From the corner of my eye, I could see everyone looking at me.
“That’s a little excessive, Wil.” James spoke as though I were a spooked animal. “I know him. He’s no assassin and he doesn’t work for Lien.” He met Tobiah’s eyes for a heartbeat, nodded, and came to take the messenger from me. “It’s all right.”
The man’s face seemed caught between fear and excitement. His wide owl eyes darted around the room, taking in the details.
I stepped aside for James, not putting away my knife. “I don’t trust him.”
“You don’t trust anyone.” James opened the door to escort the messenger out. “This way, Alain. We—and all of these men—need to have a talk about the crown prince’s quarters. . . .”
The door shut behind them, leaving me alone with Tobiah, his mother, and his fiancée. A moment later, muffled yelling came from the other room as James dressed down every guard by name.
I shifted my weight to one hip. “I don’t think Alain will keep his mouth shut. The secret is out.” I leveled my eyes on Tobiah. “He saw you standing. A second miracle in as many days.”
“How did James heal?” The queen’s eyebrows drew in. “Princess?”
“I was locked in my quarters.” My glare landed on Tobiah, who’d managed to sit up straight, but his skin was ashen with the effort. “I was allowed to believe James was dead.”
“Regardless,” Meredith said, her cheeks red as she attempted to forestall another fight, “Princess Wilhelmina is correct. The secret is out. There’s nothing we can do right now but hope Alain takes Captain Rayner’s request for silence seriously.”
Good luck.
“In the meantime, we’ll need to make sure there’s room in the shelters for the new refugees.”
“You think we should let them into the city?” Tobiah looked at her across the small distance, his face bland. “The shelters are already so full and food is scarce.”
“They’re Indigo Kingdom citizens.”
“Would you feel differently if they were refugees from another kingdom?”
Her lips parted with affront or indecision—I couldn’t tell. “Of course not. They’re people in need, regardless.”
Tobiah nodded. “Still, with a few noble exceptions”—he motioned at me—“my father didn’t allow refugees into the city.”
“You are not your father and the wraith had not touched the Indigo Kingdom while he was in power.”
The crown prince offered a shallow nod. “The gates will be open, my lady.”
Meredith glowed with her triumph. “Thank you.”
Tobiah pressed one palm to his stomach, over the shirt and bandages beneath. A shadow crossed his face. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to rest before the next emergency. My father’s memorial is in two days and I plan to be fully recovered by then.”
“I’ll leave you to your rest, then.” I replaced my knife and started for the door.
“Wilhelmina?”
I looked over my shoulder to find Tobiah’s glare mixed with something like distaste.
“Please change your clothes into something more becoming of a lady of your station. Parading around the palace like that is . . . unseemly.”
I let my voice thin. “If Your Highness wishes to control my wardrobe as well as my movements throughout the palace, consider supplying something more to your taste.”
He gave a bored sigh and roll of his eyes.
I slipped out of the room and through the busy parlor, and headed into the hall. My fingernails carved crescents into my palms.
Meredith caught up with me a minute later. “He shouldn’t be so mean to you. Not only did you help save his life, you’re a princess.”
I halted in the middle of the hallway and studied her guileless face. She deserved a true answer. Not the whole truth, but some truth, nonetheless. “It’s my rank that’s part of the problem.” Saints, I wished Melanie were here. “The last thing he expected when I was unmasked, so to speak, was to discover the heir to the vermilion throne. He’s already dealing with the wraith problem and his ascension to the throne. I complicate everything.”
“Still,” she said. “It’s no excuse for his poor behavior.”
“I’m inclined to agree with you, Lady Meredith.”
Sergeant Ferris followed me. Was he a bodyguard? Spy? Did it even matter? His sidelong looks were skepticism and distrust, with a dash of superiority. He was who he claimed to be, while I exchanged one identity for another, as quickly as changing clothes.
I doubted Sergeant Ferris would judge his crown prince so harshly.
But with the death of King Terrell, Black Knife would never go out again. If I didn’t know his identity, I wouldn’t know why he’d disappeared. I’d have looked for him a few more times, and accepted that he’d been called to do something else. He would have remained a mystery, a dark and lovely memory who haunted my dreams.
Forgive me, his note had said. Forgive me.
“Your Highness.” Sergeant Ferris hauled open the door to my suite, as though I didn’t have the strength to do it myself. “Please let me know if you need anything else.”
I ignored him and went into my room.
The wraith boy was exactly where I’d ordered him: under my bed, his pale face peeking out from beneath the blankets hanging over the sides. His chest was pressed against the hardwood floor, not quite on the nearby rug of lamb’s wool that warmed my feet every morning.
“You’re still here.”
“You told me to wait for you.” His voice was like wind, hollow and ageless, and dangerously powerful.
“I know, but—” Saying I’d hoped he would have left didn’t seem wise. “Well, get out from under the bed.”
He shimmied out and jumped to his feet, as though spending the night under my bed hadn’t left his limbs stiff or his muscles sore. The tattered indigo jacket hung on his lean frame, not quite covering enough.
We stood there a moment, both of us waiting for my next command. I couldn’t look away from him, this strange creature in my quarters. He was wraith, part of the toxic cloud smothering the continent in a white mist that changed the fundamental laws of nature. I’d seen trees growing upside down, and roads rising in the air with nothing to hold them aloft. I’d seen people and beasts that couldn’t maintain a size or shape. I’d seen innocents trapped in something clear and solid, just heartbeats away from escape.
Wraith was terrible stuff, of that I had no doubt. But in the shape of a boy, with a voice and a consciousness, was it any different?
I had no idea what to do with him.
But I had to start somewhere. A pile of men’s clothing had been delivered; it waited on a cedar chest near the door.
I grabbed underclothes, a shirt, and trousers, and strode across the room, not taking my eyes off his. “What’s your name?”
His shrug was a too-fluid ripple. “Do things name themselves in your world?” He cocked his head, lizard-like. Though he’d been completely hairless the night of the Inundation, when I ordered the white mist invading the city to become solid, he now had a fine white fuzz covering his skull. He was somewhere between comical and cute, at least until I remembered his feral grin and the way his fingers elongated into claws when he attacked. But now, his tone was soft. The way he hunched his shoulders, like a child enduring punishment, was almost sweet and sad. “I had hoped you would name me. You gave me life.”
A frown pulled at me. “I didn’t intend it.”
“Didn’t you?”
Definitely not. My magic wasn’t supposed to work like that. Animating objects wasn’t the same as giving them life. This had never happened before, so why now? “What are you?”
“I don’t know.” The wraith boy shrank a little. “Do I have to put on those pants?”
“Yes.” As if being Black Knife, the lost Princess of Aecor, and a known flasher wasn’t damaging enough to my reputation. I couldn’t have a half-naked boy in my suite. “Here.” I shoved the bundle at his elbow. ?
??Don’t put them on in here. Go into the music room to dress.”
He took the clothes and sighed, but I couldn’t tell whether it was the thought of putting on pants or the need to leave the room to do it that exasperated him so much. Beneath his borrowed jacket, his shoulders slumped. “I am a mystery, my queen.”
Chills swept through me. I retreated to the table and lowered myself into the nearest chair. “Explain.”
The wraith boy tugged at his jacket, as though it suddenly wasn’t big enough. “You gave me life, but you’re unsatisfied. In the changing place, you asked me to save you. And I did. I smothered the locusts. Then I followed you because I wanted to be with you, but you ran. You hid behind the reflections, so I went around. At last I discovered where you had been. I could feel your presence all through the city, but couldn’t find you. Not with the mirrors. So I broke them. And then you came and ordered me to become solid. I hoped to please you. But again, you seemed unsatisfied.”
My breaths came shallow, but I managed the words. “Go on.”
“Though you are responsible for me, I’m not what you want. I could change—do or become anything that you order—but I don’t think anything would satisfy you. So I am a mystery, given life for no purpose at all.”
“You had a purpose.”
“To save you from the locusts? To save your city from changing?” The wraith boy spread his arms wide, his clothes dropping with a soft whumph. The jacket opened to reveal his chest; I kept my gaze high. “One was over so quickly it hardly matters, while the other was just delaying the inevitable.” He cocked his head. “I told you there would be consequences.”
“What are those consequences?”
He went very, very still. “You might think you’ve slowed the advance of change. Of wraith, as you call it. But you haven’t. It’s coming faster to meet with me.”
My stomach and chest knotted.
“Why is it coming to meet you? If you’re the wraith that was in the area when I animated it, wouldn’t that mean there’s less wraith now? You’re alive. And solid. You’re real.”
“I am those things. I am what you want me to be.” He lifted a hand and pointed an overlong finger toward the door. “Your breakfast is coming. Smells good.”
I barely had time to follow the shift in subject when the knock sounded. “Enter!” I motioned the wraith boy toward the music room. “Go in there and get dressed. Don’t mess with anything.”
“Yes, my queen.” He took his clothes and slipped away, just as the door opened and a maid came inside with a tray. She placed my breakfast on the table and after a quick curtsy and inquiry as to whether I needed anything else, excused herself. She was the same maid I’d had since announcing my identity, and I still didn’t know her name; she hardly spoke at all.
I sat at the table, famished after missing dinner last night. I hadn’t lived in the palace so long that food was expendable, and for any Osprey, wasting food was the highest of crimes, right up there with betraying Aecor by befriending anyone from the Indigo Kingdom.
Well, no one was perfect.
Hours later, James arrived bearing a large leather and canvas bag. The contents thunked as he hefted it onto the table. The strap dangled off the edge. “Your evening wear and accessories, my lady.”
“Truly, you’re a man of miracles.”
His smile was strained. Haunted. “If I cautioned you to stay in tonight, would you listen?”
Inside the bag, there were several black shirts and trousers, a pair of knee-high boots, masks, and most importantly: weapons. “This will do.”
James sighed. “That’s what I was afraid you were going to say. Where’s your pale friend? I have more orders.”
“He’s in the music room. What else, besides delivering my wardrobe?”
He ticked off the items on his fingers. “One: deliver your clothes. Two: ask you to please put the wraith boy in a safer location. Three: assist you in drafting a letter to the people of Aecor announcing your stay here, and the treasonous acts of Patrick Lien.”
“I was already going to do that. I’ve spent the morning writing notes and a draft.”
“Good. That way it will sound like it actually came from you.”
Who would know, though? For almost ten years, everyone in Aecor believed I was dead.
“Do you want to start with the letter or the transfer? I’ve already had a nearby space cleaned out, since I don’t think he’d stand to be very far from you.”
“Let’s move him first.”
“For the best, I think. With the prince’s recovery, it won’t be long before talk turns to you and this creature. I know you slept on Tobiah’s chair last night—a scandal on its own—but as far as anyone else is concerned, you slept in your rooms while the wraith boy was here, too.”
Then surely the damage was already done. No matter how I felt about it, my reputation did matter. People of the Indigo Kingdom already had so little respect for me, and one day I’d have to marry for the good of Aecor—assuming I ever got back my kingdom and the wraith didn’t destroy everything first.
“I’m shocked I have any reputation left to tarnish.” I shrugged and jerked a thumb toward the music room door. “But to protect my delicate sensibilities, will you make sure he’s dressed before we go in?”
James wrinkled his nose. “You think he’s naked?”
“I told him to put on his clothes, but that was this morning.”
“Great.” James knocked on the music room door and entered.
A loud whack hit the wall: wood crashing. “What are you? You don’t belong.” The wraith boy’s voice rose an octave. “Leave!”
I threw open the music room door to find the piano bench in pieces and a gash torn in the wall paneling. James stood just a step away from the demolished bench, his chest heaving. “Wil.” He spoke between clenched teeth. “I think you should send Ferris for more guards.”
The wraith boy’s posture shifted with unnatural quickness. One moment, he was huge and hunched, ready to grab the piano and hurl it at James. The next moment, he resumed his normal size and shape, and bowed his head. “My queen. Hello.”
“What’s going on?” I forced the shaking out of my voice, keeping it low and dangerous.
“This”—the wraith boy bared his teeth at James—“man is not what he says he is. He’s deceiving you, my queen. He’s not real.”
I moved inside the room and stood beside James. Splinters of wood caught in my day dress, scraping the floor. “James is my friend, and he’s in charge of palace security. If he sees you as a threat, he will not hesitate to force you to leave.”
The wraith boy sniffed. “Only my queen commands me.”
“And I would agree with him. Behave.” I spun and exited the room, head high, but my heart thudded painfully against my ribs.
James closed the door after him, softly. “This is a problem. No one bothered him last night once he hid under your bed, but what if they had? What would he have done?”
“I don’t know.” My head buzzed with adrenaline. “What do you think he meant about you? You’re not who you say you are? As far as I can see, you’re the only one of us who is exactly what he says.”
“I wish I knew.” Worry and confusion crossed his eyes, but he said nothing more. I wasn’t his confidante, after all. “Give me a moment while I have the hall cleared. Then let’s get this over with.”
SEVEN
DEAD QUIET. THE hallway through the Dragon Wing had never known such silence.
Men wearing Indigo Order uniforms lined the walls, their faces hard and drawn. Swords gleamed in the bright light, every blade lifted and angled in a guarded stance. The steel was polished to a mirror finish, and none of the men so much as moved as James, the wraith boy, and I strode down the hall. Sergeant Ferris came behind us.
A canvas sack covered the wraith boy’s pale head, since some of the soldiers were superstitious about his eyes.
They were too unreal, too wraithy.
On
e look and he could turn you into a wraith beast, or a glowman.
If your eyes met his, you’d go blind.
James had related all the rumors while we prepared the wraith boy for transfer, and now we walked on either side of him, daggers pressed against his throat. Of course, the daggers were just for show because I had no idea if being cut or stabbed would hinder him at all. He wasn’t human.
“One, two, three, four . . .” The numbers were muffled under the wraith boy’s sack.
“Stop it.” I elbowed the wraith boy.
“I’m counting the weapons,” he murmured, as though it were completely natural.
“Do it silently.” It wasn’t as if he could see the weapons through the sack, right?
He sighed, but was quiet as we continued through the hall.
Twenty paces ahead, a pair of guards opened a plain, almost hidden door. They waited with their hands on their swords, expressions stoic.
Seventeen paces to go. A soft, breathy noise came from under the sack, like someone exhaling in quick bursts. Like smothered laughter.
Fourteen paces.
“Not real.” The sack twisted as though the wraith boy was looking at James. “Not real.”
Ten paces.
“Shall I order you to stop speaking?” I asked.
The wraith boy gasped and fell silent again, but a bubble of tension formed around him, an almost physical force.
Six paces.
The wraith boy’s knuckles were white at his sides. Tendons stuck out along his hands and wrists. He was a thing of tightening fury, growing denser before he exploded.
Two paces.
James signaled the soldiers to back away from the door, then glanced at me behind the wraith boy, his eyebrow lifted. I nodded, and he stayed put as I took the last step to the storage room.
It wasn’t much of a space, just a narrow area that used to hold cleaning supplies or linens—something maids or servants might need to fetch quickly for the royal family.
“In you go.” I lowered my dagger and touched one hand to the back of the wraith boy’s jacket, not firmly. Still, the tension in the wraith boy’s hands and shoulders unwound, and he stepped into the room without protest.