She hesitated for a moment and then shrugged, deciding it was my own fault if I lost it again, I was sure. "Yes."
"Ruby." I looked her straight in the eye. "Why was she watching us?"
"Maybe she was wondering why you haven't brushed your hair in days," she replied sarcastically.
I jerked back self-consciously, as if Ruby could have somehow read my thoughts from earlier with Steed. And then I realized. "She was watching me with Steed, too. Before, when we talked, and we trained."
Ruby's mouth became a mean grimace and I was pretty sure she cursed under her breath but her face was smooth again as she looked to Steed. "Anything of consequence?"
Steed shook his head but I didn't agree, everything we'd talked about was significant. My memory loss, my issue with fairies, Anvil, the hawk, and Chevelle. I swallowed hard, forgetting momentarily about my mental argument. And then I was back, because what I'd discussed with Chevelle was far worse than my conversation with Steed. "Ruby, why was she watching me?" When she didn't answer, I realized the more important issue. "Who is she reporting to?"
She sighed, expecting me to faint when she replied, "Asher."
Asher. And we'd been speaking of Junnie, her issues with council, my concealment in the village, combined with what she'd heard earlier. "Ruby, is Junnie in danger?" I asked.
She smiled. "No, Freya, be assured she is not."
"But Asher knows she's protecting me," I argued.
"How would he know that?" she chided.
"Because Chevelle and I were-" and then I stopped, because I knew what she'd meant. They had found Storm. I suddenly understood her comment to Steed earlier, she'd been asking if I had learned anything of consequence, not Storm. Storm was no longer an issue.
When I heard a clamor in the corridor outside, my gaze nervously found Ruby, but she just stood there as if she didn't hear it. "Ruby," I said.
"They are simply taking care of a little problem, Frey."
And then I heard a thick, solid thump that resembled the one I'd heard earlier, when Grey had hit the block wall, and I knew it was a body. I automatically started to get up but Ruby put a hand on my shoulder and pushed me back down. "I promise you, they do not need your help."
"The servants?" I asked.
"Only the ones that warrant it," she answered dryly.
"Maybe I should lie back down," I admitted.
Steed laughed as he helped me up and, along with Ruby, led me to my own room.
I was asleep quickly and, though Ruby had stayed there to watch me, awake again nearly as fast. I'd been dreaming of Fannie again, destruction and murder, when her dark, dangerous, cat eyes stared into mine as blood dripped from her muzzle. The instant I woke, I impulsively found the remaining mountain lions I'd left in the castle and snapped their necks where they stood. I was breathing heavily and Ruby questioned me.
"No, I'm fine," I said, "just a dream."
"Then sleep, Freya."
"Ruby," I asked, "what's going to happen to Fannie?"
"I can't say, she's got her share of tails." She giggled and then amended, "Pursuers."
"What will Junnie do?" I asked.
"Junnie is hard to estimate, though I suppose she's got Fannie on the top of her list."
"Why?" I said automatically, sure it couldn't be merely in protection of me.
Ruby considered whether to tell me. "Well, I guess you're already in bed," she muttered before continuing in a more audible tone. "For taking out council."
"I don't think your pass-out humor is funny," I snapped. And then I examined what she'd said. "But why would she care? Chevelle said that she didn't agree with council's ideas."
"She doesn't agree with them, on certain points," she stressed. "Chiefly, that they manipulated events to control the rise of the north. But that doesn't mean she'd see them slain."
Of course, that made sense, but, at the same time, it didn't. "I saw her fighting against them, before we got to the castle."
"Only those that attacked you, some for their own reasons, not council's desire." She moved closer. "I can see you're not grasping the full scope here, Frey. Junnie's entire family is on that council."
I gasped. How could I have been so oblivious? I'd known, even before I'd left the village, that her family had received the calling. "And Fannie's killing them."
"Yes," Ruby answered, "and it is only worse that Junnie is responsible for saving her from your mother's fate, protecting her those years in the village, though Fannie considers it punishment, entrapment, and hungers for revenge."
Her reply had the tone of her fairy tales and I was confident, once again, that there was truth in all of them. I remembered what Steed had said, that Junnie had merely stopped on her way to warn us. "So, is that what Junnie's doing here, searching for Fannie?"
"Not exclusively," Ruby said. "She has many arrows in her quiver."