Page 123 of A Song of Ash and Moonlight

I nodded, realizing with a jolt of unreasonable self-loathing that I’d forgotten to bring home his boots.

“He was taken,” I said thickly. “Many were from the castle as well, and I assume from everywhere else.” I glanced at Father. “Have any of our people disappeared?”

He frowned, as if the question were an irritant. “No, and I suppose we have her to thank for that?”

Her.I looked past him to Philippa, who still stared at the empty hearth. “Is that true?” I asked her. “Is your presence protecting us? Have you decided to stay and help us after all?”

It was as if she hadn’t heard me. “Ankaret,” she murmured, tracing her finger across the mantel. “What a strange name. Familiar, as if from a dream.”

“What does that mean? You know the word? You’ve heard it before?”

From behind me came a crash of glass. I whirled to see Madam Moreen squatting down to clean up a shattered vial. The burning medicinal scent of the spilled tonic wafted up from the carpet, and a bright magenta stain dripped slowly down the wallpaper.

Alastrina stared at the mess, medicine splattered across her front. She looked imploringly at Illaria, who grabbed a cloth and started to clean her cheeks. I almost looked away—the expression on Alastrina’s tearstained face was terrible, desolate, so unlike the imperious womanI’d always known that it frightened me. But then a memory flew forward from the tumult of my mind. Alastrina, before Ryder and I had left for the capital and we’d all been gathered in the morning room, had laughed quietly to herself and said,You won’t be able to find him. No one ever has. You think you’re the first to try and crack the shell?

Crack the shell.

A goblet, a key, a black lake under a full moon.

Anegg.

The revelation hit me like a shock of cold water.

“Alastrina, when we came back from Mhorghast, you said something I think is important,” I said, struggling to keep my voice calm. “‘You won’t be able to find him. No one ever has. You think you’re the first to try and crack the shell?’ Do you remember saying that?”

She glared up at me through greasy locks of black hair, her fingers digging into Illaria’s arm. “Ashbourne, you’re talking gibberish.”

I tried again. “‘You won’t be able find him,’” I said calmly. “‘No one ever has. You think you’re the first to try and crack the shell?’”

This time, the words seemed to ring a bell inside her. Her eyes widened; she went very still. “Crack the shell,” she whispered.

My heart pounded. “Yes, exactly. Is it the shell of an egg, Alastrina? Is that what you meant?”

She held her head in her hands. Her breathing started coming quickly. “An egg. Crack the shell.”

I thought back to the cryptic information Ankaret had given Ryder and me. I found the words at once; they were not easy to forget.

“Mhorghast is a city and a palace,” I said. “Isn’t it, Alastrina? And gardens that stretch for miles, all of it ruled by a great storm. Where is this egg kept? What does it do? Do you know?”

Alastrina stared at me, her pale face turning ashen. She licked her dry lips.

I pressed on. Maybe, if I kept reciting Ankaret’s words, they wouldspark something in Alastrina, give her strength, or at least lucidity. “‘The storm lives in the walls, and sometimes in the sky.’”

“In the walls,” Alastrina whispered. And then her face crumpled. “In thewalls!”

“Farrin, please, no more,” Illaria said tightly, but I couldn’t stop now, not with that look of recognition dawning in Alastrina’s eyes.Ryder’seyes—that same piercing, unflinching blue.

I swallowed my heartache and remembered how Alastrina’s gaze had clouded over in Mhorghast. Some power there had muddled her, turning her against her own brother.

I flung the words at her. “‘The storm lives in the walls, and sometimes in the sky. The storm is not like others. It has a will—’”

“I feel it again,” Philippa said, interrupting me. She sank down onto the carpet, peering curiously at Alastrina. “I can see it on your face, my girl—the same presence I felt when I was there. A face across a crowded room, a shade of memory. A trace of it lingers in you.”

She reached out to touch Alastrina, who tried to scramble away in a panic—but then Philippa touched her cheek, and though it was nothing more than a light brush of her fingertips, it held Alastrina in place as surely as an unbreakable chain.

In an instant, the room seemed to expand, as if to accommodate Philippa’s power. Goose bumps erupted all over me; behind me, Madam Moreen let out a soft cry of dismay.

A breath, a frozen instant, and then Philippa’s face went slack with horror. She released Alastrina, staggered to her feet, stumbled toward a chair. She sat down hard, missed the chair’s edge, and fell gracelessly to the floor.

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