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My thoughts tumbled over themselves and slammed to a halt. “‘A beautiful lie’?” I echoed. “He said those words, referring to me?”
“Well, yes, so you see why I don’t think he hates you, hm? In fact, I think you fascinate him. It’s all that pretty. The both of you.” She pulled a face. “By Dallin, I’m surrounded by hopeless, pretty men who think with their dicks and not their brains.”
I chuckled and refilled my cup. The prince had surprised me again. This was becoming a theme with him.
“What…? Why do you laugh?” She giggled.
“It’s as though you speak of an entirely different man to the person he’s shown himself to be.”
“I’ve worked in the palace since my twelfth year. I may not be Arin’s aide, but I know him well enough. He wasn’t always so aloof and distant. Something happened, I fear, not long before you arrived and charmed your way among the court.”
“Something like what?”
“The previous jester…”
“What of him?” I knew they’d had one, and he’d left, but little else. He’d been my predecessor, and the past was not my focus. The past could not be changed. But the future was always fluid.
“Oh, well. I suppose, he was meant to have just left… But some of us think he may have dispatched himself.”
“He what?”
She mimed drawing a blade across her throat.
“Why am I just hearing about this now?”
“You never seemed that interested.”
“No, because I believedhe’d left.” I should have loosened Ellyn’s tongue with wine more often.
“Maybe he did.” She shrugged.
“Wait… Don’t tell me he and Arin were… close?”
She shrugged again and hid a smile behind taking a drink. “It’s all just rumor. And he was a terrible jester, not like you. You’re the best.” She patted my shoulder, then slumped against my side.
“Oh, well, that’s all right then. I’m sure he deserved his end.” By Dallin, what if Arin had been the one to dispatch him? Was that my fate? But again, why? And now I had a mere three days to discover the man’s deepest secrets before my own fate caught up with me. What if Arin did kill the previous jester, then went into hiding, and only now reappeared to try and kill Draven, and perhaps his own mother? And me? No, that seemed a stretch, even for my imagination. “I am far too drunk for rumors and heresy,” I muttered. “Tell me, Ellyn, if you know him so well, do you think Arin is a bad person, or a good one?”
“Good.” She didn’t hesitate. “He’s good, but he’s got muddled up,” she slurred.
“And me?” I asked, levering her back a bit so I could see her face. “Am I good?”
“Of course!” Well then, she was wrong, and a terrible judge of character. “And I’m sorry, for telling Arin things about you. We’re still friends aren’t we, Lark?”
I didn’t have friends. I had pawns, each one put in play where I needed them to be. “Shall we return to the palace?”
“I did enjoy this.”
“You were with me. What’s not to enjoy?” I pulled her from the booth and we stumbled from the Overlook together. The sweet-smelling evening air cleared some of my tipsiness. I’d learned a great deal about Prince Arin. He hadn’t always been this icy, somewhat distant prince. The death of his previous jester, or another event around that time, prior to my arrival, had forced him to hide behind his chamber door. I’d also learned he’d been curious about me for a long time.
His beautiful lie.
Ellyn could only have told him what she knew about me, and none of that was real.
I still had the upper hand, the control. I just needed him to know it.
* * *
We cameupon my door first. Ellyn tripped, fell against the wall, and almost collapsed in a heap of giggles. I propped her up. She flicked my nose. “Why have you never propositioned me?” she asked.
