“Ready my coach,” I order the guards on duty once I reach the entrance hall. “I’m going into the city.”
“Right away,Prinzessin.”
“Where to?” Barthl’s voice echoes off the vaulted ceiling. I turn and find him scurrying down the ladder from where he was dusting the stiff, overlarge marble busts of the last margrave and margravine in their high alcove. He looks as ill-tempered and haggard as . . . well, an understeward who’s been up all night orchestrating legions of servants.
But that doesn’t mean he can pry into my business. I cock my head at him, frost creeping into my voice. “Pardon?”
Barthl bows hastily, but there’s an equal warning in his tone. “My sincerest apologies,Prinzessin.” (Somehow I doubt that.) “The margrave will be here anytime now, and it would be . . . That is, I’mcertainyou wouldn’t wish to miss his arrival.”
The only reason I would want to be here for that is so I could dump a kettle of boiling pitch over his head. “Certainly not,” I lie. “I’ve urgent matters to attend to, but I won’t be long.”
“Very well.” Barthl is utterly unconvinced. “Should the margrave return before you, though, where shall I tell him you’ve gone?”
This is getting absurd. No one’s spoken to Gisele like this since I took up the pearls; I’ve practically forgotten what it’s like to be challenged as theprinzessin. “I’m afraid it’s confidential.”
Barthl’s chin lifts, his mouth set tight. “Ah. Shall I tell him it’s further . . .businesswith the junior prefect, then?”
That’s not a warning, that’s an open threat.
Adalbrecht will be the first person to outrank me in Castle Reigenbach. And Barthl will apparently snitch to him without so much as a flinch.
“No,” I splutter, “the prefects and I are quite finished. If youmustknow, I’m . . .”Scheit. I can’t exactly say I’m haring off in search of the real Gisele. This lie has to be morally and practically impeccable. “I need to . . .” I need innocent, I need humble, I need—
Aha.
“Orphans,” I declare.
“You need to . . . orphans,” Barthl repeats slowly.
“Charity.” I pronounce it like laying down a trump card. Now I can give him an order, and he’ll have to leave off with his questions. “I promised to personally deliver a donation to an orphanage in need. Now be a dear and fetch me threegildenfrom the treasury.”
“As theprinzessinwishes,” he grits through his teeth, and stalks off.
I futz with my cloak’s ribbon tie, silently congratulating myself on my own stroke of genius. This is the perfect excuse to scout around for Gisele in the Hoenring district.
The coach pulls up just as Barthl returns from the treasury with a scowl and a clinking purse. Judging by the purse’s size, he withdrew it in white pennies, which are ten to agelt. And judging by the weight when it drops in my hand, it’s a good five pennies short. But there’s no time to make him do it over.
“Much obliged,” I say tightly, and sweep outside before he can interrogate me further.
The footman opens my carriage’s door. “Where to,Prinzessin?”
“The Hoenring. Find me orphans,” I order, practically leaping into the coach. “Take me to the first orphanage you see.”
I settle into my seat as the carriage jolts into motion, leaving the fur wraps piled on the opposite bench for now. Then I nearly jump out of my skin as a tinny wisp of a voice rasps in my ear, “You sound like agrimling.”
Ragne climbs out of my cloak’s hood as a black squirrel again, then launches herself into the pile of furs. A moment later, her pale human face emerges through a tangle of chin-length raven hair. And I meanliterallyraven hair, as it appears to be half feathers. Slit pupils slash through the red of her irises.
“Youlooklike agrimling,” I retort, heart still racing. I yank the screens over the windows before someone sees her in here with me.
“But you are the one hunting for orphans.” She cackles as she arranges the wraps over herself, bare legs sticking out, then waves her hands around, fingers crooked like claws. “Grr! Argh! Bring me children to eat!”
“I’m—it’s complicated,” I huff. “I see you decided to be helpful.”
Ragne shrugs. “I know what you know, no more. And I know I am to keep watch over you. What did you take from orphans, that you must make up for it?”
“Nothing. I’m looking for the real Gisele.”
“Is she an orphan?”
