Chapter Twenty-Six
Dim light filters through the Mists over the piano in the morning. I curl into Waffles and soak up the warmth in a bed so comfortable I could die.
Roze has gone somewhere, so I languish in bed for a few minutes, thinking.
We have until sundown tomorrow. A day and a little more left.
That’s all the time we have, and I wonder if Roze has started to feel as I have—that this is all hopeless, that we are running from something bigger than both of us, that it can’t be outrun or outsmarted.
Eventually, I sit up and push my feet into Roze’s slippers.
I love that he has slippers—even if they’re the most elegant, dark slippers I could imagine existing.
The thought of owning anything for simply its coziness goes against everything I know about him, but Roze is complex, like the flower he’s named for.
There are layers upon layers to pluck like petals, each time discovering something new.
Perhaps that’s part of the reason I’m warming to him.
I like complexities, and he’s a puzzle I could solve forever.
I’m stoking the fire when he opens the door carrying a teapot and a small package under his arm.
A smile breaks on my face, but he stops abruptly in the doorway. Roze’s eyebrows shoot toward his hairline as he glances me over.
Oh. I’d completely forgotten that I’d tossed my skirt aside just before crawling into bed the night before. My shirt is barely long enough to cover my rear.
“Sorry,” I say, retrieving my skirt from where I hung it over a chair.
He recovers and smirks. “By all means, don’t clothe yourself on my account, Sinclair.”
I glare at him while I pull on my skirt.
He busies himself with pouring tea while I make myself decent. In a few minutes, he’s set two cups of dark tea and a plate of pastries from that box on the small table before the fire.
Saint Waffles leaps up on the chaise and rests his head on my lap.
I glance at Roze to see if he’ll disapprove of Waffles being on his fancy furniture, but he says nothing as he leans back in his armchair, one elegant leg crossed over the other while he sips his tea.
He’s dressed more casually this morning—slacks and a sweater of dark gray instead of his usual black. Every inch a prince.
“There are two thorns now,” he says. My heart sinks all over again at the reminder. One will disappear at sundown tonight. The other, at sundown tomorrow—the moment Roze’s time to execute me expires, and his life will be forfeit.
Roze brushes his pants leg. “What I still don’t understand is why my mother is so determined to have your life. You’re hardly the only meiga to exist. This bloodlust she has for you doesn’t make sense.”
I bite my cheek, organizing the information we have in my head.
“Your father was a Grimmstone. He wanted the war with Castelle to end, at least when he was younger. Now he’s dead.
And your mother wants me dead. I’m one of the only people who might be able to find and translate the Book of Odds, which will rid us of the Mists and free us from the castle. ”
“You’re suggesting there’s some truth my mother doesn’t want discovered if the Mists fall, that it might have to do with Castelle and the war.”
I shrug. “Professor Borges was the only person capable of learning how to translate that book. If she’s disappeared and your mother wants me dead as well—” I look up at him.
He nods, his eyes hard. “We keep you alive, and we find Professor Borges.”
I exhale deeply, meeting his gaze. “This is bigger than our survival. If I’m right, the Kingdom’s survival depends on this.”
Roze says, “I’ll search for the professor. You stay in the tower and go through the materials I brought you. Try to find out what my mother knows.” He glances out the window at the swirling Mists. “Find out what will happen when the Mists fall.”
I eye the stacks of books and manuscripts on his desk, and though I’m itching to get my hands on them—
“I’m going with you.”
“You most certainly are not.”
I huff. “I have to speak with her myself.” And Roze can’t go alone.
I need to be there to shield her from him.
He would drag her before Belladonna, and I can’t let that fate befall my mentor, whether she’s a traitor or not.
“She gave me the book. I need to know why. Let me come with you. I’m just as capable of keeping myself hidden as you are with my shadows. ”
“My sister isn’t nearly as determined to see my head on a platter—”
“Are you sure about that?”
He sighs, smoothing a hand over his hair. “I think it’s very likely that Professor Borges collaborated with my mother to have you killed.”
I pause. Then a manic laugh escapes my throat. “That’s ridiculous. I know Professor Borges,” I argue.
“You think you know her.”
“That’s rather condescending. Besides, we thought Professor Borges was allied with Castelle. She can’t be allied with Castelle and your mother.”
“I’m trying to keep you alive, Sinclair.”
“Oh, it’s Sinclair now, is it? Last night it was Viola.”
“Last night you weren’t so irritating.”
I cross my arms. “You know, for a moment, I forgot how awful you are.”
“Your first mistake,” he says. He wipes his mouth with a napkin and stands.
“The whole Kingdom is searching for you, darling. And what’s worse, after what happened to Belcamp, everyone knows why.
I don’t trust a soul outside this door with you unless they have a death moth inked on their skin. ” He crosses to the door.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
“To the other Grimmstones, and I will find Professor Borges and speak to her,” he says. “You’re right that we need to question her, but you’re not leaving this tower.”
“You need my help,” I object.
“No, Sinclair. I need you to stay out of sight.” He opens the door. “Don’t leave.”
“Wait, Roze—” I rush forward, but he slams it in my face.
I try the handle, but then I hear the click of a key in the lock.
The bastard locked me in.
“Roze!” I screech. I jiggle the lock furiously and kick the door. “Roze, come back here and let me out!”
There’s no response.
I bang my fist on the door. “Roze!”
Still fuming, I drop onto the piano bench, glaring at the gold doorknob and imagining all the things I’ll scream at Roze when he returns.
Maybe I’ll say nothing. Maybe I’ll just punch him in the nose again.
I fidget with the hem of my skirt, chewing on the edge of my tongue. It’s torture—sitting here while he takes all the risk. The best I can do is throw myself into research with a vengeance.
With the King lie the answers.
With the King lies salvation.
The heart is the dominion of evil.
He and that strange sonnet are the key to stopping the Queen. I know it in my bones, and I need to know what the poem means, why it appeared in the book, and why Roze has it marked in a book of sonnets.
My gaze wanders to the window beside the piano. Through the Mists, I can barely make out the tops of adjacent towers around Roze’s.
And then something catches my eye.
Below Roze’s tower, at the edge of the lake, is a turret with a domed roof of glass. I recognize that dome.
Going to the window, I press my hands up against the glass.
My view is hazy through the Mists, but I squint my eyes, and then I’m certain—I’m looking at the Crypt, the home of the Grimmstones.
It just barely juts from the water, surrounded by windowless stone walls, hidden from view from either the shore or castle windows—all except this one. It’s barely visible through the Mists.
Secretive. Like Roze. Prince of Secrets.
A dark shape on the stone catches my eye. Wiping condensation from the window with the sleeve of my sweater, I squint harder, forcing my eyes to focus.
My breath catches. A Hivernian rune is carved into the stone surrounding the dome, one of the four on the cover of the Book of Castelle.
And there—another. And two more on the other side.
The runes make a complete circle. I run to the bedside table where I left the book.
Sure enough, the runes match those that circle the seal of the entwined dragon and lion.
So the Book of Castelle and the Grimmstones are connected. Why? The answers must lie in the Crypt.
I glance toward the door. I have to get out of here. We’re running out of time, and I can’t sit on this information until Roze returns. I doubt Roze has a key to the door hidden somewhere, but maybe there’s something I can pick the lock with. If only I had Kole’s key that can open anything.
I pull open the drawers of his desk and find only scrap paper full of scribbled musical scores and a few fountain pens, nothing I can use on the lock. I sigh, pivoting to a different idea. What if there’s another way out? Roze is known for his hidden passages.
I set about investigating the room, making more of a mess than is absolutely necessary.
I’m being petty, throwing pillows aside, tossing back sheets, scattering books on the floor after checking inside each one, but it serves Roze right.
He locked me in here, after all, and I’ve had about enough of having my life tempered by others’ expectations.
After thoroughly dismantling the room, I’ve found nothing, and I flop back on the bed, stripped of its sheets, annoyed and sweating. I refuse to be consoled by the obnoxious softness of the mattress.
Now I’m furious at him. Everything about him is rich and sleek and perfect—like a snake.
I study the headboard beside me as I lie there, glaring at its carved, mahogany perfection.
The stain is so dark it’s nearly black, and the scrollwork is exquisite.
Delicate little leaves and, of course, roses are strung on spiny vines netting the entire thing.
In the center is a framed face of some sort of fiend, its mouth twisted into an odd smile.
Its eyes are oddly deep and seem to watch me no matter which way I turn my head. In fact, they’re too deep.