Chapter 42
42
Ella
The interrogations disrupted everything. Few of us got any sleep. Only essential workers and those who'd completed interviews were allowed to leave the servants' residence. The thing that haunted me most wasn't my own fate but Belle's. Hopefully, since she was laid up with a broken leg, they wouldn't even bother asking her questions.
She's smart enough to keep her mouth shut.
I would've been a bundle of nerves if it hadn't been for Cara. While everyone else was on pins and needles, she was in an irrepressibly good mood, whispering with bright eyes about what exactly could have caused all the uproar. She also kept wheedling me for more tidbits about my time with the prince. With plenty of eager ears listening in, I reluctantly told her what I dared. The rumor mill did its work, and before long, half the girls in the room were convinced they'd seen the prince carry me off to his bedroom to himself.
Despite the lingering glare of the headmistress, I didn't change out of my dress. It was one more part of my alibi. I had to look the part—a simple girl, marked by the prince.
His blood mistress.
It was nearing sundown by the time the guards finally called my name. "Ella DuPonte."
Exchanging a look with Cara, I rose and turned to face them, relieved that Cassius had not shared my real name with anyone else.
"You're to come with us," the guard ordered, his voice like stone.
I took a deep breath. My turn.
"You'll be fine," Cara whispered, and gave me a wink.
I wove between the beds and fell in line behind the guards. The headmistress was giving them the evil eye, obviously resentful of having self-important men marching in and out of her private kingdom.
The guards led me to a tower I hadn't yet visited. We waited in the hall for five minutes before a door opened and one of the other serving girls walked out. Her face was pale, and her hands shook like she'd just seen a ghost.
Whatever lies in the room, that girl is who I have to be. Not a whisperer. Not a spy. Just a simple girl who caught the eye of the prince.
The guard shoved me brusquely, and I stumbled through the open door into a posh room with bookshelves, weapons mounted on the walls, and a black desk with ornate scrollwork.
"This is Ella DuPonte, Lord Horace. A serving girl, recently hired." The guard shut the door behind me, sealing me in with the grim man who dominated the room.
Dressed in ebony robes trimmed with gold, he had a pinched face that contrasted harshly with a pair of cruel lips and thick-lidded eyes that watched me relentlessly. His power vibrated in the room, a low thrum that pulsed out from him like waves lapping the shore of a lake.
My chest tightened. He was one of them . The Triad. I'd seen him hours before in the garden, taking the cup from the prince.
Lord Horace reclined idly in his low-backed chair, but he was no more at rest than a cat pretending to sleep as it watched a mouse. He was a predator, lethal and vicious in a way that even the immortals were not. They hunted for food. I sensed that this man killed for fun.
Lord Horace gestured to an empty chair in front of the desk with his ring-laden fingers. "Do delight me, Ella, and sit for a while."
The slick insincerity in his voice made my ears itch. Every instinct told me to run, but I forced myself to curtsy low before him. "Thank you, my lord."
As I tucked my dress and sat, his lips twisted up in a wicked grin. "So, you're the prince's new whore."
I stiffened with shock. I wanted to lash out at him with my tongue or hurl the inkwell at him, but of course, a simple farm girl wouldn't do that. She'd be awed and terrified.
I shrank back in my chair, trying to look meek. "I'm honored to serve the prince—should he wish to feed from me or desire something else."
Lord Horace grunted, his eyes drifting to my chest and the curve of my breasts. Suddenly, the beautiful purple dress Cassius had given me began to feel garish and too exposing. "I see why the prince is taken with you. Silver hair. A welcoming form. And those lavender eyes." He leaned forward, his gaze thick and rancid. "I don't think I've ever seen their like."
"Thank you, sir," I said, looking away, as if in some other world, his words were a glowing compliment. "How can I serve you?"
He smirked. "I can think of several ways."
I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of letting him watch me squirm. I simply held my chin up and focused on the flowers lining the balcony behind him.
"Of course, I don't think His Royal Highness would appreciate that." Lord Horace sighed and traced his fingers back and forth over the papers on his desk. "Why you? He's not fed in a century. What's so special about you that he would break his fast?"
I shrugged, not entirely certain myself. "I don't know. Perhaps because I look different? Or perhaps it's because I'm a virgin and we taste different. I'm not an immortal and wouldn't know. I'm just a girl from a small manor."
His eyes narrowed in a catlike way, and I couldn't ignore the way he'd shifted when I said virgin . Gross.
"Apparently, you've been asking a lot of strange questions for a farm girl."
I felt the cold, iron jaws of his trap closing around me. What all had I asked? What did he know? My breathing quickened slightly, despite every effort to keep it calm. "The castle is very daunting, and I'd never met an immortal before I came here. There were so many things I didn't understand, so I've had to ask a lot of questions."
He pursed his lips. "I'm sure it was quite overwhelming."
I nodded. "Yes, my lord."
He leaned forward on his elbows, drumming the tips of his fingers together. "What interests me is why an overwhelmed servant girl would be asking so many questions about the northern end of the castle. It's forbidden to all but a few select servants, yet you were very interested in them and where they were going."
Terror sank its tendrils into my thoughts, and my mind went as blank as a crisp sheet of parchment. Could he hear heartbeats like the immortals could? If so, my hammering chest would give my guilt away.
What the hell was I going to do?
If he knew all this, he probably knew I'd also been asking after Belle. It was risky, but I could use that. I licked my lips. "I was looking for my sister when I first arrived. She'd disappeared, but I've since learned she was in the infirmary."
"Yes…" he said with a voice that could have melted steel. "But if you found her, why were you asking so many questions so very recently?"
The walls pressed in, and the door behind me began to feel infinitely far away. My palms and brow moistened. How could I explain snooping around? Anything I said would betray me. I would end up on a spike, and probably Belle as well.
I opened my eyes wide. "Is it real? Are the rumors true?"
I knew it was a feeble attempt to lead him off.
"Why would you wish to know?" Horace asked, his voice vibrating with anticipation.
My skin tingled, and I felt the subtle urge to speak freely, to tell the kind man everything I knew. He's coaxing me with his magic. I dug the nail of my thumb into the tip of my finger, trying to control my churning nerves. Whatever spell he was trying to weave over me, I would be stronger.
I closed my eyes, forcing myself to remember who I was supposed be. Not Ella, the spy. If I were her, I'd be doomed. I needed to be what the bastard expected—a pretty girl without brains. I'd be a ladder-climbing mistress, obsessed with the prince and nothing else. An innocent girl, too na?ve and foolish to find a way through a magical barrier. Why would that girl be asking after a hidden wing?
A desperate ruse shaped itself in my mind. It was a one-in-a-hundred shot, but considering Horace thought I was little more than the prince's plaything, it just might work. I'd use his expectations against him.
"Is that where he goes?" I asked, lacing my tone with venom. "He's always disappearing at strange times, especially during the day."
Lord Horace's brow furrowed. "Who are you talking about?"
"The prince, of course!" I clenched my hands around the end of the armchair and forced my face into a mask of jealousy. "Is he hiding another mistress from me?"
The predatory grin slipped from the lord's lips. "Another mistress? What are you talking about?"
Although I'd spent most of my life on the manor, I wasn't entirely sheltered. I'd seen enough jilted women at the tavern or the fair to know how to play the part.
"Who is she?" I hissed. "Where is she? The prince is mine . He chose me ."
Lord Horace looked at me like I was a glop of slime mold. "You're worried about another lover? You realize the prince is about to marry, don't you, silly girl?"
If I was going to convince him I was nothing more than a snooping lover, silly girl wasn't enough. I had to be more convincing. I had to be possessive and petty and at the edge of crazy. I had to be…
Oh, Fates. I had to be Bianca .
Steeling myself for the performance of my life, I burst from my seat and wheeled on the mage, clutching my fists dramatically. "Silly girl? That shows you what you know. The prince will never love anyone like he loves me ."
Horace's expression fell into a state of shock.
I wiped my eyes for effect. "He said I was beautiful . He can't have another mistress hidden away, can he? He wouldn't do that to me. He said I was the only one, he said I was special ."
Horace leaned back, his faced twisted in revulsion. "I doubt that assessment very much."
I sniffled and rubbed my nose as obnoxiously as I could. "The prince said he hadn't drunk from the source for three centuries, but I convinced him to drink from me . He wasn't lying about that, was he?"
According to Cassius, it had been about a hundred years, so hopefully, the discrepancy would make me look even more na?ve.
"I don't give a damn what happens between you and the prince," Horace said, slamming his palm on the desk. "I want to know how you knew to ask about a hidden part of the castle."
"I'd heard rumors about it, that's all," I burbled. "I thought that maybe he'd hidden another woman away. There's lots of rumors everywhere. Like the giant white dragon-lizard that swims in the sewers beneath the castle and guards the prince's treasure. Is that real, too?"
He sighed with frustration and began shifting through the lists of names on his desk. "And who did you hear these rumors from?"
I blinked. "Why, everyone, of course. They're rumors ."
Lord Horace gave a low growl of frustration and waved his hand at me. "And you've never gone seeking the forbidden wing?"
His magic flared, rippling through the air around me. I plopped down in my chair, bracing against his will. I was stronger. I wouldn't tell him what he wanted. My voice was my own.
Yet I could feel him squeezing the truth out of me, like pressing the whey from the curd.
"How would I even find it?" I asked, sticking to the truth but evading his question. "Would I ask an owl where to look? I'd have better luck finding the dragon-lizard's gold in the sewers."
Lord Horace regarded me with utter disdain, drumming a pen against the papers on his desk. At last, he said, "You're a pretty girl, but you've got the brains of a goat. I almost pity you. The new queen is going to eat you alive."
I touched my chest in feigned horror. "The prince would never let anything happen to me."
"Of course he wouldn't," Lord Horace said sarcastically as he waved me away. "Now, get out of here."
Relief flooded my chest as I rose. He thought I was nothing but a dim-witted strumpet clutching at rumors. I couldn't believe the chauvinistic bastard had bought it.
It was the first time in my life I was glad to be underestimated by a man.
He sighed as I headed toward the door. "Thank you for reminding me why we let them prey on you."
I bit my tongue. Nothing he said mattered. I'd gotten away with it. I'd found the hidden wing and learned that the mages were complete assholes, and I'd be able to get word to Belle and my stepmother. My job here was almost done.
I placed my hand on the knob and started to turn it, but his words cut through the air. "But there is just one more thing."
My veins iced, and I turned back, heart pounding faster and faster. Had he been playing with me like a cat? Had he known I was lying?
Lord Horace raised his hand, and his eyes went black as night. "You will never speak of me or what was said in here. You'll never mention Lord Malthus or Lady Thalindra, or the name of the Triad to anyone."
A stream of light spiraled from his finger and lanced my chest. My head kicked back from the jolt of magic, and I staggered into the door as his spell poured though me. Power crackled in my bones, threatening to yank my ribs apart.
Lord Horace's condescending smirk became a vicious snarl. "You will never speak of our magic, and you will not seek out the hidden wing of the castle. You will deny its existence to others, and if you ever hear rumors of who infiltrated our garden, you will tell the prince immediately."
The magic circled my throat like a noose, then raced over my lips, prickling them like they were being stitched together.
"May this curse bind you for the rest of your days," he barked, and then the magic stream cut off. I collapsed, bracing myself against the door as I took a deep, agonized breath.
Lord Horace glared at me. "Get out of my sight—and tell anyone you wish what an idiot girl you are."
I didn't dare let him see the relief surging through me. With a look of what I hoped was terror, I fled the room, wiping my eyes with the back of my wrist for effect—praying I looked as afraid as the girl who'd left just before me.
If Horace's curse held, my plan was ruined. I wouldn't be able to tell Belle or the resistance about the mages or the secret wing they lived in. But at the moment, it didn't seem to matter so much. I was alive, and that was what counted. As for what I'd learned, I'd find another way to share it.
I had to, for the sake of the resistance. For the sake of my family.