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I smile though she doesn’t meet my eyes. “There’s nothing to forgive.”
“Forest bless your efforts, dear.” Without another glance at me, Shivva ducks back into the room.
After three more servants repeat nearly the same sentiments, I tip my head back with a groan. I can get nothing out of them apart from various comments about not wishing to “cross” Kirran. There’s no solution but to find him, though I can’t imagine he’ll be able to easily lift his gag order. Maybe he can do so with just a word. It still seems that it’ll take far too much time.
Regardless, there is no other option.
I steel myself with a sharp breath and slip between servants to Lady Esilla. “Good morning, Mistress. I know it’s early, but do you mind if I take a break?”
She studies me. “Is this to do with Prince Kirran’s ball?”
“It is.” No reason to pretend otherwise.
She sighs and waves a dismissive hand at me, not bothering to disguise her teasing smile. “Go on. Try to be back before midday.”
“Thank you!” I shoot out the doorway and into the hall. Before I make it ten steps, I skitter to a stop. The castle is massive, with more rooms and corridors than I have fully explored. Or have access to.
If Kirran is researching magic, he’s likely in the library. Or meeting with his father’s ministers or advisors.
Or maybe he’s not doing anything at all to try to find the truth because he already knows what he did. He probably sent you on a wild goose chase, knowing full well you wouldn’t find answers from the servants.
The thought burns in my chest, and I shake it away. He can’t lie. He was earnest last night. I know it.
I make it another few strides and stop again.
If I go to Kirran, what then? Even if he retracts his order of silence, will it be useful at all? The servants may have seen something, if indeed there was something to be seen. But if they didn’t and we waste hours trying to get information they don’t have, we’ll be no better off than if I try something else now.
My blood chills, and instinctive tension knots in my shoulders. There’s only one other person who might have answers for me.
If she is willing to talk.
I steady myself and head toward the nobles’ wing. Not every noble lives in the castle, but the advisors and their families do, as well as a handful of other prominent fey lords and ladies that King Abbas wants close at all times. They all reside in the southern section of the castle, where I used to live when we first moved from the spring kingdom of Palla, before I found more solace in the servants’ area downstairs and gradually shifted my residence there.
The nobles’ wing, where my stepmother and stepsisters still live.
At this time of day, though, my stepmother is likely to be in one of two places: either in her lavish sitting room with a few other highborn ladies, sipping cinnamon tea and pretending to solve the world’s problems; or out on the terrace, munching on crackers with lime spread and reading a book I was never allowed to touch.
I can only hope that, by this hour, my stepsisters have decided to entertain themselves elsewhere.
The vast ceiling and beams above seem to close in on me the farther I go. But it’s the familiar voices floating from somewhere ahead of me that stop me dead in my tracks. The back of my neck pebbles with a rippling chill.
So much for my stepsisters not being here.
Vallda’s exasperated tone reaches me first. “…coursethey didn’t go off together. I told you, he went after her but returned to the ballroom very soon after. She didn’t.” A snicker, cold and mocking like she usually is. “Probably went to her room to cry herself to sleep. What a little worm.”
My breath catches, and I stiffen.
“Worm!” Devikka lets out a sharp cackle and falls quiet like she shushed herself. Her muffled words only serve to further the image. “Like spring and mud. I get it!”
Vallda says something I don’t catch. Maybe it’s more of a sigh.
“But you said he spoke to the king.” Devikka’s nasally words carry more easily through the corridor, even as their footsteps hurry away from me. Heeled shoes clack in near unison on the marble floor. “That’s a problem, isn’t it? What if he still —”
“He doesn’t. He was angry. Or at least upset. I don’t think we have anything to worry about there.”
I ease back against the wall, just so I’m not standing so conspicuously in the center of the corridor, but I don’t dare to peek around the corner yet, lest they spot me.
It’s been a long time since I let their remarks truly penetrate my heart. And I’m not going to give them the pleasure of knowing I overheard them.
