I stared, stunned.
“I know. It sounds bad, but there has to be evidence somewhere,” the prince said quickly. “There are pages missing from my grandfather’s journal. Someone probably wanted to hide Navierre’s crimes. I hope to find them eventually.”
“You’re saying the Non-Magic Age happened on baseless accusation?” I said, aghast. My nannies were right. History about witcheswasskewed beyond belief.
“Not so loud,” Prince Ash said, darting his eyes around. “It wasn’tcompletelybaseless. But that isn’t the point. If I find that evidence, I’ll finally win my father over.”
“I suppose,” I said.
I wanted to ask him why he was so sure that there was evidence, that perhaps it was King Humphrey who wanted to hidehiscrimes. But I held my tongue lest I offend him, or accidentally reveal myself. After all, he did just tell me a royal secret, though I hardly knew why he trusted me to keep it. I continued to shelve the books until he spoke again.
“Your knee,” Prince Ash said almost hesitantly. He clearly didn’t expect my curt tone or my silence. “Is it still hurting?”
I paused. Maybe he believed I thought him silly for wanting to win his father’s confidence. “It’s doing fine,” I said, feeling slightly guilty. “Thank you, Your Highness. And I wish you the best of luck with your research.”
I saw him glance at me from the corner of my eye. “You can call me Ash, you know. I have enough formalities to—”
“To last you a lifetime.”
He raised his brows.
“You and your mother are very similar,” I said.
He laughed. “I’m afraid we are.”
“And what about your father?” I instantly regretted the words as they came out of my mouth. He stopped smiling and bent down to busy himself with gathering more parchment. I wanted to slap myself. He must’ve thought I was trying to weasel out information about his illegitimate birth.
“He spends more time with Bennett. My brother is the crown prince, after all,” he said. There was hardly any emotion in his voice as he said this.
I thought back to the countless nights I had to spend alone when Lydia began etiquette lessons with Genevieve. I was only eleven at the time and I was forbidden to join lest I be a pest. As I got older, I started running from them instead.
We shelved the books in silence for several minutes. Somewhere along the way, the tension dissolved into a companionable silence as the sun climbed up the sky. When I tucked the last book into the shelf, I broke the silence.
“Is that all?” I asked, standing up.
“Seems like it.” Prince Ash said.
“I should get going, then.”
He nodded. I was halfway down the aisle of shelves before he spoke again. “Amarante? Make sure to come back next week. I have a feeling the east end will be particularly dirty by then.”
I caught a glimpse of his smile between the shelves before he disappeared.
He called me Amarante.
