Chapter 28
Somehow, between my meeting with Avrix and the first sallow slivers of dawn the next morning, I managed to snatch a few hours of restless sleep. Eventually I mustered just enough energy to climb from my bed and tug on some clothes.
I’d heard nothing from Kielty in response to my note, and my unease was snowballing as each hour passed. What if someone at the Veil recognized the crow and sent the note back to Miss Haney, or even Rexim? By now I’d worried at my lower lip so much that the skin was cracked and tasted of iron.
Intending to head to the cove again to practice, I rubbed my tired eyes and glanced out the window. It looked down over the deserted outer ward, which was picked out in grays, the stones swathed in shadow. Satisfied that there was no one about, I made to turn, when my eye caught movement.
A figure. Striding out across the sparse grass below.
I stepped to the window, squinting down through the glass. It was Llir again, clad in a night-robe and mantle. Just like the last time I’d seen him this early, he crossed to the same round, ivy-covered tower, pulled a key from his pocket, and slipped through the door.
Seconds ticked by, and I saw no more of him. That burning curiosity sparked in my core.
Miss Haney kept copies of every key in the castle. I’d seen them hanging just inside her office door. My pulse picked up, my blood thrumming with opportunity.
No, my mind commanded. Absolutely not.
But the thought was there now, insistent, like an insect. A fly careering around in my skull.
You could be silent, a persuasive part of me murmured. In and out quickly. He’d never know you were there.
I dithered. It was risky; he’d already caught me once.
But I told myself I had to know what Llir was doing.
I had the false laconite I’d stolen from Emment’s room, but I still didn’t know if that was proof of anything.
The Charter was gone. I had nothing else.
I’d told Avrix about Rexim’s accounts, and we’d both tried to get into the study to obtain proof, but the Brigant kept the room locked tight at night.
What if this was something the Cage could use? Or even something that could threaten their plans? I’d be doing my duty. Kielty would want me to check.
Squashing my misgivings, I stole from my room.
—
Miss Haney’s office was locked at this hour, but she—more fool her—had trusted me with a key. All that time spent buttering her up was paying off in more ways than one. The copies hung from hooks on the wall, helpfully labelled, and I found the one I needed quickly.
Locking up the office, I crept to the ward.
A blustery breeze tossed my sleep-rumpled hair, and I tugged the hood of my cloak up over it.
The air was bitter, a prelude to winter, and Rhianne’s patched breeches with holes in the pockets, her thin cloak, which dangled around my mid-calves, did little to keep it from chilling my skin.
I stared at the tower, at the slits in its stone, and thought of the nightclothes Llir had been wearing.
Was he meeting someone? My neck grew hot.
I remembered Morgen Cormorant’s flirting, the murmurs the two had exchanged at the ball.
It hadn’t looked very significant at the time, but what if I stumbled on something I shouldn’t?
I sensed the heat in my neck creep downward—and another curl of that strange and shocking envy.
With fingers that trembled not just from the cold, I slid in the key and turned it slowly, wincing as the inevitable clunk rang out.
I paused, listening to the huff of my breath.
Silence. I eased the door open carefully.
Stepping through, I was faced with a spiralling staircase, an arrow slit facing out to the bay.
I stilled again, listening, but heard only the wind, which whined ghoulishly up in the eaves of the tower.
Trying to keep my footsteps light, I padded upward, hugging the wall.
The tower was high, and before long I was panting. Despite the chill, strands of hair stuck to my neck. There were round chambers visible through open doorways—for archers, I guessed, to aim down at the causeway—but dust lay thick on their bare wooden floorboards.
At the top, I was faced with another heavy door, cracked open, revealing a strip of slate sky. The roof. I heard the thin whine of the wind. And below it, just audible—
A murmur.
A voice.
I knew I should turn around and leave, but my smoldering need to know all the secrets on this island spurred me to take the last step up to the gap.
The door was set into a small, low turret.
The roof of the tower, all stark stone and battlements, stretched away to my right, curving out of sight.
Tugging my hood further over my head and sidling through the doorway, my whole body tensed, I peeked around the wall—and saw Llir, facing away from me.
I could hear him speaking, and my gaze flashed around the roof, but there was no one there.
He was talking to himself.
Puzzled, breath hitching, I tried to catch what he was saying but couldn’t make the words out over the droning of the wind.
The wind.
With a sick shock, the truth crashed over me—Llir was a Gustmouth—and I stood frozen, dumbfounded.
The air was swirling messily around him. A chaotic vortex. He muttered to it again.
Heart kicking wildly, I turned to leave. I was still clutching the heavy tower key in my fingers and, without thinking, I dropped it into my pocket, intending to vanish the way I’d come.
Thunk.
The noise was gunshot clear.
I looked down. The key was lying at my feet. I thrust my hand into the pocket—it had no bottom. These breeches were Rhianne’s, and the stitching had come loose.
A scrape behind me. A grunt of surprise. I lurched for the door, but a strong gust slammed it closed. Falling against it, I wrestled with the latch, but a second later, I felt Llir’s hands on me.
“Show yourself!”
He dragged me backward, his arm snaking up to try to hook around my throat.
I stumbled and fell, pulling his arms down with me, and we rolled, limbs knocking, my cloak tangling in his legs.
Before I really knew what I’d done, I thrust out my elbow, snapped it up into his jaw. He jerked back, grunting, and I staggered to my feet.
Breathless, we faced each other, Llir in a crouch. At some point in the scuffle, my hood had come down, and I saw fierce recognition flare in his eyes.
“Of course it’s you,” he said, the corner of his mouth quirking, sneerlike. His gaze was knife sharp, his hair tumbled by the wind. “Tigo said he’d come across you lurking. You were in my room, too, weren’t you? A week ago. What is it this time—come to scrub bird droppings off the battlements?”
I scowled back. Excuses whirled through my head—the ones I’d prepared in case I was caught in the castle—but none of them were going to fly up here.
Instead I stepped back, my shoulders sagging. “I…followed you,” I said eventually. “I saw you from my window. Wanted to know what you were doing.”
He stared at me, taken aback by my bluntness. But I couldn’t summon even the flimsiest lie. “Zennia—your old Floodmouth. She left a sort of diary. Said she’d spotted lights up here, and I…I guess I just got curious.”
At last he rose, flicking his tongue over his lips. “I suppose we should have just told you from the start. The others know: Tigo, Mawre, Rhianne. But”—his eyes darted intensely—“we didn’t know if we could trust you. Father…doesn’t like people knowing.”
Of course he wouldn’t. Goose bumps rose on my arms, and not because of the chill in the air.
This was it: the secret I needed. The secret the Cage could use against Rexim.
“It was obvious, then?” he added, massaging his jaw. He winced. “That hurt quite a lot, you know.”
“Sorry,” I said, flushing. I’d elbowed a Shearwater. “I mean, it was obvious something was going on. The furtive looks. The way you all cut off speaking. You haven’t exactly come across as…normal.”
Cogs now clicked into gear in my mind. “That’s why Tigo tails you so closely. So anyone near you who’s wearing laconite thinks it’s him setting it off. We’re your cover.”
“Congratulations,” he said brittlely, “on your powers of deduction.”
“But if I noticed,” I said, “surely others would, too?”
He turned slightly, glancing out at the sunrise.
Dragged a hand through his wind-tossed hair.
“Not necessarily. Not the Hundred, at least. It’s tradition for us to have Orha with us.
We don’t really bother when we’re not in company, but now, with the Cormorants, and back at the ball…
” His eyes ran over me. “Well, you’ve seen the charades we have to keep up. ”
I studied him sidelong in the sun’s pink glow. I was seeing him anew. It all slotted into place.
I thought of Rexim’s luncheon. The ball guests. Morgen. If even one member of the Hundred found out, it would spread through the Houses like ink in water.
And as for marriage within the nobility, even a mere liaison with one of them…As much as I’d found myself envying Morgen, their murmured remarks, their comfortable banter, it was clear now: Llir could never allow himself to be alone with her. Or anyone else draped in laconite.
“No one can know,” I said slowly, quietly, “because it’s…”
Shameful.
The unvoiced word hung between us.
He looked awkward; angry. I thought he’d tell me to leave. But a few seconds later, he rubbed at his eyes. They were shadowed; I remembered the siblings’ late night.
When he finally spoke, it was with that same meditative quality that had crept over him when he’d watched Emment sleep.