For a second, all I can do is stand and stare, wishing I could forget the knowledge away, wipe my brain clean of the humiliation, the betrayal, the guilt. My knees feel weak. It’s too much. My palm presses into the edge of the Heiress’s desk hard enough to bleed.
Then a gasp from behind me pulls me back to reality. I whirl around, my fingers closing around the keys, in time to see Taya stumble back. She’s standing by the Heiress’s nightstand, and a vase with a silver lily plummets to the hardwood floor. Its shatter is loud in the silence.
I shove the keys in my pocket and cross the room to grab Taya’s shoulder and guide her into an overstuffed armchair embroidered with vines. She’s pale, bordering on green. Her shoulders are trembling.
“What’s wrong?” I croak, still not fully in control of my voice.
She doesn’t meet my gaze. Her eyes are fixed off in the distance as she shakes her head. “I just … something just came over me. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.” I take my hand off her shoulder. I want to make sure she’s okay, but I’m also nervous that someone heard the crash of the vase breaking. We need to leave.
I turn and start quickly plucking up the shattered pieces of porcelain, dropping them carefully into my palm. I wrap them in tissue and drop them into a nearby wastebasket, crumpling a few more tissues on top for good measure. I hope the Heiress won’t notice, or one of the maids will stop by before she does.
“Wait!” Taya’s weak voice freezes me as I reach for the silver lily on the floor. She stands and takes a shaky step toward me. “That … that’s what caused it. I touched the flower, and I felt something …” She trails off, her brow creasing.
I smile at her, trying to look reassuring even as worry unfolds inside me. Maybe the forgetting-wine has side effects I don’t know about. “It’s just metal. Just a decoration. Look, see—”
I pick up the flower and tuck it beneath the tissues in the wastebasket. I ignore the strange, uneasy thrum of the silver stem between my fingers. It has to be just my imagination. Just something that Taya’s words planted. Doesn’t it?
My phone buzzes in my pocket. Grateful for the distraction, I fish it out, but the gratefulness dissipates as I see Graylin’s text message: The Fiorden princess is here.
“Crap.” All at once, everything crashes back down on me—the papers, the keys, the Heiress, Brekken. I don’t know who to trust, but I need to run this inn anyway. I hurry back to the desk and gather up the papers, but then stop, the stack trembling in my hands. I can’t carry these around with me.
Taya watches me, cautious, and with her dark eyes on mine something occurs to me. It’s a risk. A huge risk. But at this point, everything is risky. All I can do is choose the options that pose the least danger. And we’ve already come this far together.
“Taya, could you do me a favor?” I ask.
Her eyes turn hard, wary. It stings a little, but—fair. So far, our friendship—if you can even call it that—has consisted of me making her crash her motorcycle, appearing out of the woods in the middle of the night looking like death, giving her forgetting-wine, and dragging her up here, where she still looks like she might throw up any second. Not exactly a solid foundation.
But to my surprise, she asks slowly, “What do you need?”
I lift the papers. “There’s somewhere I have to be, like right now. Can you put these in your room for a bit? I’ll come by later tonight and pick them up.”
I want to add and don’t read them, but I know if she’s anything like me, that would make her only more likely to do so. Plus, I’m asking for her help; it’s not like I can be the one setting terms and conditions.
With her hand on the back of the chair to steady herself, she keeps her eyes on mine for another long moment. But finally, she nods and comes toward me, reaching out for the papers. “I’m in room five eighty-eight.”
Relief washes over me. “Thanks so much.”
Taya puts her hands on the papers—and over mine. Her skin is cool, but I can feel her pulse fluttering through her palms and fingers. “At some point, though,” she says, holding my gaze, “you’re gonna have to tell me what else is going on here.”
I swallow and try not to blink. “Of course,” I lie.
Taya and I part outside the reception room, the opulent private den where we entertain distinguished guests. She goes off to stash the papers in her room while I head inside. The wallpaper—a green leaf pattern with touches of gilt here and there—and the potted palms that Willow has placed around the room at strategic locations lend the feeling of standing in an enchanted forest, all dappled with afternoon sun from the skylight above. Graylin is chatting with Princess Enetta, one of the members of the Myr royal family and the head delegate to Haven this year.
Brekken told me that she’s skeptical of Havenfall and the alliance with Byrn, so there were rumors that she wouldn’t come at all, but she must have thought better of it.
What I don’t expect is for the Silver Prince to also be there, pacing the room, looking angry.
I pause at the doorway, taking the situation in, but Graylin catches my eye and beckons for me to enter as he pours Enetta a drink. I’ve seen her before at previous summits, but I’ve never spoken to her. She’s in her thirties and pretty, with skin a little lighter brown than Graylin’s. Her shimmery silver-white hair is woven into a net of thin braids, and a cloak of sleek purple fur is wrapped around her shoulders. Beneath that, she’s dressed in simple but elegant traveling clothes. Only the diamond-like gems climbing her ears mark her as royalty.
Once, when I was fourteen, I was morose for two weeks when I was convinced—for some reason I don’t even remember—that Brekken was in love with Enetta. Until Graylin took me out to lunch to ask why I was being so mopey, and I burst into tears and told him. He laughed and informed me that Fiorden soldiers and princesses couldn’t marry.
As I hurry into the room and bow low, I silently review what Marcus has told me about the royal family. Most of the important decisions in Myr are made by the elected members of the High Court, but the royal family is still important in a ceremonial way, like the British royals. They’re respected by all, revered even. Princess Enetta is beloved. So it makes me uneasy seeing the Fiorden princess’s eyes follow the Silver Prince pacing. Now that I’m paying attention, I realize that her manner is serious, far from the young and inexperienced monarch Brekken told me about. My stomach clenches. Was it possible he lied to me about Fiorden politics too? What else don’t I know?
I put on a smile as I straighten up. “Your Highness. Welcome to Havenfall.”
Enetta looks at me without recognition. She’s been here previous summers, but I’ve never gotten so close and I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised; most delegates saw me as a child in years past, beneath notice.
“I’m sorry to hear the Innkeeper is unwell,” she says in her melodic, faintly accented voice. “I do always enjoy his stories. Such a curious world you have here.”
“He will be fine,” Graylin says firmly before I can reply.
I can’t tell whether it’s for Enetta’s benefit or mine or his own. But whatever it is, it seems to make the Silver Prince lose patience. Halfway across the room, he whirls, moving so fast that for an instant he’s only a metallic blur.