"What if I hid?"

Archer had been approaching Brigan slowly from across the room, and now he stood before the prince, barely seeming to breathe. "You've no compunctions whatsoever about putting her in danger," he said. "She's a tool to you and you're heartless as a rock."

Fire's temper flared. "Don't you call him heartless, Archer. He's the only person here who believes me."

"Oh, I believe you can do it," Archer said, his voice filling the corners of the room like a hiss. "A woman who can stage the suicide of her own father can certainly kill a few Dellians she's never met."

It was as if time slowed down, and everyone else in the room disappeared. There was only Fire, and Archer before her. Fire gaped at Archer, disbelieving, and then understanding, like coldness that starts in your extremities and seeps to your core, that he truly had just said aloud the words she'd thought she'd heard.

And Archer gaped back, just as stunned. He slumped, blinking back tears. "Forgive me, Fire. I wish it unsaid."

But she thought it through in slow time, and understood that it couldn't be unsaid. And it was less that he'd exposed the truth, and more the way he'd exposed it. He'd accused her, he who knew all that she felt. He'd taunted her with her own shame.

"I'm not the only one who's changed," she whispered, staring at him. "You've changed too. You've never been cruel to me before."

She turned, still with that sense that time had slowed. She glided out of the room.

Time caught up with Fire in the frozen gardens of the green house, where it occurred to her after a single shivering minute that she had a compulsive inability to remember her coat. Musa, Mila, and Neel stood quietly around her.

She sat on a bench under the big tree, great round tears seeping down her cheeks and plopping into her lap. She took the handkerchief Neel offered. She looked into the faces of her guard, one after the other. She was searching their eyes to see if behind the quiet of their minds they were horrified, now that they knew.

Each of them looked calmly back. She saw that they were not horrified. They met her eyes with respect.

It struck her that she was very lucky in her life's people, that they should not mind the company of a monster so unnatural that she'd murdered her only family.

A thick, wet snow began to fall, and finally the side door of the green house opened. Bundled in a cloak, Brigan's housekeeper, Tess, marched out to her. "I suppose you intend to freeze to death under my nose," the woman snapped. "What's wrong with you?"

Fire looked up without much interest. Tess had soft green eyes, deep as two pools of water, and angry. "I murdered my father," Fire said, "and pretended it was a suicide."

Clearly, Tess was startled. She crossed her arms and made indignant noises, determined, it seemed, to disapprove. And then all at once she softened, like a clump of snow in a thaw that collapses from a roof, and shook her head, bewildered. "That does change things. I suppose the young prince'll be telling me, "I told you so'. Well, look at you, child – soaked right through. Pretty as a sunset, but no brain in your head. You didn't get that from your mother. You may as well come inside."

Fire was mildly dumbfounded. The little woman pulled her under the cloak and pushed her into the house.

The Queen's House – for Fire reminded herself that this was Roen's house, not Brigan's – seemed a good place to soothe an unhappy soul. The rooms were small and cozy, painted soft greens and blues and full of soft furniture, the fireplaces huge, the January fires in them roaring. It was obvious a child lived here, for her school papers and balls and mittens and playthings, and Blotchy's nondescript chewed-up belongings, had found their way into every corner. It was less obvious Brigan lived here, though there were clues for the discerning observer. The blanket Tess wrapped Fire in looked suspiciously like a saddle blanket.

Tess sat Fire on a sofa before the fireplace, and her guard in armchairs around their lady. She gave all of them cups of hot wine. She sat with them, folding a pile of very small shirts.

Fire shared the sofa with two monster kittens she'd never seen before. One was crimson and the other copper with crimson markings, and they were sleeping tangled together, so that it was hard to tell which head or tail belonged to which. They reminded Fire of her hair, which was bound now under a scarf that was clammy and cold. She pulled the scarf free and spread it beside her to dry. Her hair slid down, a blaze of light and colour. One of the kittens raised its head at the brightness, and yawned.

She wrapped her hands around her warm cup and blinked wearily into its steam; and found, once she'd started talking, that confession was a comfort to her small and ragged heart. "I killed Cansrel to stop him from killing Brigan. And to stop Brigan from killing Cansrel, because that would have damaged his chance for any alliance with Cansrel's friends. And, oh, for other reasons. I doubt I need to explain to any of you why it was best for him to die."

Tess stopped her work, her hands resting on the pile in her lap, and watched Fire closely. Her lips moved as Fire talked, as if she were testing the words in her own mouth.

"I tricked him into thinking his leopard monster was a baby," Fire said. "His own human monster baby. I stood outside the fence and watched him open the door of the cage, cooing to it, as if it were helpless, and harmless. The leopard was hungry. He always kept them hungry. It – it happened very fast."

Fire went silent for a moment, struggling against the picture that haunted her dreams. She spoke with her eyes closed. "Once I was sure he was dead, I shot the cat. Then I shot the rest of his monsters, because I hated them, I'd always hated them, and I couldn't stand them screaming for his blood. And then I called the servants, and told them he'd killed himself and I hadn't been able to stop him. I entered their minds and made full sure they believed me, which wasn't difficult. He'd been unhappy since Nax's death, and they all knew he was capable of mad things."

The rest of the story, she kept to herself. Archer had come and found her kneeling in Cansrel's blood, staring at Cansrel, tearless. When he'd tried to pull her away she'd fought against him desperately, screamed at him to leave her alone. For several days she'd been savage to Archer, and Brocker, too, vicious, out of her mind and her body; and they'd stayed with her and taken care of her until she'd come back into herself. Then had followed weeks of listlessness and tears. They'd stayed with her through that as well.

She sat numbly on the sofa. She wanted Archer's company, suddenly, so that she could forgive him for telling the truth. It was time other people knew. It was time everyone knew what she was, and what she was capable of.

She didn't notice herself nodding off to sleep, even when Musa jumped forward to stop her drink from spilling.

She woke hours later to find herself stretched out on the sofa, covered in blankets, kittens sleeping in the tangle of her hair. Tess was absent, but Musa, Mila, and Neel had not moved from their seats.

Archer stood before the fireplace, his back to her.

Fire half sat up and tugged her hair out from under the kittens. "Mila," she said. "You don't have to stay if you don't want to."

Mila's voice was stubborn. "I want to stay and guard you, Lady."

"Very well," Fire said, studying Archer, who'd swung around at the sound of her voice. His left cheekbone was bruised purple, which alarmed her at first, and then struck her as intensely interesting.

"Who hit you?" she asked.

"Clara."