My feelings were anything else. "Are you serious? Everything I've known and believed is changing. Tonight will be the most dangerous night of my life. Don't ask me to be excited about that."
"But can't you be excited to turn the tide against Endrick?" Trina continued, making it worse. "I'll tell the Coracks how important your help was. They won't accept you at first, maybe never, but I'll try to change their minds. Or do you only care about one specific Corack's feelings?" The corner of her lip curled. "Do you think helping us will make him love you?"
"Hardly. By the time this is over, he'll want nothing to do with me."
While Trina finished dressing, my attention turned again to the wedding dress, almost too beautiful for words. I'd never have married Basil, even without the threats of the Coracks hanging over me, but since our conversation in the gardens, my opinion of him had improved.
And then there was Simon, someone about whom I could not keep the same opinion for two hours together. Whatever he felt for me, or thought he felt, was bound to change too.
A maid came to the door with a meal for me. Trina scowled when she saw it on my writing table, asking where hers was.
"With the other servants, obviously," I said, then softened. "But we can split this."
I pulled the tray toward me and broke half the bread, which I gave to her. While she ate that, I ate exactly half of the fish and cheese, and nuts that would've been imported at prices high enough to feed Rosalie's entire family for a month. Then I ate my half of the bread while she finished the food on the tray. Neither of us was as full as we would have liked, but we weren't starving either.
After we finished, she leaned back in her chair, letting her attention wander around the room. It settled on the knife I'd had with the ivory handle. It marked me as a Dallisor, and would have to stay behind. After a pause, she asked, "When did you start carrying a knife? After the Halderians kidnapped you?"
"Darrow gave me one during the escape. I've never gone without one since."
She sat up straight. "They held you for four days. What happened during that time?"
Why did she keep asking about this? Did she revel in hearing how terrified I had been, how a part of me still felt as if I had never escaped? Or was she trying to help me finally leave the kidnapping in my past?
When it became clear she would wait indefinitely for my answer, I said, "They drugged me here at Woodcourt, bound and gagged me, and carried me out in a box that felt like a sort of coffin. Or, at least, that's where I woke up. A couple of air holes were drilled into it, but other than that, I couldn't see out. I only knew I was on a wagon and that no matter how loud I screamed into the gag or cried, nobody released me. At the end of that first day, a man named Thorne met the wagon."
"Thorne?" Trina asked. "The same man who was at the inn?"
"Yes. He ordered my release at once. Then he told the others that I was a guest and was to be treated with honor, but they wouldn't listen. That same night, a group of Halderians dragged me from my bed and stuffed me in a sack that they dumped in a river. Two women assigned as my protectors pulled me out, but by the second day, the Halderians had gotten to those women. I overheard their plans to kill me after dark, so the first time they turned their backs, I ran. It was a full day before they found me again, miles away, but they put me into the same box as before and sent word to Thorne that he had until dawn to explain why they should keep me alive. If they didn't like his reasons, they would burn the box. Shortly before sunrise, Darrow rescued me. I don't know if he did it on his own, or if Thorne helped me escape."
Trina had been frozen while I spoke, and it took several blinks to bring herself back to the moment. "I can't begin to imagine how terrified you must have felt." She pressed her brows together. "But why would Thorne help you if he was responsible for taking you in the first place?"
"You and Simon have been helping me. And your motives are far worse."
She took that in without emotion. "You're helping us too, Kestra. I know you never wanted to and that you're only doing it to save your servants, but I have to ask something: Do you feel the same about the rebellion as you did the first night?"
I didn't feel the same about anything as I did that first night. My whole world had turned upside down and seemed to be spinning faster by the minute, out of control.
But to answer, I shrugged and said, "I understand Lord Endrick for who he is, and I agree, he must be defeated. All I can do is hope that whoever ends up with the Blade will serve Antora well. If I can help them do it, then I will."
Trina's face softened, and she was about to speak when Simon knocked on the door, then ducked his head inside. "All the servants were called to a meeting with Sir Henry to coordinate their preparations for the wedding. Even the guards have been called up, in case you give them trouble. If we're going to escape, now might be our best chance."
Trina took a deep breath and looked at me. "Well?"
I brushed past Simon to enter the corridor. "I never want to see Woodcourt again. Let's say good-bye forever to this wretched place."
My biggest worry of the evening was getting Kestra through Woodcourt without being spotted. Even a chance encounter with a maid could be deadly. But Kestra brushed off those concerns. "I got caught out here a thousand times as a child before I figured out how to do it right."
"You used to sneak into the dungeons?" Trina asked.
"Of course not." Kestra smiled back at her. "But I knew exactly where Cook hid the leftover pastries. She thought it was mice."
I chuckled. "It appears that you've never been entirely loyal to your family."
Instantly, I regretted my words. They carried in the air like lead.
Kestra stopped walking. "I broke rules, yes. But I never betrayed them. Not like this."