Chapter 23
Magdala tried to focus on her dinner, but Anton was sitting in a highchair Zephyr had brought down from the attic, and insisted on stealing food from her plate.
When she had seen the chair, Madgala had choked, knowing she’d probably sat in the same highchair when she was a baby, her father spooning crushed beans into her smiling mouth.
She wondered what he would think if he could see her now—sitting beside the prince he so despised, dropping chunks of meat into the jaws of a carnivorous plant.
She tossed a piece of chicken—alas for the hen who had roosted in her boots that morning—to Anton, who gobbled it messily and then nipped at her shoulder for more. She was hungry, but he pestered her so vehemently, she hadn’t found time to eat.
She caught Asherton gazing at her. He glanced down quickly, cleared his throat, and cut a piece of his food.
“Come, Anton,” he said, holding it out for the plant. “Leave Mommy alone. She needs her supper.”
Anton sniffed Asherton’s offering and turned away, nuzzling Magdala again. She cast Asherton a pleading look.
“That’s enough, Anton,” Asherton said, pushing back his chair. “You’re being a menace.”
“Where are you going?” Magdala asked, starting to stand.
Asherton lay a hand on her shoulder. “I’m just taking him up to bed,” he said. “I’ll be alright. Come up when you’re done. I’m not hungry.”
Magdala nodded. She was starving, and it was a relief to have Anton away from the table.
She and Asherton hadn’t spoken since their fight the day before, except for uncharacteristically polite “excuse me’s” and “I’m sorry’s” when they bumped into one another in doorways or navigated around one another in the hall.
The tension between them was a rope stretched to breaking, beginning to fray.
She waited for Zephyr to object, but he ate his dinner in contemplative silence.
“Don’t,” he said at length.
“Don’t what?” Magdala asked. Don’t kill him? Don’t kiss him? What?
“Whatever you’re thinking. Don’t. Asherton is on a path to destruction, and I need you clear-headed and sensible to help me keep him alive to sit on the throne, curse or no curse.”
Magdala bit her lip and then said, “I’m always clear-headed and sensible.”
Zephyr grunted and chewed slowly. Magdala’s appetite fled her, and she got up and hurried up to Asherton’s room.
He was changing when she slipped in the door.
He’d just tossed his shirt on the floor and was rooting around in a drawer for another.
Magdala glimpsed the flexing muscles in his back and glanced away, but Asherton caught her looking and smiled to himself.
Bending down, he picked up the shirt and tossed it in the laundry basket.
“Why don’t you go take a bath, Mags?” he said. “You’re stressed.”
Magdala hesitated. “In your washroom?” She usually bathed in the morning, while Asherton and Zephyr sat in the sunroom and bickered over a chess game. And she used the servants’ washroom, off the kitchen.
“If anyone comes in, I’ll scream, and you can wrap yourself in a towel and come save me,” he said with a wry gleam in his eyes. “Don’t worry. The towels are thick and quite large.”
“Are you implying I need a large towel?”
His eyes widened. “Ah … I see I’ve stepped in it, haven’t I?”
“Very much so.”
“I’m not going to attempt to scrape that off my shoe. You’re very lovely, Mags. Go bathe.”
Magdala was coming down off a tremendous surge of anxiety after their fight yesterday, and irritation flooded into the gap. “Don’t mock me!”
“I’m not mocking you.”
“Then what’s all this ‘lovely Mags’ nonsense? I know when I’m being made fun of, and I don’t like it!”
A slow smile spread over Asherton’s face. “I’m in earnest, Mags.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“You’re very lovely, Miss Devney.”
Magdala hated him. He was manipulating her, toying with her. Otherwise, how could he say such things? “Stop it. I’m not lovely. I am powerful, and I am your bodyguard, and I don’t like you.”
His expression softened. “Even if one believes a lie, the truth still remains. Now go enjoy your bath. It’s the least you deserve.”
Her cheeks so hot she feared they might blister, Magdala spun around and blundered into the washroom, slamming the door behind her.
The washroom wasn’t large, but it was lavish, with a marble floor and gold-leaf crown molding edging the ceiling. The walls were painted with ornate dragons in red and gold, curling through the branches of birch trees laden with snow.
A deep copper bathtub stood in the center of the room, filled with fragrant, frothing water. Lavender buds floated on the surface.
Looking around bashfully, as though Asherton or Zephyr might pop out of a corner and surprise her, Magdala slipped out of her clothes and climbed into the warm water.
The cares of her day melted into it like ice in a hot spring.
She held her nose, ducked her head under, and emerged smiling—no one could see her in here, so there was no need to scowl.
A dish of soaps stood on a little brass table beside the tub, and she spent far too long selecting one, finally choosing a green bar that smelled of balsam. It smelled like Asherton. She held it to her nose and inhaled.
She knew she was taking an embarrassingly long time, but she’d never enjoyed a bath before. At home, they couldn’t heat enough water for a whole tub, so baths were freezing at worst, tepid at best. Their soap smelled of goat’s milk.
Magdala giggled like a naughty girl, imagining her father’s reaction if he knew that his daughter was luxuriating in a hot bath in a young man’s washroom.
The sound of Asherton’s feet hushing on the carpet outside the door brought her back to her senses. With a heavy heart, she stood and took a towel from a rack at the head of the tub.
He had said she was lovely. Not that she cared what he thought, but …
Glancing in the mirror, Magdala raked her eyes over her body.
Her hips and shoulders were too wide, covered in silvery lines from her first year as a stone mason, when the muscle packed on fast, stretching her young skin.
She was large-breasted and blunt-edged, cultivated to run and leap and spar.
To hold back a line of furious villagers.
Asherton was graceful and perfect. He was lovely, not she, so he must be lying, playing her somehow. Luring her into a false sense of security before he … what? What was his endgame?
Maybe she wouldn’t give Asherton the amenite, or if she did, maybe he hadn’t killed Julian and it wouldn’t matter. Either way, if he was crowned, he would rule Allagesh and Elegy would be empty. If she won his trust, protected him, he’d probably be happy to reward her with the house.
A pang went through her at the thought of her father on Elegy again. What would happen to Anton and Wendell and the bloombudder frogs Zephyr and Asherton had worked so hard to propagate?
Her mind muddy, Magdala swathed herself in a towel as thick as lamb’s wool, cloudy soft, and stepped out of the bath.
As she pulled on her loose cotton pants and shirt, Magdala wondered if, once she was mistress of Elegy, she would finally be allowed to enjoy being a woman.
When Magdala returned to the prince’s chamber, she found him sitting on the windowsill, moonlight limning his etched features. She paused to study him.
“Feel cleansed of your sins?” he asked.
“Get away from there,” she replied. Her voice came out sharp.
“I’m alright, Mags.”
Shaking her head, she crossed the room, seized his shoulder, and dragged him off the windowsill. The instant his feet touched the floor, the glass shattered. A shot cut the night. Asherton dropped to his knees.
Magdala was on the floor before her mind could catch up to her body, her arms wrapped around Asherton’s shoulders. She arched over him, shielding him. A tremble ran down his back, and then he stilled.
“ASH!” she screamed. She sat back on her knees and turned him to face her. “Are you hurt?”
“I don’t think so.” He ran his hands down his body. She searched him up and down, breathless, waiting in terror for blood to soak through his clothes. But he was unharmed.
“Bloody idiots,” Asherton spat. “That whole time you were out of the room and now is the time they decide to shoot at me? They could have hit you!”
Magdala peered over the windowsill. A shadow streaked across the grounds.
Magdala didn’t bother with the stairs. She threw the window open, climbed onto the sill, and gripped the drainpipe.
“MAGS!” Asherton shouted after her. “You’ll break your neck!”
“Lock yourself in the washroom,” she ordered. “Do not come out until I return.”
“Let me come with you.”
“So I can get shot protecting you? We’re both safer when you’re here. Now go!”
She slid down before he could reply. She knew the grounds like the back of her hand now, and her eyes adjusted quickly to the dark.
As she ran around the greenhouse, she saw someone slip into the hedge maze, and Magdala tore after him, close on his tail. But when she reached the center of the maze, he was gone. She swore. It was impossible. There was nowhere for him to go, no escape, no hidden doors. The hedge was undisturbed.
The assassin had vanished into thin air.