“In his room,” Euyn says. “One over.”
He points to the left, then shuts his door. The bolt turns with a snap. The three of us look at one another and then walk away. The hallway has ugly red-and-white wallpaper. I’m staring at the walls, the floors, anything to avoid looking atPrincess Naerium. Still, I can feel her next to me. Still, I want to reach out for her.
I shove my hands in my pockets.
Sora knocks on Mikail’s door, and there’s no answer. She glances at me. I bang on the wood in case Mikail fell asleep.
Nothing.
“Must be gone,” I say.
“What if something happened to him?” Aeri asks. She plays with the hem of her mid-thigh dress. I look away from her legs, which is harder than it should be.
“Let’s ask Euyn,” Sora says.
Once again, Euyn takes two lifetimes to answer the door. I thought he’d changed, got less paranoid, after facing off with his brother in the throne room. Guess not.
“Did Mikail say he was going out?” Sora asks.
Euyn shakes his head, and his eyebrows come together. “No, he should be in there.”
“Well he ain’t,” I say.
Euyn strokes his beard as his eyes dart around. “That’s odd. Come in or go, though.”
He grips the doorknob. I don’t know what he thinks will happen or why he thinks a closed door would stop it. One kick and the wood would be in splinters. But I don’t say it.
“Maybe I should pick his lock?” Aeri says.
All of us turn to her.
Right. She’s a thief. A pickpocket. A con artist. Plus, a princess.
Euyn’s mouth slants. “Be careful if you do. He could have trapped the room.”
Great.
“Should we wait?” Sora asks.
Aeri shakes her head. “We need to check. If he’s not okay, we have to find him. Without him, we have no way of getting to the queen.”
Everybody realizes she’s got a point. Euyn can speak Khitanese, but Mikail is the one with real knowledge about how this place works. He’s the only one who can get us to the throne.
“Can I borrow your hairpins, Sora?” Aeri asks.
Sora’s eyebrows knit, but she takes out her two silver hairpins and hands them over.
We go back to Mikail’s room, and Aeri studies the door. She gets on the ground and puts her cheek to the worn carpet. There’s just a crack of space under the door. I don’t think it’s wide enough for her to see, but she takes out a dagger from inside her cloak and slides the blade under. I wonder what she’s doing until I realize she’s trying to spring traps.
“I think it’s clean,” she says.
She sits up on her knees and peers into the keyhole before putting the pins in and fiddling with them. In seconds, the door unlocks. Weird for royalty to be able to pick locks, but she did say she had to make it on her own for a while. Then again, that could just be another lie.
Aeri turns the handle. As the door opens, I yank her to the side in case there was a trap she missed. She falls against me and lands with her back to my chest. Memories of Rahway, of hiding in the alleyway, flood my head. That smell of flowers fills my nose.
She turns and looks at me with those beautiful eyes. Her lips part.
“Thank you,” she says breathlessly.
