Minka is the only other servant aside from Mr. Boris that I brought with me. Everyone else remained behind with tasks of their own. Hiding my family’s fate. Guarding the dining room. Closing court. Ensuring only trusted staff who are essential to running the palace are allowed entrance. Everyone else was given a surprise two-week holiday in honor of my upcoming nuptials. Thanks to the only servant with human blood who attended that fateful dinner, we were able to spread a lie that my parents are traveling to the Earthen Court for that very celebration.
“Is there anything else we can do for you, Highness?” Mr. Boris asks in his deep and rumbling tone.
Minka extends her hands toward the table. “Tea? Wine? Cookies?”
I shake my head. With my bargain with Mr. Blackwood secure, there’s only one thing I want to do.
I excuse myself from my two attendants and enter the singular bedroom included in our temporary accommodations. My luggage rests at the foot of the bed, including my phonograph. I’m almost tempted to play my favorite song, but fatigue pulls at my limbs, my mind. Sinking onto the bed, I let myself relax for the first time in days. Sleep has been fitful at best, as I’ve been terrified of dreaming of Thorne. Of giving away my location, my plan. But I can forget about that now.
I can sleep.
I can breathe.
With slow motions, I extract my paper fan and a folded piece of parchment from my skirt pocket. I lay the fan over my chest, just to feel the comfort of something cherished and familiar, then unfold the letter. A lump rises in my throat as I take in my mother’s words. Sorrow and hope battle within me, but I focus on the sentence that encourages more of the latter.
You’re the Briar family hero.
I don’t feel like it yet, but I will be. I’ll save my family. I’ll save our reputation, our finances, and our future. I’ll break this curse and be the hero they wanted me to be. All I have to do is sacrifice my heart and marry a man I don’t love.
Pressing the letter to my chest, I close my eyes and fall into dreamless slumber.
PARTIII
A LOVE
20
BRIONY
It may have been my idea to leave Gibbous Peak by train, but I underestimated the shock of traveling at such great speed. I’ve only ever traveled by coach, and even those instances were few enough to count on my fingers. At least the rumbling motion and view of the Lunar Court countryside rushing past the window serve to distract me from the aggravating presence of my companion. Even without looking at him, his proximity feels too near, our enclosed compartment too small. We sit on opposite benches on opposite sides, yet my hatred for him has me bristling as if he were pressed beside me.
Mr. Blackwood’s posture is annoyingly relaxed, one leg crossed over the other, his upper body hidden behind his broadsheets. He looks much like he did on our coach ride to Nocturnus Palace. Mr. Boris sits beside him in his fox form, his body as stiff as a statue. Though I’ve learned the fox was one of numerous footmen at the palace, I’ve deemed him my personal butler for the duration of our task, a promotion he accepted with much stammering thanks. He’s taken his duties so seriously that he’s begun acting more like a bodyguard than a butler, threatening Thorne’s every subtle motion with the baring of his teeth.
Minka sits beside me, fiddling with the hem of her ruffled black dress. She too received a reclassification of duties and will be acting as my lady’s maid. While she seemed grateful for the honor, she’s been extra silent and fidgety ever since I told her she need not ask to refill my beverages every five minutes. I also told her noon was too early for wine when she insisted on bringing an assortment of bottles to the station, but I’m starting to regret that. Perhaps if I had wine, I wouldn’t be so on edge.
I try to focus on the beauty of the landscape, the thick forests that flank the tracks interspersed with the occasional city or town. Once our train reaches the southern edge of the Lunar Court, it will take us down the coast of Spring and Wind before finally entering Earthen. I’ll get to witness the weather and terrain of courts I’ve never been to, plus the sea. The prospect should excite me, but I’m finding the journey far more boring than I expected. Or perhaps it’s the silence. The tension in the air.
I shift my gaze from the window to Thorne. He’s dressed the same as he was earlier, without any sign of those wings and horns I’ve glimpsed twice now. During my two days of spying on his bakery, I spotted him several times but never saw him with those fae features. If I assume the horns and wings comprise his unseelie form, then I must also assume he rarely shifts from his seelie form. It makes sense, I suppose. To public knowledge, Thorne Blackwood is fully human, and shifting forms would shatter that image at once. I still don’t fully understand his parentage, and I’m desperate to ask. Yet I doubt he’ll respond well if I simply blurt out my question. It would serve me better to warm him up to conversation first.
As he turns the page of his broadsheets, I angle myself toward him and clear my throat. “Mr. Blackwood, how long until we reach our destination?”
He folds his paper with more force than necessary and reaches into his waistcoat pocket. The light from the window catches on his spectacles as he glances down at a brass pocket watch. “Ten minutes,” he says through his teeth.
I pull my head back in surprise. “Really? I had no idea trains traveled so fast.”
“No. That’s how long the quiet lasted. Let’s make it an hour next time, shall we?”
Heat rushes to my cheeks along with a spike of rage. It grows as he opens his broadsheets once more. Mr. Boris growls in my defense.
“I’m serious, Mr. Blackwood. How long until we arrive?”
“You’re the one who insisted on taking the noon train. Did you not bother looking at the arrival times?”
“Would I be asking if I had?”
He says nothing for several long seconds. Then finally, “We’ll arrive tomorrow morning.”
I nearly choke on my gasp. “Tomorrow? We aren’t arriving untiltomorrow?”
