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“Ah, well then, no. He has not.”
Ana’s spirits plummeted deeper. She hadn’t taken a normal breath since leaving Tyreste on the mountainside. “Is he... worse?”
“Well, that all depends—”
“Pros, Lenik!”
Lenik straightened. His nose crinkled. “He is neither worse nor better than he was when he took abed.”
Ana wilted in relief. It wasn’t good news, but it wasn’t the news she’d feared either. What she needed most was for every other terrible thing happening around her to justslow downso she could focus on the one thing that might fix it all. “I’ll go see him then, a little later.”
“Unless you intend to visit him within the span of one of your rare visions, Miss Wynter, or he wakes and offers a reversal of wishes he made quite clear, that will not be happening.”
“Pardon?”
“Your father has forbade any visitors until further notice.”
Ana scoffed, narrowing her eyes. “My father made this wish? Orshedid?”
“Your father, after she left.”
“Right.” She scrutinized Lenik, trying to read his allegiances through his stoic expression. But it was impossible to know if the eccentric spiritual adviser was under the koldyna’s sway or simply being his usual maddening self. “Surely he’ll make an exception for his daughter.”
“And I wish you all the luck of the Ancestors convincing the twelve guards standing watch outside his door that Steward Wynter did not mean you when he said, ‘I do not wish to be disturbed, not even by my own blood.’”
“Of course she would,” Ana muttered as she brushed past Lenik and turned down the hall housing the family apartments. Just as Lenik had said, an entire division of guards were huddled around her father’s door.He’s safe. Let it go for now. You can’t solve that problem without solving another first.
The guards all paused to show respect, some tensing in anticipation of what she might do, but she smiled, as warmly as she could manage, and moved on toward the end of the hall.
She lingered, waiting for them to return to their conversation. When they were occupied again, she reached inside her cloak for the key that unlocked every door in the keep. She hadn’t used it on anything but her own apartments since she was a little girl full of curiosity, and it was unlikely Magda even knew she had it. She half expected the door to be enchanted, impervious to any key, but to her happy surprise, the lock clicked and the door creaked open.
Ana checked the hall one last time.
She’d never been inside Magda’s apartments. Ksana and Arkhady had always shared their living quarters, but Magda had demanded her own and never invited others in.
Ana half expected to be walking into an elaborate torture chamber, but the place looked like every other guest apartment in the keep. There was a sitting area and, on the other end, a bedroom nook. Two doors, one on each side, would lead to a privy and a closet. The furnishings matched the decor of the rest of the keep. Her eyes skimmed the desk and tables, searching for anything incriminating, but they were accoutred with only the usual items, like hairpins and potted ink.
She looked closer anyway. Opened every page of what appeared to be a journal but was merely a ledger of accounting for Magda’s needs, detailing the cost of her gowns, slippers, bedding, and more. Each useless item Ana examined wound her nerves tighter, and with a sinking feeling in her chest, she began to accept the apartments werenotwhere Magda kept her secrets.
“If I were dark magic, where would I hide?” Ana said, scanning the same items, the same furniture. There was nothing out of order. Her bed was perfectly normal, her bureau like any other. The desk, the tables, the mirror—
The mirror.
Her blood turned to ice. Paeris’s words returned to her.Mortain is up to something. I saw him speaking to someone, through a mirror, Zo. A mirror!
But surely it couldn’t bethatmirror. Paeris had witnessed Mortain’s strange conversation all the way in Duncarrow. There was no evidence in any of the letters that the person on the other end of his shadowy conversation was in Witchwood Cross.
You’re being a dramatic fool,she scolded herself, her eyes sweeping the absolutely ordinary mirror as she passed it. But she couldn’t pass without trying. No matter how silly she felt, there was no one around to see her act so ridiculously and, therefore, no harm in saying, “Hello, you perfectly ordinary mirror, you. What secrets will you reveal today?”
Ana laughed to cover her discomfort and made her way to the privy. She was still scolding herself as she searched around the toilet and under the vanity. Ofcoursenothing had happened. Ofcourseno one had responded because—
“Well, well, well. Hello toyouas well, Miss Wynter. Do you prefer Anastazja? Would Ana be too casual for such a relationship as ours, which is only just in its inception?”
Ana was frozen solid.I’ve imagined it. I’m exhausted.
“Why not step into the light, where I can better see you? I would so like to know if you match the whims of my imaginings or if I’ve been so far off the mark as to be laughed at.”
No. No, it wasdefinitelya real voice. A man’s voice. And it was there, in the apartment, despite the austere, faint intonation that sounded more like words traveling across a great distance.
