Midnight Jewel (The Glittering Court #2)(103)

I had a sudden fluttering in my chest as all the memories from the night of the Flower Fest seemed to whirl through my mind at once. And then I thought about our encounter at the store, in which he’d refused to acknowledge my existence.

The only other thing he said was that it was for the best you were gone and never crossed our paths again.

“No,” I told Silas. “No message.”





CHAPTER 27


ADELAIDE’S DEPARTURE HIT ME HARD THE NEXT MORNING. No matter how busy our lives had been in Adoria, I’d always had the comfort of knowing I’d see her back at Wisteria Hollow. That wasn’t the case anymore. Her future was off in the foothills of western Hadisen now, away from Tamsin and me. She was going to a dangerous land with dangerous people, and that scared me. I wouldn’t be able to keep track of her anymore. Adelaide was on her own.

Well, not entirely on her own. Cedric was with her. And despite the mess they were caught up in, both of them looked radiantly happy at the Hadisen party’s send-off. The expedition west was huge, comprised of wagons, animals, and almost two hundred people. Some were going to find gold, others were going to farm. Some people just wanted any kind of work at all.

Adelaide’s happy because she’s free, I thought, watching her wave at us from a wagon. Maybe she wasn’t free of her contract yet, but it was within grasping distance for her and Cedric now. And if nothing else, she was free of deception. I envied her that.

Warren Doyle gallantly rode at the front of the caravan, ready to lead them to a better life. He looked very dashing atop his stallion, but his role in organizing the heretic patrols still bothered me. It had been bad enough when he had his eye on all of Denham and parts of neighboring colonies. Now his focus was narrowed in on this group, his new citizens. And Cedric—the man who had both taken the woman Warren wanted and practiced an illicit faith—would be locked into that group as they made the ten-day trip to Hadisen. My gaze fell back on Cedric and Adelaide, and I prayed they’d never let their guards down.

“I wouldn’t want that life,” Tamsin told me after the party departed. “But she’s in love. I guess that helps offset moving to the wilderness.”

“I thought you wanted to move to the wilderness,” I teased. “Isn’t that the whole point of chasing Warren?”

“I want to move into the governor’s newly built house that’s in the wilderness. There’s a difference.”

Before Adelaide had left, we’d learned that Tamsin’s full-scale “attack” on Warren this week had been pretty successful. She’d been right that he wanted to start his new governorship with a wife, and he’d quickly recognized her strengths. He’d asked that she not accept any offers of engagement until he returned.

“Do you have any appointments today?” I asked when we were back in our bedroom later. Although she’d promised Warren she wouldn’t accept any offers in his absence, she’d made it clear that she’d still be meeting with other suitors. It was either a way to force his hand or keep her own options open. Maybe both.

“Yes, of course.” She’d finished writing one of her daily letters and now sat on her bed with a book. “I’m just taking a short break. I’ve got tea with Melvin Yates in an hour and then that dinner party at the Waverly house tonight.”

I settled on my own bed with the Lorandian dictionary and the coded letter. I did a double take when I noticed her book’s cover. “Are you reading A Testament of Angels?”

“Huh?” She glanced down at the book, which was a standard church text. “Oh, yes. I started it in Grashond. There wasn’t a lot of reading material there, and I figured I might as well see it through. And I need something to pass the time now. Warren’s coming back by water after they make it to Hadisen, but it’ll still probably be two weeks before I see him.” She gave a dramatic sigh and leaned back against the headboard. “These days are going to drag.”




My day didn’t seem to have enough hours in it as I hurried to finish my translation. The letter wasn’t long, but I couldn’t do a word-for-word replacement. I had to take tense and conjugation into consideration, as well as words with multiple meanings. At least I had nothing else to distract me, thanks to my thin social schedule.

When I finished a couple of hours later and set my Lorandian dictionary aside, the words before me still didn’t make sense. There was no sentence structure at all or any attempt to follow the language’s grammatical rules. If there was a message there, it was beyond me. I made my own copy of the translation and gave Aiana the first one to relay to Silas when she went into town later.

I didn’t hear anything back until she gave me a small note a week later, during one of our crossbow lessons. It was from Silas: Thanks for the translation. Still no luck breaking it.

The hope that my efforts had provided some revelation faded away. Silas and his network had had to go to incredible lengths to even learn about the letter’s existence, and then I’d done the work of obtaining it. All for nothing.

I lined up a shot with the crossbow and tried to keep my tone light as I asked, “Silas gave you the note? Or was it Grant?”

She crossed her arms and checked my form. “Silas. I’ve hardly seen Iyitsi at all. He’s too caught up in this case.”