Jakut grips my arm as we head back to the guest tower, though it is not the confident controlled hold of a master, nor the tender caress of an admirer. I am a buffer against the elements.

My own dilemma dampens my sympathy for his desperation. In two hours, I will be forced to leave the fort and abandon Kel when I have only just found him. I thought I would see him again, that I would be the one to break the news that it will be Tug, and not me, taking him home. I thought I would have time to check he is eating again, and have the comfort of witnessing his departure with Beast-face.

Even with Tug and the Duchess's threats, I hadn't given up on the possibility of finding an exit strategy—their secret could destroy any family, but its effect on the royal family, if ever known, would ripple through the whole Kingdom. There could have been a way to sway things back in my favour. But like Jakut, I have run out of time.

The Prince thrusts open the door to Tug and Brin's chamber. "There's been a change of plan," he announces. Brin, half-dressed in underwear with long legs, four colored crystals hanging from his neck, is covered in shaving foam. His skin looks gray beneath the tattooed webbing—lack of sleep, excessive drinking and worry taking its toll.

"Where's Tug?"

Brin glances at me with bloodshot eyes. He opens his mouth, but at the same moment boot steps thud in the corridor. Tug appears behind us, expression neutral.

"We leave for the Red City immediately," the Prince says. I squeeze my crossed arms into my chest, attempting to hold in the thunder-crack of tension. Say "no". Convince the Prince you cannot come.

"If Mirra has passed her test," Tug answers, "we are free to go."

"Two hundred gold coins to escort Mirra and me to the Ruby Court. Then you will be free to do as you please."

"The deal," Brin grunts, "was a hundred when we arrived here and a hundred when Mirra passed her test. We've still got nothing."

"Circumstances have changed. The Carucan army was attacked during the long-sleep. Rumours claim the Eteans hold the King prisoner."

Jakut is not admitting his father could be dead. To himself, or just to Tug? For someone who has no memories, this news affects him deeply. I study the contours of his desolate mind and notice they have subtly shifted. Does he remember something?

After my mother's cleansing, the obliterated years did not begin to come back until she woke from the following long-sleep. Like tokens buried in silt and ashes, winter eroded the sedimentary deposits to reveal fragments and shapes of the past. But Jakut wants his memories a great deal more than Ma did. Perhaps being here has jolted his memory, and I've been too preoccupied to notice.

"Half the Duke's army will be with you," Tug reasons. "What good are we?"

"My uncle and his men believe Mirra is a lady journeying beside me of her own free will. If she takes her horse for a stroll, they will not question it." His gaze zeroes in on my face. "I will need her more than ever now."

"Where else would I go," I say. "You have promised me my freedom and purse, why would I run away?"

"Because there is nothing to keep you." A simple answer, yet it carries an indiscernible undercurrent. "But something keeps you bound to Tug."

Brin swipes the foam from his chin with a cloth, apparently giving up on his shave. His refusal to look at either Beast-face or me, silently confirms Jakut's claim.

"There is nothing between us," I snap, the edge in my voice not helping.

"You have broken your word once," Brin says to the Prince. "What is to say after we deliver Mirra to the Ruby Court you will not change your mind again and refuse to pay us?"

"Money is no object. Why would I take such a risk? Less than two weeks travel to the Red City and the gold is yours."

"We cannot accept," Brin says.

"But we will," Tug finishes.

Mentally, I crash straight into a wall. I stare at Beast-face. He cannot already have forgotten his promise to deliver Kel to my parents while I become the Duchess's informant. How will he return Kel to our parents if he is with me?

I marvel at the strangeness of my own nature. Why am I constantly surprised by the myriad ways in which Beast-face manages to hurt me?

Everyone in the room is conscious of the way my eyes drive imaginary spikes into Tug, but I don't care. Jakut speaks of meeting at the fort entrance in two hours, food being packed and horses readied, our need to travel fast. His voice echoes in my thoughts, overshadowed by an image of Kel crouching naked in the tower room, watching the secret tower door as I leave, taking all my promises with me. I picture my brother following me in the mind-world as I ride forth with the Prince and the Duke, ride so far away, he cannot follow.

When the Prince leaves us, Tug is the first to speak.

"In your chambers, Mirra," he orders.

Brin slumps into a chair and puts his head in his hands. My chest feels like it is filling with water. I'm drowning in promises I cannot keep. I clutch at my dress wanting to tear it from me. It has all been for nothing!

Kel will remain here bullied and brutalised until he realizes I'm not coming back. He will wait and wait, peeking up through the tower's slit window, training his mind on the drawbridge, jumping awake every time hooves clop across the wooden pier. Days will dissolve into weeks and as he realizes I'm not coming back, he will sink into himself and disappear.

"Sit down," Tug says.

We are in my room, but it is shadow and mist as though the mind-world has materialized and the real world vanished. I hunch into a wooden chair, shivering. Tug holds a blanket. He leans forward and wraps it around my shoulders.

"He will not understand," I say. "He will know I have gone. He will not understand."

Pine smoke drifts on the air. A crackle of burning wood and dead needles comes from the bathing chamber. I curl into my blankets deciding I will not go anywhere. Jakut won't kill me. I will be imprisoned until I'm sent to the tundra mines or hanged, and then at least Kel and I will be stuck here together.

Arms pick me up as though I am no more than a child. I think of Asmine's father carrying her from the tent of her abductors. Wading through smoke and blood, bodies scattered over the forest floor like autumn's broken leaves, mouths set open in death's silence. The images are blurred. A mix of my father's memories, and the way I have imagined my friend's living nightmare.

I am aware of the faintest things. Hands pulling at my dress. Steam. A fire. Hot water. Hot water on my face, permeating my body, stirring me back to the present. I bolt up. I am in my slip in the tub and Tug is pouring hot water over my head.

"Better?" he says.

"Get out!" I pick up a bar of soap and fling it at him. It smacks him hard on the forehead.

"Ow!"

"Get out!" I sweep up an arm, using the momentum to cover him with water.

He steps back scowling, tunic and face soaking wet. "I'll take that as a yes," he says.

"You will take nothing from me." Grabbing the cotton sheet that rests on the raised sink, I leap from the tub and wrap it beneath my arms searching for something with which to strike him.

"I have spoken to the Duchess," he says, raising his hands in peace. "Kel will be safer here in Lyndonia than travelling the country. At least until his eyes have changed and he has regained his strength. She will move him to an empty cottage outside the fort and ask Deadran to care for him. The Prince's old tutor will be told Kel is an orphan in temporary need of a guardian."

His words land and slide across me like the droplets of water on my skin. I give up searching for a weapon, and stand hugging the sheet.

"I will come with you to the Red City," he continues. "You will do everything you can to discover the Queen's intentions towards the Duke and his children. When the Prince dismisses me, I will return to Lyndonia with your news. Then I will take your brother back to Blackfoot Forest."

"Why? Why would you take him back?"

An expression skims Tug's face, as mysterious as the fortress of his mind, as his talent for hiding himself from the sighted, as his ability to bury his memories and become an enigma. He does not answer. I look down at my crinkled hands which clutch the sheet as I drip all over the wooden floor. "How long was I in the bath?"

"Longer than there is time for if you wish to see Kel before we leave. A maid knocked five minutes ago. I told her to wait outside. Shall I tell her you are ready to dress?"

I nod. He turns to leave.

"Wait," I say. "What if once we arrive at the palace Queen Usas insists on the Duke's son being sent to join his father?"

"The King has been captured. It would be an odd request considering the Prince's attempted assassination and the Etean's knowledge of the Carucan army's long-sleep stations. But if a request is sent, Elise will delay her son's departure until Jakut is crowned and you have discovered the truth behind these events."

Next update Friday 29th May. Thanks for reading. C xox