The whole throne room stood silent as the queen's voice rang through it like a death knell. "Isaiah, myself and your father have evaluated your recent behavior and determined that it is in Calis's best interests for you to be removed from your current responsibilities. From now on, everyone in this palace and realm shall follow my orders and those of your father, and our orders alone. You are no longer permitted to communicate with people about compensations, and disappearances will be handled by the City Guard under the command of your father."

The calmness with which she dismantled his life dug pits beneath Isaiah's resolve and threatened to collapse it. He clung to it by threads, jaw clenched in silence as his mother continued her ruthless assault.

"You are to stay in the palace and complete any tasks we require of you. All casual trips to the lowlands are henceforth forbidden, and any common citizen found communicating with you through informal channels will be investigated, fined, and given a cease and desist order that they will disobey on threat of prison time."

Verde and Margaret would disobey that order. They would suffer for it. Already, new calculations began to take shape in the back of Isaiah's mind. How far he could drop from the roof or a tree without suffering injuries too great to escape with. Which guards he might be able to coerce into letting him out. Where he could go from there, and how he might evade his parents' reach in the aftermath.

The queen wasn't done. "Me and your father have also decided it is about time we expedited your courtship process."

Isaiah froze, all thoughts of escape shot still.

"We sent a letter to your last Madeiran suitor this morning." The desperate one. "We have offered a generous reward for her move to Calis, and we fully expect that she will agree to it. You will be married in the spring."

Deep in the part of Isaiah's mind that had moments before been calculating escape routes, something snapped.

"No," he said quietly. "I'm not marrying her."

"This is not a choice that rests in your hands anymore."

"And if I make an embarrassment of Calis before the Madeiran court?"

"Those are bold words when you stand at risk of being disowned by the woman and man unfortunate enough to call themselves your parents."

That was it.

He was done.

The weight of the queen's stipulations shed off like falling stones as Isaiah straightened. He was too calm for the sheer heat burning through him. "Then get it over with and disown me. I'm sure Niccola could use my help over in Varna anyway."

Deathly silence dropped over the throne room. It sucked the very air from the space, leaving it so voided, Isaiah could hear the staggered breathing of one of the guards at his back.

When the queen spoke again, her voice was soft. "Excuse me?"

The secret was out. Isaiah had never imagined just how good it would feel, to finally throw off that cowl of silence and reveal who he'd been working with.

"Oh, you didn't know who my partner is? I'm surprised you didn't smell another liar in the room when you met her... she certainly spotted you. Niccola is none other than the undercover demi-queen of our next-door neighbor. We've been working together for some time now." The silence had not broken. Every heartbeat that passed in it unleashed more of the pent-up fury now coursing through Isaiah's veins, smoothing his words to an icy polish. "I heard you had her shot at yesterday. I can't imagine how that would sound if news of it made it to the inter-realm council when it meets this spring."

"Are you threatening me, Isaiah?"

"You know what? Yes. Yes, I am." Isaiah stood in the middle of the throne room with his shoulders back and his hands in his pockets as guards all around him shuffled nervously. His mother had almost certainly been behind the archers who'd fired on Niccola, not knowing who she was. And Varna—the realm, its ruler, and all its people—were not the only ones who would suffer if current Calisian rule continued unchecked. Verde and Margaret could lose everything if his time sheltering with them came to light. With them would fall the Calisian people: both those in danger from Dinah's threat, and those who'd already died. Those who would die in the future if a necromantic was given continued reign in the realm.

"Seize him," grated the queen.

"The first guard to touch me will be tried for maltreatment of a royal the moment I hold a throne."

Everyone who'd started forward stopped dead. Now it was Isaiah's word against the queen's, with the element of surprise around Niccola on his side. He needed more power than this to make it out unscathed.

"You know what else the council would hate to hear?" he said, and heard the queen's breath hiss. "How willing you are to lock away the one person in your palace sounding the alarm about a second Calisian necromantic in the Talakova, preying on common folk."

The queen's voice shook with anger, but for the first time, she spoke with less than total certainty. "You're lying."

"Am I? Or am I the only one telling the truth? I can tell you right now how our track records compare on that matter, and I am sure any guard or common person in this realm can back it."

Niccola was, at this very moment, out in the Talakova tracking down Dinah—alone. Trying to avert another Catastrophe—alone. Meribah had lied to hold doubts over Isaiah's head and keep him from supporting Varna, but those lies had fallen one by one ever since Niccola had entered the scene.

"If you take this to the council, you will see all of Calis in ruin," said Meribah. It was as good as an admission that Isaiah was right. He'd been right all along.

"No, it won't," he said. "Because I have a connection you locked me in my room for even suggesting. I'm allying with Varna whether you want me to or not. If you want to kick me out, do it; you can't stop me from taking this to Madeira. They'll dethrone you, and I'll tell them the truth and take that throne back. I know the laws. I know what you have to do if you want to replace me in the line of succession. I know you won't have time. And if you try to kill me like you tried to kill Niccola, she'll deliver the news instead. And let me tell you, she has a lot less sympathy for you than I might."

"You insolent boy."

"Try and stop me."

His voice rang through the hall. Even as he said the words, Isaiah knew nobody would try. His mother could spit and threaten all she wanted, but he had her cornered. He continued, "Or maybe you can turn around and do the right thing just once, and help me stop Dinah from bringing Calis and Varna to their knees again."

The ripple of gasps around the hall was exactly the response he'd hoped for. There was no way now that the news would stay secret. His mother could settle for dealing with the fallout herself, or let him stay and take it into his own hands, as he was clearly volunteering to.

His mother, notably, had not gasped.

"And you knew already, didn't you," said Isaiah. "I bet you helped destroy all that missing information in the palace archives, too. Tell me, how many reports did you ignore before you started actively covering up the disappearances this time around?"

"You're lying," said the queen again. She was fooling nobody.

"What was her real power?" 

For the first time, the question left Isaiah's mouth without a trace of fear. Anyone in the hall who went against him now would be ruled an accomplice in the cover-up, and they couldn't catch both him and Niccola before the news broke.

"She spoke to crows," said the queen, with a trace of belligerence that betrayed the lie.

"Every word you say from now on can be held against you in inter-realm court."

A rustle and jingle permeated the hall as guards turned towards the throne. They were responding to him. They were responding to him. The balance of power in the room had shifted, and though the queen still sat on the throne, it was no longer her who stood at the head of the Calisian forces.

The queen's voice was hoarse when she spoke again. "She shapeshifted. Her form was a crow."

The final piece of the puzzle slammed into place with a force that stole Isaiah's breath. A crow. Erelah had said a single crow flew from the hut where Dinah had been held when the Calisian guards came to arrest her. A crow had been caught poisoning wine in the Madeiran palace, leading to the Catastrophe. A crow could easily have escaped the Calisian army in that day.

There'd been a crow in the palace archives when he'd first visited them to confirm Niccola's Varnic identity.

There'd been a crow in the trees when he and Niccola had met in that ruin to discuss her parents' murders.

And a crow had broken into his room during the ball, rifling through his notes on the disappearances and a potential necromantic threat. His crow. Pekea had implicated her when he'd asked. His crow, who'd refused to let anyone inspect her when she came home injured two days after the latest disappearance in the lowlands. His crow, who had turned up tame and let him take her in the year before, with no legband from a formal rookery. She'd behaved like any other messenger, so he'd assumed she'd simply lost it.

Dinah had been watching him all along.

"Your majesty," said a guard, stepping forwards.

"Yes?" said the queen, but the guard did not turn to her. She turned to Isaiah.

"Your majesty, if I may," she said, her voice quavering. "It was a crow who brought an anonymous tip-off to the palace yesterday, saying the woman in the forest was attempting to undermine the royal family, and that your partner was dangerous and should be stopped at once."

Isaiah had all the proof he needed. "You, grab a partner and come with me. The rest of you, watch the queen."

He spun on his heel and strode out of the throne room with two guards hurrying after him. The way back to his room passed in a blur. Isaiah slammed the door open and kicked obstacles out of his way as he went straight to the balcony. A cold wind smacked his face. Ignoring it, Isaiah found Luva's crow-house and felt inside. It was empty. It was more than empty. It was picked clean, its bedding shredded and scattered, like someone had gone through it in search of something hidden there. Isaiah already knew what. In the entire nest, he could not find a single feather.

"She was here," he said. "Can one of you confirm that she stripped all the feathers from this?"

The guards confirmed almost immediately. The bedding itself would be no use; he needed something that had been in contact with Dinah for longer than a bedding-change. The crow-house might suffice, but only might. And it was cumbersome as the table it sat on. He needed a feather.

He had a feather.

Isaiah's head snapped up at the realization. Niccola had tucked one in his hair when they'd escaped the day before, and told him to find Luva with it if the crow didn't return on her own. He'd tucked it in his pocket for safekeeping. He'd still been wearing that shirt when he'd been captured yesterday. It was somewhere in this room.

"Pekea, dirty shirt."

She leaped off his shoulder and hit the ground with a thud. In just half a minute, she'd located the shirt and dragged it back to him. Isaiah searched its pockets. The feather was still there. He pulled it out, then the slipper from his pants pocket, too. He turned to the first guard. "Get hold of the top tracker you can find in the Pereira or Pasternak families and tell them to come to the office of the City Guard in the lowlands immediately. Do not mention my name. Bring the letter for my signature. You"—the second guard snapped to attention—"come back to the throne room with me. We've got work to do."