I stood helplessly as the female tried to comfort her son, not knowing what to do. Einar, however, had wandered over to a patch of grass a foot away. “These look like cake crumbs,” he said aloud. “Could your cat have eaten something that made him sick?”
I glanced over to where he was standing, and my heart froze into a solid lump in my chest. Scattered in the grass were tiny chunks of yellow sponge cake. Horror curdled in my gut as I looked up, my gaze climbing the palace wall until it found the open window some twenty feet above.
Bile rose up my throat, and I was suddenly glad I hadn’t eaten anything. I would have thrown it all up… just like the cat tried to.
“Sick?” the mother echoed. “From cake?” She shook her head. “Ripples has gotten into cake before. He’s never died from it.”
Her words broke the spell of shock that had settled on me, and I sprang into action, grabbing Einar’s arm and pulling him away from the scene. “That cake was in my room last night,” I hissed under my breath once we were out of earshot. I felt bad about abandoning the boy and his mother, but this couldn’t wait, and I couldn’t afford for them to overhear. “Someone tried to poison me.”
“What?” Einar’s eyes went wide with shock, then narrowed, his entire face darkening with anger. “What do you mean, someone tried to poison you?
I shook my head, trying to get my panicked thoughts in order. “Last night, when I came back to my room, someone had left a slice of sponge cake on my dressing table. I was too tired to think clearly about it, and figured it was either a mistake or Cascada trying to sabotage my fasting. I just tossed the cake out the window and went to bed.”
Einar glanced over at the spot where the dead cat had been found, then up at the window. “That’s definitely your bedroom window.” A muscle worked in his jaw, and the surrounding air steamed as angry heat rolled off him in visible waves. “I’m going to find the bastard who did this, shred them to pieces, and feed them to the koi.”
I yelped as his wings exploded from his back, and before I knew what was happening, he’d yanked me against him and taken off. A few hard wingbeats later, we were in my bedroom, and he set me brusquely onto the bed before conducting a thorough search of my quarters.
“There are no unusual scents in this room,” he growled, raking a hand through his hair. “And they’ve left no other traces of themselves.”
“I’m not sure whoever it was would have brought the cake directly,” I pointed out. “If it was me, I would have used a servant. Maybe we should question them all and figure out who asked them to bring it.”
We spent the morning questioning the staff, but that turned out to be a fruitless lead. The maids and kitchen servants insisted none of them had brought the cake—they only cleaned the rooms in the mornings, and the one who had cleaned mine claimed that there had been no food when she’d left. That meant it had to have been placed while I was gone.
“Well, that rules out Cascada,” I said crossly. “She was with us the whole day.”
“It’s possible Slaugh has spies planted here in the palace, and he’s ordered them to off you,” Einar said. We’d adjourned to an empty salon off the main hall to compare our findings. “That, or perhaps Prentis has a jealous lover who’s heard of your potential nuptials.”
“All this speculation is useless.” I glanced at the clock on the wall, noting that it was nearly time for breakfast. “Should we tell Lady Axlya and ask her to open an investigation?”
Einar shook his head. “The assassin is most likely a member of the water court—telling Axlya will only alert him or her that we are onto them, which will make it even harder for us to catch them. Better for us to stay on high alert and be watchful for any further attempts. It’s a good thing that you’re not eating anything, and that I’m impervious to most poisons.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s one good silver lining about this fasting thing.” My stomach growled, and I sighed deeply. “I think I’ll skip breakfast this morning, if it’s all the same to you.”
“I don’t blame you.” Einar moved to the doorway, dropping a kiss on my forehead on his way out. The touch of his lips against my forehead sparked a different kind of hunger, but he moved out of range before I could act on it. “Try to get some rest, Adara. The other clan heads are arriving this afternoon, and you'll need your wits about you.”
29
Leap
The next three days were miserable. Ryker had Leap up working from dawn until dusk, either scrubbing floors and toilets, or waiting on him hand and foot while his cronies fawned over him like he was their precious little prince.
“A little to the left,” Ryker drawled, motioning with the wineglass in his right hand while he pretended to read the ledger he held in his left. They were in the great hall again, Ryker sprawled on the throne while Leap sat on a stool, one of Ryker’s feet propped up in his lap. One of the fawning females—Letta, Leap thought her name was—in Ryker’s posse sat in the chair on his left, hand-feeding grapes while Leap massaged his cousin’s manicured foot.
Leap scowled at Ryker as he adjusted his thumb, pressing rather harder than necessary into his cousin’s arch. “Oww!” Ryker snapped, his leg jerking involuntarily. Leap tightened his grip on Ryker’s foot to keep his cousin from accidentally kicking his face, then loosened the pressure from his thumb. “You did that on purpose,” he whined.
“Or maybe you’re just a sensitive little princess who can’t handle a little pressure,” Leap goaded. He pressed again, this time pushing against the top of Ryker’s foot instead, and was rewarded with another whine. “I don’t know what you’re doing to make your feet hurt so much, anyway. All you do is sit on your lazy arse all day.”
Ryker set the ledger aside, his face darkening as he pulled his foot from Leap’s grip. “Say that again,” he growled, ignoring the fresh grape Letta dangled in front of him.
Leap knew he should keep his mouth shut, but the injustices of the situation pressed in on him from all sides, pushing him to the edge of his patience. “I’ll say it again using small words, since you didn’t understand the first time,” he said, every word dripping with sarcasm. “You. Are. A. Lazy. Stupid. Piece. Of shit. And you don’t. deserve. To sit on. That throne.”
Ryker exploded from said throne, tackling Leap from his perch on the stool. The two went down in a heap, rolling across the stone floor as they kicked and hit at each other, fighting for dominance. Leap came up on top and smashed a fist into Ryker’s face. A fiery trail of pain raced across his knuckles as Ryker’s teeth ripped into his skin, but it was worth the bright bloom of blood on the older boy’s mouth.
“How dare you!” Ryker blasted him back, and Leap flew ten feet across the room. A feminine scream tore through the hall as he crashed into the wall, a thin tapestry the only cushioning between him and the brutal stone. The tapestry came loose from the wall and collapsed on top of Leap, the bolt it hung on cracking him on the head as he went down in a heap. Stars swam in his eyes as he flailed around in the billowing fabric, desperately trying to untangle himself, but there was no need as a familiar hand fisted in the front of his tunic and dragged him from the wreckage.
“What’s the matter, little Leap?” Ryker taunted, his face twisted with cruel delight. His cheeks were flushed, his gaze blurry the way it always got when his cousin drank too much. Leap was dimly aware that a small crowd had gathered in the room to watch this unceremonious beat-down. “You’re useless without your lightning magic, aren’t you? Can’t even throw a decent punch.” He gave Leap a bloody grin. “What are you going to do now that your guardian isn’t around to protect you?”
Leap stared hard at his cousin, willing the three faces that wavered before him to solidify into one. “You’re jealous,” he rasped, the realization ricocheting through him like one of his own lightning strikes. “That’s why you’ve been tormenting me all these years, why you tossed my dog out of a three-story window? Because I can wield lightning magic, and you can’t?”
