He looked pained. “I must remove everyone from the dining hall.” He half turned again, then stopped, and pulled from his pocket something so familiar I thought my heart might stop. There, in his gloved hand, was my mother’s cameo. “I knew you would want it back.”
I could hardly move. “I don’t understand.”
He thrust it forward, so I would take it.
“How did you know it was there?”
“It is my job.”
“Were you following me?”
“It is my job,” he said, again.
“To have me followed?” I could not make heads or tails of our conversation.
“To ensure the well-being of the kingdom. And its constituents.” He still held out the cameo. The carving was undamaged, but my mother’s profile appeared emptier to me. Unchanged, yet somehow, a bit hollow. For what silhouette could contain a woman’s multitudes? I snatched the necklace from Otto’s hands.
“Will you tell?” I whispered.
He shook his head, disappointed with me. “You ask the wrong questions.”
I knew, deep down, that he was trying to tell me something. But I was distracted—by the rubble, by the departing prince, and by the surprising weight of a new fact: Otto’s dissatisfaction with me weighed as heavily as any message he could have imparted.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
There are far-fetched stories of headless men that wander, bodies that keep walking without skulls. But I’ve killed enough chickens to know: Sometimes a torso just keeps going. The last pumps of the heart. The legs moving. The final stumble before the collapse. The rest of the afternoon had the energy of that kind of fall—everything moving forward, but with no more grace than a terminal lurch. A staggering pitter-patter of footwork toward some inevitable end.
I didn’t know what excuses Otto made to Simeon. By the time I made it back to the great hall, everyone was already standing, heading toward the doors. A series of quick goodbyes and reassurances from the prince to Elin.Darling, he called her. And he was off, back in his carriage, all the guards gathered, the men on their horses, Simeon safe, once more, in his cage.
Inside, I did not allow anyone else to clear the table. I did it myself, glancing, when I was able, at the mural, the stain, on the ceiling above. If Otto was right, if all those apples could not bear the weight of the rubble, then I had put everyone in danger. I pushed away the thought.Hurried to empty the room of dirtied dishes. The bones of two pheasants. The remaining loaves of bread. What was left of the sucket was covered in a thin film of white dust.
Otto had been following me. I turned this over in my mind. Thought, with shame, of all the things he might have seen, had most certainly seen: Me, in the mud, with the rabbit. Pawning my last jewel. Straining to catch the love of a prince in an empty field.
But it had worked. For the unintended daughter—foolish Elin, ungrateful Elin, a girl dimmed by the axioms she thought protected her. But it had worked nevertheless. So why would Otto—in all his efforts to separate our family from the prince—ever have the gumption, the gall, to claim he had been trying to help me?
Not suitable, he had said.
I had felt the abuse of the words like a brand on my own skin.
You ask the wrong questions, he had said.
I could not help but wonder—clearing the last of the loaves, whipping the diamond-patterned linen from the table, shutting the doors to the great hall behind me—not suitable for what?
Morwen was the only other person in the household attuned to the last stumbling steps I was certain we were all taking. I found her in her bedchamber, packing a satchel. Seeing me at the door, she strode over to a window shade and pulled it shut, as if securing the place for her absence. “You cannot change my mind this time.” She gave the tie a proper tug.
I took a step into the room. There was little furniture left except for the bed, which sat like a moored ship in the middle of the floor. The walls had once been a deep blue, but large swaths had since been bleached by the sun. “Morwen, you must tell me what you know about Prince Simeon.”
“I am a lady’s maid—” she began.
“By God’s bones, I know.” I held up a hand. “And you were nottrained to be a parlor maid, or scullery maid. But that doesn’t explain everything.” I walked across to an uncovered window. A dead beetle lay on the sill. “I am not insisting that you stay, I am asking—what do you know about the prince?”
She tensed and turned away, not wanting to look at me.
I thought of training hawks, how you must make yourself nothing in the room. How trust comes slowly, by degrees. I was silent, for a while, and then picked up the beetle and carried it to the fireplace, which was empty and offered no warmth. “You said you had siblings.” I kept my voice soft. “Surely some of them are sisters.”
“What makes you think I know something of the prince?” Fear, again, in the set of her wide shoulders. Her nervousness felt discordant with her capable body, like she was wearing clothes stitched for someone else.
“A lady’s maid with experience in a good household should have no trouble finding work. She certainly wouldn’t need to come here, for no pay.” Still, I spoke softly. Willing myself into nothing. If I could have muffled my heartbeat, I would have. I had only a short amount of time to get her to trust me. “I sense you have a story.”
