Chapter 16
I’ve had two weeks to consider where Alaris might keep the voidstone.
He wouldn’t want Lady Pashri undressing him and finding it in his pocket, so he must have stowed it away the moment he got back.
The lock on a vault or safe may be hard to break, but it also announces something inside is worth protecting.
The stone’s best defense is that no one knows it exists.
Which means he probably stores it somewhere no one would think to look.
I know how royals hide things. We have more secrets and treasures than most, and no privacy to guard them, so the Citadel was designed with concealment in mind. Its architects added escape tunnels, hollowed-out walls, and hidden compartments for the royal family.
And when the architecture wasn’t enough, my siblings made their own arrangements.
I saw Rinalda unscrew the finial on her bedpost, which is how I found the letters from her lover.
Borin kept his liquor under a loose marble tile.
Jasper burned me badly enough one afternoon that he dragged me to his room, revealing a green jar of lobellum hidden behind a carving.
Funny that his secret was healing ointment, its existence evidence that he could burn too.
As a sovereign, my bet is Alaris does the same, hiding the stone somewhere in plain sight. It could be tucked into any cranny in this castle. With the aviary clean and the hawks’ water fresh, I have plenty of time in my day to search.
The library is the first room I try. It sits off the main corridor, its heavy oak doors ajar, shelves running floor to ceiling. With no one else in sight, I slip inside.
I drift around the edges, fingertips brushing the spines of gilt-embossed tomes.
One leatherbound volume looks too pristine among its dusty neighbors, so I open it, finding only paper and ink.
I press and knock along the paneling, listening for the difference between solid and hollow.
I crouch by the fireplace and run my fingers along the inner edge of the hearth, feeling for a catch or a hinge.
The door creaks, and a maid steps into the room. We both freeze.
“I was admiring the collection.” I stutter, wiping my hands on my skirts as I stand. “I’ll get out of your way.”
She nods, duster aloft. I brush past her and stop short. Karns is standing in the corridor, feet planted, as if he sprouted from the floor.
“Lyra.” He adjusts his glasses. “Do you need something?”
“I…I was looking for books on the care of hawks,” I say, scrambling. “So I can deepen my knowledge. Of their care.”
“Our library is extensive, but I can save you the time of looking at thousands of titles.” His face is flat. “We don’t have any books on raptors.”
I nod and retreat.
The next morning, I finish in the aviary early and head for the windward wing. I peek in open doorways until I find a room that looks promising: a storeroom covered in dust.
I close the door behind me and work through the shelves, pulling out crates and feeling along the wall behind them, searching for loose masonry. I’m leaned over a stack of burlap grain sacks when the door opens.
A flash of glasses tells me whose silhouette it is right away.
“Karns, hi!” I push myself off the grain as I work up an explanation. “The hawks seemed hungry. I was looking for extra feed.”
Karns’s eyes flit between me and the sacks. “I’ll have the kitchen set aside scraps for you tomorrow. Hawks don’t eat grain.”
I nod and stand, sidling around him to leave.
“Maybe she did need that book,” I hear him mumble behind my back.
I try to get a look in the guest rooms, the gallery, the closet under the stairs. But after a few minutes in any room, Karns materializes, and I have to come up with another excuse.
I tell him I’m looking for old feather pillows to replace the dirty straw. That I need a spare lantern. That I’m after a length of cord to tie an axe head that’s come loose. He accepts each one with the same tight smile.
I arrive to find an aviary full of fresh straw. A lantern hangs above the bench, filled with oil. A coil of new cord appears on a wall hook. I crinkle it in my hands and curse Karns’s unquestionable competence.
My justifications get thinner by the day. Every need I invent, he fulfills.
“I was looking for you!” I claim, when I’m deeper on the third floor than I’ve ever been, forcing a smile even though his face is granite. “A few of the beams in the aviary are rotting. I was hoping to get your advice on what I could use to brace them.”
He offers a curt nod and promises to take care of it.
Only days later, I’m glaring at new beams, the light timber only marred with the strikes of an axe.
It’s not that I was wrong about the need: the hawks land on them, spreading out farther.
But the wood spans the turret like a taunt, as if Karns knows I’m running out of far-fetched explanations for my presence in the castle.
I pace the aviary, considering my next move.
My search for the stone is going nowhere.
I need a better justification to spend time exploring inside, something consistent and convincing.
Having an indoor job would help, but given how carefully Karns manages his domain, it could result in me being even more constrained.
I look up at the birds. “What else do you all need?”
Obsidian eyes stare back, offering no answers.
A hawk swoops in through a window high above and lands on a water trough, a roll of parchment tied neatly to its leg. It starts to drink.
My eyes fly wide.
I’ve observed the hawks circling the castle, alighting on windowsills to deliver their messages to Alaris. If I took over the delivery and carried the scrolls from the aviary to the lord, I could move about the castle freely. A messenger has a reason to knock on any door.
I clamber up the ladder. “Here, pretty birdy.”
The hawk shifts nervously, tracking me as I approach, but it doesn’t fly away.
“It’s okay,” I say, in a singsong voice. “Just come here.”
I stretch out a hand, trying to coax it to me, but that only makes it hop back farther. I lean as far as the ladder will let me, before I give up and retreat to the aviary floor.
I climb back up with the mucky broom in hand, hoping to nudge the hawk down.
The bird screeches angrily, its sharp call echoing, before it takes off in a flurry of feathers. It flies out the window, the message still tied securely to its leg.
I’m not giving up so easily.
I march to the kitchen, the only room outside my chambers I can visit without Karns questioning my presence. The smell of freshly baked bread lingers in the air, and the clatter of pots and pans echoes as the staff cleans up lunch. I beeline to the corner, where an innocuous box awaits.
I noticed these my first week. Even in my father’s marble halls, rats dart and sneak and chew.
Which tells me they are always about, in any household—if the sun emperor himself can’t get rid of them, no one can.
The only question is whether they are being managed, and this box is a sure sign of management.
I crouch by the wooden trap and lift the wire latch with careful fingers. The lid creaks open, and the smell hits me first—dank and stale. I reach inside, the leather of my gloves no longer thick enough as I wrap my fingers around a rat’s limp body. I hold my breath and pull it loose.
It’s still warm.
I hold my arm straight out and walk stiffly out of the kitchen, ignoring a few stares as I return to the aviary.
I keep the prize behind my back and scan the hawks perched in the rafters.
When I spy one with a scroll on its leg, I reveal my offering. I wag the rat’s fat body.
“Hey you. Yes you. Come now, if you want a treat.”
Many hawks squeal and snap their beaks, but I tuck it close to my body, pointing to the hawk I want.
“Only you,” I say, as if they can understand me. I realize I might lose a finger or be flayed in a flurry of beaks and talons, but I steel myself. “This is for you. If you want it.”
My target turns its head to one side, then the other, then hops down to the lowest set of beams.
“Arawwwk!” it calls, ruffling its feathers.
“Yes you, pretty bird,” I croon. “Come closer and I’ll give you this.”
Miraculously, the rest of the flock just clicks and shrieks, without descending.
It swoops lower, alighting on the edge of the water basin. Its talons curve around the rim, each a sickle-shaped blade. The sharp tips scrape against the stone, making my skin prickle. Those hooked curves were made to sink into flesh. Its black eyes watch me, unblinking.
I swallow. This is nothing. Nothing compared to knives and swords and evil human intentions.
I crouch, holding the rodent out with a gloved hand. The hawk’s focus sharpens, its beak snapping toward the prize. It launches itself at the rat, talons sinking in. I don’t let go even as it tugs, leaving score marks in the fur.
I wait until it tears in with its beak, then shimmy my other hand out of the thick leather glove and reach for its leg. I think it’s distracted, but if it turns on me now…
But it stays focused on its meal. I quickly undo the string and free the scroll. I drop the rat, backing away with a nervous squeal.
“You’re a pretty one, aren’t you?” I murmur. “Your true sovereign is the one who feeds you, isn’t it?”
I almost open the scroll, before remembering the contents aren’t my interest. This tiny paper is a ticket, a pass.
I shed the gloves that touched the rat, brush myself off, and stride to the castle with purpose. I want to run and search, but the next step is to establish my role delivering messages.
I stop the first footman I see. “Message for the lord. Do you know where I can find him?”
He notes the scroll in my hand and points. “Down in the wine cellar, miss.”
I nod like it’s an answer I’m warranted and continue that way.