I fix a smile to my face and head toward the entrance, tension fluttering in my belly. I don’t know what I’ll do if I’m challenged and turned away. Call Wraye and pretend I want to have coffee?
There’s a security guard on duty in front of the gilt doors. I hold out my ID, which is printed with my face, title, and family crest, but he stands back and holds the door open without looking at it.
“Good morning, Lady Sachelle.”
“Oh—good morning!” I reply, recovering from my astonishment as fast as I can.
To make my visit seem as innocent as possible, the first thing I do is find Wraye’s office and knock on the door. It’s open, and I call another overly cheery good morning to her blonde head, which is bent over her desk.
“Good morning, Your Grace.”
Archduchess Levanter looks up in surprise, and then stands up and comes toward me with a smile. “Lady Sachelle. How are you?”
Her amber eyes shine with pleasure. Her face is glowing and she’s wearing a pale-yellow pencil skirt and cream blouse, exuding an air of confidence that’s markedly different to how she first carried herself at Court. She seemed lost just a few weeks ago, before she got to know the Levanters. I can’t imagine marrying a fifty-three-year-old at my age, but the Archduke is as handsome a silver fox as they come, so that probably helps.
I kiss her cheek and smile. “I’ve come to use the library, and I thought I’d say hello to you first.”
Wraye looks at me blankly. “The library?”
Panic bursts in my belly. Tieman told me there was a library. Have I blown my mission already? “Yes, the library. Where the historical records are kept.”
“Oh, I know. I just didn’t realize people knew about it. It hasn’t been officially opened to researchers, though there are archivists working through it. What were you looking for?”
I bite the inside of my cheek as I scramble for a good excuse. “I’m…thinking of working on a piece about the history of Paravel. An article. Maybe a book. I don’t know.”
Wraye’s face lights up. “That’s a wonderful idea. I’d love to hear more about it. What periods are you thinking of covering?”
“I’m not sure yet. I only just came up with the idea.”
She leads me toward the door. “I’d better let you get started, then. The archivists can be overprotective of the library, but I’ll tell them it’s for official press office business.”
I thank her as we walk down the corridor, though her helpfulness is making me feel sick with guilt.
We pass a door, and my gaze snags on the brass plaque. Jakob Rasmussen, Head of Security. I look away quickly. Of course, he works here, too.
The library is a small, pokey room that smells of dust and damp paper. The lone archivist glares at Wraye from behind his spectacles as she tells him why we’re here, and then at me, before finally going back to his papers.
“Good luck,” Wraye whispers, squeezing my arm. “Come and have coffee with me when you’re finished.”
I’m left alone in the haphazard room with just the archivist occasionally sniffing in the silence, as if he doesn’t approve of my presence.
I take a notebook out of my handbag and start moving along the shelves. They’re stacked with bound volumes of accounts and boxes with dusty labels that read Received Correspondence and Staff Payroll. Everything seems like it hasn’t been touched for twenty-seven years.
At the back of the room, I find mounted drawings of the palace gardens, and my heart rate picks up. This is closer to what I’m looking for. I sift through drawing after drawing of architectural designs. The palace gates. Plaster cornices. Marble columns. I move aside a stack of atlas-sized books with frayed edges, and spot a series of flat drawings that look like building schematics. After checking over my shoulder that I’m not being watched, I start to riffle through them. My excitement grows as I find one with a door marked west entrance.
I try to pull it out, but it’s stuck to something, and when I tug sharply, it makes a ripping noise.
The archivist calls sharply from behind a stack of shelves, “What are you doing back there? What’s happening?”
My eyes go wide and the drawing dangles from my fingers. “Just tearing a page out of my notebook.”
He tuts, as if tearing anything is an abomination, but thankfully leaves me alone.
I’ve torn the corner of the drawing, but it’s still mostly legible. I scan the tiny, spidery writing. Corridor D. Corridor E. Steward office. Library. Library! I examine the schematics closely and realize that Wraye’s office used to be the steward office, and the library marked on the paper is the one I’m standing in right now. I quickly fold up the thin, almost transparent, blue paper, stick it between the pages of my notebook and grab my handbag.