“Addie, Your Majesty,” she says, her voice barely audible.
“Tell me, Addie.” The Queen’s voice is deep and resonant—like a physical thing, it takes up space in the room. “You would lay hands on your Queen?”
The girl trembles. “Your Majesty—I was just trying to help—”
“Quiet,” the Queen snaps. Roan and Liam and Lady Gold have stopped in their tracks to watch from an open doorway. Lady Gold chews on her bottom lip; Roan’s hand is on the small of her back. Liam, though, is staring intently at the Queen with narrowed eyes.
“Take her away,” the Queen orders. “I don’t want to see her on the grounds again.”
Addie’s mouth drops open, and I feel silent shock run through the servants. “Please!” Her desperation is clear in her voice. “Everless is my home. I didn’t mean anything!”
But before she can say anything else, Ivan is there, curling his fingers around her arm. Soon, a phalanx of guards closes in around them, obscuring both from sight.
I hear her weeping as they lead her away. We all do.
“My apologies, Your Majesty,” Lady Verissa says to the Queen. Even she looks shaken, her face paler than usual. “We will ensure the girl is appropriately punished.”
“She will be banished.” The Queen makes no effort to lower her voice. It sweeps over the crowd of servants, turns my heart cold. “Then take a year for every time she protests.”
Verissa hesitates a moment, but then says, “It will be done.” She gives herself a tiny, almost imperceptible shake and nods at Liam. He breaks from Ina’s and Roan’s side, drives forward into the gathering evening at our backs. He can be counted on to enforce the harsh terms: banishment.
“But you must be exhausted,” Verissa continues, the trill back in her voice. “Let us show you to your rooms.”
As we move forward, deeper into the estate, a final, faint sob travels through the corridor. It’s cut off by the sound of the Everless gates as they slam shut.
8
That night, still thinking of Addie and my father and longing for home, I fall into dark dreams.
There’s a forest, deep and black. Leafless trees rise as high as towers. Their branches are alive, reaching out, writhing . . . tearing at my hair, my clothes.
I run. Fear burns in my throat.
Then: I see a sickening trail of blood behind me, red footprints on the dark earth. They are mine. I am wounded, clumsy. I cannot escape. The world starts to shudder, and all the trees throw up their hands, twisting into a familiar shape—
Eyes. A pair of eyes.
My own eyes fly open, and for a moment in the cold, dark dormitory, I could swear I feel the trembling of the ground beneath me, as if part of my dream has carried over into the real world. Then I make out a shadowy figure above me, and open my mouth to scream. Immediately, a hand clamps down on my mouth.
A hand that smells, very faintly, of garlic.
“Hush!” Lora whispers. “It’s just me. Get up, child.”
I sit upright in bed, blinking until my eyes adjust. Lora stands by my bunk in her dressing gown. All around me, the other servants on their thin cots snore and shiver and murmur in the deep night, exhausted from cooking, serving, and clearing the first feast for the Queen.
“It’s too early,” I say, still confused, and half entangled in the strange dream. Who was I running from? I can’t remember anymore.
“Jules.” Lora grips my arm, fingers digging into my skin. She drops her voice further. “Your father.”
The words cut through my sleepiness like her sharpest carving knife. Seizing my dress where it hangs by my bed, I slip, shivering, out of the blankets and pull it on over my shift. I climb out too quickly, almost losing my balance. The woman next to me grumbles in her sleep as Lora catches me, pulls me past the sleeping servants into the hall.
When she’s shut the door behind us, I open my mouth, a hundred questions fighting one another on my lips.
That’s when I see him—Hinton, who I paid to take my father back to Crofton. He’s wearing the same clothes, though they’re now torn and stained with mud. He looks like he’s been crying, and as I shake off the last vestiges of sleep, I realize Lora does too. Her cheeks are blotchy, her eyes red.
I go cold.
Lora lays a hand on Hinton’s shoulder. “Tell her,” she says gently, and then, when he hesitates. “Go on. Out with it.”
Hinton stares down at his boots, avoiding my eyes.
“Tell me,” I command him, but the words sound distant, as if they’ve been spoken by someone else.
“I found your father in the cellars, like you said.” He’s shivering. The hair rises along my arms and at the nape of my neck.
“I took him aboveground right when the Queen was about to come in, so no one paid us any attention. But when I went to get a cart and horse, he . . . he . . . I lost him.” Hinton looks at me, his eyes pleading. “He didn’t wait. I told him to wait. I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you, but the Queen . . .”
“It’s all right,” I say, wanting him to stop.
“I looked all over for him, then a guard stopped me, started asking questions. When the moon rose, I finally found your father just outside the south entrance, by the lake. He was hurt.”
Was. Was. Was. “Hurt—how?” I choke out.
“He’d fallen down,” Hinton said softly. “And his hands were stained purple too.”
“Purple?” I blink, look between Lora and the boy. “I don’t understand.”
“Did he smell strange?” Lora asks.
Hinton nods fiercely. “A little. Sour. Like spoiled fruit.”
“Mava—the dye from the fruit is used for tracking purposes. The Queen’s guard coats their weapons with it, in case someone escapes them. But . . .” She pauses, eyes trained on me. “The Everless vault is painted with mava as well. So that if someone tries to get in, they are marked.”
My head spins. “Are you saying he tried to steal something from the Gerling vault? He would never . . .” I trail off, remembering the pale, desperate look in his eyes in the torchlight.
Lora says nothing, though her face is full of pity.
It takes me a moment to realize that Hinton is speaking again. “I tried to get him into the cart, but he wouldn’t go.”
His words have gotten quieter, and I have to move closer to hear him, though every instinct is screaming at me to flee, to bury myself in my bed and pretend this is just another terrible dream. But Hinton’s small voice fixes me to the spot. “He started seeing things. Talking to people who weren’t there.”
“Jules, how much time did he have left?” Lora’s voice is gentle, and I know what she’s saying—that Papa was out of time, that he went mad, that he tried to break into the Gerling vault for—for what?
I let her question hang in the air. It takes everything I have not to retch.