“Hey, are you all right?”

I couldn’t answer him. It was not all right. It could never be all right. I was able to add so many things he couldn’t know. The Lords were going to win. They had made me into what they wanted, and now I’d given them the very piece that would ensure their victory-a hold on me. They hated my mother as much as they hated the Prince. Maybe more. I almost laughed. I’d been wrong about every single thing in my whole life, blind long before my evil starting eating my eyes away. The Leiran boy had seen so clearly. He had asked how I could think the Prince had killed Lucy when I had only seen his knife in my dreams. But Darzid had twisted my dreams from the beginning.

A rustling in the straw. The Leiran boy had gone. Just as well. I would most likely betray him, too. But before I realized what was happening, a smear of light appeared in the horse box. I turned away, but not quickly enough.

“Blazing demons!” He pulled my face back around. “What did they do to you?”

I shoved him backward. “It’ll go away.” But it wouldn’t. Not ever.

“Does it hurt?”

“No. I just can’t see very well right now.”

“Damn! So did you get the story out of me?”

“Yes.”

“And you believe me?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then, what are we going to do?”

“I’ll have to get her. I think I can do it. Then I’ll try to get you both out of Zhev’Na.”

“And you, too.”

“That won’t be possible.”

“She won’t go without you.”

“There’s no other way. They’ll kill her unless I do what they want. They may kill her anyway, but I’ll try.”

“Can you keep a secret?”

“Obviously not as well as I would like.” Otherwise my mother would not be Ziddari’s prisoner. Wrong about everything. Stupid. Worthless. Wicked.

“I mean, if I were to tell you something right now that might help… it wouldn’t go straight to the Lords, now would it?”

“They don’t know about you.” At least I’d managed that much.

“What if there was someone else in Zhev’Na who could help you?”

“I don’t think there’s anyone who could possibly-”

“I know you don’t think nobody can do anything but you, but this person… he’d like to help. And he’s good. The best.”

“We can’t get Seri away from Zhev’Na unless the Lords allow it. It doesn’t matter how good your friend is at anything.”

“I think you should talk to him.”

“Bring him here if you want.”

“He can’t. He’s really stuck.”

“This is stupid.”

“You won’t think so. But you got to keep it secret.”

“All right.”

“Do you swear?”

“Yes. I swear. Take me to him. But you’ll have to lead me.”

“Blazes.”