“Crow-lips is fine. We all survived.”
Baron quickly found himself seated at the cramped kitchen table with a warmed bowl of stew and a slice of lemon pie. Leon returned to his recipes.
The kitchen door swung open, allowing Corvin to slip in, his expression creased in a frown.
Baron swallowed. “I’m sorry I missed—”
“We need to talk about Aria.”
Leon’s eyes flicked up, then returned to his study, though he tilted his head in a clear display of listening.
Raising his eyebrows, Baron said, “PrincessAria. What’s the concern?”
“I think she’s in trouble, Baron. She always looks so tired. Like she did during the ball, except now it’s worse. And I’ve heard things, hovering around the castle, like how the guards can’t stay awake during night watch. They think it’s some kind of fatigue illness passing through the castle and that Aria has it. They said she fell from her horse.”
Baron’s breathing hitched. “Is she injured?”
“Just minor injuries. They said she was lucky. But there’s something else—I was listening at the laundry window, because laundry workers always talk the most, and—”
Baron winced. “Corvin, you shouldn’t—”
“Yeah, I know.Listen.Aria went to Northglen.”
Leon’s head shot up at that, recipes abandoned.
“Weeks ago,” Corvin said. “Before we met her. Apparently, she didn’t tell anyone, not even the king, and she hired her own guard and went to meet Widow Mortonalone.”
Leon snorted. “No idiot would do that.”
“She’s not a—never mind. The king tracked down the guards and brought them in to be questioned and got the whole story.Apparently Widow Morton made a peace agreement, except no one’s seen it.”
With great calm, Baron set his spoon down. “What are you saying, Corvin?”
“I think something happened!”
Leon rolled his eyes. “Obviously somethinghappened.You can’t even speculate right.”
“All right, what doyouthink, since you know everything?”
As the twins fell into bickering, Baron’s mind raced. All of Aria’s questions about Casting, her interest in magic, inhim—what did it mean? Did Aria want a better understanding of Casters because she had to decide upon Widow Morton’s offer of peace?
She always looks so tired.
Baron had wondered, of course, the night of the ball—the way the princess stumbled out from behind a pillar, disheveled and bleary-eyed, the way she nodded off in the kitchen. Even the way she responded to his tea. It wasn’t normal. Days later, she’d carried that same weariness in his orchard, like a cloud was raining above only her.
Dread constricted his breathing. Had she run afoul of a Caster?
The twins had fallen silent. With a blink, Baron came back to himself.
“Spit it out,” Leon said. “You’ve got a face like the stew’s sour, and I know it’s not.”
“Corvin, run up to my desk and bring the princess’s letters, please.”
Before Baron even finished the request, the door was swinging closed on Corvin’s heel. Baron ate a few more bites of stew, then pushed his slice of pie toward Leon, who’d been eyeing it. By the time Corvin returned, he’d cleared space on the table.
One by one, Baron sorted letters, seeing them in a new light. There were enough now that they crowded the smalltable, overlapping corners and edges. He’d hoped to send her a response that day, but the harvest had gotten away from him, so he would manage only one more before the joust in two days.
Slowly, with the words on the table, he pieced a narrative.
