With a sigh, he says, “Fine. If you manage to slip through my wall, take a right. Your cousin’s suite is six doors down, right beside the oil portrait of my dead sister.”
He’s kept a portrait of his traitorous sister? How vile.
“Iamcurious about something. Will you be pretending to be Behati all evening?”
“I won’t be pretending to be anyone, since I’m not planning on staying.”
The Glacin King sweeps his thumb over his mouth that seems to curl with a smirk that screams:You walked right into that one, Witch.
“No boats will set sail tonight,” he continues. “We’re expecting some weather.”
How fortunate that I have wings.
“Not to mention that Izolda would be much aggrieved if you missed the Jubilee. She was terribly upset when she heard your grandmother had taken ill, and you’d decided to stay at her bedside. I take it Arin has made a full recovery?”
Goddess below, the male’s chatty. Here I’d heard—from Izolda—that he was the quiet, broody brother.
Though it is possible that he’s chatting in the hopes of tricking me into revealing my identity.
My lips itch to retort that I didn’t come here to party, but my reason for coming is none of his concern. Naturally, that serves to remind me of Behati’s vision.
If I leave, I never meethim.
If I stay, Konstantin might exact a punishment.
I glance over my shoulder at him, find his head still tilted and his chrome eyes still trained on the area where I hide in plain sight. He might not be able to see me, but I imagine he can detect my heartbeats with those broad ears of his.
“Make sure to pass through the part of the wall bearing the framed map,” he says. “Otherwise, you’ll hit one of the fire orbs.”
Fire orbs? My gaze clocks the wall and the map that must be as old as Glace considering how ochre the parchment has become. I readjust my position but then wonder if it’s a trick. What if it leads me straight into one of his guards?
“It’s not a trick,” he says.
My skin breaks out in goosebumps as I twist my face back in his direction and concentrate on the expanse of skin between his black eyebrows and white hairline. The silence that resonates there steadies my nerves. If I cannot read his thoughts, then he cannot read mine. It was only a lucky guess. My sigh of relief is so brisk that it stirs the damp hair framing my face.
“You’re probably wondering why I’m aiding you…”
Since Iamcurious, I linger a beat.
“You didn’t penetrate my chambers with the intent to harm me.” As though he senses he’s captured my attention, he folds his arms across his bare chest that tapers into slender hips.
The male resembles an icicle—long-limbed, pale, sharp…cold. The kind of cold that never cracks, only hardens to cut deeper.
“Am I correct,Isla?”
The sound of my name is a pinch to the brain, a reminder that I must make haste before my spell fades and reveals my true visage to Konstantin. I almost reply,right, but that would be the equivalent of admitting my identity. No one—aside from Lachlano and Naeva—know that I’m in Glace. Not even Konstantin. He’s just assuming.
Actually, he spoke about boats… If he were a hundred percent certain I was the Crow Princess, he would’ve warned me against flying.
A new consideration drives a shiver down my spine. If he emits the hypothesis to my father, the latter might decide to concentrate on the tether that binds me to him—not because he’s my father, but because he’s my king—and learn my location before I can pop out like a cheeky jester.
Dádhi might keep my presence under wraps from his northern ally, but, Skies, how cross he’ll be with me.
If only I hadn’t dropped through the wrong skylight.
If only the Shabbin who secured the Korol’s castle had also warded it against sorceresses.
If only I could paint the forgetting glyph on Konstantin’s brow.
