Chapter 13
Durlain was dressed and sitting at his desk when I slipped into his room with breakfast for two – no hot baths this time. From the quick but unmistakable glance he threw at the tray in my hands, I was tempted to call it a learning curve.
‘We can share,’ I said magnanimously.
He was wearing his un-spelled eyepatch again, but his visible eye flashed. ‘Did I mention you’re a terrible servant?’
‘I would possibly be a better one if my employer didn’t remind me on every possible occasion that he hated my guts,’ I said, setting the food on the table and quickly dividing bread, eggs, and apple pancakes between two plates.
He got the smallest portion. I wasn’t even that hungry – last night’s dinner had been more than enough – but a woman had her pride.
‘And before you waste a whole breakfast complaining about my manners – we have bigger troubles. Hevaine says a few of her guests have caught rumours about secret guests and are clamouring to go search the house.’
Durlain stiffened, hand with plate hovering a few inches above the table. ‘Oh, really.’
‘Yes.’ I picked up my fork and pounced on my apple pancake, adding in between bites, ‘Mondren is apparently distracting them with an early-morning carette tournament, but she says she can’t promise some of them won’t stay on the lookout. Why the hell does she invite people like that to her—’
‘Because they’re either idiots who spill their secrets to her or intrigants paying for said secrets,’ Durlain said absently, finally lowering his food. The tinkle of earthenware on wood was barely audible. ‘And either sort will be tickled by the idea of a mystery, presumably. Unhelpful.’
Right.
That explained a thing or two.
‘So what do we do?’ I’d been so worried about Brainne and its courtiers that the possibility of Hevaine’s guests recognising Durlain hadn’t even been on my mind.
If these were all drunken gossips, though …
that would be bad. ‘Drop hints that we’re hiding in the library and then make a run for the stables when they’re searching this part of the house? ’
His expression didn’t shift. ‘That is quite possibly the worst idea you’ve had in a while.’
I swallowed my pancake a little louder than I should have. ‘What?’
‘Although perhaps not as bad as the idea to dye your hair green,’ he admitted in a soft, musing tone, considering me closely.
‘Or your apparent intention to ride from the Moon Lake to Elenon while still in soaking wet clothes. Upon further deliberation, I take back my earlier assessment. It might actually be a rather average suggestion, coming from—’
I flipped my fork around in my hand.
He quirked an eyebrow at it, thoroughly unimpressed. ‘Thinking of skewering me?’
‘I’m usually thinking of skewering you,’ I said sharply, and it came out so bewilderingly easily, not the slightest urge to cower or mince my words.
Something had shifted, yesterday. I’d stolen his breakfast and gawked at his scars; he’d been rude and condescending in return, but he had not retaliated.
He was still talking to me. He had still bought me those clothes.
‘In moments like these you just inspire me to turn thought into action. What’s so bad about the idea, exactly? ’
He paused for a moment to take a sip of water.
Then he leaned back in his chair, tilted his head at me and said, ‘It’s the mystery that excites them.
Leaving hints behind and vanishing with that mystery unsolved will just prompt them to keep digging, and if the news of us being here has leaked in the first place, I’m sure they’ll find a stablehand willing to describe my face to them in exchange for a large enough bribe.
Don’t underestimate the lengths bored nobles will go to for entertainment. ’
I slowly lowered my fork.
There was a suggestion shimmering between those words that I didn’t like in the slightest.
‘So …’ I had to grapple for words for a moment. ‘So you’re saying we should give them a solution to the mystery? Have Hevaine announce the visitor was just a stranded traveller whose horse has broken a leg?’
‘They’ll still wonder why they haven’t seen the traveller in question.
’ He finally picked up knife and fork and began to dissect his pancake with swift, meticulous yanks of his fingers.
‘As long as they aren’t served some tangible, boring explanation, they’ll be curious.
Do we really want to bet they won’t find out anything damaging? ’
That last sentence wasn’t even a question.
Just Durlain Averre again, biting as vitriol and unable to present an argument without turning it into a thinly-veiled insult of my intelligence – odd, how easily one could get used to such things.
I picked up my slice of rye bread, dug into it, and said around that mouthful, ‘I have no idea. Do we?’
He gave me a flat stare of death.
I chewed, then swallowed. ‘It’s a better idea than us merrily introducing ourselves, surely.’
‘Us?’ The silkiness of his voice was alarming.
Death’s fucking teeth.
Not him. Because his cousin was playing carette downstairs, and probably a dozen others who knew him; not even his best Givron act would fool them into thinking he was anyone but a prince presumed dead. Whereas I …
My stomach turned.
‘You can’t make me go down there.’ I loathed, loathed the little tremble that snuck into my voice. ‘I’ll just make everything worse. I’m terrible with people. They’ll see through me in a heartbeat, and then what are you going to do?’
Durlain didn’t respond.
But his gaze lingered on my face, piercing and calculating – that lock-picking look, taking me apart where I sat, working out the tumblers and levers of me.
It was hard not to squirm under such scrutiny. ‘Listen, I—’
‘No,’ he said softly.
I fell silent, blinking. ‘What?’
‘I don’t think I’ll be listening.’ He elegantly stuck a last piece of pancake into his mouth, then rose, nodding at the portion of his breakfast he’d left behind. ‘I’m off to settle my debts. Take the rest, then go work out your story with Hevaine. You’ll be riding first.’
Breakfast was a stone in my stomach as I descended the stairs.
Around me, the heavy stone walls seemed to shiver on the edges of my sight, flower garlands and willow branches watching me make my way to the glass conservatory on the back of the house. Every now and then, servants passed me by with clean linen and hot water. No one threw me so much as a glance.
Yet.
My nails curled into my palms.
Already I could hear the rowdy voices echo in the distance, shouting about trump cards and rounds won.
Five minutes perhaps, if I walked slowly, and it felt like counting down the hours to the gallows all over again.
I knew how these things went, for hell’s sake.
There was a reason Lark did the talking for me, and that reason was I couldn’t string three convincing words together when frightened – that I insisted on acting like the most suspicious creature in the world as soon as anyone asked me a single question, and worst of all, that I couldn’t even tell when I was doing it.
The dangerous thing is you’re such an open book when you’re nervous, witchling …
If Lark hadn’t warned me and stopped me from making a fool of myself, how much sooner would I have ended up in a prison cell?
Fuck Durlain and his deadly fucking plans – I’d have cursed him out loud if not for the maid rushing past in that moment.
Fuck me, too, for agreeing to those same plans in the end …
but there was no use in turning back now to try and weasel my way out of it.
Durlain would leave Odine in thirty minutes or so.
If I dragged my feet, I would simply stay behind on my own, and then I’d have a far, far greater problem if the other guests didn’t believe the lies I’d prepared.
If. When.
Breathe.
I had to keep breathing.
At least the lies were good, I frantically tried to reassure myself.
They were Hevaine’s after all. Sunna Livsdottir, confidential messenger in service of Lady Laverne of Aurien.
What am I doing in Odine? You’ll have to ask the lady of the house about that …
But the trouble with lies was that you had to deliver them well, that you had to appear calm and unconcerned and utterly normal …
and try as I might, I did not check a single one of those boxes.
You don’t even realise it yourself, do you? How odd you appear at times?
Years ago, miles away, and I still winced at the memory.
I’d laughed the wrong way about Jay’s stupid jokes.
Not that I’d realised it in the moment, of course, because I never realised any of it myself – Lark had had to gently warn me, slipping into my bed at night.
Too loud. Like you were desperate for something.
So I had started laughing more quietly, and he did the talking whenever we were travelling; the last thing I wanted was for some witch-hating innkeeper to start wondering what I was so desperate for.
You know what they do to your kind, witchling …
The wide glass doors of the conservatory loomed before me. I’d somehow crossed three rooms without even noticing.
Shit.
No way back, now.
There were about a dozen guests sitting around the tables, in haphazard finery or even just dressing gowns, laughing and drinking uproariously.
I stepped into the glass construction as quietly as I could, eyes searching for Mondren’s broken horns between the many heads.
An ache was building in my fingers, deadly and relentless – but I couldn’t start checking my knives here, I couldn’t—
‘Look at that!’ a pink-haired woman gasped, clutching her cards to her bosom as she peered at me. ‘A new visitor? And you said there wasn’t such a person, Mondren darling!’
At once, twelve pairs of eyes were gawking at me.
‘Morning.’ It fell from my lips like an exhale. ‘The name is Sunna Livsdottir – pleasure to meet you. I’m a messenger to Lady Laverne of—’