The women gave each other knowing looks. “Those in the palace don’t care much for us,” the widow said. “The last prince let the traveling sickness take us; he couldn’t be bothered to leave the palace, did no good for us in the meantime.”
“This prince intends to be different,” Nik said.
“We’ll see,” said one of the women, her thin brow arched high with doubt.
“You aren’t alone,” I said in the silence that followed.
They all looked at me, as if surprised to remember I was still in the room. I’d felt the pinch the moment I’d entered and could see the faint outline of Tommen and their daughters hovering near, the grief in their eyes mirroring hers. The girls clung to their father, and he held their hands now. All still grieving, but no longer alone in that grief.
Despite the circumstances, I felt a stab of jealousy about their reunion. I’d never seen my parents’ spirits. Luna hadn’t been able to find them, so they must have already passed over into Oblivion. I knew I shouldn’t begrudge them the peace of that world, but that didn’t ease the jealousy much.
“They’re with him,” I told the women. “And they’ll always be with you.”
I breathed deeply as we stepped outside again. I needed air untainted by tears and sadness. Maybe Nik did, too, as we were both quiet for a moment.
“They were in the room?” he eventually asked. “Tommen and his daughters?”
I nodded. “They tend to come back when they haven’t had a chance to say goodbye.”
“Is it true—what they said about the former prince?”
“Yeah. The traveling sickness tends to come in late summer, when the winds blow in from Vhrania. It arrives every few years, and it spreads fast. Crops can’t be tended, and people go hungry. The prince did nothing to help; he stayed in the palace and feasted with his friends while strongholders starved. People begged at the gates for rice, flour, beans. At best, they were turned away.”
He paused. “And at worst?”
“They were beaten. There was always some charge—they threatened the prince or spread lies about people dying. But mostly that was nonsense.”
“I’m sorry the stronghold went through that.”
He sounded sincere, but what did that matter now? “Don’t be sorry; feelings don’t help. Tell your prince to make good on his promise.”
I looked around, my gaze falling on the nearby brick forge that squatted beneath a wooden shelter. Today, the forge was cold, the hammers silent.
“This is probably where he earned those coins,” I said, walking on the brick path toward it, expecting Nik to follow.
The workspace was tidy, with anvils, buckets, and tools neatand ready for another day’s work. Horseshoes and hammers hung from hooks on the timbers that supported the roof. I walked to the table, where I found drawings on scraps of linen and bits of parchment for what looked like tools or garden or kitchen implements.
“Anything?” Nik asked, stepping beside me.
I pushed the pile at him. “See if there’s anything useful in there. Metalwork isn’t my area.”
He began flipping through the drawings. “And what is?”
“Puzzles,” I said, then crouched, looked under the table, felt the heavy wooden legs for anything unusual. I found no hidden compartments, so I rose again and surveyed the area. “I like to figure things out.”
“And what do you figure about our blacksmith?”
“He runs a shop. He makes things, sells them. If someone wants something made, they can bring him the coins here. He doesn’t need to go to an abandoned house outside the stronghold to make the exchange.”
“Maybe he made something he doesn’t want others to know about.”
“Exactly. So what does a blacksmith not want others to know about? And since we know he likes to draw plans, where does he keep the plans for secret projects?”
“Not on his person,” Nik said. “He wouldn’t want to be found with them.”
We combed through tools and baskets, lifted and lowered things, checked loose bricks and tiles. Still nothing.
“Fox.”
