“What other rooms does it—”
“None. If that’s what you’re worried about, don’t. I wish you would trust me, Princess.”
“MJ,” I corrected him. “I told you, stop calling me Princess. Isn’t that something we learned in P and P class? That once a couple is courting, they can drop the formalities?”
“Sorry, I didn’t think it bothered you so much,” he said.
It didn’t. I was just being irritable, because I wanted to trust him, I really did. I liked him. A lot. And I think he genuinely liked me, too. But after what Elias had told me, about keeping our enemies close, I had to keep up my guard.
For now, however, we were already there, so I walked inside my father’s old rooms once again.
Lucas closed and locked the door behind us. The sudden silence was overwhelming. It felt like we weren’t even in the same palace anymore. More like an abandoned old mansion or something,between the thick layer of dust, the spooky sheets draped over the furniture, and the imposing oil paintings that seemed like they were either watching us or might come alive any moment. I could hear Nix’s footsteps creaking in the next room over. “What’s taking you guys so long?” she called out.
“I’ll take this room,” Lucas said. “Go with Nix.” I thought I detected a slight edge in his tone, like he was annoyed with me or wanted to get me out of his hair, which made me kinda angry and sad at the same time. He didn’t have a right to be upset with me as far as I was concerned; I wasn’t the one with a secret key to his father’s private rooms. It annoyed me, because somehow we kept falling back to being combative. I didn’t know if I wanted to hit him or kiss him.
I left him to it and found Nix rummaging through the tiny drawers of a tall apothecary-type cabinet against the wall. I hadn’t noticed it last time I was there. Most of the room looked different, actually. Probably because I was far more relaxed, less terrified. I saw a lot of things I’d missed before. “Anything interesting?” I asked her.
“Not yet,” she said, shutting one drawer and opening another. “Most of them are already empty. Others have writing ink, quills, blank parchment, stuff like that.” She kept opening and shutting. “There are, like, a hundred drawers, so this might take a while. I was curious about that, but I figured I should leave that for you.” She nodded toward a mahogany rolltop desk against the opposite wall.
I went over and opened the top. I expected it to be locked, but it wasn’t. That was good, except it also meant anything useful was probably already gone. And just as I’d thought, the desktopwas completely pristine—not a piece of paper, nor an errant writing utensil, nothing. Just a black leather desk mat that appeared to have been wiped clean. To be thorough, I began opening all the little doors and drawers, but they were empty. “There’s nothing here,” I said.
Nix looked over at me. “I’m not having any luck either.” She looked inside another cabinet. “This is getting boring.”
I tried to pull out the last drawer, but it was jammed. I wiggled it and yanked, and then it came open, creaking so loud I was afraid I was about to break it. Much to my disappointment, it was also empty. But then I heard something metallic clinking around. I pulled the drawer a little more, and a silver coin about the size of a quarter rolled out from the back. I held it up to Nix. “Well, I found this, at least.” It looked different from the ones I’d seen. Took a couple seconds, but I realized why—it was not a coin currently in circulation. The profile on the front was not of King Vivencio, my father; it was someone else—King Paolo IV. My grandfather.
She came over to get a closer look. “Well, at least one of us found something cool.” She looked back at the cabinet. “I quit. Someone else already took everything. Let’s try the other room.”
First I peeked my head in at Lucas in the receiving room. He was patting down an upholstered chair, like a CSI investigator or something. He’d been inspecting every surface methodically. Sheets were pulled off the chairs, and one chair was lying on its back. “We’re going to try the king’s office,” I told him. He nodded, deep in concentration.
I went back and joined Nix, already doing her own thing, checking the windowsill for footprints or anything suspicious. I decided to go through the desk where I’d hidden from Lucas lasttime. “Wait,” I said, realization dawning on me. Nix looked my way. “Have you seen any bugs?” I asked her.
She tilted her head. “No, I don’t think so? If I do, I’ll let you know.”
No bugs. I leaned and looked under the desk, checked the floor, inspected near the floorboards—definitely no bugs. They didn’t get up and walk away; they were dead. That means someone had to come clean them up. I felt dread in my heart.
“We shouldn’t stay here long,” I said.
Nix agreed. “Let’s just do one last sweep.”
“Yeah,” I said. I opened the desk drawers slowly, positive I’d find a beetle in one of them, dead or alive. Nothing. They were as empty as all the others. And then another thing occurred to me—all the handles were clean. Everything else was grimy. “Hey, did you happen to notice if there was any dust on the handles?” I asked Nix.
“Uh, I don’t think so?” She looked at her hands. They weren’t dirty. “Actually, no, they didn’t. Wait.” She ran out of the room and then returned seconds later. “I checked the drawers I hadn’t checked yet—no dust.” We stared at each other, both understanding what that meant. Someone had been here.
“The witch?” she asked. “Do you think the witch was here?”
I just shook my head. “I don’t know. My first thought was the mambabarang, too. But we shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Maybe just cleaning staff doing their job.”
“Right, that makes sense,” Nix said. I could tell neither of us was convinced, though we really wanted to believe it was just staff and not the witch returning to clean up evidence... or take something they hadn’t before.
I put my hands on my hips and looked around the room.If I was my father, where would I hide something?If the witch was here, then they had reason to believe there was something to get their hands on.
Lucas walked in. “Nothing,” he said, referring to the other room. He began running his hands down the curtains. Nix and I watched him curiously. “Something could be sewn into the fabric,” he said, like it should be obvious.
That gave me an idea. I went back to the king’s desk and pulled the drawers all the way out, checking the bottoms and looking into the empty spaces where they slid into the desk.
“What about the middle drawer?” Lucas said. He began tugging on the front of the desk.
“It’s a false front. It doesn’t open. It’s just decorative.”
