BY THE TIME the clock tower chimed seventeen, I’d sent messengers to the Peacock Inn and half a dozen other Osprey hideouts in the city. The messages contained orders for all four of my Ospreys to come to the palace immediately; the other four were with Patrick, including my best friend, Melanie.
Saints, I hoped they were safe. Even the ones who’d left me.
Especially the ones who’d left me, because Patrick wasn’t always concerned about whether they survived the missions he assigned. We’d lost so many friends through his leadership, and I’d never challenged it. Not until it was too late.
Now, I sat at a table in Crown Prince Tobiah’s parlor, finishing the last strokes of a sketch of Patrick’s face: close-cropped hair, a hard scowl, and a scar above one eyebrow. Even from paper, he commanded attention.
“That’s the last one for you.” James took a chair next to me and met my eyes. “We have scribes and messengers copying your drawings for the police and bounty notices. You don’t need to make more. That isn’t your job.”
“What is my job? Pacing the palace and hoping Patrick slips up? Because that’s the only way he’ll be caught.”
James’s mouth pulled into a frown. “The queen regent is offering five thousand crowns for Patrick’s capture.”
“You’ve just persuaded me to go find him myself.”
His smile was tolerant, like I’d made a joke. “It’s been suggested that you offer a reward, as well.”
“Even if I knew what the Aecorian treasury looked like, I don’t have access to it. Strip Prince Colin of his overlord title and we’ll continue that conversation.”
“Would that I could.”
He’d been awake for only hours, and was recently injured himself. He didn’t need my derision on top of everything else. I made my tone gentler. “How is Tobiah?”
“Same.” James lowered his eyes. “The physicians are with him. They said the bolt came out cleanly, which will help the healing process. But they told me not to expect miracles.”
We fell quiet, neither of us willing to bring up James’s miraculous healing this morning. Why shouldn’t we expect miracles from Tobiah, too? But the questions were there, hanging between us. We’d have to talk about it sometime.
Anyway, where was Connor? What about “come immediately” lacked urgency?
“What about him?” James tilted his head toward the wraith boy standing in the corner, where he’d been the whole time I worked. He was hunched over like a scolded hound, waiting for attention.
“He can’t do anything.” After the shooting, he refused to leave my side. I could have ordered him somewhere else, but where? “Wraith is destruction, not healing.”
At my words, the wraith boy turned his head, and a thin smile sliced across his face, widening until he showed teeth and gums.
I shivered as he turned back to the corner. James paled and angled himself away from the wraith boy.
“And you?” I touched the back of his hand. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” James drew a deep breath. “I should have saved him.”
“But you—”
He shook his head. “I should have seen Patrick. I should have been watching the rooftops more closely. Tobiah rushes into what he thinks is best and forgets to look out for danger. He can be reckless.”
I closed my eyes, recalling the black-clad boy with a sword sheathed at his back. Easily, I could picture the way he leapt off rooftops and ran toward the crash and growl of danger. Glowmen, wraith beasts, or ordinary criminals: it didn’t matter what it was or who was involved; he would intervene to rescue victims and drag perpetrators to the nearest police station. “I remember.”
“That’s why I’m here,” James said. “To look after Tobiah. So that he can be who he is without worrying about danger.”
It seemed to me James was being too hard on himself. Tobiah wasn’t easy to look after, given his vigilante habit. James wouldn’t be reassured, though. His sense of duty wouldn’t allow it.
“Why don’t you wash up?” He motioned to the bloodstains on my gown. “There’s nothing else you can do until your friend arrives.”
“I hate feeling powerless.” I wiped clean my pen and closed the bottle of ink. “I hate not being able to help.”
James’s jaw clenched as he glanced toward the prince’s closed door. If anyone understood, he did. “Sergeant Ferris will escort you to your quarters.” He looked at one of the indigo-jacketed men in the sitting room. “Sergeant, attend Princess Wilhelmina.”
I stood and lifted an eyebrow. “Who is being guarded?”
“You, Your Highness.” James rose to his feet again, too. “Patrick risked you today. What if his aim had been off? What if the wind had picked up? The queen regent and Lady Meredith are being guarded closely, as well.”
As closely as I? They were probably permitted knives at meals. “Very well.”
James leaned close. “Now that you’ve identified yourself, you’ll simply have to get used to a bodyguard following you at all hours. Do you think Tobiah enjoys my constant company? It is the duty of a member of the royal family to stay alive.”
A darkness flashed through his eyes: his failure today, the failure of King Terrell’s bodyguards not even a fortnight ago. He needed me to obey, to take the guard and keep myself safe. And with the wraith boy in the palace, we all needed to be even more alert.
He was correct. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t also guarding the rest of the palace from me.
“Only because you asked so nicely.” I grabbed the leather-bound notebook I used as a diary and strode after the young sergeant James had indicated. A moment later we were out the door, the wraith boy following at a short distance.
It wasn’t a long walk from Tobiah’s apartments to mine. Both suites were located in the Dragon Wing, the area typically reserved for Indigo Kingdom royalty. My presence here was indicative of both the respect Tobiah held for me, and the respect he had for my dangerous abilities. He kept me close because he needed to watch me.
Sergeant Ferris led me in silence, though he cast a few curious looks toward me.
As we approached my door, I made my expression stony. “Yes, Sergeant?”
He ducked his head. “Pardon, Your Highness.”
“If you have a question, ask it.”
He hesitated, but curiosity won over. “You are Black Knife?”
Though an afternoon of sitting over writing materials had made every muscle in my shoulders and neck stiff, I drew myself up to my full height, nearly even with my guard. “What do you think, Sergeant?”
He snapped to attention at my door and held his position. “Your Highness.”
I entered my sitting room, allowing myself to feel a sliver of satisfaction—at least until I remembered the wraith boy trailing in after me, a white shadow jacketed in indigo.
“Stay in the corner,” I told him. He obeyed, hands clasped in front of him, head slightly bowed.
I moved toward the table to lay down my notebook, but stopped. Something was different.
When Tobiah had summoned me to his quarters this morning, I’d run off quickly, not bothering to close the jars of ink, or clean my pens. Now, the bottles were corked or capped, and the ink-stained nibs soaked in a shallow cup of water, rusting.
A folded paper was pinned beneath a bottle of blue ink, a quick W scrawled on the corner.
Someone had been in my rooms. Or still was.
I snatched a clean pen off the table and clutched it like a knife, moving through the room without stealth; any intruder already knew I was here.
One by one, I opened doors and scanned the shapes and shadows of the music room, the game room, and the dressing room for hints of the intruder. But there was nothing untoward. Just the same opulent suite I’d become intimately acquainted with in the days since the Inundation. The same brocade silk curtains, the same glossy, wood-paneled walls, and the same gleaming brass knobs and hinges and other finishings. There were no strange shapes in the pockets of darkness by full bookcases, or under the ornately carved tables, or in the curtain surrounding the tub in the washroom.
Everything was quiet. The windows here faced the back of the palace, giving me a view of the ruined gardens and woods beyond. Protesters’ cries were muted, and I heard no scrape of shoes on rugs or brush of clothes on wood.
Whoever had been here was gone now.
My fist relaxed around the pen, and I lit a candle when I returned to the table.
After King Terrell had been assassinated, Tobiah had told me that people always wanted to kill kings. Now that my identity was out—as well as my magical ability and the way I’d allegedly spent time as a vigilante—I had to be careful, too. Particularly since I was alone here. Had Melanie stayed with me—
Well, she wasn’t here.
I brought the candle close to the paper, but found no traces of powder. There were no unusual scents, either.
It was probably safe.
I slipped the paper from beneath the bottle and unfolded it. The note was in Tobiah’s handwriting. A strained laugh escaped my throat. All that work, and the intruder turned out to be a boy dying just a few doors down the hall.
Wilhelmina,
I’m sorry I didn’t visit you after the Inundation. I should have.
Please forgive me for what I’m about to do; know that it is duty and honor that compel me to act against my true feelings. You were correct when you said I need to decide who I am.
No matter where my heart leads, I must become who my kingdom needs me to be.
With greatest affection,
Tobiah Pierce
My heart twisted, and tears in my eyes made halos grow around the words.
He must have written this right before he announced the date of his wedding to Meredith—winter solstice—during the minutes he’d left James’s side to deliver a list of places in Aecor Patrick might have gone.
Unfortunately, Patrick had been on his way here.
To shoot Tobiah.
Maybe I hated the prince, but I loved the vigilante, and now he was dying.
My feelings had been complicated enough when I’d believed they were separate people, but now that Tobiah Pierce was Black Knife . . .
Black Knife was Tobiah Pierce . . .
And where was Connor?
My breath came hard and fast as I placed the letter on the table once more, and smoothed out the corners. My weapons had been taken away, but not my clothes.
I glanced at the window. Nearly dark.
“Wraith boy.”
In the corner, he perked up and tilted his head. “Yes, my queen?”
“From the balcony, can you lower me to the ground?” Being on the third story, I wasn’t keen to climb down without my grappling hook and line. My first night in this suite, I’d checked the outside wall for any footholds, but without tools, there’d been nothing but a high probability of two broken legs.
“It isn’t for me to question my queen, but”—he shifted his weight—“can’t you simply walk out? Are you a captive?”
I glanced at the letter on the table, the beautiful room that had been my prison for three days, and the crown prince’s blood staining my gown. Black Knife’s blood. “Can you do what I asked?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Then you’re going to help me escape.”