Lyra's POV
Elowen didn't speak again until we were well away from the healer's house, moving through quiet corridors and out a narrow side door I hadn't even noticed before, into a small walled garden tucked behind the palace's oldest wing.
Moonflowers climbed nearly every surface here, pale and closed against the daylight, waiting for a darkness that wouldn't arrive for hours yet. The air smelled faintly of crushed herbs and old stone, quieter than anywhere else I'd found within these walls.
"This place is warded," she said, closing the gate behind us with a soft, deliberate click. "No one listens here. No one watches. It's the only place in this entire palace I trust enough for this conversation."
"That's not reassuring," I said.
"It isn't meant to be reassuring. It's meant to be ho
