“I’ll have to bring by some pomatum and powder tomorrow—fix you up right,” Marion said, grunting as she finished wrestling Kestrel’s hair into a sort ofsubmission.
Kestrel wasn’t sure whatpomatum and powderwere, but Marion seemed confident in their usefulness, so she didn’t bother asking. Instead, she inched closer to the mirror to get a look at herself. It was a drastic change from the braids she usually tied every which way around her head, and surely it wasn’tneatby any measures. But it framed her face in a way she’d never seen before, accentuating her square jawline. It made her look fiercer, more hardened, like someone not to be trifled with. Like some hewn from steel like the Ironbloods. And truthfully, Kestrel didn’t think she much minded that. It made her feel like she belonged just a little more in the foreign kingdom.
“It’s perfect.” Kestrel angled her head this way and that. “Thank you.”
In the reflection behind her, a sweet grin bloomed on Marion’s face. The woman patted her shoulders. “If it pleases my lady, then it pleases me. Now, up we go. We have people to see and places to—cursed sky! I nearly forgot.” Digging into her apron pocket, Marion retrieved a metal chain. “For you, my lady. From Prince Leighton. He said you needed it for something important.”
Kestrel’s heart galloped at the sight of it.
Already, she had forgotten about the promise he’d made to bring her a chain for her ring, and so it meant all the more that he had followed through on it.
Twisting around in her seat, Kestrel reached for the necklace and Marion let it pool into the palm of her hand. Not knowing what to do with the ring last night, Kestrel had set it in one of the drawers on the vanity. Hastily, she tore the drawer open now, grabbed the ring, and slipped the metal chain through it.
When she was finished, Kestrel held the completed necklace out in frontof her.
“Let me help with that,” Marion said, reaching around either side of her neck and fastening the necklace in place. She gasped though, when she finally saw its reflection in the mirror. “Dragon’s fire! Is that—that’s Queen Aenwyn’s ring.”
Nodding, Kestrel twisted the ring around the chain, but she kept her eyes on Marion. She knewthiswas the reason the other servants and townsfolk had been treating her with such distance or distaste, and wanted to witness Marion’s reaction in real-time to gauge how she could expect others to react as well.
But Marion blinked, and the shock was gone. She patted Kestrel’s shoulders again. “Of course it is, she was your mother. Forgive me, I’m not used to seeing relics from that queen’s past.”
“You’re afraid of her? Afraid of me?”
Marion’s face softened, her crinkly eyes almost watering. “Fret not, my lady. You are not your mother, and you will not be blamed for her crimes. At least not by me.”
“But some people do blame me for them?” she asked, and Marion’s shoulders slumped.
“Some, perhaps. But pay no mind to them. They are only scared of what they do not understand, and you will soon have ample opportunities to show them who you really are.”
Something clamped down on Kestrel’s chest. It was an awful lot of pressure to put on someone who wasn’t even sure she knew herself.
“Now, we must be off. We can’t keep Prince Barnabus waiting or he might give us a lashing.”
Kestrel’s now worried gaze flitted to Marion’s reflection in the mirror. But the woman was smiling so wide her eyes were nearly closed. It was enough to put Kestrel at ease, and she stood to follow Marion out of the bedchamber and into the dimly lit halls.
The path they took through the corridors was unfamiliar toKestrel. Then again, she hadn’t really been paying much attention the first time.
“I’ll never be able to memorize this place.”
Marion chuckled, a sound as bright as bells. “Oh, you’ll figure it out in no time. Give yourself some grace, you’ve only been here a day.”
As they meandered through the halls, still chilled from the lack of sunlight, Kestrel tried to mentally prepare for meeting yet another prince. The three she had encountered so far were all quite distinct from each other, and although she felt like she could maybe trust one of them—mostly Micah—the other two seemed too secretive to be relied upon. She wondered if Barnabus would be the same as Leighton, shrouded in deceptions that even hurt himself, and Kestrel vowed to keep her guard up this time.
There weren’t many others out and about at this hour, or perhaps just not in this section of the castle.
However, as they turned down a new hallway, Kestrel spotted Elora striding down the opposite direction.
Upon seeing the two of them, Princess Elora instantly stiffened. Her pace quickened as if she had been caught red-handed doing something she wasn’t meant to be doing. Then Kestrel noticed the book she pressed tightly to her chest.
The deep magenta of Elora’s irises never met Kestrel’s, although Kestrel desperately wished they would. She wanted to speak with the young woman. Wanted to hear her side of a story she was only starting to grasp. Instead, Elora kept her neck stiff, her gaze fixed onward as she marched past them and down the other end of the hallway.
Kestrel couldn’t let an opportunity like this pass her by though.
“Would you mind waiting here for a sec?” she said toMarion, and before the woman could even respond, Kestrel was racing after the princess. “Wait!”
The princess appeared to be doing no such thing, but when Kestrel finally caught up to her, she begrudgingly stopped.
“It’s Elora, right?” Kestrel asked, panting.
