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“You’d follow me anyway, wouldn’t you?”
She smirked. “At least you’re getting it.”
“Get dressed. I have an idea.”
“You sound like me,” she teased.
He assessed her. Some of the coolness bleeding out of him. “You’re rubbing off on me.”
An hour later, Kerrigan was finally let out of the room for more than getting dressed and a supervised ride. Fordham smiled at courtiers milling about the court hallways. He seemed to know everyone and wanted to be seen by everyone. She thought it was mad to be so visible, but he’d argued it was better cover to have everyone talking about them. Especially since his father hadn’t seemed keen on changing his mind about Kerrigan.
After the third promenade of the court’s halls, Fordham finally said, “That’s enough.”
“Thank the gods. How was I ever going to be a princess?”
He glanced down at her and then away quickly. “I thought you did well.”
“I know how to behave,” she said, nudging him. “I just don’t enjoy it.”
“Neither do I.”
“Then, let’s go make trouble.”
“You are a devious little thing, aren’t you?”
Kerrigan smiled at him, enjoying the camaraderie. This was easier than what they’d been dealing with since that fateful kiss… since coming here.
Fordham turned a final corner, passing through a large stone archway and then down a narrow corridor. “Here,” he said, pushing a button. The wall in front of them disappeared.
Kerrigan gasped. “Hidden tunnels?”
“It’s a spy network,” he said, ushering her inside. “They were used before the Great War to spy on diplomats and foreigners who came into our mountain.”
“Also to spy on your own people, I’m sure.”
The door slid shut soundlessly behind him, and he snapped his fingers to ignite a flame. “Still used for that. Though far fewer uses than before.”
Fordham moved through the spy tunnels with a practiced ease. She’d known he was a soldier and a spy, but it was one thing to know and another thing entirely to live through it.
“Where are we going?” she whispered.
He put a finger to his mouth and then gestured to the right. She trailed him until they came up to a small peephole. He lifted a piece of stone and peered into the room beyond.
“This is Wynter’s room,” Fordham told her. Her eyes widened. “We used to use these halls when we were younger. But they seem unused.”
She had to agree. Cobwebs lined the darkened halls, and she had definitely stepped in something that she didn’t even want to know what it was. The air was musty. The few torches they’d passed on the way looked as if they hadn’t been lit in years.
“We’ll have to be quick. She takes afternoon tea with the queen at this time, but I don’t want to chance her return. Look for anything that seems wrong. Anything that would explain why she’s recruiting.”
Kerrigan nodded. Her stomach was in knots. “I’m ready.”
Fordham pressed another button, and the door swung inward. Kerrigan stepped into Wynter’s immaculate bedroom. The king canopy bed was all a pristine white. The writing desk had not a thing out of place. Everywhere Kerrigan looked, she saw wealth and meticulous attention to detail. The bedroom door had been left open, and she could see a matching sitting area with pecan furniture and white-as-snow cushions.
“I’ll start in her sitting area,” Fordham said. “Look through her bedroom. And don’t move anything out of place.”
Kerrigan nodded. She hurried over to the writing table. She memorized exactly where everything went first and then began to ruffle through the papers. Wynter had hand-lettered stationery with a swooping W at the top. The letter was everywhere—embroidered onto handkerchiefs and pillows and the stamp for her wax seal. But she found nothing out of place on the desk. She dislodged the drawers, rifling through them, opening a few letters and reading the mindless missives. They were all placed there, almost as if she had expected someone to go through her things.
She shut the final desk drawer with a huff and went to the wardrobe. It was expansive with dozens of embroidered, bejeweled gowns in varying shades of white, black, and red. She checked the pockets of some of the gowns, but there wasn’t even a hair piece or bobble in sight. She returned to the bed, sticking her hand between the mattress, only to find goose feathers. Similarly, there was nothing under the bed. Not even a pair of shoes.
She went to the doorway. “Anything?”
Fordham shook his head. “No, it’s all wrong.”
“Like it’s staged and not her actual bedroom.”
He frowned. “Yes. Gods, why didn’t I think of that before?”
“Think of what?”
But he was already pushing past her and into the wardrobe. “Wynter has had these rooms since she was a child. I thought something felt wrong about them, but I haven’t been in here in… I don’t even know how long.” He knocked on the wardrobe door, and it came back hollow. “Her nursemaid used to have an adjoining room to her. It was a small cupboard of a thing. Hardly big enough for anyone to actually live in.”
