The Mirror King (The Orphan Queen, #2)(16)

My breaths came shallow, but I managed the words. “Go on.”

“Though you are responsible for me, I’m not what you want. I could change—do or become anything that you order—but I don’t think anything would satisfy you. So I am a mystery, given life for no purpose at all.”

“You had a purpose.”

“To save you from the locusts? To save your city from changing?” The wraith boy spread his arms wide, his clothes dropping with a soft whumph. The jacket opened to reveal his chest; I kept my gaze high. “One was over so quickly it hardly matters, while the other was just delaying the inevitable.” He cocked his head. “I told you there would be consequences.”

“What are those consequences?”

He went very, very still. “You might think you’ve slowed the advance of change. Of wraith, as you call it. But you haven’t. It’s coming faster to meet with me.”

My stomach and chest knotted.

“Why is it coming to meet you? If you’re the wraith that was in the area when I animated it, wouldn’t that mean there’s less wraith now? You’re alive. And solid. You’re real.”

“I am those things. I am what you want me to be.” He lifted a hand and pointed an overlong finger toward the door. “Your breakfast is coming. Smells good.”

I barely had time to follow the shift in subject when the knock sounded. “Enter!” I motioned the wraith boy toward the music room. “Go in there and get dressed. Don’t mess with anything.”

“Yes, my queen.” He took his clothes and slipped away, just as the door opened and a maid came inside with a tray. She placed my breakfast on the table and after a quick curtsy and inquiry as to whether I needed anything else, excused herself. She was the same maid I’d had since announcing my identity, and I still didn’t know her name; she hardly spoke at all.

I sat at the table, famished after missing dinner last night. I hadn’t lived in the palace so long that food was expendable, and for any Osprey, wasting food was the highest of crimes, right up there with betraying Aecor by befriending anyone from the Indigo Kingdom.

Well, no one was perfect.

Hours later, James arrived bearing a large leather and canvas bag. The contents thunked as he hefted it onto the table. The strap dangled off the edge. “Your evening wear and accessories, my lady.”

“Truly, you’re a man of miracles.”

His smile was strained. Haunted. “If I cautioned you to stay in tonight, would you listen?”

Inside the bag, there were several black shirts and trousers, a pair of knee-high boots, masks, and most importantly: weapons. “This will do.”

James sighed. “That’s what I was afraid you were going to say. Where’s your pale friend? I have more orders.”

“He’s in the music room. What else, besides delivering my wardrobe?”

He ticked off the items on his fingers. “One: deliver your clothes. Two: ask you to please put the wraith boy in a safer location. Three: assist you in drafting a letter to the people of Aecor announcing your stay here, and the treasonous acts of Patrick Lien.”

“I was already going to do that. I’ve spent the morning writing notes and a draft.”

“Good. That way it will sound like it actually came from you.”

Who would know, though? For almost ten years, everyone in Aecor believed I was dead.

“Do you want to start with the letter or the transfer? I’ve already had a nearby space cleaned out, since I don’t think he’d stand to be very far from you.”

“Let’s move him first.”

“For the best, I think. With the prince’s recovery, it won’t be long before talk turns to you and this creature. I know you slept on Tobiah’s chair last night—a scandal on its own—but as far as anyone else is concerned, you slept in your rooms while the wraith boy was here, too.”

Then surely the damage was already done. No matter how I felt about it, my reputation did matter. People of the Indigo Kingdom already had so little respect for me, and one day I’d have to marry for the good of Aecor—assuming I ever got back my kingdom and the wraith didn’t destroy everything first.

“I’m shocked I have any reputation left to tarnish.” I shrugged and jerked a thumb toward the music room door. “But to protect my delicate sensibilities, will you make sure he’s dressed before we go in?”

James wrinkled his nose. “You think he’s naked?”

“I told him to put on his clothes, but that was this morning.”

“Great.” James knocked on the music room door and entered.

A loud whack hit the wall: wood crashing. “What are you? You don’t belong.” The wraith boy’s voice rose an octave. “Leave!”

I threw open the music room door to find the piano bench in pieces and a gash torn in the wall paneling. James stood just a step away from the demolished bench, his chest heaving. “Wil.” He spoke between clenched teeth. “I think you should send Ferris for more guards.”

The wraith boy’s posture shifted with unnatural quickness. One moment, he was huge and hunched, ready to grab the piano and hurl it at James. The next moment, he resumed his normal size and shape, and bowed his head. “My queen. Hello.”

“What’s going on?” I forced the shaking out of my voice, keeping it low and dangerous.