East

Rose

MY PLAN WAS WORKING—so far anyway.

Thanks to his mother, Urda, Tuki had been appointed as a sort of companion to "Myk." When the Troll Queen was a child, Urda was her nursemaid—and since then the older woman had continued to hold a position of trust to the queen.

Tuki learned that Myk had a large cup of slank each night before bedtime. For a week Tuki had managed to substitute plain slank for the kind with the powder. I have some idea he switched his own slank, unpowdered, for Myk's, which he poured away. Tuki had also contrived to smuggle in several bundles of clothing that were crucial to my plan. And in between orders for dresses, I sneaked in time to do my own sewing.

There were only a handful of days until the wedding.