Well, she wasn’t here.
I brought the candle close to the paper, but found no traces of powder. There were no unusual scents, either.
It was probably safe.
I slipped the paper from beneath the bottle and unfolded it. The note was in Tobiah’s handwriting. A strained laugh escaped my throat. All that work, and the intruder turned out to be a boy dying just a few doors down the hall.
Wilhelmina,
I’m sorry I didn’t visit you after the Inundation. I should have.
Please forgive me for what I’m about to do; know that it is duty and honor that compel me to act against my true feelings. You were correct when you said I need to decide who I am.
No matter where my heart leads, I must become who my kingdom needs me to be.
With greatest affection,
Tobiah Pierce
My heart twisted, and tears in my eyes made halos grow around the words.
He must have written this right before he announced the date of his wedding to Meredith—winter solstice—during the minutes he’d left James’s side to deliver a list of places in Aecor Patrick might have gone.
Unfortunately, Patrick had been on his way here.
To shoot Tobiah.
Maybe I hated the prince, but I loved the vigilante, and now he was dying.
My feelings had been complicated enough when I’d believed they were separate people, but now that Tobiah Pierce was Black Knife . . .
Black Knife was Tobiah Pierce . . .
And where was Connor?
My breath came hard and fast as I placed the letter on the table once more, and smoothed out the corners. My weapons had been taken away, but not my clothes.
I glanced at the window. Nearly dark.
“Wraith boy.”
In the corner, he perked up and tilted his head. “Yes, my queen?”
“From the balcony, can you lower me to the ground?” Being on the third story, I wasn’t keen to climb down without my grappling hook and line. My first night in this suite, I’d checked the outside wall for any footholds, but without tools, there’d been nothing but a high probability of two broken legs.
“It isn’t for me to question my queen, but”—he shifted his weight—“can’t you simply walk out? Are you a captive?”
I glanced at the letter on the table, the beautiful room that had been my prison for three days, and the crown prince’s blood staining my gown. Black Knife’s blood. “Can you do what I asked?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Then you’re going to help me escape.”
THREE
IN MY BEDROOM, I stripped off the bloodied gown and hunted through a wardrobe until I found a dark shirt and trousers. Finally, the haunting sense of internment lifted. James said I shouldn’t leave the palace, but this was something I needed to do.
Because as much as I disliked the prince, I was relying on Tobiah to help me reclaim my kingdom.
If he died, I would truly be a hostage here.
Resolved, I moved toward the front door and rested my fingers on the lock. Just then, footfalls slammed through the hall, toward the crown prince’s apartments. I held my breath as they shouted for another physician, but there was no word on his condition.
I twisted the lock, and the bolt fell into place with a heavy thunk. A breath went by before Sergeant Ferris noticed and began rattling the handle, but I was halfway to the balcony already. “Help me to the ground,” I told the wraith boy. “Then I want you to hide under the bed”—surely he couldn’t hurt anything there—“and if anyone asks where I went, just tell them I will return soon.”
He followed me to the balcony. Stars crowded the sky, their faint shine glowing across the woods at the back of the palace. Gleaming remnants of the king’s glasshouse shimmered below. Cold air blew in from the west, buffered by the palace.
“Do you remember my instructions?”
“Yes, my queen.” He’d grown bigger outside, ready to follow orders. The acrid stink of wraith came off him, making my eyes water. “I will hide under the bed. I will tell anyone who asks that you’ll return soon.”
“Good.”
“Princess!” Sergeant Ferris was knocking at the door. “What’s going on?”
“Hurry.” I scrambled over the balcony rail so I faced out, my heels on the very edge, my calves and thighs pressed against the wrought iron. “Quickly, but carefully. Remember, if I die, you’ll be inanimate again.” As far as I could guess anyway. “I assume you have some sense of self-preservation?”
He sniffed, almost an offended sound, as he gently took me around the waist. Suddenly I was in the air.
My toes stretched for the ground, touching nothing as air whooshed around me. I was dropping.
Dropping.
Very.
Slowly.
Inside the room, the door banged open and James shouted something, but finally my toes touched the ground. The wraith boy’s hands slipped off my sides and the odor of wraith retreated.
“What are you doing?” cried James.
“My queen will return soon.”