Chapter 26
My interaction with the Piper exhausted me enough that I fall asleep on his bed.
I wake once in the night, his pillow tossed on the floor and the sheet twisted around my legs, but when I bolt up and look around the dark room, all is still and quiet.
After ridding myself of an ominous feeling, I stretch onto my stomach again and fall asleep, not waking until daylight creeps in.
Carefully, I get up from the bed, wincing at my aching back. I check the sitting room, but the Piper is still gone, so I go into the washroom to freshen up and pull on a clean dress that’s been left, hissing through the worst of the pain when my wounds stretch with my movements.
Then I take advantage of his absence by snooping.
I root around for more alcohol in the sitting room, but there is none. I look for another cup that I could shatter against the wall and then stab him with a shard—but there’s none of those either.
On the mantel sits a clock that looks too old for me to touch, and to the left hangs a wall of paintings. I study them in their gilded frames, the crowns on the heads of the men and women telling me that these were royals before Brekon cracked. Probably the very family that once lived here.
In his bedroom, I peruse the narrow bookshelf before searching through the drawers of the desk right in front of it. But there’s nothing there except an empty inkpot and blank papers. The sight of the paper stack makes a lump rise in my throat. I lift one page to my face and inhale the scent.
But it’s all wrong.
It doesn’t smell like my aunt’s paper. Doesn’t smell like our mill. Her paper would often have the smallest specks of pulp within the sheet, or the faintest hint of colored dye added to the fancier pages. This paper is just . . . plain. Utilitarian. Doesn’t smell like home at all.
I hate it.
I put it back and turn toward the bed and check the bedside drawers, finding extra candlesticks in one and a drawing in the other. I take out the drawing carefully, eyeing the inked sketch.
It’s crude and yellowed with age, the strokes smeared faintly, but unmistakably, there are two young men standing side by side.
The one on the left is slightly shorter, with a grin on his face and his arm slung over the shoulder of the other.
The one on the right looks far more serious, his hair long and mussed, and they’re wearing matching uniforms, like they’re in an army.
Despite the fact that this is an ink sketch with no color, and that he’s much younger here, there’s no denying that the one on the right is the Piper.
I instantly recognize that harsh look in his eyes and that sharp jaw—even though he’s clean-shaven.
I’d bet the other man is his brother, based on how similar they look.
Something stirs in my chest at the sight of them.
I wonder who his brother was. Wonder what happened. I wonder and wonder, with too many questions I shouldn’t even think of.
Seeing this makes the Piper seem far too real. As if it peels back a layer and shows something beneath. Shows a person rather than his role.
I drop the drawing in the drawer and snap it shut.
Turning, I stride across the bedroom to his dressing room, which is packed full of clothes and boots.
There’s a set of drawers too, with mending supplies on top.
The sight of the pincushion and spooled thread makes me think of my mother.
Grief instantly tingles, traveling from the backs of my eyes all the way down to the tips of my fingernails, making them chill with blue.
I move away, letting out a heavy breath.
Drifting around, my fingers drag over sleeves and belts, until my hand hooks onto the one item of color.
His pied cloak.
Pushing aside the other clothing, I maneuver it so I can have a better look. The bulk of the cloak is simple black wool, but on its outer back, the thin colored strips have been added and sewn tightly at the neck.
Five colors, one after another, falling like the folds of a drape.
A strip of blue, yellow, red, purple, and green. Each one is a different fabric, and completely separate from the others, all sewn on to cascade down in ragged rivulets. The bottoms of each are tattered, the colors gone drab and dirtied.
If the papers can be believed, he wears this cloak every time he travels somewhere to draw out a Plague, just like he did in Hamelyn. But since returning to his castle, he hasn’t worn it again.
My hand drops away from the weathered fabric.
Here I was, hoping to snoop and find a weapon, but I found an old drawing and his cloak. Instead of vindictiveness, or even apathy, my thoughts whirl with curiosity.
I don’t like it.
It’s far too personal. Too provoking. It makes me start to wonder things about the Piper’s past, his story—and I shouldn’t even care. I shouldn’t be curious about the fae beneath the Core, or the man beneath the cloak.
Pressing my lips together in a hard line, I shove my clustering thoughts away and fix his clothes, returning everything to the way it was before. I try not to notice how the scent of him clings in the air, clogged up within the confines of his clothing.
I step out, shutting the door behind me, ashamed of myself for wondering about his life, for touching his things. For knowing his scent, and for watching the knot in his throat bob when he swallowed that drink . . .
“Fates, what is wrong with me?” I mutter beneath my breath.
I shove the heels of my hands against my eyelids and try to rub some sense into myself.
My back throbs, but in a way, the pain helps to ground me.
When I drop my hands and open my eyes again, I’m staring at my reflection in the full-length mirror propped up right beside the door.
Wondering how in the world I ended up here.
Wondering how in the world I’m going to get home.
Behind me, a bird sounds outside, and I turn away from the mirror to—
The window.
I go still.
The window.
“You fool, Esti,” I hiss.
Internally kicking myself for not checking it sooner, I go across the room to the bay window.
It’s large with a crisscross of soldering, making the leaded glass into a sheet of diamond shapes.
There’s a vague view of the outdoors, though the glass is so warbled and uneven that I can’t make out much other than the sky and some greenery below.
Hope blooms in my stomach as I drag my hands across the windowsill, searching . . .
But it’s sealed. There is no latch. No hinge. Probably on purpose, since this is his bedroom. Why couldn’t he have a balcony? Lord Havlon had a damn balcony.
My hope starts to wither—but then I remember the window in the sitting room too.
I hurry out of the bedroom and there it is directly to my right, with the same crisscross of metal and bumpy glass.
It isn’t a bay window like the other one, and it’s slightly smaller, but it’s still a good size.
I run my hands over it, but I find no hook or clasp.
It too is solid and sealed.
“Damn,” I mutter, sagging in disappointment.
I hate being trapped in here, hate feeling stuck. And even more, I dread the Piper’s return. It feels like sunfall—inevitable. Just a matter of time before he swings back in, overbearing and blazing.
How many times can I face him without being scorched? Because that’s what it feels like. That I’m on the brink of something. That I’m far too close.
I run my jagged fingernails over the mottled glass again. Maybe if I can find a weak pane, I can pop it out? I press harder, palms moving, and just as I glide to the middle, a center section of the window suddenly flips, like a mouth yawning open.
I gasp, catching myself before my torso spills right out of it.
It’s a pivot window. A very discreet one. No latch in sight, hinges hidden. And it’s only the center pane. The rest of the window is stationary.
I push it again in the same spot and then pop my head out to look down.
There’s nothing below. No notches in the wall, no footholds, and certainly no balconies I could climb down.
Just a sheer drop, maybe three stories high.
But there is a decorative railing affixed to the outer wall, covering the bottom half of the window, enough that I could climb out and grip it.
My heart leaps. Then races.
I rush back to the bedroom. First, I check the bay window again in case that has a hidden pivot latch too, but there is none. So I yank the blanket and the top sheet off the bed and tie the corners together, twisting the fabric into a makeshift rope.
Returning to the sitting room, I shove open the glass and reach out as far as I can.
The bottom of the window digs into my stomach, but my fingers manage to curl over the metalwork of the decorative railing.
I take the corner of the sheet and wrap it around two of the railing’s spindles before knotting it as tightly as I can.
My nerves start to pop like bubbles.
Just do it, Esti.
Gathering the fabric, I toss it out the window, watching as it stretches below, though it doesn’t reach the ground.
Oh, well. Surely I can jump from that height?
Holding the window open, I tuck my head down to fit my body through the swinging pane. My horns knock against the glass as I push my front half through. It’s just big enough for me to fit. Barely.
I go slow, trying to be quiet. The last thing I want is to have the guards burst in at the sound of breaking glass. I begin the very awkward maneuver of trying to pull my bottom half out, careful not to put too much pressure on the window.
Pain streaks down my back at the movement, causing me to suck in a breath. I pause, waiting until the worst of the agony subsides. Then I stand on my tiptoes and reach out to grip the bars of the railing.
I’m going to have to use my upper body strength to pull myself up enough to get my legs out— without pitching right over and falling to my death. Preferably.
Gritting my teeth, I start to move, and—
“Care to explain what the fuck you’re doing?”