"Uarria..." Matei sighed, drawing to a stop before his daughter's door. He had been on his way to bed himself, a path that took him past the princess's chambers, when the light coming through the gap beneath her bedroom door had drawn his attention. It was late; certainly her nursemaid was not still awake. It took him a moment to realize what was wrong as he paused outside her door. There were no guards stationed on either side, which was odd, given the hour.

He turned the handle and nudged open Uarria's door. He remembered many nights just like this one, when all others in the palace had been abed and he had clambered out from beneath his sheets to read by the light of a spirit globe well into the wee hours of the morning. There was a certain deep, complete peace those magical middle hours of the night afforded; it was as if the shadows themselves were alive with comfortable mystery.

Uarria's room was shadowed, but, sure enough, the spirit globe on its carven stand in the corner of the room kept the darkness at bay. The golden glow mingled with the rosy light of the moon, adding a sense of surrealism to the chamber. The tapestries embellished with mythical creatures and the shelves neatly lined with toys made of the room a child's haven, and just seeing these artifacts of his daughter's earliest years—things she would soon enough grow less fond of and leave behind—wrung Matei's heart with a familiar mixture of pride and sorrow.

The girl's nursemaid, Sorinna, was nowhere to be seen, which was odd. She slept in the bed set in the corner of the room, against the balcony windows, and the coverlet was yet unturned.

"Sorinna?" Matei called, wondering if the woman had taken Uarria out onto the balcony, perhaps to soothe her. Uarria was four years old and still given to the volatile emotions of a very young child. He strode across the room and pulled back the curtains, but the balcony was empty.

Turning back to face the bedchamber, Matei glanced around, seeking something out of the ordinary. The curtains of the bed were half-closed; perhaps Uarria was asleep or quietly playing with a toy, snuggled up near the pillows where he could not see her. Creeping through the room on quiet feet, Matei listened for any shifting or burrowing sounds that would betray a little girl doing her best to suddenly look asleep.

With a fond smile, Matei brushed the curtain back and looked in on his daughter...but she was not there. Her bed, in fact, looked untouched.

He edged around the bed and surveyed the rest of the room, then crossed again to the balcony, but he had already confirmed that it was empty. "Uarria?"

Although he knew she would not be hiding underneath her bed—the little girl did not like cramped spaces—he knelt and peeked beneath anyway. Nothing there but a wooden horse with a broken leg.

A feeling of unease settled over him, but he pushed it back down. He had to be reasonable. Sorinna must have had some urgent late-night errand and, loathe to leave the girl untended, she must have taken her with, accompanied by Uarria's guards. This was the most logical explanation. She was safe, just misplaced.

He went out into the hall again and walked until he came upon a palace guard on patrol. The guard bowed, and Matei did his best to keep any sign of distress from his voice as he said, "Princess Uarria is not in her room. Have you seen her nurse?"

"No, Your Grace, but I shall begin looking for her at once. It won't take me but a moment to alert the rest of the palace guard."

"Good man—but quietly. I do not wish to wake Her Grace. She has had a trying day."

The guardsman bowed again and moved off down the hallway at a steady clip. Matei watched after him until he saw the man beckon to a fellow. Then, he turned round and chose a path up to the Archmage's Tower, where the lorekeeper still lived. Uarria was very fond of her grandfather, and he of her; if the little girl had gotten separated from her nurse, Matei had no doubt that she would make her way to her favorite place, the Archmage's Tower, if she could.

When he opened the door to the lorekeeper's library, the faint squeak of the hinges betrayed his coming. Inside, the room was dark except for the light of the blue moon filtering in through the window. On his perch near the window, the lorekeeper's immortal raven shifted and croaked.

On quiet feet, Matei crept through the chamber, checking under the lorekeeper's desk and in all the chairs. He even slid his fingers along the frame of the painting of The Separation and looked into the hidden library, but Uarria was nowhere to be found.

"Matei?"

Turning, Matei saw Eovin standing at the doorway to his bedroom, a long robe layered over his nightshirt. "I'm sorry to disturb you," he said.

"What's wrong?"

"Uarria is not in her room, and neither is her nurse. I thought she might have slipped away—if she did, I was certain I'd find her here."

"I did see her earlier in the day, but not since well before supper. Let me get dressed, and I will help you look."

"You needn't—"

Eovin cut him off with a raised hand. "I'll help you look," he repeated, and then he disappeared into his private chamber, closing the door. A few minutes later, he emerged, dressed as always in his neatly-tailored trousers and a shirt, although he forewent the cravat and jacket for the purposes of their nocturnal searching.

Matei and Eovin descended the winding stairway of the Archmage's Tower together in silence. Downstairs, they met a pair of guards, who offered Matei a bow.

"Any success?" Eovin asked.

"Not yet, my lord, but we've alerted all the patrols—and Captain Uachi as well," replied one of the guards.

"Thank you," said Matei. His sense of unease had only grown.

"How thoroughly did you search the princess's room?" asked Eovin as they moved forward again.

"Well enough. I even looked under the bed, but she wasn't there."

"Lets look once more before we go anywhere else." Eovin turned down the corridor that would take them toward the royal apartments. "It cannot hurt. If Sorinna went on some night errand and left the girl, she might have been frightened and tucked herself away."

"You don't think she might have gone out of the palace?"

"How could she have, Matei? We've guards on patrol everywhere; someone would have noticed her. She must be inside."

Matei hoped Eovin was right. The door to Princess Uarria's room was still standing open when they arrived. Inside, everything was just as it had been, the gentle glow of spirit globes lending a soothing atmosphere to the room despite Matei's mounting fear. He and Eovin turned back the covers of the bed, stepped out onto the balcony, and checked behind each piece of furniture.

"The wardrobe?" asked Eovin, raising his brows.

At once, Matei felt stupid—but he would never expect his daughter to be tucked away in such a place. "I didn't check," said Matei. "You know she hates small spaces."

"Perhaps she has conquered a fear and is playing a grand trick on us all," he said. He raised his voice. "Sweetheart! You've stirred up some excitement this evening, but it's time to come out if you're hiding!"

Matei drew near to Eovin, listening for any sounds of movement within the wardrobe and wondering if Eovin was right. Uarria was growing older and bolder with every passing day. Her dresses never seemed to fit her for more than a week, and he marveled endlessly at how quickly she learned about the world around her, both through instruction and simple observation. Her most recent achievement was an expanding knowledge of different pieces of riding tack, learned at Master Callin's knee, and just yesterday she had used the word frustrated, to his amazement. Less impressive had been the context—in response to his insistence that she not stand on her chair at the dinner table, she had looked at him and exclaimed, "Father, you make me frustrated!"—but the point was that she was changing with every passing day.

What was conquering claustrophobia to hide from worried grown-ups compared to learning the purpose of a hackamore? If there was one thing Matei had learned about having a daughter, it was that she would defy his expectations every time.

With a smile, Eovin approached Uarria's large wardrobe, and Matei looked around the lorekeeper's shoulder as he pulled open the door, fully expecting to see his daughter crouched, grinning, inside.

But when the door swung open, Uarria was not there.

Instead, the pale-faced body of Hastor, an Arcborn palace guard, spilled out of the wardrobe. His eyes were wide and lifeless. Across the silver fabric of his tabard was a charred slash, and the flesh of his torso, revealed by the tear, was bloody and mangled.

Matei had seen such a wound before; he had made such a wound before in the heat of battle. It was the result of a weapon of magic.