Page 117 of Bride of the Midnight Prince

For . . .us.

I haven’t thought this far ahead. There are hundreds of more important things to consider. For instance, how I shall keep my head intact while married to the Prince of Nothril. For another, how I shall continue my raids.

The wedding night just didn’t make the top of the list. But now that I’m here, I suddenly wish I’d spent a great deal more time considering the possibilities and preparing for each one.

“Wait here,” says Charity, when I’m in a soft-spun nightgown and robe with my short hair combed. “I’ll go get the master.”

“You don’t have to,” I say with a nervous laugh. “I’m just fine here by myself.”

She looks at me pityingly, and then leaves.

After several long minutes, I pace back and forth down the length of the room. When I grow weary of that, I sit on the bed, only to leap away from it and start pacing again. Then I sneak into my old room where my things are. My shoulders ease. The box with Mama’s slippers is set beside the bed. The sight of that box comforts me further, though I have no desire to open it and find the blackened remnants of Agatha’s fury. I find my Fool’s Circle board, sit on the foot of my bed cross-legged, and begin playing a game against myself.

I’m finished with the second game before I regard the window and consider whether I ought to climb out and make a run for it.

Footsteps thump down the hallway. The door creaks when it opens.

I stiffen. My first inclination is to hide my Fool’s Circle, but I force myself not to. Maybe if he sees this reminder of our friendship, he will be less inclined to murder me.

The footsteps pause briefly in the bedroom. They come toward my room.

Rahk pushes the door open.

I stare up at him. With the light at his back, he’s nothing but a featureless silhouette. A featureless silhouette that I know far too well.

“Come,” he orders.

I’ve gotten so used to taking orders as his servant, it is not until I’m halfway out of my room that I wonder if I should have given a petulant rejection instead of obeying.

It’s warm enough that there is no fire in the grate, so the only light comes from several flickering candles on the mantle. Without a word, Rahk grabs two chairs from against the window and drags them toward the center of the room. He plants one down, and drops the second two feet away, facing the first. Then he finally looks up at me. Candlelight catches in his dark eyes and plays across the sharp contours of his face, the broad line of his jaw. “Sit.”

I sit.

He takes the chair across from me and leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his chin propped up on one fist. His countenance is deceptively mild. I do not buy it for an instant.

We sit there in silence for several long minutes. His chair is too close to mine, and I struggle to not fidget nervously from the awkwardness of it. I spent our entire wedding ceremony wishing he’d look at me. Now he studies me intently, and I wish he would look anywhere else.

“This is how things will go,” he begins at last. “I will sit here. I will ask you questions. You will answer them. We will talk. And you will not lie to me.”

I swallow hard. A pang goes through my heart.

“Is that amenable to you?” he asks.

I nod.

“Good. Now, my first question. Why did you disguise yourself as a boy and come under false pretenses to be my servant?”

This is vastly worse than the interrogations he’s subjected me to in other situations. I don’t want to continue lying to him, but he cannot know I am the Ivy Mask. I rack my brain for answers that are truthful but omit that part of my reasoning.

“My stepfamily wished me to marry someone I did not want to.”

His lips twist humorlessly. “You certainly avoided that well, didn’t you?”

His sarcasm stings.

“So, your stepmother picked you a husband, and you decided that your only recourse was to run away from home, cut your hair, and pretend to be someone you weren’t?” He gestures at my hair and the rest of me.

That is hardly a fair characterization. I grind my teeth to keep from snapping. “She was going to force me into the marriage.”

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