Page 82 of Promise of Darkness
I force a smile and brush my fingers against the back of his hand, because two can play at this game. “Sweet dreams, Your Highness.”
It’s become a private little jest between us, but now it’s a weapon.
Thiago lifts my hand to his lips and purrs, “Trust me. They will be. Goodnight.”
20
Ihurry along the hallway hours after I heard the prince seek his own bed, glancing over my shoulder. There are no guards in sight, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t eyes upon me.
And the last thing I need is to be caught right now.
I pause in front of the prince’s audience chambers, then slip a makeshift lockpick into the lock and flip the tumblers. It’s a skill I acquired when I was a youth with an insatiable appetite for reading. Sadly, I used it mostly to break into the locked section of the library.
I’m inside before anyone has a chance to investigate.
I need information to send back to my mother’s court to prove I’m right—that Angharad is the true threat.
And I need to know whether I can truly trust the prince.
My mother’s voice plays in my head. Why did the prince sweep me away to Valerian, where the barest remnant of his people linger? What doesn’t he want me to see? He clearly had business to attend to in Ceres—his frequent comings and goings attest to that—so why lock me away?
What is he hiding?
I circle the map table where his people sat. There’s nothing there. I rifle through the shelves. Books. Treatises. Scrolls I don’t have time to investigate. I need to find that letter and work out what Lysander was doing near Vervain. I shake a locked box. Something rattles. Not the letter, but it wouldn’t be locked away if it wasn’t important. Plucking a jeweled hair piece from my hair, I slip the pick inside the lock.
From princess to thief.
Perfect.
It pops open with a click, and then a necklace spills into my hands. My breath catches. Thick, gorgeous diamonds circled by golden thorns. It looks like half the stars in the sky are woven into the gold mesh.
The necklace is mine.
"Where did you get this?" I whisper, barely daring to touch it. My grandmother gave it to me for my thirteenth birthday, and I wore it every day until—
When did I lose it?
I can't remember.
And that ache in my temples starts to pulse.
I lift the necklace with shaking hands, draping it around my throat. It fits perfectly, the weight of it so familiar my heart aches. Turning toward the window, I catch a glimpse of my reflection and swallow hard.
Why in the name of the Old Ones does the Prince of Evernight have my necklace?
Is my mother right?
Is this all just some elaborate ruse to make me dance to his tune? When did he take it? Or did someone else close to me steal it?
Rage bursts through me, and I clench the necklace in my fist. I need answers. And I need them now.
* * *
I slamboth hands against the doors leading to the prince’s chambers.
They hit the walls with a bang, and the prince startles upright from the chair where he’d been examining the bandage wrapped around his chest. There’s a bowl full of bloody water on the table beside him, and it looks like he’s been cutting open his wounds to drain the iron poison from them.
I don’t care.
