Lena's POV
The message came from the gate at midmorning, carried by a runner who had the careful, uncertain look of someone bringing news he was not sure how to categorize.
"There is a man at the eastern gate," he said. "He gave the name Zack Briggs. Beta heir of Crestfall. He is asking to see Lena Cole."
I was in the reading room with my notebook open and the winter light coming through the high window, and for a moment I simply sat with the sentence before I let myself react to it.
Tara, sitting across from me with a letter she had been drafting to a service worker at Crestfall who still owed her a favor, looked up sharply.
"He left Crestfall without telling anyone where he was going," she said. "And now he is here."
"Yes."
"Do you want to see him?"
I thought about the question h
