Daphne
can’t help but feel a bit of trepidation as she walks with Zenia through the Trevail Forest the following day. She is careful to keep a close eye on the girl, and she isn’t even annoyed at the six guards who surround them at a respectful distance. After two children were taken under her watch it feels like tempting the stars to bring a third here, but needs answers, and she suspects Zenia has them.
Zenia, for her part, is wary. As they wind their way through the forest, she keeps casting sidelong glances. With her blond hair in braids on either side of her round, freckled face, she looks even younger than her ten years.
clears her throat. “I know you and your family are going back north today, Zenia, but I do hope we can part as friends,” she says, offering the girl a smile. “I want you to know that I don’t blame you for the poison.”
“You don’t?” Zenia asks, her wariness shifting into confusion. “But I tried to kill you!”
“Yes, and I’d rather you didn’t try to do that again, but I don’t think you will. Because you never wanted to kill me in the first place, did you?” asks.
She already knows that Zenia was pushed to poison her, and that she did so because her nanny told her to, promising to use star magic to bring back the dead.
“I thought I had to,” Zenia says quietly.
“Perhaps,” says, casting a quick glance at the guards who surround them, all far enough away to allow them a private conversation. Still, pitches her voice lower. “But I think you knew it wasn’t right, even then, and that’s why you didn’t follow all of the instructions your nanny gave you.”
Zenia swallows. “I already told my brother everything about that day,” she says.
knows she’s hiding something, but getting her to give it up won’t be easy. If she didn’t tell her own brother, can’t imagine she would tell her.
“It was an overwhelming day for both of us,” says. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you forgot something.”
“I didn’t,” Zenia says.
“Might I tell you what I think, to see if it refreshes your memory?” asks.
Zenia shoots her a skeptical look but doesn’t protest.
“I think your nanny told you to get me alone before you gave me the poisoned water. Though with Bairre and all your siblings about, that would have been all but impossible. I understand why you didn’t wait.”
For a long moment, Zenia says nothing.
“Zenia,” prompts, reaching out to touch the girl’s arm. “You know that two boys were taken from these woods, don’t you?”
Zenia glances around before giving a quick nod.
“I believe that whoever is responsible for that might also be the people who passed on those instructions to your nanny. I’d like to find the boys before they’re hurt, but it would help if I knew exactly what you were meant to do.”
Zenia looks at her for another few breaths. “It won’t help,” she says.
“It might,” replies.
Zenia bites her bottom lip. “I don’t want to get in any more trouble,” she says quietly.
“It will be your secret and mine,” promises, though she doesn’t for one second believe it is a promise she will keep. Zenia still looks unsure. “What if I tell you a secret in return?” asks. “That way, we’re even and neither of us can tell.”
After a moment of consideration, Zenia nods. “You first,” she says.
has no intention of revealing a real secret to a child she barely knows, but she doesn’t think Zenia is a fool, so she needs to make sure her secret is believable. She decides to share one that just might benefit her if Zenia decides to tell it.
“The boys who were kidnapped?” she says. “They are the Princes of Temarin.”
Zenia rolls her eyes. “They are not,” she says.
“I swear in the name of the stars they are.”
Zenia’s eyes grow large as saucers. She hesitates a few seconds more before speaking. “I was meant to befriend you, then say I was tired and ask you to sit with me while the others hunted,” she tells , her voice dropping to barely louder than a whisper. “But I was supposed to do it at a certain place, where the stream meets the star stones.”
“The star stones?” asks, frowning. “Did you know what that meant?”
Zenia shakes her head. “But Nanny showed me a map and made me memorize it,” she says. “I could see it in my mind, just as it was on paper, but once we were in the woods, it was so much more confusing.”
“I’m sure,” says, her mind awhirl. “Can you still see the map in your mind?” she asks.
Zenia hesitates before nodding.
pauses in the middle of a small clearing where the ground is largely dirt. “Why don’t we draw a picture?” she asks, loudly enough that the guards hear her. She finds a fallen stick at the base of an oak tree, and another a few feet away. She hands one to Zenia, who eyes her uncertainly but presses the sharper end of the stick into the dirt.
“This is where we entered from the castle,” she tells , making an x. She draws a squiggling line above it, cutting from the bottom left to the upper right. “That’s the Stillwell Stream.”
nods, having come across the stream before, on previous trips into the woods. While it runs for miles, it’s a narrow thing, easy enough to jump over in places.
“And here,” Zenia says, drawing another x near the upper right corner, over the stream, “are the star stones.”
examines the map. “And what are star stones?” she asks.
Zenia shrugs. “Never seen them myself,” she says. “But that’s what Nanny called them. She said they’d be sharp so I should be mindful not to hurt myself.”
Such care the nanny showed to a girl she tried to set up for a murder, thinks. Though the woman is dead now. isn’t sure Zenia knows that, but she has no intention of telling her.
eyes the map Zenia drew, committing it to her own memory. She won’t bring Zenia there now, not when she doesn’t know what she’ll find. And at any rate, the girl is supposed to be leaving for home soon with her siblings.
She brushes the toe of her boot over the dirt, erasing Zenia’s map.
—
After returning Zenia to her brother’s care, claims to have a headache and goes to her room, leaving the guards on the other side of her door. Rather than lying down to rest, though, she changes into a pair of men’s riding breeches and a tunic hidden away in the back of her wardrobe for an opportunity such as this. She takes her daggers as well, strapping one around her calf, the other on her left arm. Once she’s dressed, she crosses to the window on the far side of her room, where Cliona once left her a letter. She suspects the rebels have used the window when they’ve snuck into her room on other occasions as well, and with good reason—the large oak tree growing alongside the palace provides both leverage and coverage. Both of which now has need of herself.
She has plenty of experience scaling walls—she and her sisters did it often enough in Bessemia, and their rooms there were on a much higher floor. In just a few short minutes, ’s feet hit solid ground almost silently. She pauses. It’s barely noon, and the chances of there being courtiers or guards milling about the castle grounds is high, but after a moment of listening, hears nothing, and she takes off toward the edge of the woods on quick feet.
Zenia’s map indicated the star stones would be found to the northeast, and she continues on foot for nearly an hour before she hears the sound of the stream. She follows that east for a while longer, her eyes scanning the stream ahead for anything that might be described as star stones. When she sees them, she stops short.
A pile of rocks sit over the stream, looking at first glance like any other rocks has seen. But as she approaches and the sunlight filters through the canopy of leaves above, the rocks begin to sparkle and shine—like stardust, she realizes. And, as Zenia said, their edges are sharp enough to draw blood. These must be the star stones, but after she’s examined them for a moment, dread pools in the pit of ’s stomach.
She looks around the woods, suddenly sure she’s been here before, though she can’t quite recall. She remembers being carried through here, hearing the sound of the stream, feeling Bairre’s arms around her, his heart pounding as he ran. When she looks north, she spots the chimney poking out from the top of the canopy.
Aurelia’s cottage, she realizes. The star stones are mere yards away from Aurelia’s front door.