James wrinkled his nose. “You think he’s naked?”
“I told him to put on his clothes, but that was this morning.”
“Great.” James knocked on the music room door and entered.
A loud whack hit the wall: wood crashing. “What are you? You don’t belong.” The wraith boy’s voice rose an octave. “Leave!”
I threw open the music room door to find the piano bench in pieces and a gash torn in the wall paneling. James stood just a step away from the demolished bench, his chest heaving. “Wil.” He spoke between clenched teeth. “I think you should send Ferris for more guards.”
The wraith boy’s posture shifted with unnatural quickness. One moment, he was huge and hunched, ready to grab the piano and hurl it at James. The next moment, he resumed his normal size and shape, and bowed his head. “My queen. Hello.”
“What’s going on?” I forced the shaking out of my voice, keeping it low and dangerous.
“This”—the wraith boy bared his teeth at James—“man is not what he says he is. He’s deceiving you, my queen. He’s not real.”
I moved inside the room and stood beside James. Splinters of wood caught in my day dress, scraping the floor. “James is my friend, and he’s in charge of palace security. If he sees you as a threat, he will not hesitate to force you to leave.”
The wraith boy sniffed. “Only my queen commands me.”
“And I would agree with him. Behave.” I spun and exited the room, head high, but my heart thudded painfully against my ribs.
James closed the door after him, softly. “This is a problem. No one bothered him last night once he hid under your bed, but what if they had? What would he have done?”
“I don’t know.” My head buzzed with adrenaline. “What do you think he meant about you? You’re not who you say you are? As far as I can see, you’re the only one of us who is exactly what he says.”
“I wish I knew.” Worry and confusion crossed his eyes, but he said nothing more. I wasn’t his confidante, after all. “Give me a moment while I have the hall cleared. Then let’s get this over with.”
SEVEN
DEAD QUIET. THE hallway through the Dragon Wing had never known such silence.
Men wearing Indigo Order uniforms lined the walls, their faces hard and drawn. Swords gleamed in the bright light, every blade lifted and angled in a guarded stance. The steel was polished to a mirror finish, and none of the men so much as moved as James, the wraith boy, and I strode down the hall. Sergeant Ferris came behind us.
A canvas sack covered the wraith boy’s pale head, since some of the soldiers were superstitious about his eyes.
They were too unreal, too wraithy.
One look and he could turn you into a wraith beast, or a glowman.
If your eyes met his, you’d go blind.
James had related all the rumors while we prepared the wraith boy for transfer, and now we walked on either side of him, daggers pressed against his throat. Of course, the daggers were just for show because I had no idea if being cut or stabbed would hinder him at all. He wasn’t human.
“One, two, three, four . . .” The numbers were muffled under the wraith boy’s sack.
“Stop it.” I elbowed the wraith boy.
“I’m counting the weapons,” he murmured, as though it were completely natural.
“Do it silently.” It wasn’t as if he could see the weapons through the sack, right?
He sighed, but was quiet as we continued through the hall.
Twenty paces ahead, a pair of guards opened a plain, almost hidden door. They waited with their hands on their swords, expressions stoic.
Seventeen paces to go. A soft, breathy noise came from under the sack, like someone exhaling in quick bursts. Like smothered laughter.
Fourteen paces.
“Not real.” The sack twisted as though the wraith boy was looking at James. “Not real.”
Ten paces.
“Shall I order you to stop speaking?” I asked.
The wraith boy gasped and fell silent again, but a bubble of tension formed around him, an almost physical force.
Six paces.
The wraith boy’s knuckles were white at his sides. Tendons stuck out along his hands and wrists. He was a thing of tightening fury, growing denser before he exploded.
Two paces.
James signaled the soldiers to back away from the door, then glanced at me behind the wraith boy, his eyebrow lifted. I nodded, and he stayed put as I took the last step to the storage room.
It wasn’t much of a space, just a narrow area that used to hold cleaning supplies or linens—something maids or servants might need to fetch quickly for the royal family.
“In you go.” I lowered my dagger and touched one hand to the back of the wraith boy’s jacket, not firmly. Still, the tension in the wraith boy’s hands and shoulders unwound, and he stepped into the room without protest.
He stayed right by the door, just on the other side of the threshold, and didn’t move.