Since childhood, Ysara has been hiding in plain sight, keeping her head down and her mouth shut. She has small ambitions: a dowry, a boy who barely knows her name, a life that's hers to keep.

Then a clumsy prince wanders into the wrong forest, an imperial investigator starts asking the wrong questions, and everything she thought she'd buried comes looking for her.

Now she's on the run with a former spy who kills people for breakfast, and a plan that borders on suicidal: infiltrate the imperial court disguised as a noblewoman, navigate deadly politics, steal the emperor's seal, and walk out alive, all to free one stubborn boy from the shipyards before the empire grinds him to nothing.No pressure.