Stolen Songbird
Page 14

I spent the rest of the afternoon alone in Tristan’s rooms with Élise’s fading light, which gave me time to think and, more importantly, time to snoop. I was looking for something that would give me some insight into the Prince’s mind, whatever that might be. There was something about him that didn’t add up. My hands hesitated on the stack of old invitations through which I was rifling as I tried to recollect his precise words.
“You all know my feelings about humanity…”
Or at least thought they knew. His words were hardly a declaration – merely an affirmation of everyone’s conceptions about him. Or misconceptions?
“You’re grasping, Cécile,” I muttered. I set the stack of cards back where I’d found them and pushed the drawer closed. It jammed. “Darn it!” I pulled the drawer back open and bent down to see what had caught. It was another card. Careful not to tear it, I extracted the thick red paper and skimmed the black cursive script. It was an invitation to the eighth birthday of His Royal Highness, Prince Roland de Montigny. Tristan had a younger brother.
“Looking for something?”
Jerking upright, I unsuccessfully tried to wipe the guilty expression from my face. Zoé stood in the doorway, her arms crossed. “You didn’t eat your dinner.”
My eyes flickered to the untouched tray sitting on the table. “I wasn’t hungry.”
“He won’t appreciate you rooting about in his things. His Highness is very private.”
“I wasn’t rooting about in his things,” I said quickly. “I was only looking for some paper.”
“They just roll off your tongue don’t they,” she said bitterly. “The lies. The worthless promises. How anyone would dare trust a human is beyond me.”
My back stiffened. “A bit of the pot calling the kettle black, wouldn’t you say? You lot are the deceitful ones, all vying for control over your little cage. What was your sister even thinking, bringing me to meet your aunt and trying to get me mixed up in your schemes? I didn’t choose to be here. In case you need reminding, I was kidnapped. The last thing I need is to make my circumstances worse!” I stopped talking when I realized the room had gone eerily silent – even the ever present sound of the waterfall was absent.
“A ward against eavesdroppers,” Zoé snapped. “You nearly got my sister killed once today – I don’t want her sent into the labyrinth because you can’t keep your fool mouth shut.”
“No one can hear us,” I snapped back. “Besides, who would want to listen in on me anyway.”
She strode over to the wall, pulled aside a tapestry and pointed at a hole neatly drilled in the wall. “This wasn’t here yesterday.”
My skin prickled and I had to fight the urge to rip everything off the walls to find any other peepholes that might exist.
“Élise shouldn’t have trusted you – she’s delusional, blinded by hope.” To my amazement, Zoé slid down the wall and sat on the floor. “There is no hope,” she whispered. “You didn’t break the curse. Any hope we might have had of breaking free of our bondage is gone.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“You don’t understand anything.” She closed her eyes. “They will never condescend to release us from slavery, and as long as we are cursed, we dare not attempt to force them. Magic holds the mountain up – magic of a strength that only the most powerful of the great families possess. If we destroy them, we gain our freedom only for the length of time it takes all that rock to fall down upon our heads.”
CHAPTER 11
CéCILE
“There is always hope.” Even as I said the words, I knew how hollow they sounded. The half-bloods were trapped like rats on a sinking ship. “Maybe they’ll change.”
“Not in this lifetime.”
Silence hung between us, then abruptly, she climbed to her feet. “I’m sorry, my lady. I should not have burdened you.” Looking around the room, she crinkled her nose. “I need to straighten things up before he returns.”
Now that she had mentioned it, it was more than a little obvious what I had been about.
“Have the guard take you to the glass gardens. They’re walled in – no one will trouble you there.”
And there was no way for me to get into trouble, either.
“And here, I meant to give this to you straight away.” She handed me a dark green envelope. Inside was a green and gold invitation. “Lord Marc is throwing me a party,” I said slowly, once I had read and reread the inscription.
Zoé nodded. “Then it begins.” She pointed towards the door and the sound of the waterfall returned, making me jump. “Go for a walk,” she said. “It will help clear your head.”
I was no small amount surprised to discover Albert standing guard outside the door.
“I didn’t expect to see you again,” I said, tilting my head back so I could look him in the eye.
He frowned. “Why is that?”
Perhaps because you chased me through the city and then almost killed one of my dearest friends. And put a bee in the bonnet of His Royal Crankiness in the process. “Never mind,” I grumbled. “Take me to the glass gardens.”
He led me through the maze of quiet palace corridors and out an entrance in the rear.
“The paths are lit,” he said. “Don’t wander off them.”
I set off, the white gravel on the pathway crunching beneath my feet. On either side rose glass hedgerows, each branch and leaf blown with exquisite attention to detail, guiding me towards the center of the garden. I paused from time to time to examine delicate flowers, bushes, and even trees that soared beyond the pools of light cast by the widely spaced lampposts. There was beauty all around me, but it was like walking in any garden in the darkness of night – I had no sense of the whole, only the little pieces revealed by too few circles of light.
The garden was like the whole city of Trollus – shrouded in mystery but for the few snippets of information revealed by those seeking to use me. Part of me wanted to turn my back on their problems – I wasn’t the one cursed to this place.
But another part of me was drawn to the half-blood’s conundrum. It seemed unsolvable: on one hand, they had abject slavery, and on the other, almost certain death. What would I choose, if the choice were mine?
Out of habit, I began to sing to relieve my frustration. Softly at first, but my voice was drowned out by the endless roar of the waterfall, so I sang louder. I could sing over a full orchestra, but tonight I fought the waterfall for supremacy. I walked until I found a gazebo, and it became my stage. I chose the powerful pieces belonging to heroic women, my heart hammering and my lungs aching from the sustained effort. It made me feel alive, stronger than the elements and more powerful than the seas. I sang with my eyes closed and imagined I was in faraway places, free to roam and love as I pleased. When I opened them, it seemed I had been transported far away, to a place not of darkness, but of light. All around me, the garden was glowing with an impossible brilliance. Nothing on this earth could be so beautiful.
“Heavens,” I gasped, clutching the gazebo railing and blinking at the brilliant light.
“More like hell, really, but the Artisans’ Guild has done a good job disguising it.” I whirled around. Tristan was standing at the foot of the gazebo steps. “You’ve a lovely voice. I can’t say I’ve ever heard anything like it.”
“That’s the first nice thing you’ve said to me,” I said, my mind reeling. How long had he been standing there listening?
“Don’t get used to it,” he laughed snidely, turning to go.
“Wait!” The word was out of my mouth before I knew what I was saying. Tristan froze, then turned slowly back around to look at me. I hurried down the steps and stopped in front of him. “I wanted to thank you for saving my friend’s life today.”
He tipped his head to one side, eyes searching my face. “Is that what you think happened?”
“Yes.” I hesitated. His face was smooth, but his unease was a growing knot in the back of my mind. “Albert would have killed him if you hadn’t made him stop.”
“Albert’s an idiot,” he shrugged. “Christophe didn’t deserve to die just because you foolishly decided to throw yourself on him in public.”
“You know his name?” I asked, surprised.
“I know all their names. What of it? I’m sure you know the names of all your pigs.”
I rolled my eyes at the comparison. “I’m just surprised you bother, given that you supposedly hate us so much.”
One eyebrow rose. “Supposedly?”
“It’s what I’ve been told,” I said. “Although if you do hate humans, then you wouldn’t have cared if it was my fault or not. You’d have killed him anyway. And don’t give me any of that nonsense about humans being tools.”
“Nonsense?” A faint smile drifted across his face.
“Quit parroting my words back at me,” I snapped, “and answer my question.”
“But you haven’t asked one.” He tapped his chin with an index finger and waited.
He was right, I hadn’t. It was sitting on the tip of my tongue: why were you happy when we failed to break the curse? The cynical, logical side of me wondered if he was even more extreme than his father – that he would rather stay in a cage forever than give up an ounce of power – but my gut told me otherwise. He had a reason he was desperate to keep secret. I opened my mouth to ask, but nerves kept the words from coming out.
Tristan cleared his throat. “When I was a young boy, Jérôme used to let me ride around on his mule. He would tell me stories about what it was like outside, and I would imagine that I was a knight on his horse riding off to save the world. That the curse was broken and we’d escaped Trollus.”
Was that an answer to my unasked question? I wasn’t certain. “Do you still dream of escape?”
He closed his eyes and his misery rushed over me. “Yes, but I don’t call them dreams anymore.”
“What do you call them?”
“Nightmares,” he said, so softly I barely heard him. He was shaken, visibly so, but I didn’t understand why. What about coming out into the world above terrified him so much?
“My lady?” Zoé’s voice made me jump and I turned, half expecting to see her right behind me, but her dancing orb of light was still over by the hedgerows.
“She probably thinks I’m lost,” I started to explain, but when I turned around, Tristan was already some distance away and walking quickly.
“My lady?” Zoé called again, and I could hear the concern in her voice.
“Over here,” I called and she hurried over. Albert, I noticed, was with her. “You should come in now, my lady. It is getting quite late.”
“Quite late,” I echoed, my eyes searching for Tristan’s light.
“Was there someone out here with you, my lady? I thought I heard voices.” Albert was watching me intently, and I felt a shiver run through me like ants marching down my spine.
Zoé gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head. Don’t tell.
“No,” I lied, not knowing exactly why. “I was just talking to myself.”
He frowned. “Who lit up the garden then?”
I tensed.
“Oh don’t be such a boor, Albert,” Zoé said, smiling winsomely at him. “The poor thing is miserable – I thought the gardens would cheer her up a bit.”
“Only royals or members of the Artisans’ Guild are allowed to light the garden, Zoé,” he chided, but I could see he wasn’t immune to her charms, half-blood or not.
“I know.” She lowered her head. “You won’t tell, will you?”
“I suppose not,” he said, motioning for us to start towards the palace. “Not unless I’m asked, at least. I would not care to see you punished.”
The girl smiled at the hulking troll, but said nothing.
I kept my mouth shut, but my mind was whirling about like some great machine. Zoé had just lied. Not overtly, of course, but the effect was the same. But why was she covering for Tristan’s presence when the whole city knew that we were bonded? Why was she covering for him at all when by all accounts she should hate his noble guts?
What were they trying to hide?
CHAPTER 12
TRISTAN
“Idiot, idiot, idiot,” I muttered to myself as I navigated through the gardens away from Cécile, hoping Zoé would be quick-thinking enough to conceal my presence. I needed my association with Cécile kept at a minimum, or I’d risk questions arising over why I had suddenly changed my tune about her. What had I been thinking? If anyone knew I had followed her into the gardens like a lovesick puppy and then lit them up in a moronic attempt to impress her, it would undermine the purpose of my performance in the market today.
It had been a risky move to intervene and save Jérôme’s son’s life. I’d thought I’d played the circumstances well enough to hide my true motivations, but if Cécile, who’d only known me for the space of a day and knew nothing about politics, suspected me, then a savvy bastard like Angoulême was bound to have seen through my act.
Sure enough, I caught motion out of the corner of my eye as I crossed the bridge into the city proper. Plastering a smile on my face, I tipped my hat to Angoulême’s man, who at least had the decency to look embarrassed. Not that it mattered. I never bothered trying to lose them anyway.