“But maybe I—Tam—has recovered!”

Luke stared hard at her. “Also, by not meeting with Silk, you have less of a chance of being questioned, and you are not very convincing as a boy when you speak.”

“It would give you a chance to get a good look at the palace grounds while we’re inside,” Cade mused. “Watch the guards and so forth.”

“You are also our secret asset,” Luke said. “They don’t know who or what you are. If anything should go wrong, you can flee on that stallion of yours.”

“You aren’t giving him to the emperor?” Karigan asked.

“Of course not. I’m giving the emperor nothing.”

“All right,” Karigan said. “I’ll do this your way, but I will act on my own if I must.”

She also wanted access to her bonewood staff, but both Cade and Luke opposed the idea saying it was too risky to take their weapons out of hiding. They were apt to be detected before reaching the palace.

“If it is true the emperor has awakened,” Cade said, “they will be extra alert. Mind, I would feel better if I could have a Cobalt with me, myself.”

There was little more they could do than speculate on what they might face at the palace, and when they ran out of guesses, Luke stood and scratched his chin.

“Think I could stand to get a proper shave in town,” he said. “I have to look my best for our meeting with Silk. I’ll get my boots shined, too, while I’m at it.”

With that, Luke left them. This time Karigan and Cade decided to make good use of their time alone. There was an urgency to their lovemaking that made them both fierce, more forceful. They did not need words to know that if things did not go well at the palace, this could very well be their last time together.

A teardrop formed at the corner of Karigan’s eye and glided down her cheek.

“Have I hurt you?” Cade asked.

“No.”

He kissed her cheek, then her lips, and she tasted the salt of her own tears.

• • •

On the way to the palace, the physical separation between them—he up front driving the wagon, and she in the rear—was painful. At the height of their coupling, they had clung to one another, unwilling to let the moment pass. Every contact with Cade renewed her and renewed her determination. She would find a way home, and she would take Cade with her. After all the darkness she’d faced as a Green Rider, his presence was a parting of the clouds.

This time she hadn’t even Raven to comfort her. Instead, Gallant was hitched to the back of the wagon and Luke rode Raven up front. Luke had asked Cade to tack up Raven, saying that if Karigan must escape quickly, it was best if the stallion was saddled and ready to go. Luke was an expert horseman, so he was able to hold in the spirited stallion who’d gone too many days without being ridden. Karigan, along with everything else she was feeling, was a little jealous.

It was not long before the buildings and the commotion of the city fell away, and they found themselves on the shore of a lake—Lake Scalus, Karigan remembered from the atlas—and in its center lay an island upon which sat the palace of the Serpentine Empire. The palace was a collection of spires and copper roofs partially hidden behind a curtain wall, upon which guards patrolled. To reach the island, they would have to cross first one narrow bridge to a smaller island with a guard house, and then a second. The designers had created a city and palace that could be easily defended but not easily escaped.

A grassy, parklike sward made up the shoreline that circled the lake, but few made use of it, even on so fine an afternoon as this. Perhaps being exposed to the palace and under the scrutiny of so many guards made the folk of Gossham too uneasy to walk along the shore. It certainly made Karigan uneasy.

They stopped at the checkpoint at the first bridge, the flag of the dragon sigil flapping restlessly in the lake breeze over the guardhouse. Luke passed their papers, including the invitation from Webster Silk, to the Inspectors to examine. His conversational chatter with the Inspectors was much more subdued than usual, and considering the gravity of what lay ahead, it was not surprising.

It did not take long for the Inspectors to verify the papers and open the gate to the bridge. Luke and Raven led the way, with Cade snapping the reins to get the mules moving again. Karigan closed her eyes and tried to make herself small as she came under the eyestalks of a pair of Enforcers.

Hooves clacked on the stone treadway of the bridge, and water plashed against the piers. The lake air was fresh, and Karigan took a deep breath, finally opening her eyes. A sailing vessel came into view, triangular sails bent as it heeled with the wind. It was too far distant to make out the people on board, but its prow was the silhouette of a dragon’s head.

The bridge was surprisingly long, but when they finally reached the second checkpoint on the small island, they were allowed to proceed as before. Karigan kept watching the sailboat carving through the surface of the lake until it disappeared from sight beyond the main island. She then tried to focus on ducks paddling near the bridge in a V-formation and a dragonfly hovering over her knee, but it was not enough to quell her rising uneasiness.

They reached the island and were ushered through the heavily fortified gate of the curtain wall. When she saw all the armed Inspectors and soldiers, and no few Enforcers, she realized that Luke’s plan that she flee in case of trouble was unlikely to meet with success. Before they left the inn, Luke had mentioned how fast Raven was—much faster than Gallant, he assured her—but a bullet was even faster. She must remember she could not outride the weaponry of this time.