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The palace bell begins its hourly ring, and Julita perks up.Speaking of hunts, it’s almost time for the weekly practice hunt the leadership division holds. They’ll let an interested assistant tag along. There are a couple of regulars I’ve been keeping an eye on. And everyone does plenty of talking.
I don’t know what a practice hunt is, but I’m all for finding it out if it means making some progress toward completing this mission. “Sounds good. Where’s that?”
Ah, I think you should probably get changed first.
I glance down at my combat leathers, which have seen exactly zero combat while on my body. She may have a point.
At the next bell, after changing into one of the riding dresses Casimir provided and pinning my hair into one of the loopy updos that the noble ladies seem to favor, I head over to the stable. If it seems as odd to Julita as it does to me to get dressed up to hang out with horses, she doesn’t give any indication.
I think this is the best one, she remarks as I smooth my hands over the subtly pleated silk.It makes your eyes look even more blue.
It’s the turquoise dress, which I think is my favorite too. The cut is simple in its elegance, with only a little gold embroidery, no beading or elaborate swirls, decorating the neck- and waistline.
And I’ve discovered that the folds on this one allow me to conceal one extra dagger compared to the others. Which is the most important factor, naturally.
Even if I have three dresses, I could get away with wearing this one more than the others, right? After all, I’m supposed to be a mere country noble no one’s ever heard of before.
I mean, while Ihaveto be wearing fancy dresses at all.
My nerves twitch as I spot the twenty or so noblemen and ladies gathered outside the stable, but the familiar smells take the edge off my anxiety. Fresh hay and old wood and that distinct musky-sweet horsey smell that I welcomed into my lungs whenever I slipped out to my family’s much smaller stable to groom Dotty, our mare.
There could be one or two things I’d actually like about the Sovereign College. If they didn’t always come with a pack of rich snobs on the side.
As I stroll along the pathway with the smooth but not too swift strides that befit a lady, I pick out several familiar faces in the waiting group. There’s Anya, who will never recover her missing earrings and whose flaxen locks currently look more like a sculpture than a hairdo. And Esmae, Julita’s petite dormmate with the eye patch who came to my rescue.
The others, I haven’t had time to commit their names to memory yet, but I know I’ve crossed paths with them while walking the halls or perhaps in the dining hall this morning.
Oh, and Benedikt is with them—his golden hair catching the sunlight off to the side of the small crowd. He’s laughing with a few of the other men.
I jerk my gaze away. I’m not supposed to know him.
But he’s going to witness one of my first real attempts at noble subterfuge. All of which I’d imagine he’ll report back to Stavros—and Casimir and Alek—one way or another.
Wonderful.
Julita pipes up, falling into a hush as if there’s any chance of someone overhearing.The girl with the red streak in her hair—keep a particular eye on her. Wendos had a thing going with her for a few months. And I’ve seen him act very friendly with the short fellow there in the dark blue tunic, so watch him carefully too.
I want to point out that I’m not sure how much those associations matter when we haven’t even proven that Wendos himself is still interested in scourge sorcery, but I’m too close to the other students to talk to Julita without looking insane.
Anya is standing with a couple of similarly haughty women. Her eyes narrow when she notices me arriving. “Julita’s friend. What are you doing here again?”
I offer my best ingratiating smile and stick to an appropriately refined tone. “I happened to stumble into a conversation with one of the professors whose father was close colleagues with mine, and it turned out he was in need of an assistant. My family decided they could spare me for the opportunity.”
One of Anya’s friends lets out a laugh too short to be good-humored. “How intriguing. And you know Julita as well?”
I’ve prepared for this moment, knowing I’d likely run into someone who’d heard my initial story.
It’s fine—possibly even a good thing—if the conspirators find out I supposedly knew Julita. Their reactions to me could give their guilt away.
But I don’t want anyone believing that I was involved in whatever investigations they believed Julita was carrying out. That could be a faster death sentence than showing off my riven magic for Stavros.
“I suppose Iknewher,” I say with a slight grimace. “We hadn’t seen each other in years. From what I’ve heard since arriving here, she’d changed quite a bit. I don’t even know where she’s wandered off to—she didn’t bother telling me that much.”
Anya hums to herself with a brief primp of her hair. I take a surreptitious glance toward the two classmates Julita pointed out to me, but I can’t see any change in their expressions if they noted me talking about her.
If they’re worried about anyone investigating her disappearance, they’re doing a good job of hiding it.
My gaze snags on another female student in a deep burgundy dress that compliments her olive-brown skin. Unlike the rest of us, her straight black hair is only pulled back from her face in a gold clip but otherwise allowed to tumble down her back. Even Esmae has her hair coiled into a bun for the outing.
