Aria turned. Jenny stood in the open doorway, one hand clutching the doorknob, the other pressed to her mouth. Before Aria could say a word, the girl ran, shrieking for the guards.
Corvin ducked against the wall, quivering like a frightened animal.
Was he an animal?
She heard the heavy steps of oncoming guards.
“Into the wardrobe,” she said, grabbing Corvin, herding him roughly. “Be silent. Don’t move.”
She fastened the doors behind him—banging one of his elbows in the process—just before three royal guards spilled into her bedchamber.
“Your Highness!” The first guard reached her. “Are you hurt? Where’s the intruder?”
“It was a mistake,” she said. She struggled for calm, but her voice sounded manic to her ears. The towering presence of the wardrobe behind her felt too obvious, as if it strained for attention merely by existing.
“Your lady’s maid said—”
“It was terrible of me. I ... I played a joke on her. I leapt out from hiding when she entered. She must have thought me an intruder. Really, I’m—there’s no need for concern, sir. I’m sorry for the inconvenience.”
The guards exchanged a baffled look, but since there was no obvious danger, they took her at her word, no doubt wondering if her curse affected her sanity.
She followed them to the door, then told them to send Jenny back so she could apologize—in truth, she wanted to make sure the girl didn’t spread word of Corvin.
As soon as she had the door latched, the boy spilled out of the wardrobe.
“Please, Highness, hear me out—”
Aria pulled him into a hug.
Corvin stiffened at first, then melted, gasping in shuddering breaths against her chest. She waited until his fear calmed before she stepped back, gripping his arms.
“I thought you were a spy for Widow Morton!” Even with the guards gone, she didn’t dare raise her voice above a whisper. “The crow, I mean. I ... never imagined it was you.”
He laughed, though it might have been a dry sob. “You don’t hate me?”
“As if I ever could.”
She caught sight of her own arm, prickled with goose bumps. While Casters held a documented presence in the kingdom, restricted but accepted, shapeshifters were more myth than reality. They were the stories told beneath the moon while imagining that every nighttime rustling held an animal with too much intelligence, stalking ever closer. Casters may have been strange—deadly, even—but they were human. What could a creature be called that walked the line between human and animal?
Apparently, it could be called Corvin.
“I would never hurt you.” Corvin swallowed. “Promise.”
“I believe you. Now I need you to fly home”—she nearly choked on the wordfly—“before Jenny returns or anyone else comes to investigate. I’ll swear her to silence, but we can’t risk anyone else seeing you.”
She could only imagine what her father would do to a shapeshifter discovered within the castle. Her ears rang with funeral bells at the thought.
How could Corvin even exist? The last shapeshifter had beenexecuted during the reign of Aria’s grandmother, some forty years earlier, and they were born only once every hundred years.
But Aria’s understanding of magic had been terribly wrong before. She could not be surprised to discover it again.
Corvin turned toward the window, then hesitated. “You’re not scared of me? Truly?”
“I believe Leon would be appalled,” she said, “if I fainted at the sight of a skinny chicken.”
He grinned in earnest, lighting his dark eyes and splitting Aria’s heart. An expression like that couldn’t be anythingbuthuman.
“Baron wants to save you.”
