He limps over to me, and even though my mind is screaming at me to hurry up and go find her, I impatiently wait for him.
He looks up at me from beneath bushy eyebrows, lips pinched together with clear disapproval as he stops in front of me and gives me a once-over like I’m about to get lectured. “I thought you were smart.”
I blink down at him. “What?”
He shakes his head and lets out a sigh. “My lady isn’t in the kitchens or the dining room or the library.”
Judd and I share a look while Lu comes walking over. “Okay...so youdidsee her this morning?”
“No,” he says. “But I don’t need to have seen her to know where she is. Just likeyouwould know if you’d pull your head out of your ass for a second.”
My jaw grinds so hard I’m surprised my teeth don’t crack. “Explain.”
“My lady lived in the north of the world forten years. That’s a decade of nothing but snow, seen through cages and windows and caves andrestrictions.” His arms cross in front of him. “If you know her at all, you’ll know right where to find her. So where do youthinkshe is right now, boy?”
He pins me with a pointed look, and realization dawns on me.
Digby nods tersely. “Good to see you’re not completely hopeless.” He then turns around and limps away, shutting his bedroom door while I’m left staring after him.
Judd gives a low whistle. “I think you just got told off, Rip.”
“I never know if I should be insulted or impressed,” I admit out loud.
“Let’s just go with the second one,” Lu tells me. “So...do you want us to help you look?”
I shake my head and start to walk away. “Digby was right. I think I know where to find her.”
I take the stairs two at a time, back through the narrow corridor, and then up the spiral steps all the way to the roof.
I considered going out to the ground floor and checking the gardens, but Auren didn’t have any proper clothes, so I think she would’ve preferred to go somewhere more secluded.
Just as I reach the top, I notice all three watch guards hanging around the archway, each of them looking in the same direction. I have a feeling I know what they’re looking at and why they’re in here, trying to give a semblance of privacy, rather than being at their normal stations on the roof.
When they notice me, they bow. “Sire.”
I stop in my tracks when I see her. She didn’t just come up to the roof. No, she also climbed up onto one of the turrets as well. She’s there, lying against the steepled shingles, her golden skin glowing against the black stone that surrounds her.
For a moment, all I can do is watch. She looks like a sunlit goddess, gleaming in the light that’s been sheltered from her, soaking up the rays as if the sun is blessed to shine on her.
“How long has she been up there?” I ask the guards quietly.
“Since dawn.”
Nodding, I let my feet carry me toward her. “Go take a break.”
I don’t turn to look, but I hear their retreating footsteps as they wind down the spiral staircase, leaving us alone. I walk to the other end of the roof, my eyes zeroed in on the gilded figure.
The thought of her scaling the tower wall, even though it’s only about ten feet tall, makes my nerves twist. I stop at the base of the turret, and then, using the nails driven into the side, climb up. Instead of entering through the walled opening where the guards keep watch in the tower, I keep going, my leg swinging up to the turret’s steep roof.
I straighten and walk over to her, finding her elbows propped up beneath her, bare legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. Hair flowing down her back, face tipped up toward the sky.
She’sbaskingin the sun, and it looks as if that’s all the daylight was ever created for. She’s so breathtaking up here in only my shirt, that I have half a mind to drag the guards back and demand they pluck out their own eyes for seeing what’s mine.
Yet my possessive thoughts are driven away when I notice the streaks down her cheeks.
Alarm has me dropping to a kneel beside her. “Goldfinch,” I murmur quietly so that I don’t scare her. But I must not have been as stealthy as I thought, because she doesn’t so much as flinch. “What’s wrong? Why are you crying?”
Her eyes flutter open, lashes clumped together with gilded tears. But she looks at me, and my heart stops. “Can you hear it?” she whispers.
