“I could have been much worse off, really,” I continued. “A kind woman, who I called Mama, found me abandoned in the middle of the public gardens near the marketplace. She said I was such a cute little thing and all alone, and she just couldn’t bear to leave me there. So she took me home and raised me.”
I looked down at the ground. “She truly loved me, I believe that. But she worked as a nanny for a wealthy family here in Largo. They let her keep me in her small set of rooms above their stable, but she spent her whole day in their home, and I wasn’t welcome there. As soon as I could walk and talk, the children stopped seeing me as a doll to play with and saw me as another child. One who wasn’t like them. They started demanding she leave me behind each day.”
I pulled at a curl of my hair. “She always said I must have northerner blood in me somewhere. But the family she served were originally northerners themselves, and obviously I didn’t have enough to suit their children. They never saw me as one of them.” I sighed. “Just like my skin was too light for the traders, and my trader eyes and ways too much for the junglers. It’s my curse, I suppose, to never really fit in anywhere.”
I tried to shake off the melancholy mood and get to the real point. “And so every day I went out to explore the city. I had a mother, of sorts, but I was almost as good as a child of the streets, and the street urchins took a liking to me and took me under their wing.”
“Street urchins? How thrilling!” said Celine.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Celine,” said Cassian quietly. He looked at me. “My parents provide all of their nobles and governors with funds to provide for any orphans. If there are street urchins here, then the governor will have to answer for it. My family does not wish to sit in our palace on piles of gold while our people suffer.”
I smiled at him. “I know you do not, and it is the reason the street urchins are loyal enough to the crown. There are orphanages that are never short of food or clothing for those who wish to go to them. Their doors are never closed, and they find homes for the children where they can. But they keep a strict regime.” I shrugged.
“They are training the children for future jobs as servants and the like, and many are happy enough for the opportunity. I often used to play with them in the public gardens on their rest day. But I think the reason they are such a satisfied bunch overall is because those who do not want that life leave.”
I shook my head. “Some children don’t like the strict order they keep, and they don’t want such jobs. What they want is to be free. And so they choose a life on the streets.”
“Thieves, you mean,” said Frederic, his voice heavy.
I frowned at him, but he didn’t meet my eyes, his expression distracted.
“They’re not thieves.” I paused. “Well, I’m sure there are thieves among them, as there are thieves among the adult citizens of Lanover. But the ones I knew were not like that. They scavenged what they could and made up any lack by running errands and messages in the marketplace and the like. They banded together and formed their own family, as unusual as it might be. I suppose that’s why they accepted me. They were already misfits, just like I was.”
I ran a hand down my skirt, straightening its folds. “When Marcus grabbed me, he dragged me into an alley that I recognized.” A quick intake of breath from Frederic made me look at him, but he still didn’t meet my eyes.
“I managed to escape because the urchins have a bolt hole in the back wall of the alley. And then I ran, by instinct, I suppose, to their hideout. And it turns out it’s still an urchins’ den.” I smiled at the memory of the children I had met. “And the children themselves were much like the ones I used to know. I asked them what was happening in the city, and they had a lot to say.”
I related the story the street urchins had told me, telling them what I now knew of the Shadow Man and his actions and motivations. Frederic stood and walked back to the window, Cassian following him with his eyes.
When I finished the tale, Cassian frowned at me. “We need more information on this Shadow Man. We need to know who he really is. Do you think they could lead someone to this warehouse where he supposedly lives?”
“I suppose so.” I considered. “But I wouldn’t want to get any of them into strife. They’re only children. Perhaps they could draw a map.”
“Perhaps…” said Cassian, his eyes straying back to Frederic who still said nothing.
For a moment silence fell.
“So you’re an orphan,” said Frederic at last, in a strange, strangled tone. “But not just an orphan. You don’t even know the names of your own parents?”
“That’s right,” I said, struggling to keep my own voice level. “When I was nine my adopted mother took ill and died. The family she worked for threw me from her rooms, and a passing caravan picked me up. I wanted to escape the place that reminded me of her, and so I went with them, hoping to shape myself into a trader and forget the past.”
He spun around abruptly, and his eyes caught on mine. They held so much fire that I instinctively shrank back. Without a word, he strode from the room.
“Well,” said Celine into the silence. “That was unexpected.”
Over and over again during the next two days I replayed the scene in my mind. Because in spite of our expectations, Frederic did not return for the evening meal. He had left the mansion, and he did not return to sleep that night, or for any meals the next day.
Cassian told Celine and me that Frederic was occupied, and we would have to wait to hear an explanation from his own lips. And with that we had to be content, although it didn’t stop Celine from grumbling about being excluded from whatever action was going on. She seemed convinced Frederic had gone off to retrieve vital information on the Shadow Man.
We downplayed the crown prince’s absence to the governor and the nobles, and Cassian held off ordering any action be taken to track down the rebels until Frederic returned to give us some direction. Celine and Tillie seemed to sense my distress since they clung to me like limpets, asking for help with their gowns and hair and generally attempting to distract me. I put on a cheerful face for them—I had plenty of practice at it, after all—but alone in my bed at night, I cried.
I tried to cling to my new self. The one who had learned to trust the royals. But in the dark of the night, my old fears attempted to resurface. I had told them the final piece of my past, and Frederic had turned and run. I couldn’t hide from my own heart: no one else’s reactions mattered compared to his. I just couldn’t understand what was behind his behavior. Why had he run? I went over and over it all again in my mind, looking for signs I had missed, and told myself Celine was right, and it had nothing to do with me at all.
But I was all too afraid it did have something to do with me. Some internal struggle had always seemed to grip him whenever we got too close. Perhaps one side of that unknown war had been tipped into victory by the truth of my past. I just couldn’t understand what could possibly have made him run.
I chose to believe he would not abandon me now. But the truth was that I wanted something more from him than acceptance as the royal seamstress. Or even as a friend. And I wanted it even as I knew it was wrong for someone like me to desire anything more from the crown prince.
In the morning, I posed my worst fear to Celine and Tillie.
“Are we sure…” I cleared my throat and started again. “Are we sure he’s all right? That he hasn’t fallen afoul of Marcus, or something?”
They exchanged glances before looking at me. Neither asked who he was.
“Cassian seems unconcerned,” said Tillie. She bit her lip. “He hasn’t said anything specific to me, but he clearly knows where he is.”
I swallowed and nodded. That was a relief at least.
He had been gone two nights when Cassian sent for the three of us girls. My legs trembled as I walked back to the princes’ sitting room. Had Frederic returned? What would his attitude toward me be?