Page 70 of The Tsarina's Favorite
“I was wrong,” Drook declared.“He doesn’t speak.”
“Thank you, Pietrodillo,” Alaina said.
“It’s nothing.And no one knows because we’re no one.”Drook tipped his scarlet hat at her and then gathered up his two companions.He took another long look at me, no recognition in his face but deep furrows in his craggy brows.“Glad to see he’s indoors.Good night, Your Highness!”
“Good night,” she said as the three of them departed.
When their voices no longer echoed through the halls, Alaina flew to the cage.“They know!”
“They guess,” I said.
“I didn’t mean to give anything away.”
“They won’t say anything,” I assured her.
“Are you sure?”She looked up into my face through the bars and reached her hand into the cage to take mine.“I couldn’t bear it if you came to any harm because I did something silly.”
“You’re a princess,” I told her.“You have a propensity for doing silly things.”
“That’s a mean thing to say,” she scolded me.
“I know a little something about princesses.And about princes too.”I squeezed her hand.“Your privilege makes you all do silly things.”
“You’re not angry with me?”
“They aren’t the first to guess.”
“I hadn’t heard any rumors.Who?”
“The caretaker,” I admitted.“Apparently, I am built in a way that made him suspect when he first looked at me.”
“And you really aren’t just a man dressed as a bird?”
I released her hand.How did I answer that?Because I was.And I wasn’t.
“You’re not, are you?”
“Would that I were,” I whispered.
“I didn’t think so, but I had to ask after they suggested it.You are too stately to be the result of some tar and a bunch of feathers.”
“Disappointed?”
“No, but it would have been easier if you were.Whenever I get back to Altania, I’m not sure how I’m going to explain bringing a man-sized bird with me.”
“You would want me to join you in Altania?”
“Of course!If you wanted, that is.”
“Is it warmer than Ilyichia?”
“My dear Kaylay, everywhere is warmer than Ilyichia.”
That strange warmth spread through me.It wasn’t just that little joyous ember of her using my Varnasian name either.Irena had abbreviated it once, and now Alaina had too, in a different way, partnering it with an endearment.
“True.”If being a bird was my future, then at least I could be a bird somewhere other than under the rule of someone who misused me.“You would really want me with you in Altania?”
“I would miss you dreadfully,” she confessed.“And I don’t think I would ever rest if I knowingly left you with her.”
