Now he heard a sharp, bright noise from the direction of the door. The mew of a cat. Which made no sense.
He sat up. The wounds on his arms from the bloodletting throbbed, but his head felt remarkably clear. He threw off the blankets and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Tested his strength.
Maybe he could stand.
He tried. He stumbled to the door and attempted to open it.
Locked.
The meow came again. There was a flicker of light under the doorway.
He swayed and put his hand against the rough oak of the door to steady himself.
“Hello?” he whispered.
“Edward,” came a faint, familiar voice on the other side of the door.
“Bess,” he breathed.
“I can’t stay,” she said, so softly he could barely hear her. “They’ll come back. They assume you’ll be dead by now, but they’ll come back to check. They wanted to make it look like you died of ‘the Affliction,’ but if they find you alive now, Edward . . .”
“Get me out of here.”
“I can’t. I don’t have the key. You have to go out the window.”
“Bess, it’s a fifty-foot drop.”
“You could climb it,” she suggested. “When you were a boy you were always such a climber. You were never afraid of heights.”
He snorted. Right. Climb down. But carefully, step by deliberate step, he walked to the window and pulled back the drapes. It was morning, the sun just breaching the palace walls. Below him, so far below, the courtyard stretched toward the river. Guards were posted at regular intervals.
No good.
“Bess?” he murmured.
“I’m here.”
“I can’t climb down. There’s got to be another way.”
She didn’t answer.
He moved back to the door and leaned against it. He felt stronger now, but he was also so tired that he almost couldn’t stand.
“I gave you a draught in the apricots to counteract the poison, but it won’t last,” Bess whispered. “You have to get out, Edward. Then go north. To Gran at Helmsley. She can help you. I’ll join you if I can.”
“How did you know they were going to come for me tonight?” His knees wobbled, but he fought to stay upright.
“There’s no time to explain,” she said. “You need to go. Now.”
“I would love to,” he said. “There’s only one problem. I’m currently locked in a tower.”
She sighed. “You’ll have to climb . . .”
“I’m too weak,” he said. “It’s too high up.”
“. . . or you will have to change yourself. You have to find your animal form.”
He would have laughed, but he was too shocked at the idea. “My animal form. You’re saying I’m an E?ian.”
“Your father was an E?ian,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Yes. I remember.” His hand formed into a fist against the door. “I’m not my father.”
“Your mother was an E?ian, too.”
His breath caught. “My mother?” He’d only ever seen a painting of her, fair and golden-haired and smiling a secret smile.
“I saw her change once,” Bess told him. “I was a child, but I never forgot. She could turn into a bird, Edward. A beautiful white bird.”
He held back a cough. “My mother.”
“It’s in your blood, brother. Both of your parents were E?ians, and so are you.”
How he wished that were true. But it had never happened. No matter how much he’d wanted it. “How do you know?”
“There’s no time,” she hissed. “They’re coming. Just do it, Edward. Find it inside yourself. I have to go.”
There was that flicker again, at the crack in the bottom of the door.
“Bess?” Edward whispered.
No answer.
He heard heavy footsteps at the bottom of the stairs.
“Bollocks,” he muttered to himself.
He staggered again to the window. The sky was pink against the horizon, growing brighter with every passing moment. A puff of wind touched his face, lifted his hair, filled his aching lungs with coolness. He closed his eyes.
I could change, he thought.
He wasn’t a lion. Deep down, he knew that. He’d always known it.
The footsteps were drawing closer.
He had a sudden thought. He crossed quickly to the bedside table, took out a quill and ink, and scrawled a message on the back of Jane’s letter.
She would think he was dead.
Maybe he would be.
Behind him, a key scraped into the lock.
He turned to the window.
This time, they would kill him. They would make sure of it.
He had to go.
He let his fur robe slip from his shoulders and onto the floor. He stepped up onto the windowsill.
Find it inside yourself, Bess had said.
He closed his eyes again. He thought of all the times he and Jane had tried to change themselves, to find the animal inside, and how it had never worked.
He thought of his mother, a beautiful white bird. His mother, whom he had no memory of. But perhaps she’d left him a gift in his blood.
Perhaps he could be a bird.
The door crashed open, but he didn’t hear it. He didn’t see Dudley burst into the room. He didn’t hear the duke’s shout.
Because he was falling.
And then he was flying.
And then the wind lifted him, filling his wings, and he left the palace behind.
ELEVEN