My stomach dropped. “Thevaults.”
She laughed. “You should see the look on your face. No, I don’t mean the vaults, though they’d work in a pinch. I meant The RoyalPalace.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I muttered. “What are theodds?”
“No odds. He picked the palace for his living quarters for that very reason, as did all the masters and royals before him.” She clenched my arm and lowered her voice. “It’s the only place in the castle where hecan...”
“Where he can what?” I asked,breathless.
Her eyes flashed with something. I knew she was trying to communicate with me without words, but we still hardly knew each other. I didn’t understand what she was trying to say atall.
“Read hisbooks.”
8
Anew dayand a new mission. I was once again going to talk my way into Lugh’s room and rifle through his books. There were answers in the millions of pages he had in there, though I had no idea where to startlooking.
But when it came time for cleaning assignments, Selma was insistent that King Lugh’s quarters did not need cleaning until the next Thursday. It had only been two days, and his head might explode if we stacked his books againalready.
Instead, Imogen and I were assigned to tackle the large stretch of garden that backed up onto the western defences. They were high stone battlements that stretched around the castle’s edge, looking out over a sheer cliff. Even in January, the grass needed to be clipped and weeds had to be yanked out of the softground.
Just behind us were two more buildings that formed a square, earlier residential quarters that were no longer in use. Saoirse had told me in hushed whispers that the buildings had been abandoned since the witch trials. Humans in search of magical culprits had stormed the castle and set the buildings ablaze. Fae had been trapped inside, and no one had wanted to rebuild the place, not evenLugh.
Instead, he’d left the square as it was, as a memorial, and had named it MagMell.
I was surprised to learn he was thatsensitive.
“Can I ask you a question?” I asked Imogen as I blew a stray strand of hair out of my face. “How’d you end up here in the Court ofWraiths?”
Imogen stiffened, but then kept on pulling weeds. “The King likes to collectstrays.”
I leaned back on my heels and cocked a brow. “Strays?”
“Yeah, like you. Solitaries.” She shook her head and tossed a weed onto the growing pile. “Or runaways, fae fleeing from abuse, criminals, and those with uselessgifts.”
“Criminals?” I asked, startled, even though I shouldn’t have been. Of course Lugh welcomed them into his Court. It was just the kind of thing he’d do. Hell, I was halfway convinced he was engaged in criminal activityhimself.
“Formercriminals, for the most part,” she corrected. “Like me. I was a thief. Humans were mostly my targets, but I stole from fae, too. I even had a wanted poster with my photo on it, back in Glasgow. I had to leave to get the heat offme.”
“And Lugh gave you a place tostay.”
“Me and a bunch of others. I think he believes we can be rehabilitated.” She chuckled. “I don’t actually agree with him on that, you know? I haven’t been able to completely stop. Why do you think I’m part of the cleaning crew? I can’t be trusted with something more important, like guarding the castle or taking care of out-of-control vampires in thecity.”
Wiping the sweat off my brow, I regarded Imogen carefully. This had given me some food for thought, and I didn’t know whether it was the good kind of food, like pizza, or the bad, like rotting meat. Lugh took in the unwanted, or at least the fae who felt they weren’t wanted. That was kind of sweet. But a bunch of dangerous criminals under one roof had the potential to create a pretty toxic environment. Imogen was only a thief, but what kind of crimes did the others have under theirbelts?
Were there any murderers? Ishuddered.
When we were done, my hands were bright green and in desperate need of a wash. I headed straight back to my room, eager to get back inside for the first time since I’d arrived here. Saoirse caught me along the way, falling into step beside me, and looking about five million times more put together than Iwas.
I had yet to determine what her role here was in the Court of Wraiths. Her gift was a mystery, and there was something different about the magic that pulsed around her. She read as fae to me, but something else, something I couldn’t quite put my fingeron...
“How are you settling in?” She nodded toward my hands. “Looks like you’ve had a busyday.”
“Garden duty,” I said. “Better than washing dishes but not as good as swingingsteel.”
“You think any more about what I mentionedyesterday?”
She was referring to her hint about Lugh, no doubt. Truth be told, I’d spent a lot of time thinking about her little puzzle, mostly when I’d been ripping weeds out of the ground. It had been therapeutic in a way. There’s nothing quite like destroying things to make your life seem less full of suck. But I hadn’t gotten anywhere on herhint.
