“The hallways are magic.” I shook my head, looking over my shoulder at Nia.
She eyed me, raising one eyebrow incredulously. Her implication was clear, and I rolled my eyes.
“I’m sorry some of us come from the world where this is all very strange and new,” I said. “I’ll try to adapt to life-changing realizations about magic that change the laws of physics and the nature of reality on a time frame more to your liking.”
Nia made a turn, then another. She jerked her head, and I followed. We both tensed at the sound of breathing. Someone was down here with us.
Cade had said that the doorway was warded and closed, meaning that there should be no reason a servant would be down this hallway at all. Even if they were trying to sneak a smoke break, trying to find the one place in the house they wouldn’t be caught out, there were plenty of nooks and crannies on the estate. House Bartlett was made of places to sneak a blunt or text without having your boss breathing down your neck.
I glanced at Nia, raising one eyebrow in a silent question.
She immediately shook her head. No. She had no idea who was down here.
Automatically, I moved slowly, creeping forward, using all of my skills at hunting to make sure my quarry didn’t hear me before I saw them. Nia slid into the perfect position, slightly behind and to the right of me, her body angled. Whatever she had been before she became a consort, she knew how to hunt in a pack and how to hunt in human form.
We rounded a corner, coming to a dead end. This was clearly where the formal dining room door should be. Keith leaned against the wall, pressing his ear against it.
He startled when he saw us, his eyes going wide. He jerked forward, trying to rush past us, but I closed my hand around his arm just as Nia stepped into his path.
If he was listening, that meant the ward was broken. If the ward was broken, there was a good chance they could hear anything we said. I leaned down, whispering close to his ear.
“Now, now. I don’t want you running back to your master to tell them we’re here, so you’re going to stay with us.” I looked at Nia significantly, and she nodded.
She stepped forward, taking Keith’s other arm, and I released him. His eyes were wide, his breath coming quickly.
I could smell the fear rolling off him, which made me frown. When he had sold me off to Petrona and Sonja, even letting Brett get a few minutes with me, he hadn’t smelled afraid at the idea of Cade finding out. So who was this rat scared of?
Nia dragged Keith off down the hall, and I turned my attention back to the wall. As I approached, closing my eyes to focus on my ears, I realized why Keith had pressed his ear all the way against the door. Conversation was audible, but it sounded like listening through water.
If I focused, I could make sense of it, understand what was being said. But if I wasn’t listening carefully, it all became noise.
There was a lot of conversation, and I made out pieces and snatches of it. Then I heard someone’s voice rise above everyone else.
“I’m afraid I come bearing bad news.” Leon sounded genuinely distressed. He cleared his throat, and the table quieted. When he spoke again, all emotion had been wiped from his voice. “Many of you know that Prince Bartlett took the mature step of acquiring a consort. I was so grateful to hear that our prince was taking his duties as the head of the house seriously. Many of you have asked him when you might meet the consort, only to hear that he is indisposed. However, that is not true.”
A gasp whipped its way through the room, the murmuring beginning again.
Leon raised his voice. “Prince Bartlett’s consort attacked my own, unprovoked. He demanded information about our security, our defenses. Then, using foreign magic, he escaped through our wards.”
Leon continued, but the murmur of conversation in the room made it impossible to pull his voice loose from everyone else’s panic. The cacophony was pure noise, no one distinguishable.
Then Cade spoke, and the room dropped to silence. “My consort did what?”
“I am gravely sorry, my prince, but I thought that everyone must know this as soon as I heard it myself. We will need to immediately repair the wards, send out a search team to see if we can find evidence of who the infiltrator is. Although I think we all suspect exactly who would want intimate information from our highest-ranking member.” Leon did sound genuinely sorry, the frustration leaking into his voice. “No one is blaming you—how were you to know that the man you had pledged your life and magic to would betray you so egregiously? Perhaps we can have the doctor examine any remnants of the bond—”
“You’re suggesting that my consort, who I vetted thoroughly, is an agent of House Morrison?” Cade asked. His tone betrayed nothing.
“He is most definitely not our ally,” Leon said defensively. “Look at what he did to my consort.”
There was a moment of silence. Cade broke it.
“Jesaiah. You are so good at your job I often forget you are a consort.”
“I have served this house for forty years,” Jesaiah said, something aggrieved and defensive in his tone.
“Would you care to tell us what happened, then, consort?” Cade asked.
There was a long pause, and I leaned forward as if I could see through the door, see what was going on. No one spoke. Finally, Jesaiah cleared his throat. “I was explaining to your consort the rules.”
