* * *
After locking my bedroom door, I pull up my sleeve and snap a thread of my goblin bracelet.
When Bakken appears, he’s squinty-eyed and scowling.
I allowed my maids to ready me for bed, then waited for them to leave for the night, but every moment since the queen agreed to let me stay, I’ve been itching to start my search. At dinner, I remembered my goblin bracelet and realized that I might not have to search for the mirror.
Bakken blinks a few times, but his scowl turns to a smile when he takes me in. “Fire Girl, where is my payment?”
I pull out a knife I stole from my table setting tonight. I use it to slice off a lock of hair. Bakken yanks it from my grasp before I can offer it to him, quickly tucking it into the pouch at his waist. “Next time you call me, don’t do it from inside this palace. I’m not welcome here.”
“I need the Mirror of Discovery.” I turn to my bed and pull the fake from beneath my mattress. “It looks like this, and the queen is said to have stolen it from the Unseelie during the war.”
Bakken lifts his chin. “The queen keeps the mirror in the sunroom just off her bedchambers.”
The night I searched the castle for the portal, I was never able to search her chambers. They were too brightly lit and well guarded.
Bakken holds the hair to his nose and inhales deeply, like an addict taking a hit.
I open my mouth to ask how I can get past her guards, but he snaps his fingers and disappears as suddenly as he appeared. I have to bite my fist to hold back a howl of frustration.
What a waste of a thread. What a waste of hair.
I unlock my door and crack it to peek down the hall. The guest wing of the castle is quiet but not dark. The corridors are dimly lit by soft orbs of light floating between each room. Quietly I leave my room and slowly close the door behind me.
I met the other eleven girls at dinner, but there’s no sign of them now as I slip past their rooms. Is Sebastian inside with one of them? I tamp down the jealous thought and focus on my mission.
I might need to turn myself to shadow to get through certain parts of the palace, but I’ll wait as long as I can. I’m not in full control of my power yet, and a girl suddenly appearing from shadow is much more conspicuous than one of Sebastian’s potential brides wandering around the palace in the middle of the night.
The guest rooms are in their own wing, and by the time I reach the entrance to the wing with the royal chambers, the bones in my feet ache from the cold stones. I didn’t think to put on slippers before I left my room.
Sebastian’s room is to the left at the top of the stairs, but I turn right, toward the queen’s chambers, only to scramble back a few steps at the sunlight filling her hall. No, not sunlight. The window at the end of the hall is still dark with night. It’s as if these walls have been enchanted to glow like the sun. Queen Arya’s guards stand watch every six feet down the hall. Even if I knew how to control my shadows long enough to sneak past these sentries, it wouldn’t help. What good is becoming darkness where there is only light?
“Brie?” I turn to see Sebastian. His eyes flick down to my white nightgown and bare feet before he lifts his chin and trains his gaze on my face, ever the gentleman. “Are you looking for something?”
Yes. I’m looking for a magic mirror your mother had stolen from the Unseelie Court. Would you fetch it for me? If only it could be that simple.
I sigh and deliver my preplanned lie. “I can’t sleep. I was hoping to find a hot cup of tea in the kitchen, but”—I look around and shrug—“I’m afraid I’ve gotten lost.”
I expect him to question this. Although I’ve not officially been shown the whole castle, I’ve been shown enough to know that the kitchen isn’t in this direction. Or on this floor.
But Sebastian’s too trusting for his own good. He gives me a sympathetic smile. “I can’t sleep either. Come with me and we’ll have some tea together.”
We don’t exchange a word on the way to the kitchen. Sebastian barely spares me a glance as he leads me into the large, empty space and puts a kettle on the stove. Just two nights earlier I’d fallen through the wall into this kitchen, and these gleaming countertops were covered in enough food to feed hundreds while servants bustled about in every direction. Tonight, there’s no one here but us.