“I kept it hidden while I was at the castle.” She finished clasping it beneathher hair, and let it fall against her chest. “In one of my pockets, so it wouldn’t get lost.”
Emory stepped closer to Poppy, lifting the necklace that the princess was rolling between her finger and thumb absentmindedly.
“What is this?” Emory’s tone shifted to something darker.
“I told you. A necklace that I got from my gran. Well, took from her.” Poppy shot her a wary look. “Why?”
“Do you know what this symbol means?” Emory ran to a bookshelf that was stuffed full of books and parchments.
“It’s a snake,” Poppy said slowly. “I assumed maybe it was important because it represented my gran’s family crest.”
Emory plucked a book from the shelf, flipping through its pages. “It doesn’t just represent any family name. It represents the royal family name. Of the shadow court. And only two people wore special necklaces to signify that name.”
That couldn’t be. I leaned forward. “What are you implying?”
Emory found the page she was looking for and faced it toward us, a big symbol sketched onto it that matched the snake on Poppy’s necklace.
“I’m saying there’s only one way your gran had that necklace. She either stole it... or it was hers. And that would make her the queen of the shadow court.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
POPPY
The floor tilted under me. Queen of the shadow court. Gran. A queen.
“But the queen of the shadow court died,” Leoni said. “In the Shadow War.”
“So we thought,” Driscoll added. “If I’ve learned anything over the last few months, it’s that nothing is ever what it seems.”
It was hard to wrap my mind around this. Impossible, even.
Emory stuffed the book back into the bookshelf. “Did you ever see your gran wear it? Did she ever talk about it?”
I shook my head. “She kept it hidden.” I hesitated. “I did see her holding it one night, in the middle of the night. I’d woken up, rolled over, and she was sitting on the edge of her bed staring at it.” She’d been crying, something that had struck me at the time because Gran never cried.
I hadn’t asked her about it, knowing that even if I did she wouldn’t tell me the truth. She rarely told me the truth when it came to her past. As evidenced by this. Queen. Spirits below.
“If she stole it,” Emory said, stroking her chin, “she’d have sold it, made a profit from it. No one steals something that valuable just to keepit hidden away.” She shook her head. “No, that necklace had to mean something to her. Belong to her.”
Loch blew out a breath. “But why would the queen of the shadow court kidnap the princess of the sky court? How is it all connected?”
Emory spread out her hands. “Maybe revenge? Maybe something happened between them during the Shadow War. The queen and king of the shadow court were thought to have been killed, along with their infant daughter. If the queen survived, but her husband and daughter died, well, maybe she was crazed with grief.”
My mind turned over all the possibilities, nothing quite making sense.
“That would explain why this shadow king you told me about took your gran.” Emory tapped her chin. “It would explain a lot, actually.”
“Why she went into hiding,” Leoni offered.
“Why she wanted to stay hidden,” Loch added.
Emory nodded, her eyes alight with excitement. “Exactly. If the shadow king found out about her existence, she’d be a threat to his power. She had to go into hiding to stay safe.”
I pinched the necklace between my finger and thumb, rubbing over the raised snake, rough against my skin. “Why wouldn’t she have wanted to challenge him?” I asked. “Take back her throne?”
“That’s something we probably won’t be able to answer,” Emory said.
Right. The only one who could answer that question was Gran. I couldn’t believe this necklace had been the key the entire time.
