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Gooseflesh creeps up my back. “Kirran said that you told him I left the day before the ball.”
Her brows wrinkle, and she blinks a few times. “I spoke with him shortly after you left. I told him you’d left that morning.”
“And I leftSundaymorning? You’re sure?”
She tips her head back and lets out a groan. “I’msure, Alia. One would think that if he wanted to stop you from leaving, he would have gone after you then.”
I fight the instinct to crush my head between my hands. Letting it go is better than trying to argue with her, and screaming my frustration the way I want to won’t accomplish anything. If the days are wrong, that has to be part of whatever happened.
“And I was in Palla how long?”
“Nine months. Give or take. I can’t remember how long your travels took. It was about nine months from the time you left to the time you returned.”
That part, at least, adds up. Though I barely recall the trip there or the first several weeks of being in the spring kingdom. I’d stayed in the house of Lord Golzarr and his wife, but after languishing away in the guest room for a few days, Lady Adsilla shooed me off to make myself useful among the other servants.
Nothing else there seems amiss.
Though, if it was, would I even know it?
I smooth my hands over the thick arms of the chair. The rough upholstery tickles my skin. “Do you know about any letters between us?”
My stepmother tenses. Then she lowers her gaze.
I can’t breathe.
“Do understand, Alia.” She puckers her lips like she tasted especially tart cider and avoids my gaze. “You were intensely distraught. We could barely get a word out of you between your fits of weeping and wailing. Your few intelligible responses implied some sort of betrayal, real or imagined. Not surprising, I must say, given the prince’s…reputation.”
My skin heats. Kirran’s sneaking around caused more talk than my own, but it still cuts too closely to what King Abbas said to me. Or, rather, didn’t say to me, but did say to Kirran.
I push through the feeling but can’t bring myself to speak above a whisper. “Did you block our letters?”
My stepmother’s eyes flick over to me. Apart from my father’s funeral, I have never seen her display sorrow. Nor has she ever carried even a hint of remorse.
Until now.
“I believed it to be best for you if there was no further contact. Lord and Lady Golzarr agreed to shield you from any letters Prince Kirran might send.” Her gaze drops to her hands, and she pulls a couple times at the skirt of her forest green dress. Perfectly styled brows rise, wrinkling her brow. “They also agreed to discard any you might seek to mail out to him.”
I lean against the chair, pressing one fist to my mouth. Lord Golzarr and Lady Adsilla had become friends. I’d never suspected a thing. Never believed they’d deceive me or take that choice from me. Though, given the way my stepmother likely explained the situation to them, they surely thought they were helping.
At least we know what happened with the letters.
She watches me a moment longer, then squares her shoulders and wipes her palms over her thighs. “I apologize if this was the wrong course of action.”
That’s the closest I’ve ever gotten to true regret from her. For anything.
“Okay.” It comes out breathless, strangled with more tension than I want to reveal to her. “Okay. Thank you for telling me that.”
Her eyes glimmer with curiosity now, but I can’t — I won’t — give her any answers she may seek. Not with my heart throbbing like it’s about to burst from my chest and her betrayal alive inside me.
“Thank you for taking the time, Stepmother.” I wrench myself away from the chair. “I apologize for interrupting your meeting.”
I start toward the double doors. Just as I reach to open them, daylight glints across the mirror on the opposite side of the room. A mirror that fills the entire bottom half of the wall. The mirror where I caught my disheveled reflection seven years ago — seconds before I ran to my bed and collapsed in tears.
The mirror where I saw my dress…
My skin goes cold. My dress — not merely brown, butdecaying, disintegrating, hanging from my frame in patches.
I spin back toward her. “One last thing. Kirran said the dress he gave me was blue. Do you have any idea what could have turned it brown, made it sort of fall apart?”
