“Olive?” I confirm cautiously. I don’t know where this is going, but the curdling feeling in my gut says I won’t like it.
“Why does she leave every morning around eleven wrapped in a drab cloak with a scarf around her face like some kind of beggar? Is that the fashion? Should I get one?”
“You must be mistaken. At eleven Olive would be at home. We usually meet around luncheon at the Royal Crescent.”
Rhion just shrugs. “Humans!” he says with delight. “I’ll never understand your customs. How thrilling to have so much to learn.”
I walk into the dark of my house in a daze, through the echoing marble foyer and up the stairs. The maids haven’t left any of the lamps onfor me, so I have nothing but moonlight and long shadows to guide my way. Rhion would have no reason to lie to me about Olive, but I’d be a fool to try to find any logic in the actions of Bram’s court.
I climb another set of stairs to the third floor, but when I open the door to my bedroom, I find a dim library, complete with spiral staircase.
I sigh. The rooms are always changing. I don’t know if it’s on purpose or something went wrong with the spell used to connect the town houses in the Royal Crescent.
I try another door and find a sitting room.
Another and it’s a nursery. A slash of moonlight falls over an empty cradle, an old rocking horse.
The third is a plain bedroom. Pushed up against one wall is a twin bed with a neatly pressed blanket. Next to it is a washbowl and pitcher in bone-white porcelain, set atop a simple table. It’s probably meant for a member of staff, but I’m too exhausted to keep looking, so I fall onto the rough blanket of the single bed.
I’m nearly asleep when the sound of breathing startles me.
“Who is there?” I call.
No answer comes.
Outside, a gust of wind ruffles the dry leaves clinging to autumn tree branches.
There’s a thump under the bed.
I lean down, heart in my throat, to find Pig, cowering. He looks as sorry as I feel, his tiny little body quaking with fear. He doesn’t like this new, strange house, doesn’t like the fae either. He barks every time one of them walks past my door.
He must have gotten lost when the rooms shifted and couldn’t find his way back to my chambers either.
“Come here,” I say softly. He burrows under the blankets and curls up against my side. I stroke his furry little head and let the tears flow down my cheeks.
I can’t shake the feeling that Emmett would know what to do if he were here.
I miss him like a physical wound.
If Emmett and Lydia are in the Otherworld, as I suspect, I fear I may be running out of time.
Are their lives racing ahead like sand through a sieve while I plot and plan too slowly here? What good will rescue be if my sister is an old woman once I finally achieve it? Has Emmett spent years without me? Am I only a distant memory of some ill-fated young love? I can’t think too hard about it or I’ll lose hope, and hope is all I have.
I clutch Pig to my chest, and together, we face another lonely night.
Chapter Three
The door slams against the frame and a shriek pierces the air.
Pig bounds off my lap as I bolt up and scream myself. It seems the correct thing to do.
There’s a maid at the threshold holding her hand over her mouth. “Oh, I’m sorry, Your Majesty. I didn’t know who was in my bed.”
I rise sheepishly, still in my rumpled ball gown, my tiara on the pillow beside me.
“I’ll give you your room back,” I apologize. “I just got lost.”
The maid delivers me like a child to Lottie, who is already with my ladies-in-waiting. Together, they rearrange me into something resembling a presentable queen. I can’t stop glancing at Olive as Lottie winds my blond hair into a coronet of braids.
