Magdala ground her teeth.
Chapter 16
As Magdala watched Asherton sitting at the table, one leg crooked over the arm of his chair, his lean body in a careless slump, she recalled how her father had made them dress for dinner and sit in this very dining room, in appointed chairs. No slouching, no sighing, no slurping.
She reminded herself that those were better days, that her father ran the house the way a house like this wassupposedto be run, but she had to admit that wearing her ordinary day clothes and hunching over her plate was more pleasant than sitting board-straight with a starched collar chafing her neck.
Magdala looked up from her food and caught the prince studying her. She smiled at him, partly enjoying and partly annoyed by his paranoia.
All day, she’d searched for an opportunity to slip the amenite into his drink, or dust it over his food, but Zephyr was watching her with hawk-like attention, and since she had to taste everything the prince ate, she couldn’t give him the amenite without also taking it herself. She considered trying this, but decided against it. She feared what she might say when forced to tell the unvarnished truth.
Zephyr glanced over his glasses at Asherton, and the prince pulled his sleeve down, concealing his freshly bandaged hand.
“So, eggs again,” Magdala said, breaking the silence. Both men looked up at her warily. “I saw the garden is overgrown. How do you get food here?”
“What garden?” Asherton asked.
“The vegetable garden,” Magdala said with a laugh, assuming he was joking.
“We have a vegetable garden?”
“Surely you eat vegetables,” she said, aghast. “How else do you keep your teeth from falling out?” She wanted to ask how they maintained their physiques without better nutrition, but couldn’t think of a modest way to phrase the question.
With an air of injured dignity, Zephyr wiped his mouth with his napkin. “We manage.”
“Wild berries, apples,” Asherton said. “Whatever we can forage. Lots of mushrooms.”
“Some of them poisonous,” Zephyr murmured.
“That was only the one time and we both survived.”
Magdala glanced at her tin plate. “Isn’t there a china set?”
“Well, yes,” Zephyr blustered. “But Asherton …”
The prince held his hands up defensively. “They make excellent drip pans in the greenhouse.”
Magdala slammed her fork on the table. Drip pans? Her father’s ancestral china, used for the filthy plants? Her lips curling in, Magdala tamped down the outburst by promising herself that soon her father would be home.
Rain drummed against the windows. Zephyr pushed his chair back and took a basket from the floor, then pulled out a tangle of green yarn and commenced knitting a sweater with a fat frog on the front. “You should not have bound your hand again, Ash. You’ll make it bleed. Why did you?” he asked.
Asherton’s fork clattered onto his plate. “It came undone. Miss Devney tied it off incorrectly.”
Magdala looked daggers at him.
Zephyr sniffed and watched the rain outside the window. “This will be good for the frogs.”
Asherton pushed his chair back, stood, and walked out of the room.
“Go on,” Zephyr said without looking up from his knitting. “Go with him before a second assassin tries to get him today.”
So much for hiding the truth from Zephyr.
“I haven’t finished eating,” Magdala said.
Zephyr’s knitting needles stilled. “Miss Devney, does the queen pay you to eat my chicken’s eggs?”
“She does not,” Magdala said with forced placidity. She dropped her cutlery and followed Asherton.
