She blinked at the unexpected topic. Her lips parted, but the words were still catching up.
“He keeps practicing his Casting in the kitchen, which drives Leon crazy. He’s spent enough time in the training field, he broke a dummy, and he’s up every morning pacing. He’s trying to figure out how to save you.”
Aria’s tears threatened another surge, this time from joy.
“I wanted you to know, because ... Baron’s stood up for me my whole life, and I’ve never done anything for him. So I can at least tell you—don’t marry whatever challenger the king has lined up. Because Baron wants to save you.”
The boy gave another grin, and then he opened the window. A rush of cold air washed across Aria’s skin. Black mist wafted from Corvin’s outline, and seeing it a second time, Aria thought there was something beautiful in the patterned swirls, like smoke messages rewriting his form before her eyes.
Then the mist vanished, and he was a crow again, stepping lightly on the sill. He dove off the edge, paralyzing Aria with fear until he flapped and rose into the sky, as able as any other crow. She watched until he disappeared around the edge of the palace.
After he was gone, she found his forgotten message canister,Baron’s latest letter tucked inside. It began withDearest Aria, any reference to her title abandoned at last, and it took no more than that to make everything right in the world again.
As Baron practiced in the yard, a crow landed on the fence beside his current dummy.
“Broken a second one yet?” the crow asked. It was Corvin’s voice, no mistake, though edged with the cackling sound of a crow.
Baron gave him a sharp look, glancing around to be sure they were alone as the boy transformed with a quick puff of mist that left swirling trails in the air. He was grinning from ear to ear.
Recognizing a look of mischief, Baron asked, “What have you done?”
The boy’s smile turned nervous. “First of all, it was an accident.”
Baron leaned his practice sword against the fence and devoted his full attention to the matter at hand. No doubt he would soon have to make peace with a snarling cat.
“I ... well, I went to deliver your letter, as usual.”
Baron tilted his head, noting that the canister was noticeably absent. “You lost it along the way?”
“No, I—oh, I guess I must have ... dropped the container. In Aria’s room.”
“You wentinAria’s room?” Baron felt the beginnings of a headache.
“I wasn’t being nosy! Well, maybe I guess I was because whenI first arrived, I saw her shove this box out a window, then I saw she wascrying—”
Baron ached to hear of Aria’s tears, but the greater feeling was his dread at the undercurrent he sensed beneath Corvin’s words. The boy danced around something serious.
“What happened?”
Corvin licked his lips. He leapt from one foot to the other, like a bird preparing for flight. Baron waited.
“I . . . spoke . . . to her.”
“You—” All of Baron’s worst fears came true at once, strangling his voice.
Corvin rushed to say, “It’s fine! It was an accident, I swear, and I only said her name, but she’s smart, and she slammed the window closed and demanded I reveal myself as a shapeshifter, and then I did—”
Baron groaned, closing his eyes and pressing the heels of his palms to his forehead, though it did nothing to contain the growing ache. Corvin’s voice kept right on going.
“—and she’s fine with it.”
Breathing deeply, Baron struggled to regain his voice while his imagination conjured soldiers marching on the Reeves estate.
“What exactly,” he managed, “did she say?”
Corvin related how Aria had hidden him from the guards, how she teased him with one of Leon’s favorite insults. It was like something out of a dream, though Baron had experienced very few dreams that did not quickly reveal their true nature as nightmares. Had it been an act—a way to remove Corvin from the palace while she decided in earnest how to respond?
“Corvin, you could have beenkilled.”
