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“I imagine so. The royal grounds, anyway.”
“Not the sacred garden?”
Her eyes dart to me.
“Annika mentioned it,” I lie, hoping no one ever calls my bluff.
“You mean the nymphaeum.”
My heart skips a beat. Nymphaeum. Is that what they call it? Regardless, it’s exactly where I need to go if I am to find this stone for Malachi. Malachi, who is one of their gods. I’m stealing an artifact from a sacred place. It’s counterintuitive. Not that it matters. I’ll do whatever is necessary to get back to my life—one where I’m no longer imprisoned or indebted to anyone. “What’s so sacred about it?”
“That’s where—” She halts abruptly, as if catching herself.
“That’s where what?” I probe in as innocent a voice as I can muster. I don’t want to get Wendeline in trouble with Zander, but I need to start collecting information should I ever hope to be free of these papered walls.
“It’s a place where the people of Islor go for Hudem.”
“Hudem?” I echo, letting the word dangle like bait on a hook.
She caps the jar of salve. “The night of the blood moon.”
Both Sofie and Annika have mentioned this blood moon. It must be important. “What happens on that night?”
“Are you trying to get me flogged by the king?”
I wince, thinking of Korsakov whipping the skin off that lecher’s back. “No. I was just curious.” I hope I don’t sound too eager. “And dying from boredom.”
With a heavy sigh of resignation, she wipes the residual salve from her fingers on a cloth. I’ve often admired her fingernails—neatly sculpted, the beds long. “Those wishing to be blessed with a child go to the nymphaeum.”
Annika said something about Zander and Princess Romeria “being blessed” with offspring. “The blood moon was the night of the attack.”
“Yes. A royal wedding on Hudem. It was to be quite the affair.” Her knowing eyes flicker to me.
I assume that means they would have gone into the nymphaeum after the ceremony. But instead, she had his parents murdered and inspired a war in the city streets.
It’s impossible to feel guilty for something I haven’t done, and yet somehow that uncomfortable twinge stirs in my gut. “When is the next blood moon?”
“It arrives every third lunar cycle of the common moon, to usher in the change of seasons with its brilliant light.”
The common moon. That must be the second moon that sat high in the sky. But what is a lunar cycle here? Is it the same as the one at home? And will I still be trapped in these rooms for the next one? I look up to the ceilings. God help me if I am.
As if able to read my thoughts, Wendeline says, “Should the king grant you freedom from this room, do not do something as foolish as attempt to flee. I promise you won’t get far, and I’ll have wasted all my efforts on you.”
“Because he’ll string me up on that pyre he’s saving for me. I remember.” Under my breath, “monster” slips out.
“Many would say the same of you, whether you remember what you’ve done or not.”
What does Wendeline think of me? The idea that she might feel the same pricks me more than I expect. She is my only ally here, and she likely reports my every word to Zander. What does Wendeline think of this young king who hates my guts? Is she loyal to him because she has to be or because she chooses to be?
I wish I could voice all the questions that have been swirling in my mind for the past three weeks. I’m used to relying on myself and trusting nobody, and yet here, trapped within these walls, I’m desperate for just one person to lean on, one person who can fill in all the blanks.
“Hold still for me. And do not talk.” She places her hand over my shoulder, closes her eyes, and bows her head.
That god-awful smelling salve is new, but this part of her process is familiar, and no less fascinating now than the first day I witnessed it. At the time, I assumed she was praying, and that the faint tingling was the salve absorbing into my skin. But then she held up the mirror to show me that the lacerations were markedly smaller and less angry when she finished, and I realized she had to be healing me with her magic. Actual magic.
Now, I watch her furrowed forehead as she concentrates, enthralled. I can never tell how much time passes—there are no clocks, and bells only toll at the hour—but when her eyelids finally crack open, that familiar red tinge looms.
“Does it hurt you to do that?”
