Caiden toasted her with his wine glass. “You have a good eye! He’s half Enduenan, like me.” He grinned. “Are you much of a rider?”
She nodded eagerly. “I won races back home. Beat all the boys. I wasn’t technically supposed to even compete, but I did anyway.” Two years ago she’d skipped out on a week of history and dancing lessons to attend the Festival of Uerc and ride in the desert races—with Ayah’s help, of course. Traditionally, girls were not allowed to enter. Her mother had scolded her roundly afterward, but Talia could tell she was secretly proud. And there were more girls in the races the next year.
Caiden laughed. “You’ll have to try my gelding. Fastest horse in Ryn—not many people can handle him.”
“I could.”
He grinned at her. “Come to the stables tomorrow and we’ll see how good you really are.”
Guilt and excitement tangled up inside of her, and she finally glanced over at Wen.
Caiden looked at him, too. “If it’s all right with my little brother, of course.”
It was a challenge, and Wen lifted his eyes to meet Caiden’s. “You’ll do whatever you wish, without regard to me, or anyone. Just like you always do.”
Caiden held his gaze for a moment, and then laughed. “That’s a rather harsh assessment of my character.”
“But an accurate one.”
Caiden shrugged. “We’ll have to let Miss Dahl-Saida decide for herself.” He rose from his seat and bowed, smiling at her. “Until tomorrow, then. I’ve more work to do this evening.”
She smiled back. “Until tomorrow.”
And then he was gone, and she was alone with her fiancé.
Wen didn’t say anything to her, and she didn’t say anything to him. She sipped wine for a few uncomfortable moments before excusing herself and retreating upstairs.
She opened the window in her room, leaning her arms on the sill and breathing in the cold, briny air.
Was there something to what Caiden had said? Should she really attempt to return to Enduena and reclaim her homeland? He’d said Ryn would stand behind her—did that mean him?
From the depths of the house she heard the distant threads of melody: Wen, playing in the music room. His song was less eerie than that of the sea, but it held more sorrow.
If Talia wanted to see what the Baron was hiding up in the library, she was going to have to get hold of Ahned’s keys. She shadowed the Baron’s steward all the next morning, a host of excuses ready if he caught her following him.
She used the first one when he came up from the wine cellar and spotted her in the hall: “I’ve been looking for Dairon or one of the maids. I need a cup of tea.”
He frowned at her. “Breakfast will be served in half an hour, Miss Dahl-Saida. I expect you can wait until then.” And then he continued down the corridor.
She counted to twenty, and followed.
He climbed the stairs to the Baron’s tower suite, and Talia hid in an alcove, peering around the corner while he knocked on the door.
“My lord?”
She heard the Baron’s muffled voice from inside the room. “How is the sea, today?”
“It runs very quiet, my lord.”
“And the temple?”
Talia pressed her fingernails into the worn wood paneling, listening intently. Did he mean the door under the hill?
“Locked safe, my lord.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes, my lord. Shall I bring up your tea?”
“I’ll take it with my son this morning.”
“Then I shall send Master Caiden up at once, my lord.”
Talia ducked into the alcove again, flattening herself against the wall and tensing as Ahned walked by. This time she counted to twenty-five before going after him.
The steward went down to the kitchen, where he began to prepare his master’s tea. He filled a kettle and put it on the stove to boil, laid china out on a silver tray.
And then—to Talia’s surprise and triumph—he took the ring of keys from his belt and hung it up on a little nail inside the china cupboard. She couldn’t believe her luck.
Until Lyna appeared on the stairs with a basket of linens. “What are you doing here, Miss Dahl-Saida?” she inquired, far too loudly.
Ahned watched her suspiciously from the kitchen doorway, his arms folded across his chest.
She used another excuse: “I tore a seam in my gown—I didn’t know if it could be mended, or …?”
Lyna frowned over the linens. “You have plenty of other gowns to wear.”
“Oh. Well, yes, of course.” She tried to accentuate how flustered she was. “I just didn’t want it to show up unexplained in the laundry—”
Ahned shook his head as Lyna swept past her with the basket, her frown deepening. “It’s nearly time for breakfast, Miss Dahl-Saida. You needn’t worry about a ripped seam.”
Talia gave her a relieved smile and went up to the dining room, hoping Ahned wouldn’t need his keys again for a while.
She ate breakfast alone. Caiden was dining with the Baron, Ro told her, and Wen was working in the music room. “He often skips meals,” said the dark-headed maid as she poured tea. “Gets so lost in his music, he forgets what day it is.”
Talia kept herself from rudely remarking that Wen was perfectly free to go to Od any day he chose to pursue his dratted music. “Will the Baron and Caiden be long?”
“Oh yes, Miss. They’re likely to remain upstairs until dinner.” Ro gave her a bright smile and took her tray away.
Talia thought with a pang about Caiden’s riding invitation. Had he forgotten? As an engaged woman it wasn’t exactly appropriate for her to be alone with him for any length of time, but she doubted very much if the Baron would enforce those kinds of rules. Her conscience told her it was probably better this way—although her mental image of Ayah’s laughing face disagreed.
When she’d eaten, she slipped once more down into the servants’ domain, where she spotted Ro and Lyna busy in the laundry, and Ahned and Dairon chatting as they polished a mountain of silver. None of them saw her. She stepped into the kitchen, heart thundering, and opened the china cabinet.
There were the keys, still hanging on their hook.
She grabbed them, and hid the bundle of cold metal in the folds of her skirt.
Chapter Sixteen
TALIA CLIMBED THE STAIRS TO THE TOWER, her fingers sweaty around the key ring. She passed the door to the Baronesses’ suite, and kept climbing up to the landing with the Tree and Stars in the stained glass window, and the locked door.
She tried the keys one by one. Some fit the lock, but didn’t turn. Some didn’t fit at all. She was halfway through the ring when she found the right one—it fit, turned, clicked.
She twisted the handle and opened the door.
She stepped into a round chamber bathed in gray light, dust motes rising from the floor. An oriel window on the far end of the room looked north; she could see the ocean down below, crashing white upon the unyielding sand. A few erratic raindrops blew against the glass.
A fireplace lay to her left, ashes scattered on the stones. The remaining wall space was covered—floor to ceiling—in bookshelves, built into the curvature of the room.