“Worried?” She snagged a roll from a basket passing over our heads and split it open. Steam escaped in thin, curling clouds.
I nodded and passed the butter crock.
“We go see the kareeyatids tonight, yes?” Malita asked. “Maybe they have his note.”
“That was the plan. You’ll come with me?”
Eyebrow arched, she gave me a tart look, an obvious pronouncement about the idiocy of my question.
“I didn’t want to presume.”
“I do not know presume.” In a short time, the Fantazikes’ legendary language skills had rubbed off on my friend. She now spoke passable Inselgrish along with a smattering of other Continental languages. Her mind was sharp, an asset an aspiring queen should seize for her own benefit, but Malita had her own burdens to sort through, and I hesitated to add mine to her collection.
“I hoped you would go with me,” I said, “but it’s a long ride. Maybe you have something else you need to do instead.”
“I need to go.” Her gaze shifted to Niffin, and she frowned. “I need to breathe.”
Smothering a snicker, I stuffed a mound of rice in my mouth. In only a few months, Malita and Niffin had become like an old couple settled in their ways. They were loving and sweet, except when they bickered. Which was often. “What if Niffin insists on coming with us?”
She narrowed her eyes at me and scowled. “Do not tell him.”
I coughed, almost choking on my rice. “Okay.” I cleared my throat and swallowed a sip of wine. “Meet me outside the Charosvardo after supper. We’ll ride into the city together.”
***
Adaleiz, my sweet gray mare, tramped a muffled clip-clop over the dusty trail leading from the Fantazikes’ fairgrounds. Malita shifted behind me, and the saddle creaked. She had threaded her thin brown arms around my waist, and her body heat soaked through my Thunder Cloak, a comfort against the chill night breeze blowing from the sea. She smelled like lilacs from the Tippany family’s homemade soap.
I savored the moment of quiet and the pleasure of my friend’s embrace. Before long, we’d likely be separated again, she on her own path and me on mine—unless I asked her to go with me to Inselgrau. Though I still wasn’t sure I should. “Have you decided on anything, yet?” I asked, patting her hand. “You and Niffin, I mean.”
They loved each other, obviously, but the stress of uncertainty strained their relationship. The Fantazikes had never let an outsider live among them, and Malita had told me she missed her family in Nri. Would she leave them to live in a faraway country, acting as an advisor to a foreign queen? It seemed unlikely.
“I will not ask him to leave his family for me.” She pressed her hand to her chest over her heart. “But I hurt when I think of my mother. My sister.”
“Homesick,” I said. “I know that feeling, and I don’t even have a home to long for.”
You have me, whispered a quiet voice in the back of my mind. My grandfather was silent for long stints, sleeping, perhaps, or whatever spirits did when they weren’t babbling in my ear, nagging me about the proper tone and posture for commanding storms. In the beginning, his ghostly presence had been strange, but I’d grown used to him. Now, I liked knowing I wasn’t entirely alone as far as family was concerned.
Indeed, I thought. I do have you, Grandfather, and I’m glad you’re here.
The dusty road turned to cobblestones, and both foot and carriage traffic multiplied as we entered Petragrad. Adaleiz’s hoofbeats blended with the traffic clatter, echoing off tall, brick buildings lining either side of the street. Flames flickered in the streetlamps, chasing away the evening gloom, and the city smelled of coal smoke, fish, and burning oil.
We followed the streets to the city’s center where Troitsky Zerkov, Trinity Church, stood with its three domed spires shaped like fat onions painted in bright patterns. After I’d tied Adaleiz’s reins to a nearby lamppost, Malita and I climbed the steps at the church’s rear entrance, and I banged on the door. When a red-robed kareeyatid answered, I crooked my knee in a brief curtsey. “Monahínja Vera?” I asked, naming the sister who’d promised to act as point-of-contact for Gideon’s messages, if and when he sent them.
When the priestess saw my face, her eyes blinked wide, and she grinned. “Zhdaht,” she said, holding up a finger—a command to wait, if I was interpreting her tone and body language correctly. She quietly closed the door, and Malita and I stood on the stoop together, waiting for her return. The church’s service entrance opened to an alley filled with empty crates, and I watched a rat creep out from one box and sniff the air before scampering away. Malita muttered something under her breath in a tone of disgust, but I didn’t ask her to interpret.
I began to wonder if we’d been forgotten when the door swung open again, and an older woman—Sister Vera, I presumed—stepped out. She clutched a folded bit of parchment tied in a string and sealed with a lump of beeswax. At the sight of it, my heartbeat surged, drumming an anxious rhythm.
“Evelyn, ja?” she asked in Dreutchish. When I nodded, she presented the parchment, and I tried not to snatch it from her fingers. “Gideon sent this for you. We received it yesterday afternoon, but we have not had time to send a messenger. I apologize, I know you must have been anxious to receive it.”
I curtsied and squeezed her hand, pressing a coin into her palm. “Thank you, sister. Your assistance is most appreciated.”
She nodded and retreated into the church’s dark interior, closing the door silently behind her. Malita and I remained on the stoop while I read Gideon’s message in the pale glow of the lantern hanging by the steps. “What does he say, Evie?”
“He says he’s well, but unable to meet me in person.” Frowning, I read ahead. “He’s got information that’s too dangerous to send in the open. He’s booked me passage on a ship leaving from Petragrad in two days, and he wants me to go incognito to—” My stomach dropped to my feet, and bitter acid rose in my throat. “H-he wants me to go to Steinerland. There’s someone there who’ll have more information for me. Someone he trusts.”
“Steinerland?” Malita recoiled, her dark eyes filling with horror. “Is that where...?”
“Indeed.” I stuffed Gideon’s note in my cloak pocket and tried to ignore the dread squirming like snakes in my gut. “It’s Lord Daeg’s stronghold.”
“What if Lord Daeg finds you?”
Descending the steps into the alley, I lead Malita back to my horse. “It’s too late for Daeg to transfer my birthright to his son like he’d planned. If he found me now, I’m not sure what he’d do. Try to force me to be his slave, maybe.” Or perhaps he’d simply kill me in a fit of jealous rage. Either way, Steinerland was the last place in the world I wanted to return to, but if I didn’t, I might never find my way back to Gideon, or to Inselgrau.
“Will you go?” Malita clutched my hand, staring at me with a puckered brow, her round face full of concern.
I nodded. “I don’t see how I have much of a choice.”
CHAPTER 2
~~~
The late summer sun beat on my back and shoulders, raising sweat along my hairline. I abandoned the security of my Thunder Cloak, packing it away in my saddle bags and choosing, instead, to ride in only my muslin shirt and long indigo skirt—the customary attire I’d been wearing since joining the Fantazikes.
The Tippany family and I had said goodbye before, so this time we avoided making a fuss. In fact, their farewells were almost curt enough to sting. Puri handed me a bag of rolls and a hunk of cheese, gave me a brief hug, and disappeared into the Charisvardo’s cool interior. Melainey paused in her chores long enough to drop off packet of books from her personal collection. Emorelle watched with a detached gaze as Timony bowed and pressed a kiss to each of my cheeks. “I am certain we will see you again soon enough,” he said with a wink. Then he marched away, heading for the hold of his ship.
Emorelle patted my shoulder, but her expression seemed grim enough to raise hairs along my arms and neck. “Safe travels,” she said, her voice thin and brittle, and departed without a backward glance.
Niffin and Malita had made no appearance at all, and I left my horse near the Charisvardo’s starboard bow while I went looking for them. Oddly, I found them together, both packing another set of saddlebags strapped to a chestnut Rhemony, standing patiently outside Justina’s ship. Malita wore Fantazike attire as well, but while I preferred keeping my hair in a braid, she favored wearing a scarf wrapped around her close-cut curls, and today she had chosen a bright yellow one that complemented the ochre undertones in her brown skin.
“What are you two doing?” I asked, brow furrowed, hand on my hip.
Niffin’s mouth slit into a grim line. His broad-brimmed hat shaded his pale skin from the sun. “Coming with you.”
His words stunned me stupid. “Wait.... What?”
“Justina’s orders.” His nostrils flared. “Since there is now a treaty between the future queen of Inselgrau and the Fantazikes, she decided you needed an ambassador to go with you and make everything official. And, also, to help you keep your head attached to your shoulders long enough to reclaim your throne.”
I pointed at him. “And that ambassador is you?”
“Apparently.”
Huh. Now I understood the undercurrent of hostility swirling among the Tippany family. I swung my finger to Malita. “Did you have anything to with this?”
Her brown eyes flicked upward, and she stared innocently at the sky.
I huffed. “I don’t want to offend Justina, or imply that I’m not grateful, but I don’t want to start out on the wrong foot with you, Niffin. Your family, and your clan, have already given more than I could ask for. If you don’t want to come, I’ll talk to Justina—”
“No.” Niffin’s posture stiffened, and his violet eyes blazed with a cold, purple light. “If this is what Justina wants, then I will honor her orders.”
