“A rumor?”
“Yes. But only when you’re able to connect in private conversation—and for each person who speaks with you alone, the rumor should be different. Remember their names, and what you told them. Then we’ll listen.”
“To see who gossips?”
“Oh, they’ll all gossip,” she said with a low, throaty huff of unamused laughter. “The question is whether they’ll speak tome,or someone else about me.”
“About you?”
“Yes. I’ll introduce you—which tells them that I hold you in some regard, or consider you valuable. Which will intrigue them. Then you’ll tell them that I’m secretly unwell, and hiding it from them. But you’ll give a different reason to each person with whom you’re able to plant the rumor. Do you understand?”
My head spun. “Yes.”
“Very good.”
Then she clapped her hands, and suddenly one of the panels in the wall near the window opened, and three women hurried out into the room, curtseyed to the queen, then took my hand and pulled me from the chair.
“Quickly, my lady. Quickly please.”
I was baffled and instinctively pulled my hands out of theirs once I was to my feet, but the queen waved me off. “They’ll prepare you. You can’t appear at tea in your fighting leathers.”
“They’re flying leathers,” I said faintly.
But the queen only waved me away again. “Let the maids prepare you. I’ll come for you in half an hour.”
The women squeaked, then grabbed my sleeves and dragged me through that hidden door and into the next room, nudging me behind a set of screens in the corner.
“Take your clothes off, leaving on only your undergarments, and pull out that braid. We don’t have much time,” the oldest of the three women said, stepping away so I was left behind the screen, alone, hurrying to unbuckle my belt, and wondering if I’d made a huge mistake.
29. The Rumor Mill
SOUNDTRACK:Got the World Watching Meby UNSECRET and Que Parks
~ BREN ~
“Awomanamong the dragonfuries and soldiers? Good Lord, imagine that.”
The woman sitting on the opposite lounge widened her eyes at her friend to her left. They both took a sip from their dainty cups.
I did my best to follow their examples, holding the saucer in my left hand while I lifted the tiny cup with my right. But the tea was so sweet, I struggled to swallow it.
“It’s definitely interesting work!” I said brightly.
The oldest of the women raised a brow. “I’ve never heard of a woman being allowed to work with the dragons before.”
I swallowed hard, remembering the Shadowfang precepts Voski was teaching me.Be honest, until you can’t.
“I think I’m the first—but I was at the Keep, and the dragons were very kind. And as long as the dragons are happy, the men will allow it.”
“I’m sure they will,” the older woman muttered under her breath, her closest friend tittering at her implication.
I tried to sip at my tea and breathe, pretending I hadn’t heard, but the corset they’d strapped me into forced me to sit bolt upright, as if I stood at attention while I was seated. It made deep breathing difficult and pressed my breasts up towards my chin. The dress was also low enough cut to bare two or three inches of cleavage—plumped by the corset’s constriction. I would have been horrified, but there were no men in the room. And when I caught a brief glimpse in the mirror of myself in the dusty-blue dress sheened with luxury, something in my heart fluttered.
Of course, that was squashed the moment I walked into this room of women in even finer gowns and jewels, all of them staring at me with their heads tilted, like they weren’t quite sure what they looked upon.
I’d been ushered to a two-seater couch, and next to me, another young woman I guessed was about my age, sat with a small smile on her face. She hadn’t spoken yet, but her eyes slipped back and forth between the older women and me, like we were strange cats who might fight.
The queen's whispered advice right before she’d led me into the room still rang in my head.
