Page 60 of A Court of Masks and Roses
Trace’s hand snaps around Luca’s wrist. “Escort me first, if you don’t mind.”
Dread and relief flooding me in equal measure, I quickly turn away to pull on a fresh tunic and breeches, letting Trace subtly nudge Luca out of the tiny room. Another few moments to strap Leaf’s pouch to one thigh and a sword to my waist, and I’m as ready as I’m getting. My forearm is bare and too light without my vambrace of throwing knives, but there’s littleto be done on that front. Even with the knives missing, the change of clothes feels unexpectedly soothing, like a bandage topping a wound.
When I step outside, Trace gives a small, understanding nod.
Hooded cloaks covering our faces, Trace, Luca, and I walk purposefully toward the dungeon. Around us, red-coated holy guardsmen scurry about like cockroaches. Spotting Sergeant Samuels across the courtyard, my hands tighten into fists.
Luca shoots me a dark look, then slows as we approach the dungeon doors. “Trace... you can still—”
Reaching past Luca, Trace opens the door to the moldy gloom and starts down the steps. Lanterns in hand, Luca and I follow the echo of Trace’s boots against the stone. My chest squeezes at the thought of what each of these motions costs Trace. And if he is discovered as an Everett spy...
“It will work out,” Luca tells me quietly, having read my tension if not my thoughts. “That one always lands on his feet.”
No, he doesn’t.Except I’ve neither the heart nor the right to tell Luca exactly how much worse this all is than he thinks.
We are halfway down the staircase, bracing for the inevitable stench, when Calvin blocks our path.
“Hoods off,” he orders with a deathly quiet that allows no disobedience. Holding up a lantern, he inspects each of us, moving from one set of eyes to the next, until coming to a halt before Trace.
“Allow me to make something perfectly clear,” the questioner tells him. “I have two young girls in a place in which they have no business being. If I so much as smell an intention to intimidate them into anything, your day will go from bad to worse very rapidly. Prince William or no Prince William. Do you understand me, guardsman?”
“It’s a misunderstanding, Calvin,” I hear myself say. “There is—”
Trace silences me with a hand. Raising his chin, he stares at the questioner and, after a moment of heavy silence, bows with his hand over his sword. With a jerk of his head, Calvin leads us the rest of the way down and into the dusty meeting room.
Wil stands with two girls of twelve or thirteen years. One petite and agile with coal-black hair and an angled face, the other plump and ungainly. Both frightened. The girls shy away from us. If they’ve seen Trace before, they give no sign of it now.
Wil, his hair and clothes equally disheveled, steps forward. “I think I like it better when it’s you pulling me out of trouble,” he tells Trace.
Trace bows his head, the short nod carrying more weight than a glamorous display. “I understand that I’m wanted for murder.”
“You are not wanted for anything,” Wil snaps, though his voice’s rising inflection takes some of the power from the words. “Not by the Crown, at least. The Holy Guard has made a claim based on Alexa and Jasmine’s words.” He points to the girls. “They are—were—runaway Order of the Goddess acolytes. A rose caught them in the North Wood and attempted to take them back to the temple. Jasmine hit him on the back of the head with a rock, which ended the pursuit more permanently than intended. The guard’s partner found the body and, shortly after, Alexa and Jasmine themselves. Who gave the Holy Guard Trace’s name.”
“An accident, then,” I say. “Not murder.”
Luca and Trace exchange glances. “The specifics will little matter to the Holy Guard,” says Trace. “And King Firehorn may be pressured to agree to the charges to appease the Order.I wager it is the escape more than the guard’s death that upsets Bahir.”
The girls shrink back, pressing against each other, and Calvin shifts his weight to subtly impose himself between Trace and his accusers.
“It’s all right,” Trace tells them. “You are whisperers?”
Hesitant nods. Trace turns to Wil. “Bahir’s men round up whisperers and force them to labor in the Order’s fortress. Kidnapping, enlisting, buying—whatever it takes. ‘Acolyte’ is the bishop’s term for slave. I help escapees get to safety.”
I glare at Trace, whose meddling in Dansil’s affairs—and putting himself in danger of several executions—appears vaster than even I imagined, the matter of this being the pot calling the kettle black notwithstanding.Being an Everett prince in Dansil court isn’t enough? You needed to subvert the Order of the Goddess while you were at it?
His eyes flick to me.What did you expect me to do?
“Slaves?” Wil shakes his head, his long lashes cutting the air with a sharp arc. “Surely you exaggerate.”
Trace snorts. “What exactly did you think happened to all the whisperers turned over to the Order for ‘salvation’?”
Calvin rubs his top lip. “How do you go about the rescues?” he asks mildly.
Trace draws a breath and faces the questioner. “A meeting point in the woods. I check it routinely for runaways, but I’ve been away for several days.”
Because of me. Trace is a hair’s breadth from being uncovered and it’s all because of me.
Alexa’s throat bobs. “We went to the woods. And we waited a long time. But we were unsure of what Master Trace looked like, and when we heard someone coming... By the time we realized we should have stayed hidden, it was toolate.” Her voice drops to a whisper. “We didn’t want to go back to the Order.”
