Page 72 of Into Ember

“Of course,” Anya says, soothing, and pins a curl, and then, so lightly it barely lands, “and the rest of his unit arrived when?”

“Right before—” I stop.

Right before everything. Days before everything.

“And the orders to prepare the castle came two weeks ago,” Anya continues, pleasant, conversational, tucking a flower into place above my ear. “The whole city has known a queen was coming since before the leaves turned. Isn’t it wonderful how it all worked out?”

Two weeks.

The number I couldn’t think about, because I can count. They found me — the sky, the cabin, the clearing, all of it — barely a week ago. I could count it on my actual fingers if my hands weren’t trapped under my thighs at the moment. The castle started dressing itself for me before any of them outside of Erik had ever laid eyes on me.

Which means this is nonsense. Nobody could have told the Vestry about me two weeks ago, because two weeks ago there was nothing to tell. I was in Chicago arguing with a deadline and a houseplant that now moves. Case closed.

Except.

Except then what was the Vestry preparing for?

“That doesn’t work,” I say, out loud, to the mirror, to the room, to the hole opening up under my own argument. “Two weeks ago nobody here knew me. The Vestry sent them to find Erik. That’s all it ever was.”

Silence. Not disagreement. Worse than disagreement. Neve suddenly very interested in a pot of powder. Colette’s fingers moving. Anya’s face doing sympathy, and I watch it happen in the mirror and something in me starts pacing.

“What?” I say.

“Nothing,” Anya says.

“What?”

“I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“You keep saying nothing when you mean something.”

Colette’s hands stop in my hair.

“I was only surprised, my queen,” Anya says, gentle as a nurse. “That’s all.”

“By what?”

She exchanges a look with Colette in the mirror, quick, and my stomach drops before I know why.

“That you believe it was ever about Erik,” she says. “The Vestry doesn’t raise a castle on a maybe, my queen. They knew you were coming before your males ever crossed. I was under the impression the unit spoke with the Vestry weeks ago — before the mission. Before any of it. But I’m sure I misunderstood.” She smiles and smooths my sleeve. “I’m sure they’re very loyal to you.”

Before the mission.

If that’s true — and it isn’t, it can’t be — then finding Erik was never the assignment. It was the cover. I was the assignment, and every kind, patient, careful thing they’ve done since the day the sky opened was a man completing his orders.

Stop it. Stop thinking it.

“They are.”

“Of course.”

Something about the way she says it makes me look at her in the mirror, really look.

“What?”

“Nothing.” A pin slides in above my ear. “I only wonder whether loyalty means quite the same thing when someone was ordered to find you.”

The room keeps being warm and gold and full of flowers. Neve dusts something across my collarbone. Colette lays the last braid down like she’s closing a book. And I sit in the chair with my painted face and my structural dress while that sentence goes off in me quietly.