“Hot soup,” Kel said, gravely. “Not every story is a heroic one.”
“You never know,” Lin replied, with equal seriousness. She finished rebandaging his injury and patted him lightly on the shoulder. “The soup could have been poisoned.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” said Kel, and retrieved his tunic with a laugh; it was the first time he had laughed in several days, and it felt like a weight lifted off him.
“Now,” she said, looking up at him as he rebuttoned his tunic, and he expected her to give him a piece of medical advice, instruct him to use the salve each day perhaps. “I did not only come here to see if you were healing.” She tucked a braid behind her ear. “The other night, when you were hurt, you said something about arrows, and then a name. Jeanne.”
He looked at her silently.
“But you were not saying Jeanne, were you? It was Ji-An. She’s the one who saved your life that night. She carried you up here—”
“She shot arrows at the Crawlers,” he said, shrugging on his jacket. “Killed several. I imagine they’re none too pleased about it. Lin, how do you know all this?”
“We both know him,” she said, quietly. “The Ragpicker King. We both know him, and we both shouldn’t. So I thought we could keep each other’s secret.” She held out a folded square of paper. “I didn’t come here because he asked me to,” she said, firmly. “I don’t even know how he found out I was planning to come to the Palace. But when I was leaving the Sault, a little boy ran up and shoved this into my hands. ‘Compliments of the Ragpicker King.’”
Kel took the paper gingerly, as if it were coated with black powder. “What does it say?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s addressed to you—”
A babble of voices exploded in the hallway. Kel could hear Antonetta’s voice, high and distressed, “Oh, don’t go in there, Conor, please don’t—”
And Conor’s voice. Familiar, and annoyed. “It’s my room, Ana,” and then Lin was on her feet, and the door was open, spilling Conor and Antonetta into the room.
Conor had clearly ridden Asti from the Alleyne estate; he had on his riding clothes, including a tooled-leather coat in hunter green. The placket and cuffs gleamed with brass studs. He wore no crown, and the wind had whipped his hair into a smoky tangle.
Quickly, Kel palmed the paper, tucking it into the sleeve of his jacket. It was not particularly skillfully done, but then, Conor was not looking at him. He was looking at Lin, and for a moment there was an expression on his face—an unaffected surprise and anger—that startled Kel. Conor rarely showed the truth of what he felt, unless that feeling was amusement.
The look was gone as soon as it had appeared. Calmly, Conor drew off one of his riding gloves and said, “I thought I had made it clear what my wishes were the last time you were here, Domna Caster.”
Antonetta stamped a slippered foot. “Conor, don’t be angry. I’m the one who brought her. I thought it was important for Kel—”
“I’ll be the judge of what’s important.” Conor tossed his riding glove onto the bed next to Kel, who raised an eyebrow at him. Conor ignored this. He also ignored Lin, who was standing with her back straight, her hands folded in front of her. Her cheeks were flaming bright red—anger or embarrassment, Kel did not know—but otherwise she had not reacted to Conor at all.
“Conor.” Antonetta tugged at the sleeve of the Prince’s jacket. “I heard you’d told her not to come back, but I thought you were joking. You’re always so funny.” She pouted up at him. “It’s not as if you’d be bothered by some little Ashkari girl. Not really.”
Conor drew off his second glove even more slowly than the first, seeming utterly absorbed in the task. And Kel realized, with a flicker of surprise, what Antonetta’s calculated show of na?veté was capable of. She had deftly disarmed Conor in a way that arguing with him could never have done. Even if he guessed her behavior to be part pretense, there was little he could do now to show his anger without looking a fool, or seeming as if he were truly concerned over the matter of Lin’s presence.
Conor tossed the second glove into the corner of the room. “How true, Antonetta,” he said, without a flicker of emotion. “You have such a generous heart. Such tolerance for others, regardless of their behavior.” He turned to Lin. “Have you finished examining Kel? And determined that competent care has been taken of him? Or is he dying as a result of the Palace’s negligence?”
Lin had picked up her satchel. “He’s healing very well,” she said. “But you knew that.”
“Yes,” said Conor, smiling coldly. “I did.”
Never had Kel felt more like a piece of flotsam, pulled between shifting tides. Conor would not blame him for any of this, he was aware—he had not known Lin was banned from Marivent—yet he could think of nothing he could say to ameliorate the situation. A strange energy seemed to pass between Lin and Conor, like the charge given off by amber when it was polished with cloth. Was it just that Lin seemed not to understand the way she was meant to speak to Conor? That one showed deference to a prince? Or had something happened the night Lin had healed him, something more than her request for Conor to leave the room?
Conor turned to Antonetta, who was regarding Lin and Conor with a look of consideration on her face. Kel, not for the first or last time, wondered what she was really thinking. “I am sure you have more fashionable and interesting things to be doing, Ana,” Conor said. “Go home.”
Antonetta wavered but stood her ground. “I’m meant to bring Lin back to the city—”
“I’ll make sure Domna Caster gets home safely,” said Conor. Most would have turned smartly on their heel at his tone; Antonetta looked at Lin, who nodded, as if to say, It’s all right, go ahead.
At the door, Antonetta paused. She looked back over her shoulder—not at Conor, Kel thought with surprise, but at him. There was something in her eyes, a sort of guarded playfulness, that said, I pulled this off, and we both know it.
But there was nothing he could say aloud. She left, the door drifting closed behind her, and something in Kel wondered: Was this how it was to be now? Antonetta Alleyne, popping in and out of his life with no warning? He did not like the thought. He preferred to be able to prepare himself to see her. Jolivet had taught him for years the dangers of being caught off guard.
“So,” said Kel, turning to Conor, “I take it your meeting with Lady Alleyne was cut short?”
But Conor didn’t answer. He was studying Lin, who had slung her satchel over her shoulder. “I must go,” she said. “I have other patients to see this afternoon.” She nodded awkwardly at Conor and said, “You need not worry I will return. Kel requires nothing more from me.”
“Kel?” Conor echoed. “What a familiar way for a citizen to address a noble.”
Lin’s eyes flashed. “It must be my terrible ignorance speaking. All the more reason I should leave you to your afternoon.”
Conor pushed a hand through his sweat-dampened hair. “I will escort you to the North Gate, then.”