Page 35 of Upon the Riven Throne
She swallowed against the shaky feeling in her throat. “The engagement was meant to be announced last night, but the ball was cut short. It will be announced instead at a formal gathering this afternoon.”
“Last night,” he repeated. “Before your dream walk.”
She stood. “I’ll need to get dressed for the gathering. You’re welcome to attend. If you’d like.” She crossed to the bathing chamber, then closed the door behind her, bracing against it to catch her breath. Through the finely carved wood, she heard Thomas wait for her to take it all back, to tell him the truth, and then, she heard him leave.
Kin, evidently assigned as a lady’s maid to assist Mireille before the event, came later. Mireille did not mind the company. After pinning her hair, Kin held forward a gown of jet-black silk. Mireille smoothed a finger across the silver embroidery of wicked bare branches, likely a match for the coat Alder would wear. It was not a gown suited for the balls of Westrende, but one only fit for a fae court.
Kin frowned and Mireille clumsily signed,What troubles you?The woman looked a bit as if she’d swallowed a small poisonous toad.
Do you love him?Kin signed back.
Mireille suddenly felt as if she had swallowed a similar, if larger and more lethal, toad. Thomas had not been exaggerating, then. The entire household must have been abuzz. And her concern was that the prince wasloved.
Mireille could not recall the sign forengagement, so she replied,I have chosen willingly.It may not have been the answer Kin wanted, but it would have to do. Alder was exasperating, brooding, and stubborn. But he had kept his word. He had protected her. It was all she had.
It should not matter if her stomach grew alight when he stood too close. It should be of no consequence if she imagined, even for a moment, that he saw through everything to who Mireille really was. He considered it an arrangement only. There would never be more, because… well, because to him, it wasn’t real.
She cleared her throat, returning her attention to the dress and its laced bodice. “Help me, will you?” Kin might ask of love and things uncomfortable to consider, but answering those questions was preferable to lying to Thomas, who was far more likely to accuse her of being rash or foolish. Because she was. Not as a rule, but certainly of late.
Kin kept her eyes lowered, attention pointedly on task, apparently dissatisfied with Mireille’s reply. Or perhaps she was unable to convey what she wished for reasons of loyalty or magic, bound by the same rules as Alder. By the time Mireille had slipped on the long black gloves, she could take it no longer. She ducked forward, meeting Kin’s gaze before signing.Do you not trust in your prince to choose correctly?
Kin’s dark eyes were steady, but Mireille could not guess at precisely why. A knock sounded at the door, and Kin turned to answer it.
Noal, dressed in matching black with a white cravat tied so firmly against his olive skin that she wondered if he could properly breathe, studied her. “You look well.”
“For a human about to dine with a fae queen intent on her murder, you mean?” She adjusted her gloves. “I am under the prince’s protection, am I not? Is there any reason for concern?”
According to the prince, Noal was unaware of his plot, but the look in the man’s eyes said he understood far more than he let on. He inclined his head. “I am to escort you to the study.”
“I am ready,” she said, though she was most certainly not.
Then Thomas came through the door in a manner that might fairly be calledbursting in, before stopping in his tracks to take in Mireille’s resplendent black gown.
“Truly,” he said. “There is no rush. The moon has not yet turned. There is still time.”
Real fear rested beneath his tone, and Mireille’s heart pinched. That Thomas would have done anything so nearly an outburst revealed how dire he believed the situation was. Perhaps he thought her under some sort of thrall, like the spell that came over her in sleep. Closing the distance, she gripped his arms through his coat. “Thomas, please trust me.”
His mouth sealed into a grim line. He had known the possibilities when they had come, that she might truly be bound to the prince, but Mireille hadn’t realized just how deeply he had hoped to find information that might defeat the fae queen, to somehow free Mireille from her impossible situation.
“I do not need you to save me, Thomas. I will save myself, and we, fate willing, will save Norcliffe.”
For a dizzying moment, the image of a different future than either would have ever planned swam before her, but she pressed it down. Mireille would uphold her part of the bargain, and if it worked, they would save Norcliffe. She and Thomas would return home. They would leave all of this—the fae prince and his magical court—behind. There would be no midnight walks in moonlit gardens, no sculpture that seemed to come alive, no Kin, no Noal, no dinners over well-worn books in a dimly lit study.
She would never again find Alder, eyes dark and jaw ticking, meeting her gaze across a long table, never again catch the stray twist to his lips that hinted he might own a true smile.
Thomas must have seen something in her expression that convinced him, because finally, he raised a hand to pat hers where it still gripped his arm. “I am here. All you need do is ask.”
His words were not the comfort either of them may have wanted, because Mireille did need to ask something of him, and he wasn’t going to like it one whit. Before they left, she leaned forward to whisper it into Thomas’s ear.
CHAPTER15
“We gave you what help we could,” Noal said as he walked at Mireille’s side, the halls empty of any other fae.
She managed a small smile as they approached the study. “I will repay you all the same courtesy.”
The edge of his mouth tightened with a hint of concern as he reached for the door. Before it opened, he said, “I do hope you’re as clever as you are confident, Highness.”
“As do I,” Mireille breathed. She gave the man a small curtsy, then strode into the study as if already a queen.
