Wolfe strode toward the stairwell and away from me. “Hey! Wait just a minute.” I lifted my skirt and ran down the spiral stairs after him.
“I’m busy,” he said.
Oh no. He was not about to ignore me after that little revelation. I shoved past him, which wasn’t easy with his big frame taking up the tiny space.
“What are you—” he started.
I managed to get in front of him, stopping the big brute in histracks. “What did that mean?” I asked. “Why has this high prince of yours had multiple brides?” I stopped, my mind immediately going to the worst-case scenario. “Does he kill them?” I put a hand to my head. “Am I a sacrificial bride?”
Oh, this was so bad. So, so bad. Morton was right. I should’ve asked more questions, should’ve been more cautious, but I was so excited to know that I wasn’t going to be on my own that I’d jumped at this opportunity.
“I don’t have time for this ridiculousness,” Wolfe growled, attempting to get past me. But I refused to budge, planting my hands on either wall and forming a blockade.
I raised my chin, heart hammering. “Well, make time.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “You will have to get those answers from the prince. I am just the guard.”
I let out a strangled sound, so fed up with him. “You’re insufferable, you know that?” I narrowed my gaze, a plan forming. “I won’t leave you alone. I will follow you all day, and I’ll talk. I’ll talk a lot. You’d be surprised how good I am at talking.”
“No, I don’t think I would be,” he muttered.
“I won’t leave you be until you take me to the prince and get me the answers I seek.”
His jaw locked, and I thought he was about to ignore me and tell me to fuck off, but he surprised me when he said, “You want to find the prince? Come with me.”
I trailedafter Wolfe down the stairs of the tower, not sure what I’d just gotten myself into. Yes, I wanted answers, but part of me also didn’t. I twisted my hands together, thinking through all the possibilities of why Cillian had multiple brides, and more importantly, what had happened to those brides. Would it be better to know if I was going to die or just keep living in blissful ignorance until one day,boom, the castle killed me? Or Cillian killed me. Or Wolfe did. Either way, it definitely seemed like this all might be leading to my death.
My lungs constricted and my stomach tightened into knots.Just breathe, I reminded myself, massaging my chest. We emerged into a hallway, walls painted a mossy green and the ceiling painted with tree branches, leaves, and sunshine, making me feel like I was walking through a forest. I did a double take, realizing the tree branches swayed, and the sound of a breeze rustled through the air.
I stopped in front of a statue of the Fairwitch, leader of the godwitches and said to be the most powerful. Fairwitch stared at me with a smirk on their face, hair spiked. From photos I’d seen, I knew their hair was dark brown, their skin like ebony, and it was said their eyes were the bluest of blue.
“Do you think it’s the Fairwitch’s magic that powers this castle?” I asked Wolfe, needing the distraction from my darker thoughts. Wolfe clearly wouldn’t be giving me any answers, so I’d have to wait for Cillian to find out if my theory was right.
He stopped, turning and looking at the statue and sighing heavily, like I was dragging the answer out of him. “Or the hearth godwitch.”
I thought about my tower, about the hearth godwitch’s statue in it, the texts that made it clear the hearth godwitch’s magic was responsible for the tower. “I don’t think so. This castle is more powerful than even my little tower. It feels like every part of it is alive somehow.” I glanced up at the swaying branches and rustling leaves painted on the ceiling, breathing in the scent of fresh wood and pine floating through the air. “Like it has a mind of its own.”
“In any case, it doesn’t matter. We have a prince to find, remember?” He spun on his heel, and now it was my turn to sigh.
I couldn’t believe Wolfe was actually taking me to the prince. I’d been angry when I demanded it, but he was stubborn, and I hadn’t actually expected him to listen.
I wondered where Cillian was. I hadn’t seen him since yesterday, when he’d deposited me in my room and then left in a hurry. I missed his comforting, cheery tone. I’d been holed up in my room since I got here, visited by a lady’s maid with new clothes, and Chef Elowyn and Chef Liam, who had wowed me with their turnip, onion, and braised lamb stew and cheddar biscuits.
I’d been too afraid to actually leave my tower, worried I wouldn’t be able to find my way back.
But the lady’s maid had visited this morning and convinced me to take a stroll and get to know the castle on my own. Morton had found some books to eat under the bed, so I was on my own and attempted to find my way to the kitchen to nab more of Elowyn’s cheddar biscuits but had somehow ended up in the healer’s quarters instead.
Wolfe was getting farther away, and I had to lift my skirts and run to keep up with him. “Will you slow down?” I asked.
He rolled his eyes like I was the biggest inconvenience he’d ever met but slowed his pace as the hallway opened into a landing, the wooden banister being shined by a servant.
I ran my finger across the gleaming cherry wood. “Can’t the castle just do that itself?”
Wolfe stopped and looked down at me, his thick eyebrows furrowing. “What?”
I pointed to the woman cleaning the banister. “Well, it’s a magical castle. Can’t it just clean itself with the supplies here?”
“Then she wouldn’t have a job,” Wolfe said. “We use magic to enhance our lives, not replace them.”
