Page 60 of Thorn Season
Her slender throat bobbed. She knew what I was asking:Won’t the palace be your permanent home? Aren’t your sights set on the king?
With all the charm of a paper napkin, Perla wasn’t exactly competition. But right now, I needed Erik’s attention solely on me. I couldn’t have her getting in the way.
“I’d be honored to stay,” she said shakily. “But the decision isn’t mine alone.”
A vague, careful answer. She was certainly harder to crack than Carmen. And from her tight-lipped expression, I gathered she wouldn’t say more.
Withdrawing my specter, I peeled the ace from the lineup. Perla slumped as I turned it over.
“It seems I’ve won the game.” I refastened my earrings and nodded toward Perla’s rings. “You can keep those.”
“You won them fairly.”
I hadn’t, of course. But I stood with a beneficent smile. “Consider them a gift.”
I glimpsed Carmen’s twinkling figure in the courtyard and deemed it safe to sneak out.
Halfway across the Games Hall, I noticed Lady Sabira watching me, her gaze as sharp as Parrian steel.
I nodded as I approached. “Lady Sabira.”
“Alissa,” she replied, so informally that I bristled. She looked pointedly behind me, her armored bodice gleaming. “Well played.”
I glanced around to see Perla shoving the rings onto her fingers and frowning at the cards.
“I remember your mother,” Sabira said, making me whirl back toward her. She drifted close enough that I could smell the old-fabric musk wafting off her, see the pinprick beauty marks nestling like vanilla seeds around her eyes.
“Lady Fiona came from a good family,” she murmured, referring to Father’s late wife. “You don’t look a thing like them.”
The back of my neck prickled. Did Sabira suspect something amiss in my supposed heritage?
“I favor my father’s side,” I said, wary.
Sabira adjusted an emerald ring—the one real jewel she wore—and glanced toward Perla again. “Hm.” Her scornful gaze ran over me. “I’ve noticed.”
And she stalked away, robbing me of the opportunity to turn from her first.
But I had a greater opportunity to seize tonight.
Carmen had all but admitted that she and Nelle still corresponded. But from her unguarded comment regarding Nelle’s residence in Creak—Goodness, I hope not!—it seemed she truly couldn’t predict her mother’s movements. Without a permanent address, Nelle would have to initiate contact—and I believed she already had. I believed the Bolting Box would contain the time and location of their next meeting.
If I could somehow open the box, I could find Nelle. And then I would learn exactly what had happened the night of Wray’s murder.
I was clacking through the dimly lit grand foyer, heading toward the arched stairwell that would take me to the royal wing, when Keil’s deep voice reverberated against the marble.
“Early night?”
I clomped to a halt.
He was standing under the arch of the second stairwell, hands inhis pockets, one shoulder propped against the side.
I smoothed my skirts—calm, unaffected. “It’s been a long day.”
“I can imagine.” He glanced at the stairwell I’d been walking toward—the stairwell that would lead me back to Carmen’s suite. His mouth turned up in a wicked, knowing smile. “Don’t let me keep you awake,” he said, pushing off his own arch. Because behind him stretched the stairwell leading to my own chambers.
If I were really heading up early, I should’ve been walking inthatdirection.
I ground my teeth, caught between the two arches. But there wasn’t really a choice. Though my specter strained inside me, as if to pull me toward that first stairwell, I couldn’t risk Keil following me tonight. If I wanted that Bolting Box... I would have to wait until morning.
