Alaric Adair had bedded three duchesses before the harvest festival and could not remember the color of their eyes. He remembered instead the woman at the archery butts. She had walked past him without slowing, without curtsy, without the small stumble in the step that told him a woman had noticed him. In Eldervein, where his smile had emptied wine cellars and marriage beds alike, that steady stride was the first interesting thing he had seen in a year. He stood now under the carved oak arch at the edge of the tourney green, watching the crowd file out. The arch was crowded with painted crests, and Alaric knew every house on it. He named them off as guests passed beneath. The woman had worn dark leather with fur at the collar and a device he did not know: a blade crossed with something he could not place from thirty paces. He had asked a page. The page did not know. He had asked the steward, who bowed and said the guest lists were sealed until the closing feast. He had asked a groom, who laughed at him for the first time in his life. By dusk Alaric had questioned nine people and learned nothing except that a prince's charm was a poor lockpick. He waited until the torches were lit and the last riders came through. A short, blonde woman ducked under the arch beside a taller man in Valoris colors. Her braids were tight, her jaw set, her hand near the hilt at her belt. Alaric stepped into her path and gave her the smile that had ruined a countess. She looked at him the way one looks at a wet dog in a doorway. The man beside her spoke first. "Adair. My cousin's guest. Astrid Ainsworth, of the northern march." Prince Damien Valoris said her name like a warning. Astrid did not offer a hand. She said, "You are blocking the arch," and walked around him. Alaric stood with the name in his mouth and watched her cross the green toward the feast hall. He had what he had wanted since morning. He also understood, for the first time in his adult life, that knowing a woman's name was the smallest part of the problem.

Alaric found Crawford Chamberlin at the wine tables inside the feast hall, red-haired and short and already three cups down. Crawford was the only man in the realm who had ever told Alaric his smile looked stupid, and for that reason Alaric trusted him more than his own brothers. Alaric pulled him aside behind a pillar and named the problem in one breath. Astrid Ainsworth sat at the long table across the hall, eating with a knife and speaking to no one. Alaric had no seat near her, no errand at her end of the room, and no house tie to her march. If he crossed the floor without a reason, she would see him coming and turn her back before he arrived. Crawford drained his cup and looked at Astrid, then at Alaric. "You want a reason," he said. "I can give you a reason. You won't like it." Crawford's plan was simple and cruel. He would spill his cup down Alaric's sleeve in full view of the head table, then loudly beg the northern guest for the trick her people used on wine stains in wool. It was a real trick; Crawford swore his aunt had married a northern man and taught him the words. Alaric agreed before he could think. Crawford stumbled into him on cue, red wine bloomed across Alaric's white sleeve, and Crawford's voice carried the length of the hall. Heads turned. Astrid looked up. Crawford bowed toward her and asked, loud enough for the steward to hear, whether the lady would spare the salt and vinegar cure her march was known for. The hall waited. Astrid set down her knife. She said, "We don't have such a cure. Someone lied to your friend." Then she returned to her plate. Crawford went pale under his freckles. Alaric stood with wine dripping off his cuff and every eye in the room on him, and understood that Crawford's aunt had married a liar. He walked out of the hall before the laughter started. In the corridor he wiped his sleeve on a curtain and made himself think. She had spoken to him. Two sentences, in front of witnesses, with his name attached to a fool's errand. Tomorrow every guest would know Alaric Adair had been made a joke by the northern woman. He could not approach her again as a suitor. He would have to approach her as something else.

Alaric slept badly and woke with a fixed thought. Astrid Ainsworth would ride north within days, and once she crossed the gates he would never find her again. He could not court her now. But he could learn where she slept, and a man who knew where a woman lodged had time on his side. He dressed plainly and left the wine-stained shirt on the floor. In the yard he found Crawford Chamberlin nursing his head at the pump. Alaric told him the new plan in six words. Find her rooms before she leaves. Crawford spat water and said he owed him that much. They split the work. Crawford would drink with the grooms in the guest stables and count the northern horses. Alaric would walk the lodging streets near the palace and watch for the dark leather coat. He walked until noon and saw nothing. He walked again after the bells and caught a flash of pale braid at a baker's stall two streets from the palace wall. Astrid stood at the counter with a loaf under her arm, arguing the price in a flat northern voice. Alaric stepped into a doorway across the lane and waited. She paid, tucked the bread into a satchel, and turned up the lane without looking back. He followed at thirty paces. She stopped once at a fountain to drink. She stopped once more to tighten a strap on her boot. Then she climbed the steps of a narrow house with a green door and a brass ring, and let herself in with a key from her belt. Alaric marked the door, counted three houses from the corner, and walked past without slowing. At the end of the street he leaned against a wall and let out a breath. He had her address. He had four days at most. He still had no reason on earth to knock. But when he turned back toward the palace, Prince Damien Valoris was standing at the mouth of the lane with two guards behind him, watching the green door, and watching Alaric watch it.