CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Caledon
AN UNASSUMING BLACK CARRIAGE ARRIVES for Shadow and Cal that evening to take them to a manor outside the city where the ambassador from Renovia has traditionally made his home in Montrice. On the short journey, Cal reflects on the bizarre twists and turns his life has taken in just a few months—prison, escape, the hunt for the conspiracy’s mastermind, all with a beautiful and headstrong girl by his side.
When they arrive at the ambassador’s estate, two women come running as the carriage pulls up the gravel road to the main house, arms waving in the air. They’re plump, of middling age, both with wild curls—one blond and fair, the other brunet and olive-toned; the blonde’s hair is longer—and both are wrapped in layers of colorful skirts hitched up into their belts, their bodices loosely tied. They each wear tall laced-up boots; the blonde wears black leather and the dark-haired one wears brown.
The ambassador and his husband stand behind them.
The manor is grand but simple, made of stone and timber, with paned windows and paneled doors. Cal already feels more comfortable here than he did at the Girt estate and he hasn’t even been out of the carriage yet. Like all Renovian holdfasts, there is a lush garden, chock-full of vegetables and herbs, and beyond that the barn and the fields.
Shadow can hardly wait for the carriage to halt completely before throwing the door wide-open and leaping from it, nearly tripping on her own skirts while doing so. “Auntie! Auntie!”
They meet at the edge of the road, the three of them embracing and laughing. At first this scene makes Cal feel happy for Shadow, but that happiness turns quickly to sadness—he has nothing like this, and maybe never will. His parents both dead, and no other family. Does Shadow know how lucky she is?
They break apart. The dark-haired aunt notices Cal standing awkwardly near the carriage and calls out to him. “The infamous Caledon Holt!”
He nods. She waves him over. “Well, what are you waiting for? Come give us a hug!”
Cal walks up the path toward the house. The fair-haired woman grabs him and gives him a warm hug. “I don’t know if you remember us. You were just a wee thing last we laid eyes on you. I’m Moriah, Shadow’s aunt. This is Mesha.”
The dark-haired aunt steps over and hugs him for a long time. “I haven’t seen you since you were a small lad. Do you remember me?”
She does look somewhat familiar, but Cal shakes his head. He wishes he did. He instantly sees why Shadow talks of them so often. They are full of warmth and genuine affection.
“Let’s go inside and get you two something to eat. You must be famished!” Aunt Moriah says.
“Yes, let’s go. We have lots to talk about,” Aunt Mesha says. Then she calls out to the footmen at the carriage. “Thank you; we will call on you again when it’s time.” She points to the chimney.
Ambassador Nhicol and Lord Mathieu greet them as well. “Moriah, Mesha, we will take our leave for the evening,” Nhicol says, as the two of them disappear up the stairs to give Shadow’s family some privacy.
But where is Shadow’s mother, who arranged this meeting?
* * *
CAL WANTS TO KNOW more but neither of the aunts offers to explain, and he figures they will tell him soon enough. The ambassador’s abode is Renovian in every way, with cozy chairs, colorful rope rugs, and bright paintings hung on every inch of available wall. It is a relief after all the artifice of Montrice.
There’s a woman in the sitting room, on a tufted rocking chair in the corner, partially obscured by darkness. She’s dressed shabbily, in dingy brown-and-tan peasant skirts and clunky wooden clogs on her feet. She wears a linen cap on her head and opaque spectacles—the type worn by those without sight.
“Mother!” Shadow says. She immediately kneels before the shabby woman who wears an ornate emerald ring on her finger.
Mother? This is Shadow’s mother? The Guild spy?
“I’m terribly sorry for everything,” Shadow says.
Shadow’s mother’s voice is as cold as any Cal has heard. “We will discuss your insubordination later. For the time being there are more important things to discuss than your running away.”
Running away? Cal is confused but doesn’t say anything. Wasn’t Shadow sent to him on orders from the queen?
“Come, eat, child,” says Moriah, ushering her and Cal to the formal dining table, where they all gather. All except for Shadow’s mother, who remains silent in the rocking chair. Moriah passes out bowls of thick beef stew. “There’s a fresh loaf of bread on the table, and fresh butter too.”
Cal doesn’t wait for bread or even for the stew to cool off; he takes a bite immediately. It’s too hot but he doesn’t care. “Delicious,” he says, mouth full.
Moriah chuckles. “Glad you like it!”
“It’s been so long since I had food like this,” he tells her. He hasn’t eaten anything but prison gruel or aristocrat nonsense in many weeks. When’s the last time he had a hearty home-cooked meal? He can’t recall.
Moriah claps her hands. “Excellent! Now that that’s settled, let’s get to it. Where to start?”
“So I take it the ambassador recognized me,” says Shadow.
Shadow’s mother coughs. Aunt Mesha glances in her direction. Aunt Moriah nods. “Yes, he was at the party to confirm your presence. We had alerted the Guild the very day you disappeared. And it goes without saying that we threw a locus spell straightaway.
“It didn’t take too long for them to discover that you’d made your way into Deersia—at least we assumed it was you, considering that Caledon was also missing, sprung from prison ahead of schedule, by a novice stable hand no less, and then appeared in Montrice with a sister matching your description. I mean, honestly, Shadow, hardly subtle. Ambassador Nhicol sent a messenger immediately to let us know what he’d found. We called you here because no other correspondence is safe, and it is imperative that you know what we’re facing immediately.”
It takes a few seconds for Cal to absorb everything that’s been said. He blinks a few times and puts a hand up to halt the conversation. “My apologies, but I was under the impression that Shadow was sent to Deersia by Queen Lilianna, in order to serve as my apprentice.” Now that he’s spoken it aloud, he doesn’t know why he ever believed her. That was, of course, ridiculous. He was so eager to leave that cell, and so distracted with his orders from the queen, that he didn’t think.
There is silence around the table.
Shadow can’t quite meet his eye.
It is Moriah who answers. “You were supposed to be freed by Ambassador Nhicol, who arrived at the prison undercover, as a Montrician spy. But a few days after he arrived, you were gone.”