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I stare at the space ahead of me for a long while, unable to move. It feels as if once I take that first step out of the room everything will change.
“Just move,” I mutter.
I finally force myself to walk into the corridor, my body taut as a chord.
A bookcase looms over me on the left, a door stuck shut in front of me, and a staircase to the right. The scratch marks on the floor make me wonder if Valdus had to hide the door to my room with that bookcase at some point. I know exactly what would have happened to Inara and Valdus if soldiers from my father’s army would have found me in their house on the verge of dying and slipping into the oblivion. Magnar has made a simple demonstration on the day of my betrothal of what going against his wishes meant. Bonar must have promised these rebels outlandish riches for the colossal risk they have been taking all this time.
Mulling over this, I go down the steps down one at a time until an empty kitchen greets me with its cupboards of dusty-white, a round table already set for three, and cracked dishes with bread and fruit spread on a mended napkin.
I jump up when a flowered enamel kettle lets out a whistle, spitting a few droplets of water through the lid and onto a sizzling fire. Desperate to shut down the gas fueling the fire, I turn one knob after the other. The hissing kettle calms down, and my rapid breathing returns to normal.
“Thank you,” Inara says.
With a basket full of dirty laundry resting on her hip, she crosses the kitchen and disappears through a door to what once must have been a garden, but sand has reclaimed it since then. Valdus doesn’t take long to emerge into the kitchen himself from the part of the house they must be sharing. Under a raised brow, an inquisitive gaze searches my features.
“If you don’t feel well, we can do this another day,” he finally says.
“Good morning to you too,” I answer, dusting an invisible speck of sand from the cuff of the muted-blue kaftan I’ve found on the dusty shelves of my bathroom.
He sighs. “Good morning, Neylan.”
“I’ve just had a nightmare. That’s all. I’m fine. Perfectly fine. Brimming with energy even,” I say and force myself to stop rambling before I say something I shouldn’t. “How is it that you’re not working today?”
“I have an agreement with the governor. I take extra shifts whenever I can, and he lets me have a few free days from time to time.”
“And you decide to spend your day off with the devious princess?”
Valdus smiles, and I can’t stop myself from mirroring it.
“Sit, sit,” Inara ushers as she appears in the kitchen.
I slide into a chair as Valdus goes to pick up the kettle.
The rest of the breakfast is so ordinary I have trouble stomaching it and only nibble on the apple pie Inara has baked.
I never had ordinary in the palace. My sisters would use any moment to gossip, weave their nets of intrigue, or use someone’s downfall to advance in their quest for power. I remember a communal breakfast that ended in one of my sisters getting stabbed, and it didn’t even make it into the evening’s topics for gossip. But here, Valdus and Inara just exchange simple news and talk about their day.
Valdus is the one to leave the table first while Inara is still savoring her tea, her gaze captured by something only she can see, her fingers resting on the rim of the metal cup. “You two have much to do today,” Inara says with a soft smile that makes her birthmark climb even higher.
Valdus doesn’t protest and offers me a scarf from the collection of faded fabrics hanging by the door before picking one for himself. We’re out of the door as I struggle to pull the end through a loop at the base. When I stumble, Valdus stops and tucks it over my neck before turning toward the town without another word while I try to identify the feeling that spreads over my skin where his metal fingers brushed my neck.
17
The first stop we make is at a shop with clocks on every surface, every wall and every shelf, ticking in a never-ending echo. A young man sits at a brightly lit desk with an intricate mechanism still missing a few gears. Magnifying lenses attached to looping disks sit on his upturned nose, and as he looks up at us, they make his dark eyes seem much bigger than they really are. A few strands of his long white hair fall over his eyes, and he brushes them back with the greasy palm of his hand.
“Valdus,” the man exclaims. “You’re late.”
He drops his glasses and crosses the shop in a few strides. Gripping Valdus’s forearm with his hand, he gives it a hard shake before turning to me.
“Neylan, this is Izod. A watch-maker in our town,” Valdus says, motioning at the man and the shop behind him.
Izod starts to bow, but I rush to stop him. “Please, don’t. I’m just Neylan here, not a princess.”
When the man smiles, a dimple appears on his left cheek. “Might I interest you in a tour?”
I nod and follow him between shelves, from one corner of the shop to the other. It seems every piece of clockwork has a story entwined with its ticking gears and buzzing dials, and Izod knows them all. His awkward stammer doesn’t stop until a girl of seven or eight emerges from the back of the shop, carrying a metal box with a rusted lid. “Dad, can you help me with this?” She lifts her gaze when she is but a few steps away and stops in her tracks. “Oh. You’re pretty. You must be the princess.”
Izod sighs. “Zaria.”
