She needed to hear Azam’s betrayal confirmed.
Celeste let out a long-suffering sigh. ‘That boy—the stitch-witch. He works for your tailor, didn’t you know?’
Sonya had known he worked for a tailor in Castletown. Hadn’t Enzo told her the tailor Azam worked for was employed by the crown?
I’m so stupid.
‘But how…?’ She was grasping at any hope that there had been a misunderstanding.
Celeste looked at her the way she always did: as if Sonya was a silly child. ‘You ran away in a maid’s uniform,’ Celeste explained slowly. ‘Azammakesthe uniforms your maids wear. Stitch-witches are able to track garments made of their own magic.’
Sonya felt sick. Her lower lip trembled, and she turned awayfrom Celeste, hiding half her face with her hair so the woman wouldn’t see Sonya break.
The night Azam had found her—that night he hadsavedher—it wasn’t a chance encounter. He’d been tracking Elspeth’s uniform.
It was no coincidence. No stroke of fate.
No wonder he never asked her questions—he hadn’t needed to. He’d known who she was the entire time.
The more Sonya thought about it, the more it made sense. Why he was always so hush-hush about his job, why he was suddenly able to take all that time off. He must have said he was out looking for her, which bought him some time to open up his mother’s shop.
It had all been a ruse. A deception. All this time, she had felt guilty for deceiving him, and she hadn’t known that he was the true deceiver.
The soldiers had known exactly where to find them because Azam had informed them.
Butwhy?
Her stomach roiled. She couldn’t think of it any further or she would throw up everything she had eaten that day.
She looked out the window, where the sun had set, the sky turning to darkness.
Her heart broke again as the carriage carried her far away from Oakdale. She thought of Ream and her girls at the inn waiting by the door, anticipating Sonya’s return with stories of how the wedding had gone.
And Sonya would not come.
She thought then of Winnie and Enzo, then Caden and Butterscotch, then Dania and Kiri. With each name more and more tears welled in her eyes until she was taking in shuddering breaths as she cried, holding a hand to her chest as if she could settle the pain, but it was a bone-deep ache.
Even practical and cold-hearted Celeste looked affected; she silently handed Sonya a handkerchief, giving her a glance of pity. The handkerchief only reminded Sonya of Azam, wiping away her tears at the wedding, and she cried harder.
How would they explain it to Dania? Everyone else might understand, but Dania wouldn’t. She was so little! She would feel abandoned, she would be so confused, and the thought cleaved Sonya’s heart in two.
Eventually, she cried herself to sleep, in the hopes that this was all a bad dream. In the morning, she would wake, and Azam would be there, and they would have tea together, teasing each other and laughing and sitting in comfortable silence.
When Sonya eventually woke, early the next morning and still in the jolting carriage, she was far away from Azam, from the new life she had come to love. She was at the castle.
As if moving through treacle, Sonya followed Celeste as the advisor took her straight to her rooms. Everything felt foreign: these old halls, the grand stairs, the paintings on the walls and the ornate molding. Even when she entered her room through massive wooden doors that were hand-carved with intricate designs, Sonya felt as if she had entered a different world.
But this was her old room, and there, her old bed. Everything was in perfect, pristine condition, not a speck of dust to be found. Despite being gone for months, the room was unchanged, as if her absence had made no difference. She thought of her room at the Mirzas’ cottage, her things, everything so carefully collected and gifted and selected. The space she had made her own.
In her room at the castle, a team of maids was already standing by the washroom, waiting for her. Sonya searched for Elspeth, but did not find her. She must have been on the later shift today.
‘Get the princess ready for breakfast with the king and princes,’ Celeste ordered the maids. Her voice echoed in the big room, and Sonya jolted. This was all so strange. She felt as if she had stumbled into a very bad dream, and she did not know how to wake up.
But she had to remind herself: this was reality. Those weeks with Azam were the dream, and now it was time to return to her real life.
Sonya was ushered into the washroom, where they stripped her clothes, helping her into a hot bath. Rose petals swam in the water, and she thought of the rose Azam had given her in the garden. She had left it behind. She closed her eyes and she could almost picture it now: on the ground, trampled on.
Her heart squeezed painfully. She was so tired. Everything hurt. She barely paid attention to anything until she heard one maid ask Celeste, ‘What do we do with the clothes, ma’am?’
