He led Anders down to the formal dining room where the royal family were eating breakfast. The Princesses both paused, spoons halfway to their mouths. Livia smiled, but Isadora’s brow furrowed and she looked away, as though she were trying to remember something.
Anders bowed. “Your Majesty.”
“Ah, Master Boreas. How was your night? Have you uncovered the mystery?” The King’s expression was open and expectant. He gestured to the empty chair across from Isadora and Anders took a seat.
“Unfortunately not, Your Majesty.” He saw the Princesses exchange a look, Livia’s expression was nervous, but Isadora looked unsurprised.
Anders took the pewter goblet and tree branch from his pockets and laid them out on the tabletop. “Someone left these in my room last night. I’m not sure if they’re clues or only meant to confuse me, but I plan to get to the bottom of this. I still have two days left to find the truth.”
The King cleared his throat and dabbed the corners of his mouth with a linen napkin. “One day, Master Boreas. You’ve wasted the first two, and as you were forewarned, you only have three nights to explain what is happening to my daughters.”
Anders frowned. “One day? But, how can that…” He looked at the faces of Princess Livia and Princess Isadora and saw, with dawning realisation, that they agreed with their father. So, where had he lost an entire day?
Was this what the Princesses went through every single morning? It was an unsettling experience, and to have it repeated daily for weeks, or even months on end, would be unbearable. Anders felt a ripple of sympathy for the exhausted-looking young women sitting across from him, toying with their porridge oats.
He forced his mind back to the previous morning. He remembered the mysterious note advising him not to eat or drink—had he ignored the anonymous helper and eaten something the previous evening? He couldn’t recall, but his meal had sat apparently uneaten when he woke, so he could only assume not.
There were vague images flickering in the corners of his mind; a dark room, twirling dancers, a feeling of strangeness. But nothing concrete, nothing that told him what had happened the night prior.
Why couldn’t he remember?
Something he had heard the day before drifted around his head but wouldn’t settle. It was the historian, in the library. Amma. She’d said something about the god of shadow making people forget…
Was that why he couldn’t remember anything from the previous night? Slowly, he pieced together the events of the day before, but by the afternoon the memories were hazy, and onlymeaningless images and words remained from the second night of his investigation.
Could that explain why the Princesses claimed not to know what they did each night? They weren’t being drugged or poisoned, their memories were being stolen? If he hadn’t possessed magic himself, he would have thought it absurd, but knowing what he could do, maybe there were others with abilities he had never come across…
The King was speaking now, and Anders had missed most of what he’d said.
“You don’t want to waste your last opportunity to earn your freedom, Master Boreas. I expect to hear from you this evening as to where my daughters are going each night, and why their shoes are worn to tatters each morning.”
Anders nodded, his blood turning to ice water in his veins. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
If he failed to solve the mystery that evening, he would be returned to the dungeons, and most likely sentenced to death. If not for his alleged crimes, then to ensure his silence about the Princesses’ sticky situation. Failure was not an option, he couldn’t spend his final days in a dark cell beneath the Gilded Palace, knowing he’d committed Isadora to a life of misery that she couldn’t escape.
The King flicked his fingers in the direction of the door, irritation in the lines around his mouth, and Anders pushed his chair back with a screech. Marco and Paolo escorted him from the dining room and fell into step beside him.
“Where to now?” Marco asked, hurrying to keep up with him.
“The library,” Anders replied. “I need to speak to the historian. Again.”
“So,there is nothing you can tell me? You don’t know anything about a sleeping potion or memory-erasing magic that could make me and the Princesses forget everything we see each night?”
Amma shook her head. “I’m afraid not. We have a small section on magic here in the library, but I have never come across an enchantment in any of the texts like you describe. Can you remember nothing of last night?”
It was Anders’ turn to shake his head, rubbing a hand over his face. He was exhausted. How much sleep had he gotten last night? Clearly not enough. “Not much. Flashes here and there. Nothing concrete. All I have are this goblet and this twig.” He gestured to the items on the table between them.
Amma pursed her lips, studying the clues. “Can I see your notes?”
“My what?”
Amma smiled. “I’ve seen you jotting down information in your little notebook. Could I see it?”
Not feeling entirely comfortable, Anders withdrew his sketchbook from his pocket and passed it to the librarian. She opened it and began flicking through, eyes darting left to right at a speed Anders couldn’t quite believe. When she reached his sketches, her eyes widened.
“Did you draw this?” She turned the book around to show him a pencil drawing of the Gilded Palace from the harbour. He had scrawled it quickly as the trade ship had approached Orovia. “This is wonderful, Anders. You have a real talent.”
He felt heat creeping up his chest at her compliment. He wasn’t used to receiving them. “Thank you. It’s just a hobby.” Heheld out a hand to take the notebook back, but Amma held onto it a moment longer.
