would.

She glanced up from Amberhill’s portrait, startled to see Arhys one step into the library and staring at her.

“What are you doing?” the girl demanded.

Karigan considered telling her to go away and mind her own business, but she thought maybe this would be an opportunity to make peace. “I’m looking at the atlas of the empire,” she replied.

“You’re just looking at pictures. I bet you can’t even read.”

“You’d lose.” Karigan proved it to her by reading from the preface.

The girl sniffed and tossed her golden hair. “I can read very well. Mr. Harlowe says so. I can write, too.”

“I’m sure he’s correct.”

“Bet I can write better than you.”

“Perhaps you can.”

Frustrated that Karigan didn’t challenge her, the girl stomped and declared, “You’re ugly.”

Just then Lorine paused by the doorway and looked in. “There you are, Arhys. Cook needs you in the kitchen.”

Arhys gave Karigan one last contemptuous look that would have rivaled even one of Amberhill’s, and flounced out of the room.

Lorine rolled her eyes, then seemed to note what Karigan was looking at. “Ah, I used to spend much time gazing at the atlas, dreaming of far off lands,” she said with a smile. “I’ve never been outside the city.”

Karigan found it hard to believe, for she had traveled often, whether with one of her father’s merchant trains or as a Green Rider. She could not imagine being confined to one city.

“Then I figured out that all the lands, the whole continent, and lots of islands besides, belong to the emperor, and I stopped dreaming.”

“Really?” Karigan asked in surprise. “Why?”

“I figured that since it was all the empire it would be just like Mill City. I wouldn’t mind seeing the Capital, though. It is supposed to be wondrous.”

There was a knocking on the front door of the house, followed by the even footsteps of Grott the butler as he went to answer it.

“I came to tell you,” Lorine said, “that I saw Mistress dela Enfande’s carriage drawing up. She’s come for the final fitting of your gown for the party.”

The gown the seamstress had made for Karigan this time was midnight blue, with threaded silver stars on the front panel of the bodice and sleeves that glimmered in the light. Mistress dela Enfande had said that this would be her most daring design yet. Karigan wasn’t sure what made it more daring—it fit much the same as her other dresses—and she could not yet judge how stylish it was in regard to this time. Maybe the neckline was lower, her throat revealed, and that was what was considered “daring.” Regardless, the gown was exquisite and lent her, she thought, an air of maturity.

Mistress dela Enfande, however, was not satisfied, and she clucked her tongue over the right sleeve. It was sized, Karigan realized, to fit around her cast. The sleeves were made to be more snug around the forearms with lace spilling from the cuffs like foam.