Page 44 of Legacy of Thorns
“You know what Father was like.” Archie shrugged. “He never cared much about position or wealth. He would talk to the lowliest person he encountered as if they were his long-lost brother—but by the same token, he would just as comfortably have interacted with the king himself in the same way.”
Finley groaned. “This could be even worse than we feared.” He dropped his voice to a mutter. “And it was already pretty bad. But I didn’t know the person after us had connections with the nobility.”
“At least we now know how they stumbled on Finley in the first place,” Daphne said. “But I guess we were wrong about why they circled back here. They weren’t tracking you either time—this is their current home base.”
Archie gave a low whistle. “What awful bad luck on my part to run into them by chance! They must have caught sight of me in the village or while I was scoping out the barn.”
All three of them fell silent for a moment, considering the unlucky coincidence. Archie was the first to break the silence.
“There’s really only one question left to ask about this incident,” he said.
They both turned to him with quizzical looks.
“However did you nap in that tree without falling out, Daphne? Your perch on the branch looked precarious at best. I think my heart nearly burst thinking you were sure to fall.”
“You were napping in the tree?” Finley asked. It sounded impossible, even for her.
“I never fall when I’m napping,” Daphne said complacently. “I think it’s part of the Legacy effect. But that’s hardly a relevant issue right now! We finally have a new clue. After all these weeks, the patrols have managed to accomplish something.”
“We need to follow that man into the manor and find out who he is and why he’s doing this!” Archie exclaimed.
“No,” Finley said firmly. “We need to go back to the cabin and make a strategy.”
Archie wrinkled his nose. “A strategy to do what?”
“To follow that man into the manor and find out who he is and why he’s doing this, of course,” Daphne said.
Finley threw her a wry look. “Without being discovered, that is.”
Chapter 15
Daphne
“So all we need to do is infiltrate the manor and question its occupants without being identified as outsiders,” Daphne said as she paced feverishly back and forth in the small living space of the cabin.
All three men tracked her with their eyes, Morrow looking a little dizzy. Daphne knew she was panicking. She also knew that the panicked feeling had little to do with the impossible task before them. Daphne had been faced with seemingly impossible situations before, and as far as she could remember, she’d never panicked in her life.
But she’d been feeling the forces of the Legacy closing around her for weeks, and since her kiss with Fin and the discovery of the mastermind behind their pursuers, it was starting to feel like a stranglehold. Whatever the Legacy wanted from her—whatever it was driving toward—it was getting close.
“Tell me again why we can’t go in as servants?” She completed another loop of the too-small room.
“Nisha said it was impossible.” Archer sounded cautious. Even his infatuation didn’t know what to make of her currentstate. “She said servants all know each other well, and they’d notice a new face straight away, let alone multiple new faces.”
“Who knew that Nisha was once a servant herself.” Morrow gave a disbelieving chuckle. “Hard to imagine Nisha bowing and scraping and scrubbing floors.”
“Why do you think I’m not a servant anymore?” Nisha asked from the doorway.
“Nisha!” Daphne pounced on her. “Where have you been? You know the most about manor houses. You need to tell us?—”
“You need to sit down before Morrow gets so dizzy he keels over.” Nisha fixed Daphne with a stern look. “Aren’t you feeling at all sleepy, young lady?”
Daphne dropped immediately into one of the dining chairs. “Actually,” she said. “Now that you mention it, I am.”
The exhaustion—held at bay by her frenzy—hit her like a wall. She put her head down on the table and was instantly asleep.
The moment consciousness returned, she propelled herself upright. “What happened? What did I miss?”
“Relax.” Fin’s hand settled on her shoulder, gently but firmly guiding her back into the seat. “You missed nothing of importance. Nisha is just explaining her plan.”
