“You don’t trust Queen Titania?”
“You do?” I asked.
“Everything she’s done so far suggest she’s trying to protect you.”
“While I agree with how it looks, I can’t forget how the hunters who attacked us in Perga didn’t wear the same clothing as the rogues. There might’ve been rogue hunters using the confusion to their advantage, but I think most of those men belonged to the king.”
I slipped my hands free of the mug and walked over to the drying clothes and papers. Beside the letter and map from O’Reilly’s, I’d hung another piece of parchment. I carefully removed the paper scrap and returned to my seat. I hadn’t had time to compare the writing to the samples at my cabin. I hadn’t had time to process my thoughts, but neither of those things deterred my absolute certainty that I’d seen this style of writing before.
I unfolded the paper and pressed it flat on the tabletop. This paper was dry. The water hadn’t touched it, or smeared it, or damaged it in any way. Instead, it remained exactly as it had the day I took it. I’d only hung it beside the other papers because I didn’t know what else to do with it.
Ace leaned forward. “Artemis and Apollo?” He glanced up at me. “Why do you have a slip of paper with your…” He hesitated. “Is this the paper the headmaster showed you at the orphanage?”
I nodded. Ace had heard everything said in that office.
I’d confronted Marcus, the headmaster of the orphanage. He had little sympathy for the pain and suffering he caused me and my brother. He also had very little information about where we’d come from or who’d dropped us off on the front steps. We had wounds all over, including our ears. Now I knew the ear wounds were probably from cutting off the phaanon tips, but at the time, it presented another mystery. Just like the small piece of paper with our names on it that had been left with us. Apparently, Marcus had tried to do everything possible to rid himself of the scrap piece of parchment—burning it, cutting it, losing it, but it would always return to his desk. That magic also appeared to keep the paper dry.
And Marcus believed the same magic that protected the paper also kept him imprisoned within the orphanage.
Ace had offered to kill Marcus if I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
I’d left the orphanage with a sense of freedom, relief, and the piece of indestructible paper.
“I didn’t realize you took it,” Ace said.
“Have a close look at it.” I nodded at the paper.
Ace frowned but scanned the note again. “What am I supposed to see?”
“Does the writing look familiar?”
He squinted at the paper again. I knew the moment he made the connection. His neck and shoulders tensed, and his eyes widened.
“I only know one person who does their As like that.” I tapped the paper. “I was going to compare it to one of my other letters at home, but I’m pretty sure those all burned.”
Ace grimaced. But instead of saying anything, he pushed away from the table and walked toward the living room to where a small wooden chest sat on one of the bookcase’s shelves. He lifted the lid, pulled out a folded piece of paper and glanced over his shoulder. With a deep sigh, he walked back. He unfolded the paper and laid it beside my note.
Always keep her safe.
I swallowed, my stomach twisting from the matching As but also from the content of Ace’s letter. She was trying to protect me.
“It’s a match,” he said.
I nodded, not quite capable of words yet. I reached out and traced the one of the As with my finger. “If Queen Titania cared so much, why did she send us to that awful place?” I asked.
And what did it mean?
Did the queen know who my parents were? Was the queen my mother? The king my father? That wasn’t possible, though. They were both pureblood galeons. People would’ve noticed a pregnant queen.
Ace frowned and stared at the old parchment paper as if the answer would spring up from the lines of ink. “I don’t know, Mouse.”
I sighed and plucked the paper from the table. Folding it gently, I slipped it back into my pocket.
“I’m still not comfortable going to the queen just yet,” I said.
“Then what do you suggest?”
“We need to find another source of information.”
