"It buttons up the back." She smiled and walked over to me. "I'll help you, but as a friend, not as a servant."
"You're going to kill me if I don't do what you want. We're not friends, Trina."
That stopped her in her tracks, though she recovered quickly enough. Her mouth pinched into a tight line as she walked forward again to unbutton my dress.
I knew it was unkind, the way I had just spoken to her. But between her and Simon, I was having a hard time finding air of my own to breathe.
When she finished, she backed up, cocking her head away from me. "Do the rest yourself, then. I'm going to sleep here in the room with you. And since I have the only weapon, I'm taking the bed."
"Fine." She'd sleep more comfortably there, more deeply. As soon as I was certain she was asleep for the night, I was sneaking out.
The biggest trick of the evening was silently changing from my nightclothes into a tunic and trousers. Fortunately, they had been a little large on me three years ago, so although they were tight now, I could still move in them better than I would in a nightdress. Or in any dress, for that matter. They were also dark in color, so I could blend into the walls.
Trina had stirred while I changed, but she was undoubtedly exhausted from the previous couple of days, an advantage I was happy to exploit. I removed the silver key from its hiding place behind the loose panel, and tucked it in a pocket of my trousers. Then I entered the corridor with caution, expecting Simon to be watching the door, but he wasn't there. That was a surprise, and a relief.
I had two purposes for leaving. The first was to find a knife. I was used to having one hidden on me at all times, and I hadn't liked the feeling of its absence. This wasn't particularly difficult to do. Extra weapons were always kept hidden at Woodcourt in the event of an attack. The one I found was behind a hutch in the music room, at the bottom of the stairs from my room. Two knives were there, in fact. The first was longer and had an exquisite silver handle with inset quartz lines. But I didn't need a beautiful knife, I wanted a sharp one. So I took the second knife, ivory-handled with the Dallisor name carved into it, as most of our knives had. If I bothered to stab someone in the next several hours, I might as well do it right. After I returned to my room, the knife would go into the garter on my leg. For now, I tucked it in the waist at the back of my trousers. Darrow always kept his knives in the waistline of his trousers too. Not for the first time, I wished he was here.
From there, I crossed the vestibule into the east wing of the home, to the master apartments. My father's were to the left, and he was probably in there for the night. My mother's rooms were to the right, at the rear of the house. I listened for several minutes to be certain all was quiet. If I was caught, I had an excuse ready, but I didn't want to tell any more lies involving her. My mother wasn't like the other Dallisors. As it was for me, marriage had been planned for her, and I'd always felt a part of her resented that.
It was possible that after her death, my mother's things had been removed from her apartments. If so, then coming here was an unnecessary risk and a waste of time. Yet I couldn't sleep with so many unresolved questions in my mind. After my rescue from the Banished, everything had happened in a blur before I was sent away. And if I found the Olden Blade for Simon and Trina, I'd never be allowed back here. I'd lose every connection with my mother.
Lily Dallisor had been feminine, soft-spoken, and infinitely kind. For most of my life, I had never understood how she could have produced a child like me. Perhaps I took after my father, a thought that pierced my heart. Was that why he constantly rejected me, because he saw the worst of himself in my eyes? If I had been anything like my mother, maybe he would have loved me more.
Loved me at all.
Coming back home from my kidnapping four days later, with a father who resented me and no mother to comfort me, had been devastating. It was a relief to be sent away to the Lava Fields. I wished I was still there.
At least when I entered the apartments, I noticed everything of hers was exactly as I remembered it, which was little surprise. For as poorly as my father thought of me, he'd always worshipped my mother, and this was her sanctuary, still holy to him. Proof of that was in the gold ribbon trim around her bedding. My father had defied Lord Endrick to preserve her memory. Beyond that, her gowns were still in her wardrobe, her bed had the same quilts piled on top, and near it, a silver tea set was at her writing desk, as if she might call for more tea at any time. The room smelled faintly of her, though that had to be my imagination. She wasn't here.
I swallowed that aching thought and set to work exploring the room, careful not to disturb anything and especially careful not to make noise. The more involved I got in the search, the more difficult my lie would be if I was caught. It was one thing to be in her room--I could always say I missed her and had just wanted to see it. But how would I explain why I had come here in trousers rather than my nightclothes? And why I was on my back beneath her bed, searching between the boards and mattress? The answer to that question would absolutely require a lie, one I had yet to invent.
What I was looking for was simple: a blanket she'd knitted in anticipation of my birth. However, what I really wanted was far more complicated.
Darrow and I had planned for this search from the moment I'd been summoned home. Or, rather, we had gotten into a fight about this search after he heard I intended to do it, with or without his help.
"Woodcourt is not a place where you should go about digging for secrets," he said. "There will be consequences for any answers you find."
"And what is the alternative?" I'd argued. "A lifetime of ignorance? I accept the consequences, whatever they are."
"You cannot possibly know what you are accepting. But if you insist on doing it, I'll be there with you, and answer whatever questions I can."
"The blanket will be there." I'd spoken forcefully, believing enough willpower might make my hopes true. "You'll see, Darrow, it's there."
But maybe it wasn't.
I searched as carefully as I could, tears welling in my eyes as it became increasingly obvious that no amount of wishing could make the blanket real. How many times had I begged to see it when I was younger, to see the gift her fingers had lovingly and carefully created for me? Hundreds of times, at least, but her answer was always the same.
"It's kept safe beneath my bed," she'd whisper. "Safe where our enemies will never find it."
Also, too difficult to access while she was in her elaborate gowns, she assured me. The problem was, she was always in those beautiful dresses. Words do not exist for how much I had wanted to see that blanket over the past three years. It was proof that I was hers and she was mine. Just once, I needed to see it, to imagine her holding it, holding me in her arms.
But the blanket was not here.
"What are you doing?"
I shot up so quickly that I banged my head on the panels propping up the mattress, loosening them with a clunking sound. Maybe the whole bed was about to collapse on me. It might be a blessing if it did. That was Gerald's voice.
"Come out and talk with me," he said. "I won't speak to the bottoms of your feet."
He sat on a stool beside my mother's vanity, waiting while I wormed my way out. Once I did, I sat cross-legged on the floor and waited for him to speak first. This wasn't polite, admittedly, but I had my reasons. The knife I'd taken was still in the back waistline of these trousers. I couldn't risk it being seen.
"I asked you a question." Gerald's patience was already wearing thin.
"You are my servant, and not the other way around." I hoped the force of my voice would intimidate him. "You have no right to question me."
"Do you wish your father to ask these questions?" He started to rise from his stool.
"I missed my mother, and wanted--"
"If you intend to lie, you can do better than that." At least he sat again.
I forced a smile. "If I could do better, I assure you, I would have."
He didn't enjoy the joke, and instead
clasped his hands and leaned forward. "I suggest a game, my lady. You reveal a secret to me, and I will reveal one to you."
"I won't play that game."
"You are playing it already! Making guesses of who to trust, and who trusts you. Who knows what? Who is hiding behind which mask? You are playing the traitor's game, and no matter how well one wins, even the winner loses in the end." He sat up straight again. "Now, you will answer my question, then I'll answer yours. Do you believe that Lord Endrick has magic, that he is immortal?"
Endrick was Endrean, and all Endreans had magic beyond my understanding. Endrick had the power to acquire the magic from whomever he killed, and he used that power to increase his abilities by extinguishing his own people. I'd been told he could ignite fires with a snap of his fingers, heal himself, and track his soldiers with his mind, allowing him to amass armies in half the time an enemy could. I didn't understand his magic, but I'd seen some of his powers for myself. No sane person would test themselves against him.
"Lord Endrick is not immortal," I whispered. "But his magic would make him seem that way. Do you know of anything inside Woodcourt that could change that?"
"You mean the Olden Blade, of course. I know Woodcourt has been searched thoroughly. Officially, Lord Endrick has now claimed there is no Olden Blade and never was." Gerald tilted his head, more blue than usual in the moonlight. "But we both know differently."
I weighed my response carefully. The consequences of telling him too much were disastrous. "Do you know where the Olden Blade is?"
"It's my question, my lady. If you found the Olden Blade, what would you do with it?"
My heart skipped a beat. Several beats, actually, leaving a deep pain in my chest. Tracing my finger along a crack in the floor, I said, "Whoever finds it must use it for good, to help Antora." Now I looked up at him, adding, "Is there any difference between loyalty to my father and loyalty to Antora?"
"An interesting question." He hesitated long enough to weigh his own answer. "If there is any difference, I love my country first."
"I don't believe you are loyal to the Dominion." My breath lodged in my throat. "You're one of the Banished ... I mean, the Halderians."
His eyes shifted for the briefest moment before they returned to me, a spark of worry in them now. "How do you know that?"
"When I was kidnapped, I overheard talk about a spy inside Woodcourt, a highly placed servant. I think it's you." Gerald lowered his head and nodded, acknowledging that I was right. But I wasn't finished. "Most of the Halderians wanted me dead, but not all. Whose side are you on?"
Now Gerald met my eyes. "I'm on Antora's side, my lady. I'm on Darrow's side. And if both of those describe you, then I'm on your side most of all. Who are these so-called servants you brought into Woodcourt?"
It was my turn to hesitate, longer than Gerald had. "Simon and Trina are ... not on the same side as me."
"They are not on the same side as each other, Kestra!"
This was something I'd already guessed, though hearing it from Gerald worried me. "Are you going to tell my father that I was here tonight?"
"What I report to Sir Henry Dallisor depends on why you're here."
I shrugged again. "When I was with the Halderians, they told me to search this room for the truth about myself. I never had the chance to do it before I was sent away. Darrow promised to help me search after we came home. I think he knew what I would find here ... or what I wouldn't. Can you help?"
He reached into his jacket and withdrew a small book with a silver lock around it. "This is what you came for."
I caught my breath in my throat. The binding was beautiful, covered in faded pink satin and sewn with maroon thread in the shape of roses.
"Risha's diary?" I breathed.
He arched a brow, curious. "As far as we know, Risha never kept a diary, nor her Endrean servant."
"Then whose is that?"
"See for yourself. It was hidden beneath Sir Henry's desk in the library, and unless you want both of us to follow in Risha's footsteps, you will return it there by morning." He held it out to me. "I am risking my life to give this to you, Kestra, in hopes that you are the person I believe you to be. Do not disappoint me."
"Who do you believe me to be?" I asked.
"It's not what I believe about you, it's what I know." He stood and gave me a deep bow. "My lady, you are the only one who can play the traitor's game, and win."
I shook my head. "I don't understand."
"I suspect you will, after you read that book. I am telling you again, this must be back in its place before anyone discovers its absence. Our lives depend on that."
I clutched the book to my chest while I waited for him to leave. Once he did, I studied it more carefully. The silver band extended entirely around the book, and an etching on the front noted that if the lock was broken, ink would leak into the book, destroying anything written there. A key was needed to open it.
I had that key, in my pocket. This was what the Halderians had tried to give me at the inn, what I had taken from Simon's satchel. But if this was not Risha's diary, whose was it?
I pulled the key from my pocket and stuck it into the lock. It was stiff, but it did turn, and then the lock separated. I was in.
I opened the pages of my mother's diary. Her name was printed in neat handwriting right on the first page. "Lily Dallisor."
Page one began this way: "This is the only place I will ever be able to tell the truth ..."
I didn't shut my eyes all night, except when I paused from my reading to sob silently into my hands.
"What I have done for Kestra will have eternal consequences," the diary had begun. "Just as a mother's love should."
A few pages farther. "If Henry knew the full truth about Kestra, he would not want her. The blue-faced guard from the dungeons recommended a man named Darrow to protect her, but I know nothing about him. Still, I fear for Kestra's life. She's all I have."
Then several pages more. "The older she becomes, the more Henry pushes her away. He wishes to marry her to some king's son in Reddengrad. She's still a child! But I wonder if leaving Antora would be better. Darrow asks to take her into hiding, but what of his bloodline? The Halderians know about her. They will try to find her. This terrifies me."
And on the final page of the book. "This sickness overwhelms me. I have begged for Kestra to come to my side, but they fear I will make her sick too. What does that matter? If I die, Henry will no longer protect her from Lord Endrick. My daughter is in danger."
I cried again, hot, bitter tears that did nothing but sting my eyes and envelop me in the darkness of the tower where I had read the diary by the light of a single candle. Each word of the diary had bored itself deeper into my heart, revealing lies that cut like knives, and truths I would have traded my soul to forget. It was cruel of Gerald to have given this to me.
Cruel, but necessary. I blew out the candle and was distressed to realize I no longer needed it. Dawn had come.
I wiped my eyes, wondering how red they were, how swollen. Anyone who gave me more than a passing glance would know I had been crying. I was still in the tunic and trousers, and certain that back in my room, Trina was already awake and aware of my absence. More importantly, I had to return the diary to the library. But dressed as I was, I could not be seen by any servants. They'd surely report me.
I rushed down the tower stairs, which deposited me in the entry vestibule. Servants were already bustling through the corridors and living areas, stoking fires from what had become ash overnight, delivering warm water where it was needed, and preparing Woodcourt for a new day. My timing had to be impeccable to miss them. Fortunately, this was not my first time sneaking around. The routines hadn't changed much, or, at least, I hoped they hadn't. If I could do this, Darrow would be proud of me.
Darrow. I desperately needed his advice, for the night had given me far more questions than answers. He had been shot more than a day and a half ago. More than ever, I was determined to find
the Olden Blade and earn his life back.
I continued hurrying toward my room, barely missing an oncoming servant who was dusting or doing some other useless job. Time was running out!
A hand went around my mouth, and before I could scream into it, Simon turned me around to face him, then shoved me into my room, shutting the door behind us. Beside him was Trina, and from the looks of them, their combined anger could ignite fire on rainwater.
"Thank the heavens you're back! We've been searching everywhere!" Trina began. "Where have you--"
"I need your dress," I said. "Give it to me."
"My dress? There's only a shift beneath this."
"Be grateful you have that much. I need it now."
"First tell me why."
"Shall I tell you over tea and scones, or in the seconds before my father has us all killed?"
Simon faced the wall while she undressed, though she muttered a string of curses that lasted the entire length of time it took to remove the dress and hand it to me. My tunic acted as a clumsy half-shift, and I left the trousers on beneath the skirts, with the ivory-handled knife tucked out of my reach. The key to the diary was safely in my shoe. The diary itself was hidden beneath my tunic, and when Trina wasn't looking, I set it into a deep pocket of the dress's apron. Trina pulled a quilt from off my bed and wrapped it around herself while asking what she was expected to wear now.
I didn't know. I didn't care.
"Where were you all night?" Simon asked.
"Are you my interrogator or protector?" I replied. "Come with me. We must hurry!"
He sighed and threw an apology back at Trina, who was still muttering threats at me, then we entered the corridor. I wanted to run, to push past every servant we saw and get into the library, but I couldn't draw that much attention to myself. So we walked. Quickly.
"Your eyes are red," he said.
"Yours are brown. What of it?"
"You know what I mean. You've been crying." His voice was gentle, but his timing was terrible. He could accuse me of practically anything right now, and I'd be guilty.
"If anyone asks, it's only tears of joy to be back at Woodcourt again."
"But it's not just anyone asking. It's me, Kestra."
I huffed. "And who are you, Simon, that I should trust you with an answer?"