13
Iclimb into bed, my mind a jumble of conflicting thoughts. I’d expected Leodin to be furious after the queen’s announcement. Instead, he appeared almost frightened, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out why. And this whole thing with the crown taking over control of the gems, I don’t get it. What do they stand to benefit beyond infuriating the most powerful entities in their kingdom? Do they want to start another war?
Dragging the sheets over my head, I will myself to sleep. Leodin’s planning to rush out on the first train in the morning, so my time to sleep has already been cut short. I focus on my breathing the way Mama taught me when I was little. Breathe in—1, 2, 3, 4. Breathe out—1, 2, 3, 4. Breathe in.
An owl hoots. The sound is too close to be outside. Startled, I open my eyes, but instead of lying in my bed, gazing up at the ceiling, I’moutside looking at a stone wall. My breath mists in front of me, but I don’t feel the cold.
That’s because this isn’t my body.
I watch, a silent observer, as black boots scale down the wall while powerful hands clad in black leather gloves grip a heavy length of rope. Whoever this is, he’s male—that much is obvious by the way the tight britches cling to his sizable… package. It’s hard to tell for certain in the darkness, but it appears he’s wearing all black. That, coupled with this excursion down the palace walls in the middle of the night, and I think I can safely deduce this stranger is up to no good.
My suspicions are further solidified when his feet land on the ledge of an arched window looking into a dark sitting room. The window must not have been locked because the stranger only has to give it a light push and it swings open. The room is deathly quiet, yet he somehow manages to drop to the floor and shut the window behind himself without so much as a squeak. It’s too dark to make out much more than shadows of what I assume is furniture and the like, but he navigates it with ease, weaving in and around the dark blobs and coming to a stop at a tall wooden door.
I’d like to say, I don’t know what’s about to happen, but I’d only be deluding to myself. The worst part is, I can’t even close my eyes to block it out. I can only watch and wait and pray this is some sort of elaborate joke and any minute the stranger will set the lamps alight and scream “Happy Birthday,” or some other such nonsense.
I guess I’m not so averse to delusion, after all.
He presses an ear to the wood and listens. There’s a light buzzing coming from inside, and it takes me a moment, before I realize what it is I’m hearing: snoring. Someone is asleep on the other side of that door, completely unaware of what is coming for them, and I’m just watching it happen.I want to shout at them to wake up. I want to scream my lungs out and alert every fae—male, female and child—within the sound of my voice that there’s a killer loose in the palace.
But I can’t, and it’s infuriating.
The stranger reaches for the handle, twisting it around fully before pushing the door open into the room. Either his eyes are adjusting to the dark or there’s a bit more moonlight seeping through this window because I can just make out the outline of a bed pushed up against the wall directly across from where he stands. His hand moves to his belt. Dread washes over me at the sight of the moonlight refracting along the blade of a knife as he pulls it free of its sheath.
No, no, no, no, no, no. Stop. Please!
He freezes, and for a moment, I think he might have heard me, then he adjusts his grip on the hilt and crosses the room to stand beside the bed. I wouldn’t have thought it even possible, but the queen looks almost peaceful in her sleep. Her sharp features are softer in the moonlight, the hard slash of her mouth relaxed and slightly open.
She is still and serene and completely oblivious to the death that looms over her. The stranger raises his knife, and I’m screaming, screaming without a voice and cursing the gods for this useless gift. Then he brings the blade down with such force, it buries in her chest all the way to the hilt. The queen’s eyes fly open, and her mouth stretches to loose a scream that never comes because she’s already fading into death. She seems to almost sink into the mattress, her vacant gaze turned toward the ceiling, her mouth slack, and when the killer finally wrenches the blade free of her breast, there is no response, only the sickening squelch of metal through flesh.
That doesn’t stophim from ramming the knife back into her breast over and over and over again, sending steams of blood to splatter the walls and ceiling. The next thing I know, the killer is peeling out the bedroom door and into the sitting room. In a heartbeat, he’s back at the window. This time, he isn’t so quiet when he throws the pane open. He grabs onto the rope, shuts the window behind himself and slides down one floor, onto another ledge. This window swings open as easily as the last, and the killer slips inside, just as the sound of footsteps beat across the queen’s chambers above. They’ll find the rope soon enough, but if the killer is in a hurry to escape, he doesn’t show it. He silently crosses the room, stopping at the foot of a massive four-poster bed. There, sleeping like the dead, the way my mother always teases him about, is Leodin, his face illuminated by the single candle he always burns at his bedside.
At first, I think, the assassin’s going to murder Leodin too, and I’m honestly not too sure how I feel about that. Instead, the killer snatches one of Leodin’s discarded robes off the floor and wraps it around the blade. It isn’t until I see him open Leodin’s unlocked trunk, that I realize what he’s doing. He’s not going to kill Leodin, but Leodin’s a dead man all the same.
The lid swings shut.
I bolt upright in bed, trembling and soaked in sweat. The sheets are wrapped around me like a cocoon, and I tumble to the floor in my haste to get free of them, landing hard on my back. The air is knocked from my lungs, and I’m struck by momentary panic, as I can’t breathe or straighten.
Oh gods.
It only takes a moment for whatever has my chest in a stranglehold to loosen and air rushes into my lungs. Sucking in breaths like some deranged fish, I roll over onto my knees and begin crawling for the door. I have to get to Leodin. I have to warn him before the queen is discovered and they come looking for him and—And tell him what? That I’ve been secretly hiding my ability to dreamwalk into the waking mind, and I just watched someone kill the queen and stuff the knife in his steamer trunk? He’ll either think I’m crazy or that I killed the queen and am trying to get his help to hide it. Even if he does believe me, mental magic is anathema to the children gods. He’s liable to kill me for that alone.
I sit back on my heels and rub my eyes, spots of light bursting beneath my lids. If they come for Leodin, they’ll come for me too. I’m just a silly girl, though. Right? What could I possibly know about a plot to assassinate the queen? I just have to claim I have no idea what they’re talking about and pray they believe me.
Pray Aemon doesn’t tell them about the notebook.
Gods, I wish my mother was here. She’d be able to figure some way out of all of this. But it’s only me right now, and I have to make a choice, quickly. Do I take a chance with the crown or with my stepfather?
The answer is clear.
14
The guard pounds the heavy wood door with his fist. “Principal Magi Leodin Valstrad, open up.” Then he kicks it in without waiting for a response.
Fucking half-wit. It’s our palace. Did he not think to ask for the key?
The mass of guards rush through the door like cockroaches fleeing the light. I push off the hallway wall where I’d been leaning while watching this debacle unfold and follow the males inside. The old magi is standing beside the bed in a white sleeping gown, his skinny legs poking out of the bottom like a bird. His face is beet red and twisted in fury, as he shouts at the guards currently ransacking his room.
“I demand to speak with the queen.”
