“You fit the description, you know,” he says.
I choke. “Of The Red? Do you see anything about me that’s red?” I ask.
The stranger shakes his head. “Not The Red. The girl wanted by the Dwellen crown.”
My blood runs cold. “I’m sure there are plenty of women out there who fit her description. Black hair and pale skin aren’t exactly anomalies. Or do you share your wit with the Prince of Dwellen and also believe all human women share the same shoe size?”
At that, the stranger chuckles, but not at all in a way that makes me believe I’ve deterred him.
“There’s more to the description than just hair and complexion,” he says, taking a sip from his own goblet. It shudders as he places it back on the table.
“Is there?”
He shrugs. “Perhaps not from the palace itself, but I have my own sources.”
“How very trustworthy,” I say. “A man with his own sources.”
He smiles, and if my heart weren’t racing from panic right about now, if I were a different girl in a different life, and Nox wasn’t in imminent danger, my heart might have fluttered from the stunning beauty of it.
But I’m not a different girl in a different life.
“It’s an underrated commodity—secrets,” the stranger says, his eyes twinkling with mischief.
“And pray tell,” I say, exaggerating my words because it’s the only way I can maintain my facade of calm at the moment. “What exactly are these secrets, and how do they resemble me? Tell me, is it my dainty stature? Or maybe how I lead with my left foot when I walk rather than my right?”
“Oh, it’s more concrete than that,” he says. “In fact, it’s not any one thing. I’m not so much of a fool as to make assumptions based on one or two similarities. But when there’s a multitude of evidence, well, I’d be a fool not to investigate, don’t you think?”
I eye him with feigned amusement. “Do tell,” I say, gesturing palm skyward.
“Well, as you reminded me earlier, there is your appearance,” he says, reaching for my hair and rubbing a lock between his fingers. I still instantly, my breath frozen in my chest. But before I can snap at him, he releases it nonchalantly. “But then there’s also your cloak.”
He runs his fingers over the fabric of my hood, lingering on one of the slits. “A human cloak with holes woven in specifically for pointed ears.”
I shrug him off, less than eager for this man to be touching me, even if it is only my hood. “I swiped it from a fae,” which isn’t true at all. I snuck it from a coat closet in the servants’ quarters before I left Othian.
He shoots me a knowing look. “Fae don’t typically feel the need to show off their pointed ears, now do they? What a shame it would be for the humans in Othian to go through the trouble of maiming themselves, only to be forced to cover up in the winter months.”
I roll my eyes. “Ah. So because my cloak was made in Othian, there’s no other possible explanation for how I got my hands on it than being the girl who’s on the run from the Crown? You’re right. I did mistake you for a fool, but now I’m convinced otherwise.”
He lets out a breathy laugh, and his entire face wrinkles with it, especially around the eyes. Despite myself, I feel the tension in my shoulders ease. “Very well. Onto the next set of incriminating factors, then. My sources found a guard who was present the night the girl escaped from the dungeons. Apparently, he was paid off by the girl’s stepmother, who sold the girl to a mysterious stranger. An austere fae female with pale white hair and a bracelet with a dangling ruby from her wrist. Now, who does that sound like to you?”
Again, my throat goes dry.
He smiles, and this time it looks sinister. “Perhaps the queen of the very kingdom in which I now find you? A girl with black hair and pale skin, wearing a uniquely Othian cloak.”
“Don’t you think if I was taken by the queen, I’d be locked away in her dungeons?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Maybe. Maybe not. But, oh, then there’s the fact that you don’t seem to have an affinity for reading.”
My spine goes stiff at the comment, and he must sense my shock, because he continues.
“Tutors who worked with the escapee report she was terrible at reading. That it didn’t come naturally at all. I couldn’t help but notice when you walked in that you asked the innkeeper for each of the rates, rather than reading the sign. And that once he pointed out the sign, you offered him an exceedingly generous tip. One that most would call unreasonable, even.”
My head is swimming, despite tasting none of the wine, and I’m cursing the old habit. I’d been so preoccupied with distracting the innkeeper from the embarrassment of not being able to read the sign, I’d forgotten I could read it. And in the process, given away not just my money, but my identity. “I’m sure I’m not the only illiterate human in Alondria,” I say, though it occurs to me immediately that I should have read the sign out loud, rather than confirm his suspicions.
“Perhaps not. But it’s all a bit suspicious, don’t you think?”
My heart pounds against my chest, but I steel it, reminding myself that I’m not the helpless girl I once was. No matter this man’s threats, he’s still only human, and I could rip his throat out before he got the chance to scream.
As long as he doesn’t drag me out into the sunlight first, that is.
And even if I do slaughter him, there are witnesses all around. Witnesses that only have to drag me into the town square, into the sunlight, if they wish to end me.
No, violence isn’t the way out of this.
“Fine,” I say, finally taking a sip of the wine just to prove to the man that I’m the one at ease, in control of the situation. “And if I was the runaway girl, then what? Do you intend to drag me back to Othian and turn me into the Crown? Because I assure you, I just left there, and on good terms with the Prince. So I doubt your bounty will go very far.”
To my surprise, the stranger doesn’t seem at all fazed by this revelation. “That’s fine. I don’t want you for your bounty. I want you for your partnership.”
I can’t help the shock from warping my face. “My partnership? My partnership in what, exactly?”
The stranger lowers his voice, though with the ruckus the faeries in the corner are making, I doubt it’s necessary. “Like I said earlier, what you call an infection, I call a Gift.”
My fingers tap against my knees. “Consider me in disagreement then,” I say, though my mind is flitting pages, turning through every person who knows about the parasite and trying to figure out which one is this stranger’s source.
As if reading my mind, he says, “Your friend Imogen can be quite talkative when she feels justified in her gossip.”
I roll my eyes. Of course Imogen, Ellie’s other, more bitter lady’s maid, would have been the one to sell all my information. She probably resents the Crown for not broadcasting it to all of Alondria.
