Chapter Eleven

The bells pealed eleven as I shouldered my way into the minister of trade’s apartments. My hair was snarled from the wind, cheeks sticky from tears. Sunlight streamed through tall windows, lighting the peonies on the walls.

“Ah, Ingrid,” the minister said, nearly colliding with me. “You can leave the cheek cream on the credenza.”

I shouldn’t be here, I should go back and mix my medicines, do my work. I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t but—

I waved the letters. “What are these?”

Liver spots dotted his cheeks like the freckles on apples, and his gray hair had been combed in careful wisps over his head. His eyes flicked to my hands. “I don’t know.” He tried to step around me.

I blocked him. “Don’t play coy.”

He reached for the door.

I slammed it shut. “‘What would you do if someone powerful asked you for something important?’ Sound familiar? What about ‘We have received your plea for aid. Unfortunately, there are many who are still bitter about the Sanokes independence.’”

The minister’s eyes darted between me and the door. A pair of goose-gray spectacles perched on the tip of his nose, making him appear owlish. “I’ve never heard that before in my life.”

He had to be lying. I shoved the letters at him. “This is why you didn’t do an inquest. You were trying to protect yourself.”

He opened the first letter and skimmed the contents. His face softened, his shoulders slacked. “Where did you find these?” He flipped to the second, then the third.

“You admit you wrote them?”

Behind the spectacles, his eyes widened. “Of course not. I’ve never seen these before.”

Wind wisped the curtains, a flutter of gossamer and lace, and the scent of white lilies hit me, pungent and sickly, like funeral, like death.

I wrapped my arms around my middle and doubled over. No, no, no. It had to be him. No one else had been meeting with the Volds, no one else would have written the letters. And Hans—

The door creaked and Gretchen poked her head inside, her dark hair shoved under a ruffled cap. “Sorry, minister, but Lothgar—”

The minister pushed the letters back at me. “Tell them I’ll be right there.”

Her face paled. “But you—but he’s—”

The older Vold from King Christian’s study shouldered his way into the room, a wolf, a mountain, hulking with scars and furs. He wore leather armor, supple and stained with seawater. His beard hung in a single braid. He smelled of smoke.

The stormy-handsome Vold ducked in behind him, the one about my age, who’d stuffed an entire forest into his bedroom. His eyes met mine, cool and brooding.

“Have you considered our offer?” the older Vold asked.

“Lothgar,” the minister replied. “I have.”

The older Vold’s—Lothgar—eyes flicked to me. “Who’s this?”

Blood rushed to my ears, and I glanced at the letters clutched in my hands.

Had Lothgar ordered Hans’s death? Had he done it himself? Had he followed Hans to the tide pools and dragged his knife, carefully, across my friend’s throat?

I shoved the letters in my cardigan pocket, but Lothgar’s eyes remained fixed and I couldn’t shake the feeling that he knew, that he’d seen. What if he sent someone after me? I could probably outrun Lothgar, but could I outrun the handsome Vold?

With his lean body he’d be faster, but I knew Karlsborn Castle. If I could get a head start, I could get away. Hunker down. Lay low. I’d have to be careful traipsing the castle, but I could chop my hair, dye it. Katrina always said I’d make a good redhead.

I edged toward the door.

“That’s Ingrid. The physician apprentice,” the minister said curt. “Ignore her.”

Good. Cover.

I slid my feet over the floral rug. No sudden movements. Stay slow. Stay invisible.

The minister pulled three crystal tumblers from the credenza, then poured a knuckle’s worth of amber liquid into each. “We accept Volgaard’s generous offer.” He offered the Volds the glasses. “One condition.”

Lothgar’s brow quirked. “A condition?”

“When you send your scouting group, we’ll supply a guide.”

“A guide,” Lothgar repeated.

“We don’t need a guide,” the handsome Vold said. “My men have training. They—”

“Did I ask for your opinion?” Lothgar said.

“No, but—”

“If I wanted strategy, I would have made Signey my Second.”

The handsome Vold’s mouth snapped shut. His eyes darkened, storms of gray. He looked past Lothgar, at the door.

A breeze caught the curtains, pulling in the faint scents of lemon, wood wax, and salt from the ocean.

“We don’t need a guide,” Lothgar continued. “Erik’s men have training.”

I edged around the settee and a rather imposing bust of the minister’s late Pomeranian.

“But wouldn’t it be fitting?” the minister asked. “If we’re going to be allies?”

Lothgar frowned. “I don’t think that’s something allies do.”

I reached the door, the handle cool to the touch. My heart thudded through my fingertips. Breathe. Just breathe. Once I was in the hall, I could run.

I pulled it open.

It creaked.

The minister’s head snapped in my direction. His cheeks had deepened from apple red to merlot. “Stay.”

He knocked back the contents of his tumbler and poured himself another. The ginger gloss of the credenza reflected his scowl. “A guide would be a symbol, a show to Larland and the rest of the world that we’re united.”

Lothgar rolled his beard braid between his thumb and forefinger. “I assume you have someone in mind?”

The minister downed the contents of his second glass, poured and drank a third, a fourth. “We’ll send Ingrid.”

The handsome Vold blanched. “I’m sorry, but saddling me with her makes zero sense.”

With…her?

I blinked at the handsome Vold.

He blinked at me.

The weight of it came crashing down. I pressed a hand to my forehead, unsteady, ill. Ingrid . A thousand times the minister had said that name and I didn’t correct him, but I couldn’t, I couldn’t. The Volds killed Hans, and now they’d seen me with the letters.

“Exactly,” I said. The word came out a choke and I ducked toward the door. “I’m probably not the best person to—”

“All my men have training,” the handsome Vold added. “ I have training. And the Sanokes don’t seem overly—”

“—job,” I continued. “Now—”

“You’ll have to excuse Erik,” Lothgar cut in, just as the minister said, “Stay.”

The room fell silent.

The lull of waves drifted in from the open window. A seagull screeched.

“My son forgets his purpose,” Lothgar said. “It’s not diplomacy. Or,” his lips pursed, “ strategy . Tell me more about this physician apprentice.”

The clock ticked— one, two, three —and the chandelier threw rainbows around the room, the light dancing along the ears of the Pomeranian bust and the ruffled petals of the peony wallpaper, tinging everything in peach, mint, and baby blue.

The handsome Vold—Erik—fixed me with a simmering stare. A lock of wheat-colored hair fell over his brow.

I’m not going. I tried to signal with my eyes. This guide shall not be me.

A muscle in his jaw twitched. I will melt you with my gaze.

Maybe Katrina was right about the gaze-melting. Add that to my growing list of reasons to run.

I dropped my hand to the door handle. If I opened it slowly…

The corner of his mouth lifted.

I tossed him a side-eye. You didn’t win. I’m choosing to leave.

His brows pinched. A question. He plucked a sweet pea petal and pressed it to his nose.

That’s right. Act all innocent. Now if you’ll excuse me—

I pressed the handle. Please don’t squeak. Please don’t squeak. Please don’t—

A rip of paper tore through the room.

My attention snapped to Lothgar and the minister.

“Erik and his men leave in two days,” Lothgar said, handing the paper to the minister. A book lay open on the table, its pages flayed. “Your guide will meet them here at dawn.”