I nod. “It’s not much, but Adalbrecht said something about paperwork that seemed . . . off.”
“Paperwork?” Gisele frowns. “What paperwork?”
Emeric fiddles with his pocket mirror. It plays out the conversation from breakfast like a bard plays a song.
His brow furrows atadrogation. IknewI’d seen it somewhere.
“It’s a fine thing for a young lady to mind her figure,” the dame simpers, and Gisele winces.
“Enough, please,” she says.
Emeric snaps the mirror shut. “Where have I heard that before? Adrogation?”
“I remember it too!” I jump to my feet. “Which means we saw it together—”
“The night of the ball—”
“In the study—”
“The law book!” we say at the same time.
Gisele is looking from me to Emeric, eyes narrowed. Then she clasps her hands together. “That sounds like a solid lead,MeisterConrad, why don’t you follow up on that now? Vanja and I will have Ragne in case of an emergency, and we’ll use the mirror to let you know if we learn anything. We can all reconvene later at the cathedral.” She barely lets him nod in agreement before hustling him toward the bedroom door.
“No—out the veranda—” I yank them about-face.
“Oh, right, right.” Gisele laughs a bit too sunnily, and pulls the veranda door open just long enough to shove Emeric out. She waits until the trellis sounds its rattle to whirl back to me. Her voice drops to a delighted hiss. “When Ragne said you slept together I didn’t think she meantslept together.”
“Stop that.” I toss Gisele a fine embroidered cambric shift as the castle hour-bells chime. “Here, we don’t have much time. Pearls after that, then the dress. And nothing happened last night.”
“Really? Becausethatjust now was like watching two sweethearts prance around a Maypole.”
“I’m allergic to prancing,” I say dourly. “We talked things out and fell asleep by the fire, and that was it.”
“You were lying very close together,” Ragne mews, curled up on the hearth as a cat once more. “What’s the word?”
“Snuggling, I think,” Gisele says with a smirk.
I go foraging in the wardrobe, partially for a gown and mostly to hide my burning face. “It doesn’t matter.”
She pulls the shift over her head. “You know when we were younger, how I’d ask you to get straw for my floor rushes every day? So you had to keep going to the stables when Sebalt was working?”
I peer around the wardrobe door, over an armful of emerald silk. “Youdidn’t.”
“I’m just saying, ifIwere you, impersonating, well, me, Gisele would beveryinvested in thePfennigeistcase and making sure all her correspondence with the junior prefect were delivered by her maid’s hand.”
“The Vanja did that,” Ragne says brightly. “Well, she asked me to go check on you at the cathedral last night.”
Gisele snorts. “I see. Thank you for improvingmynight, then.” Then her cheer falters a little. “Ragne told you about . . . us, already, right?”
“She did.” I lay the dress out on the bed. “Pearls are on the vanity. We’ll put the ruby on last.”
I try not to look at Gisele as the pearls go on. Instead I focus on changing into a servant uniform. There’s a moment of just rustling fabric. Then Gisele asks, “You aren’t mad I didn’t tell you?”
“What?” I frown as I paste plaster and gauze over my own ruby. “Of course not. Your parents were . . .” I catch myself before I say something crude. “. . .clear.About you carrying on the bloodline. I mean, I’m assuming you only like girls.”
“I—I’m pretty sure.”
“Then it makes all the sense in the world why you would hide it. It narrows down your prospects.”
