At Frostveil, the gardens had been planted and many of them painstakingly cultivated at Saga’s pleasure. Was it Lady Vaeri Ithamai that we had to thank for the occasional cover? If so, she’d be hearing no thanks from me.
We were making our way through a garden with towering hedges when we came upon a brownie, taller than most of her kind, and twice as hairy. Her body went rigid as she took us in. The darkness helped cloak us, but we weren’t in the deep purple tunic trimmed with white that servants wore. Nor were we in guard clothing, but nondescript black cloaks. We did not fit in.
“Who are you?” the brownie asked, her voice high and tight.
Astril’s nostrils widened as she breathed in. “She’s terrified.”
“Not a soldier. Do not harm,” I whispered back, not so sure that Astril and I shared the same moral code.
“Still a threat,” the vampire hissed back.
“If you don’t stop whispering over there and answer me, I’ll yell. The guard is on high alert with the king in residence.”
Taking control in a way I wished she would not, Isolde held up her hands and stepped forward. “We’re sorry that we startled you. We’re visitors.”
“Armedvisitors? That’s odd, considering my high lady requires her guests to be unarmed in her home. She takes very few exceptions.”
Lady Ithamai was not just a stickler for the law; she was paranoid.
“Enough of this.” Astril blurred forward and stopped before the brownie. “Go back to work. Say nothing of this.”
“After we enter the castle though,” Yrsa added. “We don’t need her walking into the servant quarters with us.”
“Wait twenty minutes before you return inside,” Astril amended her command before turning to us. “We should move.”
And we did. Through two more pocket gardens, all the way to the entrance that Yrsa claimed was close to both the servants’ sleeping quarters and the castle’s laundry facility. We were met with a locked door.
“These are harder to pick open.” Yrsa knocked loudly at the door. “If no one answers, I’ll try it, but as a last resort.”
“I forgot my key!” she shouted, switching up her accent so that it was thicker, more similar to that of the Grindavik dockhands and not a female who, despite all the troubles she’d caused her mother, had attended the best schools in the city on Lord Riis’s coin.
It took only a minute of knocking before I caught the sound of footsteps, heavy and weary, coming our way.
“Is that you, Strel?”
Yrsa giggled as though the male caught her doing something embarrassing, allowing him to fill in his own blanks. “Sorry if I woke you!”
“Twice in as many weeks, girl. We’re going to tie that key to your wrist.” A chuckle came, and the lock inside clicked out of place. A male dwarf opened the door and had enough time to see that Yrsa was not, in fact, Strel, before Astril grabbed him by the shirt and yanked him up until they were eye to eye.
“You didn’t see us. You saw Strel. Return to your room and remain there until morning,” Astril said.
“Right,” the dwarf replied, his tone a touch looser. “Night then.” He turned and returned the way he had come, leaving the corridor wide open.
One by one, we crossed the threshold into the enemy castle.
Chapter 34
ISOLDE
Suspended faelights illuminated a hallway that stretched on endlessly. To my left, the scent of soap wafted into the corridor. Weak food smells—meats, roasted vegetables, and bread teased my nose from further away.
“In here.” Yrsa opened the first door on the left.
We slipped inside, found a vast room crowded with empty vats and baskets overflowing with fabrics of all types. The castle’s laundry.
“The servants that have the most leeway with where they go in the castle wear dark purple tunics with a white lion on their breasts and black pants. Find something that works. And make sure there are wing slits because we might need to use them.”
It didn’t take long for most of us to find appropriate clothing. Vale, however, was the exception. He easily found pants that worked, even if they were a little tight, but like Luccan and Arie, Vale had inherited Lord Riis’s wide and strong chest. He was also very tall and more muscular than most fae. Certainly more so than the average servant.
