Page 116 of Thorn Season
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My efforts to integrate back into the gentry were finally paying off. Nobles gathered around me once again, trading pieces of gossip like game tokens—eager to hand me more for free since my gallery tryst with the king. Sabira was one of the few who didn’t grovel for my favor. She just watched me from a distance, her fake gems peeking dully beneath feathered sleeves.
Tonight marked Rose Season’s annual tribute to a previous monarch, and this year, the ballroom had been styled as an aviary—a nod to Daradon’s longest-reigning queen, who’d kept so many birds that the gentry had constantly carried parasols to protect themselves from the bird droppings. Now paper-crafted birds swayed from the ceiling and pink magnolias branched across the balcony. Plumes stuck out from every hat and pocket square, and silver ropes crisscrossed all entrances except the one leading into the grand foyer.
It felt less like an aviary than an overstuffed cage, but nobody else seemed to notice.
“Well?” Carmen dragged me from the Creakish bookkeepers, who were slurring over empty whiskey glasses. “Is it true?”
“Is what true?”
“Don’t be coy, darling. The court is buzzing with it.” She tickled my nose with her pink boa—the boa from which I’d once snaggedthat incriminating feather—and I had to stop myself from cinching it around her neck. Despite everything Tari had said, and the fresh theory I was still piecing together, I could no longer stand the sight of the princess. I couldn’t stand the sight of any of them.
“Apparently,” Carmen stage-whispered, “you and Erik were doing unspeakable things in the gallery.”
“If they were so unspeakable, people wouldn’t be talking.”
She gasped. “So it is true! No wonder Perla confined herself to her chambers. She’ll probably hide out here at court indefinitely.”
“What do you mean?”
Carmen’s sparkling eyes dimmed. “Her father will be furious at her for not seizing the opportunity he laid out.”
I frowned. “He wouldn’t... hurt her? She’s his child.”
“Some people are simply cruel,” Carmen said gravely. “Fathering a child doesn’t erase that cruelty.”
The words left me uneasy as Rupert strutted over, brandishing his new ruby brooch. Carmen’s face brightened as if by the strike of a match; that brooch would be hers by the night’s end. Leaving her to her sport, I headed for a corner I’d been watching all evening.
Keil had glowered at the walls from the moment he’d arrived, ignoring the usual swarm of giggling noblewomen until they’d scattered to find another handsome plaything.
Now he stiffened at my approach, his face set in hard, formal lines. “Was that Carmen’s arm around yours a moment ago? Tell me again how you would see her executed.”
“I’ll do whatever is necessary to get what I want,” I said with equal frost.
“Judging from the rumors about you and the king, I have no doubt.”
I tipped my head. “Jealous, Ambassador?”
A shock of red colored his cheeks. Though instantly remorseful, I forced a smirk.
There had been a double-Hunting the night before, the copycats killing four Wielders in total. While Erik would’ve ensured the Capewells suffered a double loss of their own, that was still four more Wielders I’d been too late to save.
And four fewer standing between the copycats andme.
While my discoveries behind Carmen’s closet had pushed her down my suspect list, it had also created more uncertainties; understanding the copycats’ symbol still seemed the best method of tracking them down. As long as I needed Keil’s resources, this was the easiest way forward for us both.
We couldn’t be barbed by flowers we’d never let bloom.
“Do you have the translation?” I asked in that same unruffled tone.
“No.”
“And is that from failure or from a simple lack of trying? Not that it makes a difference, but I’m curious to know just how stupid you really are.”
“I told you, it’s a dead language. If you think I can miraculously summon a translation, you’re overestimating my abilities.”
“And you are underestimating mine.”
