Thalia frowned, knocking harder. When no answer came, she pushed open the door.
Marcus’s room was in disarray. He’d always been messy, but never like this. Stacks of books were piled precariously on everything from the floor to the armchairs, even his bed. Crumpled paper littered the ground like dried rose petals. Trays of food were spread around, some of the contents old enough to have gone green and moldy. Flies buzzed over a tray, the smell ripe.
“What the fuck?” Thalia stepped into the room and accidentally kicked over a pile of books.
Marcus looked up from where he was hunched over his desk. His curly hair was frazzled and unkempt, his normally dark skin wan. He blinked. “Thalia?”
“What the fuck is going on, Marcus?” Thalia’s heart began to climb as she moved farther into the room.
Marcus rose, bits of paper falling around him. “What are you doing here?” Then his eyes slid past Thalia’s shoulder, and he froze. “What is he doing here?”
“What amIdoing here?” Thalia crossed the dirty ground. “Why areyoubeing guarded? Have you even left this room?”
Marcus scrubbed a hand over his stubbled chin, blinking. He glanced around the room as if noticing how badly it was kept. “Your mother—I mean the queen—she’s kept me busy.”
“Doing what?” Thalia demanded.
Marcus slumped back into his chair, his desk rattling with the movement. It caused a bottle of ink to spill all over a stack of unorganized scrolls. Marcus didn’t move to clean it up. “She’s having me research the old trenches of our land.”
Thalia glanced at Cassius. “Why?” No one had used the old trenches in years. They’d been dug when the war was first started, because the humans of Agripa thought that if they couldn’t go through the forest to get to the Vampyrs, maybe they could go under it. The plan had failed; the soil too difficult to dig. Now the trenches were forgotten, collapsed and caved in.
Marcus ran a hand through his messy hair. “I don’t know. She just keeps asking me to get a map of all of them, to see how far we got. With the replenished ore, maybe the soil has become softer—more willing to let us dig.”
“How long have you been doing this?” Thalia asked.
Marcus grabbed a mug on his desk and went to take a drink, then frowned at the contents. He set the mug down. “Shortly after you left.”
“Why the hell is she wanting to know about the forgotten trenches?” Thalia turned to Cassius.
Cassius’s eyes were on Marcus. Thalia could practically see him thinking. “Is there anything else the queen wanted you to research?”
Marcus sighed. “Something about infections? I don’t know. She’s been rather vague with her requests, and every time I bring her something new, she claims it’s not what she’s looking for. Hence all this.” He waved a hand.
Thalia’s stomach clenched as she moved to Marcus’s desk, picking up the spilled ink bottle. “You should rest.” Marcus stared up at her, his eyes bloodshot. “I mean it, Marcus. Rest. I’ll deal with the queen.”
Marcus hesitated, but maybe being pulled him from his research-induced stupor had him realizing just how burnt out he was. “All right.”
Thalia offered a grim smile, and she squeezed his shoulder before she and Cassius navigated out of his room.
As soon as they’d reached the safety of the stairwell, Thalia whirled to Cassius, her thoughts on the infections that Marcus mentioned. “Do you think she knows about the bitten?”
Thalia didn’t know how the queen was so close to guessing what plagued Vaccarium. She’d never sent the half-finished letter to her mother. In fact, it had burned along with the castle of Irenbis.
Cassius’s face darkened. “It seems she may suspect. Which means we must ensure your mother doesn’t realize how close she is to the truth.”
Chapter Forty
Katrina wept when she saw Thalia.
Her old handmaiden held her tight enough that her ribs bleated in protest.
Katrina finally pulled back, tears glistening in her eyes. “They haven’t hurt you, have they?”
Thalia shook her head.
“He hasn’t hurt you?” Katrina pressed.
“No. The prince hasn’t even been around—”
