“I was.” The flickering light twisted the lines of Kiri’s face.
“What did he want?”
The priestess’s face remained implacable, the flame from her shadow-gray candle dancing in her eyes. “The same thing you did, that night in the Shrine.”
A shiver rolled through Neve’s shoulders. “You told him how to save her.”
No answer. Just silence, just jittering shadows on the wall from Kiri’s gray candle.
“But how do you know?” Her voice sounded so small in the dark. “How do you know what happened to Red, how do you know how to get her back?” A shaky swallow. “Why didn’t you tell me first?”
Kiri’s hand reverently closed around her branch-shard pendant. “Since I was a child,” she said quietly, “long before I joined the Order, I have served the Kings. I have been guided by them to seek clarity, to know the true ways of things. It is not everyone who can be trusted with truth, Highness. It is a volatile thing, a fearful thing.” Her grip on her pendant tightened. “Caution is key, and moving in secrecy to make way for moving in light.”
“I can be trusted.” Neve nodded, only once, though the movement was sure to knock loose the start of a headache. “I want the truth, Kiri.”
Silence and wavering candlelight, cold blue eyes watching her, taking her measure. Kiri’s hand twitched on her pendant again. A dark, copper-scented smear marred the pad of one finger, and her eyes fluttered closed as she pressed it to the wood, almost as if she were listening to something.
Her eyes opened as she released her pendant. “Come.” Kiri resumed her slow glide down the corridor, taking the only light source in the hall and leaving Neve in darkness. How late was it? Why were none of the sconces lit?
Neve stared after her. “Where are you going?” It wasn’t accusing. It was genuinely curious.
The flame’s flicker caught the edge of a small, secretive smile as Kiri glanced over her shoulder. “Come,” she repeated, then turned toward the door to the gardens.
To the Shrine.
The priestesses filtered outside, hands cupped around the flames of their candles to guard them from the night breeze. Neve shifted back and forth on her feet. “Kings on shitting horses.” Soundlessly, she followed after them, out into the dark.
None of them looked at her as they walked silently down the garden paths, gliding like a sea of ghosts. The moon was new, and the deep night turned the shapes of the hedges beastly, made every arch a waiting monster.
Into the mouth of the Shrine, back toward the gauzy dark curtain. Kiri ducked in first but didn’t hold it open, making every priestess enter separately so no glimpse could be caught of the room beyond.
She knew what was back there, but gooseflesh still prickled over Neve’s skin.
The last priestess disappeared through the curtain. Neve took a deep breath. Then she ducked through, too.
The miniature Wilderwood. The priestesses, ringed around it with their odd gray candles. But something was different. The branch shards were marked, smeared with darkness. Blood? But no, the color was wrong, the scarlet of it marked through with threads of black. Kings, her head hurt.
“Neve?”
She whirled around. Arick stood behind her. A bandage wrapped around his hand, streaked crimson. In the center of his palm, a dark spot radiated on the white fabric like a miniature sun.
His weary face broke into a genuine smile. “I found a way.”
Chapter Eleven
I t took her nearly four days, as best she could count in the perpetual twilight of the Wilderwood, to work out a plan. Red spent the time mostly in her room, surrounded by her books, letting the familiar passages be an escape. She was good at escaping.
Strange and nebulous though her days felt, there was at least somewhat of a rhythm to them. Three meals in the tiny kitchen behind the seldom-used dining room, sometimes with Fife or Lyra, sometimes alone. The cupboard was well stocked with simple fare, and though her culinary skills were next to nonexistent, she was in no danger of starving. Fife was mostly silent, and Lyra was cordial but distant.
And when the sky darkened toward violet, if she was anywhere near the foyer, she’d see Eammon.
The first time was an accident, the day after he saved her from the shadow-creature that looked like Arick. Having read through most of the books she brought, Red went down to the library to look for more. The venture was successful— a shelf in the back corner was stacked with novels and poetry books, all with the scuffed covers and dog-eared pages that spoke of frequent use.