She jumped and spun, a smile lifting on her face. “Hungry? I have just the thing.” Easing around me, she approached a counter holding platters full of pastries and cakes. She slid a few cookies onto a piece of cloth, wrapped it up, and returned to me, holding it out. “This will satisfy your tummy. See if it doesn’t.”
“Thank you.” I took it from her and tucked it into my pocket. “I was wondering if you remember a warrior about this tall.” I made a chopping motion against my upper arm. “She had dark hair, really curly, and pale blue eyes like mine.”
The cook started stirring the stew again, steam curling around her face, and shook her head. “Not that I recall.”
No answers here, then. “Thanks again for the cookies.”
“Any time, dear. Any time.”
I left and strode down a hall to my right, munching on the cookies while the scent of herbs drew me toward the infirmary.
Inside, shelves holding bottles and bandages lined the walls, and a small fire snapped in the hearth. The pungent scents of ointment and mint clung to the air, and a thin haze of steam drifted from akettle in the corner. Somewhere deeper inside this area, a patient coughed, the sound muffled by a door or thick curtains.
A woman stood in front of a long table on my left, her back to me, sorting through bundles of herbs, her sleeves rolled up past her forearms. I recognized her vaguely as one of the healers who’d come after Crey’s murder.
As I approached her, she glanced over her shoulder, a sweet smile lifting on her face. “Are you injured?”
“Oh, no. I’m not.”
“Unwell?”
“Not that either.”
“Ah, then it’s your flow?” Her face smoothed. “I have just the right herb that’ll?—”
“No, it’s not my flow.”
“Then you couldn’t sleep?”
“Not really.” My fingers curled inside my pockets, one hand wrapping around the rest of the cookies. “But that’s not why I’m here. I wanted to ask you about someone.”
She turned to fully face me, leaning back against the wooden table. “Go on.”
My heart thudded a little harder. “She was a recruit or a warrior,” I said, careful to keep my tone casual. “I guess a warrior.” Since I’d found the stone in a warrior’s room. “Petite, with a rounded figure. Dark curls. Pale blue eyes. Strong-willed. Outspoken. Rebellious.”
The healer’s expression brightened, and the force of the recognition in her eyes hit me square in the chest. “Do you mean Addie?”
“Yes, um, Addie, though I knew her as Adelaine.”
“She mentioned once that was her true name but that she didn’t like it. She said her sister always called her Addie.”
My heart plunged through the floor. “Did she say anything else about her sister?”
She frowned and tapped her chin with her index finger. “I don’t recall that she did.”
Why hadn’t she? She’d loved me as much as I did her. I thought of her the moment I woke, and I even dreamed of her. Alive. Happy.
Then torn apart and dumped on a ballroom floor.
“You couldn’t mistake her,” the woman said. “She had a voice like summer honey, low and smooth, but it carried. And that laugh…” Her mouth curved. “You could hear it across the courtyard. So sweet and bright.”
Some of the time.
I remembered a winter ball when she’d spoken her mind a little too freely to one of Father’s advisors, dismantling his proposal with a few, sharp questions. Color had flooded the advisor’s face, and Addie had lifted that small, sly smile of hers. Later, she’d crept into my room, pacing the rug with her hands twisting in her skirts.
“I went too far this time,” she’d said. “I’ll apologize tomorrow.”
Addie might be fearless, but that didn’t mean she was untouchable.
