Chapter 6
Just before noon, I sat alone in the dingy courtyard behind the kitchen, as far as possible from Mrs. Cathers’s beady stare.
Her jaw had dropped nearly to the floor—as had Maxence’s—when I had returned to the servant’s quarters on the arm of the King’s page after sunrise.
I thought she might wring my neck when he announced that I was to be excused from my duties indefinitely on the King’s orders.
She had spent every waking hour since shuffling angrily around the servants’ quarters, complaining pointedly about ungrateful peasants who didn’t know their place. Maxence cast a modicum of sympathy in my direction, although only after hearing that I had been rescued by the King himself.
Haunted by nightmares of last night’s events, I’d slept only a few fitful hours, tossing and turning on my straw mattress until I finally retreated to the courtyard to be alone.
My fingers ran gingerly along the smooth edges of a glass vial gifted to me by Dr. Murrows this morning.
It contained some kind of tonic to bring down inflammation.
A pleasant scent, like summer blooms and wild grasses, reached my nose as I uncorked the vial and took a sip.
My headache was soon nearly gone, my thoughts much clearer.
I’d have to track Dr. Murrows down and thank him.
The events of this morning were so surreal that it felt almost like a dream.
I leaned my head against the stone and shut my eyes, my thoughts drifting to the King.
I recalled the taut muscles of his chest against my cheek as he had held me, the strong arms that had wrapped around me so delicately.
He looked so young, but it was nearly impossible to guess a vampire’s age just by looking at them.
They lived for a thousand years, aging so slowly that they could be alive for centuries and still look as young as they did in their third decade of life.
I recalled the curve of his full lips, the way that they parted to reveal the sharp points of his fangs when he smiled. My skin prickled. Up close they weren’t as terrifying as I had imagined.
My eyes flew open as the door opened with a bang. I saw only a wild flurry of curls before I was crushed in Niamh’s embrace. I patted her gently on the back as she was racked by violent sobs. “Oh gods, Finn,” she said finally, tears streaming down her cheeks. “This is all my fault.”
I locked eyes with Maxence, who had trailed after her like a wraith. He shrugged. “It’s not,” I said.
She sniffed. “I’ll never forgive myself for leaving you all alone out there.”
“I’m alright,” I assured her. “I promise.”
“Niamh!” shrieked Mrs. Cathers from the kitchens. “Stop making a fuss and get to work, you absolute chit of a girl!”
Niamh hiccupped, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “Mama practically had a fit when she heard.”
My brow furrowed. “She heard? How?”
“Oh, everyone in the city is talking about it,” she said. “We heard it from the baker who heard it from the tanner. The tanner picked it up outside Rathe’s Tavern. The Confluent Criers have already made up a ballad about it.”
“What?” I cried, incredulous.
“Not about you specifically, but about how the killer on our streets was finally foiled by the King. It’s quite funny, from what I hear … Er, not that it’s a joke what happened,” she faltered. “You remember them, right?”
I did remember them. The Confluent Criers were less of a troupe than they were a public nuisance, constantly hanging around the taverns of Valnar.
I had encountered them more than once and been known to giggle at their lyrics satirizing courtly gossip and tidings from around the city.
I found it decidedly less funny now that I was the butt of the joke.
I pinched the bridge of my nose between my fingers. “It only happened in the early hours. How did they even find the time?”
“I have no idea. Anyway,” she paused, her cheeks dewy with tears, “Maxence said the man who attacked you was the blacksmith’s apprentice. Is it true? Was it really Ewan?”
I cast a furtive glance at Maxence, whose eyes raked over me as if I were a strange beast. “Not here. Later,” I said in a low voice.
“Gods above, Niamh. Are you deaf?” Mrs. Cathers screeched. She burst through the doors, brandishing her broom like a sword. And she’d use it like one, too, if given the chance.
“Just because the Outlander somehow managed to weasel her way out of work,” she said, pointing her broom in my direction, “doesn’t mean you can as well.”
I exchanged a startled glance with Niamh. “Perhaps we should—”
“Indeed,” she replied before I could finish, jumping to her feet. We scurried out of the courtyard, giving Mrs. Cathers and her broom a wide berth. Her resentment rolled toward me like a storm over the plains.
As we headed to the set of apartments to which Niamh had been assigned today, I whispered my account of the incident into her ear.
Her eyes nearly popped out of her skull when I recounted what the King had said to me in the physician’s office, and even more when I admitted that Ewan and I had been more than acquaintances.
“It was quite obvious, but why didn’t you tell me about him?” she asked. We stood on the balcony, me holding tight to one end of a small rug. At the other end, Niamh beat it with a broom to free it of any dust. I shielded my nose and mouth with my sleeve as a small puff of it burst into the air.
“I’m sorry,” I sighed. “Maybe I was embarrassed. You have to admit that you’re a bit of a romantic. I wasn’t sure you would understand.”
“Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be sorry,” I assured her, smiling. “It was my choice.”
“I just can’t believe it was Ewan,” she said.
I cringed at the name, remembering too vividly the sound of his throat being ripped from his body.
“I just mean,” she continued, “he always seemed like such a nice boy.”
“Plenty of nice boys do fucked-up things.”
“I suppose. Do you think it’s because you didn’t want to marry him?”
I shot her a pointed look. “Ewan never asked me to marry him. We had an understanding.” It had crossed my mind that he had attacked me out of frustration because I’d turned him down earlier that evening, but it was so unlike him.
I couldn’t fight the niggling feeling that there was more to our encounter than met the eye.
I recalled the nearly invisible shroud that cloaked him in shadows, the jolting way in which he moved.
Perhaps the King would be able to tell me what it was.
If I could chalk up enough courage to ask.
“I just can’t believe it,” she said. “You realize how lucky you are, right?”
My brows shot toward my hair. “I don’t know if I’d call myself lucky, exactly.”
“Not about the Ewan thing. From what I’ve heard, the King doesn’t often wander into the city … but he just happened to be there when Ewan attacked. Oh, Finn …” Her eyes turned watery again. “I’m so glad you’re alright.”
“Thanks,” I said. We hauled the rug inside, closing the balcony doors behind us. Taking a seat on the windowsill, I prepared to scrub the glass clean. I dipped my hand into a bucket of soapy water, the bubbles tickling my fingers.
“What’s he like?” she asked, her voice low as if someone might be listening. “The King?”
“He’s …” I paused, not knowing where to begin. “Very polite.”
“Polite? After all that you’re going to tell me he’s polite? Finn, he rescued you from certain death at the hands of a crazed killer, asked you about your family, and invited you to meet with him in private. At night!”
My cheeks grew warm. “Vampires do everything at night!”
“You’re blushing!” she accused, causing my skin to burn hotter.
“Fine,” I groaned. “He’s more than polite.”
“Regal?” she offered, grinning. “Handsome?”
“I suppose,” I mumbled.
She squealed, the pitch so high I almost covered my ears. “Will you be quiet?” I scolded. “Mrs. Cathers will hear you from the kitchens.”
I reached for a dry rag, dragging it across the foamy windowpane until my reflection stared back at me.
“Finn?” came her voice after a few moments of silence. “Do you think Ewan is the one who took that other girl? The one Maxence mentioned?”
I paused. “I hadn’t even thought about that, to be honest.”
Niamh frowned. “It was my first thought. He could’ve been taking girls from all over the city all this time, and we just haven’t heard about it.”
I stared into the frothy water, lost in thought.
According to Maxence, the girl had gone missing from a completely different neighborhood than where Ewan had cornered me.
I had no idea who she was, or what she looked like.
It could just be a coincidence. Niamh touched my arm delicately. “Are you alright?”
I nodded. “I was just thinking that I don’t know much about the girl who was taken. Except—”
“Except, what?”
I straightened, wiping my hands on my apron. “Ewan wasn’t trying to take me anywhere, Niamh. He was trying to kill me.”
She sucked in a breath, her eyes wide. “So if it was him—”
“—then they’re not going to find that girl alive.”
I arrived in the Winter Garden just before the bell tolled eight times.
I’d exchanged my uniform for my nicest dress, a black hand-me-down from the maid who’d held my post before me.
The hem didn’t quite reach my ankles, and it was loose in the bodice, but it was far more comfortable than the scratchy, graying uniform I had grown used to wearing day in and day out.
I pulled my fur wrap tighter around my shoulders as the breeze tousled my long tresses and the pleasant scent of the lavender oil I’d dabbed behind my ears reached my nose.
Lady Reardon had gifted me the wrap when I was still a maid in her household.
The inner lining was moth-eaten, but it appeared decent enough on the outside and was by far the nicest garment I owned.
I caught sight of my reflection in the paned lancet windows that looked into the great hall, turning slightly to get my best angle.