Chapter 7

Charlotte did not sleep that night. She changed into fitted, practical clothes, slipped a dagger into her sleeve, and sat by the window to wait.

Sometime past midnight, movement stirred in the courtyard, not from the front gate but from the back wall.

Charlotte caught the faint scrape of a tile. It was barely a sound, but the years she had spent confined to the abandoned wing of the palace had sharpened her hearing well.

She didn't move. She stayed in her chair by the open window, pretending to read by the bright lamplight, and turned herself into a living…