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At least my bones are intact.
The chatter in the dining room picks back up, carrying down the hallway as I make my way from the kitchen into the corridor. Instead of returning to the guests in the main dining room, as I should, I skim across the glossy hardwoods on the balls of my feet. I pass a few closed doors and scurry past the open dining room doors. Making it to the entryway, I duck down beside the foyer’s grand staircase. The oak railing curls outward in a dramatic flourish, offering me cover as I eavesdrop.
“—this combined with unrest about the taxes," an unfamiliar voice says in low tones. “Queen Wyetta requests your presence in Ryalle immediately.”
The queen’s caller.
Whenever the queen’s caller knocks, the lord leaves immediately. The palace is in the bustling port city of Ryalle, which controls most of Dovenak’s imports and exports. It’s an entire day’s ride south of our village of Lyson, which means he’ll be gone for a few days at least.
The lord curses. “Again?”
“Again.”
“I am hosting a dinner party,” Lord Edvin hisses. “We will leave in the morning.”
“We will leave now.”
“I refuse to entertain—”
“Due to your inability to properly monitor the Gleam, this cannot wait.“ The caller’s tone is bored, but I’m anything but. My ears perk up at the mention of the mysterious border that lies deep in the woods behind the lord’s house. “The situation has escalated. There is no room for debate.”
I hadn’t realized the lord was in charge of monitoring the Gleam—the portal between our realm of Dovenak and the fae realm of Avylon. Before tonight, I hadn’t thought anybody went near the Gleam. Other than Char’s make-believe stories, I don’t hear much about the fae. It’s almost like they don’t exist, more myth than reality.
But the Queen’s caller mentioning the Gleam, combined with Sir Dougrey’s gossip about the faerie forest eating people…it could mean the faeries are stirring up trouble.
I should be frightened. At the very least, I should be apprehensive. But I can’t help the way my stomach tightens and excitement prickles at the base of my neck.
“There’s a treaty in place,” Lady Nilda drawls, as if the caller is ignorant. “There is no threat from a few feeble sodding faeries. The queen can wait.”
“With all due respect, my lady,” the caller continues, “these matters do not concern you. But if you must know, the faeries are no feeble things. You might be thinking of pixies, which are notoriously tiny and adorable, but the bloody faeries, the shifters, the sirens—well, they’d eat a bitter-hearted shite like you alive, and use your scrawny femurs to pick their teeth clean.”
Lady Nilda squawks, and I slap a hand over my mouth to mute my own gasp. I squirm, discomfited by the caller’s words, but they have done nothing to quell my interest.
“Do something, Edvin! This Tradeling scum can’t talk to me like that.”
“First,” the caller says quickly before Lord Edvin can speak up, “I am not a Tradeling. Second, as an official employee of the crown, I outrank your status as small-town noble.”
There’s a silence and I carefully peek my head around the carved banister to witness the lady’s mouth gaping open. She shuts it and opens it a few times, like a fish. My lips curve up in a smirk, and it almost makes the sting on my arse worth it.
Her eyes swing in my direction and I duck down behind the banister, heart pounding against my rib cage. Quiet as a mouse—one of the perks of being out of sight and sound for so long—I scurry back to the dining room, as if I’d been there all along.
No one spares me any mind as I join Char’s side clearing dessert plates. She gives me a sidelong glance but says nothing. My cheeks heat, more embarrassed at letting her down than I would ever be for disobeying the lord.
Char and I work in a silent tandem, removing dishes from the dining room and bringing them to the kitchen. She hobbles around the room, and a pang of guilt hits my chest. While I was gone, she must’ve done double the work, even if it was only for a half-hour. It was enough time for pie to be served and finished by the greedy Lyson nobles.
As we’re heading back to the dining room, the front door slams shut and Lady Nilda rounds into the hallway.
“Woman!” the lady snaps at Char. I grit my teeth. ”Go arrange digestifs in the parlor for our guests. Now.”
“Yes ma’am.” Char bows her head slightly, limping down the hallway.
“You!” Lady Nilda sets her sights on me. She grabs my arm with her needle-like fingers, nails biting into my skin. Once she drags me into the kitchen, she flings me to the floor. My knees crack into the slick hardwood. “Clean the floors.”
“I just cleaned them before the guests—”
Her hand whips out and strikes me. My head jerks to the side, and I catch myself before tipping over.
“Are you talking back or are you cleaning?”
