“Anyone could say it and not mean it. I gave my mom an Artifact once, but I never saw it again. I think she was embarrassed by me.”
“I hope that wasn’t the case.” Aria thought of her own father and looked away. “But no matter the reasons, sometimes people we love do things that hurt.”
“Baron says she’s in Northglen.”
Aria looked back with wide eyes. “Your mother?”
“She sent a letter. Baron can tell you. I don’t really want to talk about it.” He focused on Jenny. “When you visited the estate, you said you were from Harper’s Glade, but I never got to ask about the Halloways. Did they really tear down that massive barn?”
Aria raised an eyebrow in Jenny’s direction, expecting the girl to shrink away.
Instead, she took up conversation with Corvin. Though timid at first, Jenny began telling stories Aria had never heard, stories of her hometown, her childhood, her mother. She and Corvin both spoke animatedly about a lake which apparently grew overrun with frogs each summer.
Pulling a second chair beside Corvin’s, Aria shepherded her half sister into it. Jenny barely seemed to notice, busy answeringquestions with more words than Aria had known she possessed, and Aria recognized something in the flush of Jenny’s cheeks, perhaps even in Corvin’s smile.
She grinned to herself, and without thinking, she turned, expecting to find someone at her shoulder, someone who would giggle with her and gladly tease Jenny every morning after.
But Eliza was still gone.
Aria closed her eyes, breathing until her heart remembered how to beat in proper rhythm. Then her gaze fixed on the door.
All her life, she’d felt isolated—that was the nature of royalty. She did not have friends in court the way others did. She did not attend a school or share tutors with other students her age. But she’d never feltalone. She’d had Eliza. She’d had her father.
Until Eliza abandoned her. It was the unkindest way to think of it, and Aria felt guilty for entertaining it, but the feeling remained, like a snake curled beneath a bush, hissing to make itself known each time wind disturbed the leaves.
Her father had abandoned her more directly, cut her off in everything except an official disownment, and even then, Aria felt bitterly certain he only maintained her inheritance because he still planned to marry her to some suitor of his choosing.
The venom of that pulsed deeply in her veins, stinging with every single heartbeat.
Yet in a time when everyone had turned away from her—
Baron came marching in the castle door.
She hated the danger he faced, hated that she couldn’t face it with him, but even so, he would never know how much it meant to her that he faced it for her sake, that he stood by her instead of turning away.
She closed her eyes, wishing she could send another message to him along with her note, but she couldn’t even manage the proper words.Thank youdidn’t cover it, and neither diddon’t you dare lose.
In the end, the best she could manage was,Whatever happens, I’ll meet you at nightfall. Just be there.
Despite Baron’s direct order, a crow followed him all the way to the castle, circling as he presented himself at the palace gate.
“All Casters are ordered to remain at home,” the guard captain said.
“I understand. However, I’m also an eligible man of court, here for the Crown’s challenge. I assume that takes precedence.”
The four men currently on duty exchanged looks. In the end, they sent a runner to the castle, and they waited.
Baron allowed himself one glance up and saw Corvin sailing away—but not toward home. Around the other side of the castle.
He clenched his jaw and hoped Aria would send his brother home. These days, Corvin seemed to listen to her more than to anyone else.
At last, the runner returned: the Caster would be permitted entry, and the king would meet with him in half an hour. Baron wished the news came with a surge of hope, but he’d known from the start there was little chance he’d be turned away at the gate. Baron would either be permitted to challenge, or he’d be sentenced for breaking house arrest. There was no option between.
One of the guards offered to escort him, though it was hardly anoffer. Baron gave Einar’s reins to a stablehand, and he walkedwith confidence into the castle, head up, shoulders back, as if he belonged.
Every pair of eyes followed him as he passed, and so did the whispers.
The guard led him to an anteroom. Though there were cushioned chairs along one wall, Baron stood, his gaze fixed on the double doors leading to the throne room. He rehearsed words in his mind, though it seemed pointless. He’d not convinced the king concerning his title, and the odds there had been far higher in his favor. Still, he had to try.
