Page 35 of Skysong

Kitt was silent. When he looked back to her, worry clouded his tired eyes. ‘They might.’

Andala swallowed. ‘So what do we do?’ she asked, as they shut themselves away in Kitt’s chambers. ‘Is there a way to stop them from tracking her? To slow them down, at least?’

But for the first time since she’d known him, Kitt had no answers, no plans to put in place. ‘I … I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘I can’t123get my head around it. Tomas …’ He sank into the chair behind his desk, looking troubled, lost. ‘I just can’t believe he’s done this, any of it. Holding Oriane prisoner. Keeping some secret plan from everyone, from me … Sending people tohuntherdownas if she’s some kind of game bird. And the way he reacted this morning …’

He didn’t finish the sentence, but he didn’t need to. Andala had seen the king herself as the skylark had taken to the skies once more. He had been unrecognisable, incandescent with fury.

‘I could have stopped all of this,’ Kitt muttered, staring blankly at the desk before him. ‘I should have seen what was happening and stopped it before it went this far. I should—’

‘Hey,’ Andala said sharply. Kitt looked up at her, eyes dark and regretful. He was in shock, she suspected. Tomas, after all, was not just his king, but his friend. ‘It’s not your fault,’ she went on, tone firm. ‘None of us realised just how desperate he was to keep her here. But now that we know, now that she’s gone, it’s up to us to figure out how to help her from afar. And when I sayus, I mainly mean you, of course. You’re the smart one. I need you –Orianeneeds you – to pull yourself together and put that giant brain of yours to use.’

That got a faint smile out of him, as she’d hoped. She tried to return it, but the expression felt stiff and foreign on her face.

Later, after Andala had sung the world into darkness and slipped back unseen into the chaos of the palace, she returned to the solitude of her room.

She’d been ready to run again ever since she’d agreed, in a fit of guilt and sympathy, to help Oriane escape. But something was124stopping her, freezing her to the spot every time she thought about walking out the door.

Theywon’tfindher.Surelytheywon’t.

Theymight.

Before she could think better of it, Andala stormed out of her room and down the corridor. She needed more information. And she knew where to go to find it.

The kitchens were as loud and bustling as she’d ever seen them. The gossips were in their element; nothing this monumental had occurred at the palace since Queen Heloise had succumbed to illness and her son had been crowned king. Andala hovered at the outskirts of the room, scanning faces until she spotted the one she was looking for: the cook’s apprentice, whose rumours turned out to be true more often than not.

‘Ildrie,’ she said as she approached, ignoring the look of mild surprise on the girl’s face as she saw who’d hailed her. Andala rarely engaged in conversation with her fellow servants. ‘You always have your finger on the pulse of the palace. I find myself rather out of touch with what’s been happening – care to fill me in?’

‘Well.’ Ildrie puffed up importantly, hands stilling atop the dough she’d been vaguely kneading as she chattered. ‘You know what happened with the Lady Lark, of course …’ She paused, considering Andala anew. ‘You were her maid, weren’t you, Andala? Did youknowwhat she was going to do?’

‘No,’ Andala said, perhaps too quickly. ‘I had no idea. I was just as surprised as anyone.’ Ildrie looked disappointed, but Andala forged on. ‘So, what is happening now? Will there be a … a search for the skylark, do you suppose?’

‘Ah.’ Ildrie gave a knowing nod. ‘Well. You didn’t hear it from me, but …’ She looked around furtively, and leaned in closer, as if she125hadn’t undoubtedly shared her secret with half the staff already. ‘The searchers are already out there. The king’s got his whole retinue on the job, guards and soldiers and all,andI’ve a friend in Aubrille who says that seneschal of his has been out in the city this afternoon, recruiting more hands for the task.’

Ildrie leaned back again, looking pleased with herself. Andala focused all her will on keeping her mask in place, despite her stomach clenching painfully in warning, or protest, or fear.

‘And have you heard what the king means todowith the skylark? If he finds her again?’ she asked, forcing her voice to sound calm, her interest casual.

Ildrie shook her head, clearly frustrated; at last, something she did not know. ‘But,’ she said, brightening, ‘those guards he sent to search? They meant business.’

A current of ice began to creep through Andala’s blood, even before she heard the girl’s next words.

‘I saw them with my own eyes, I did, all decked out with swords and weapons and the lot. You can mark my words, and no mistake: I don’t know what he wants with the lark, but I know he’ll stop at nothing till he finds her.’

126

Chapter 17

Oriane woke not knowing where she was.

The familiar flicker of warmth in her breast had roused her, as always. Yet she had grown so quickly used to sleeping in her luxurious palace chambers that it was a shock to feel the narrow bed beneath her, to see the faint gleam of fading starlight through the tiny window.

She was home. But she could not be here for long.

Oriane had planned to have her father packing to leave the moment she returned, but the sight of him so fragile, so changed, had shaken her. And so, banking on the head start Kitt and Andala had given her, she’d taken the time to help Arthur into a seat by the sleeping fireplace, make him tea. Then she’d told him of the palace, the city, the people she’d met. Of the strange confusion of feelings that led her to fly away in the first place, and the way she had sung for strangers. And of the way it had all ended, with her fleeing like a criminal on the run.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she kept saying throughout, the words desperately inadequate to express her remorse. ‘I’m so sorry I did this to you.’

But her father just looked at her fondly, the way he’d always done.

---