The parchment trembled in Ryan's hand, and I didn't need to read the words twice to understand what I was looking at. Sienna's name, written in Cassandra's elegant, looping script, beneath an order stamped with the seal of the stepqueen's private guard.
"When?" My voice came out steadier than I felt, the old discipline of a princess trained since childhood to mask panic behind composure.
"Tonight," the mole said, still trembling in the doorway. "After the evening meal, when the corridors are thinnest. They mean to make it look like an accident. A fall. A fever. Nothing that points back to the stepqueen's household."
I was already moving, pulling my robe tighter, my mind racing ahead of my feet. Sienna had been at my side since childhood, had braided my hair before council meetings, had
