The Orphan Queen (The Orphan Queen #1)(9)
“We need those supplies.” Patrick’s attention stayed on Quinn and Ronald, while Ezra sat bouncing in his chair, excited for such a dangerous mission. “Our return to Aecor may depend on our having them.”
Everyone nodded solemnly; their rapt attention never left Patrick. I finished my work with the residency documents and moved them aside, then let my gaze slide toward the open window where cool light filtered in through the sand-speckled glass.
Far beyond the horizon, past the piedmont and the plains and rivers—past the dirt and cobble roads our prison wagons had bumped over almost ten years before—lay Aecor, a home only a few of us remembered. A home we wouldn’t recognize when we returned.
Aecor was my responsibility, but how could I rule a kingdom when I couldn’t even lead the Ospreys?
THE FIRST WINTER in the old palace was awful. In spite of all our stolen clothes, blankets, and the fireplaces we’d cleaned and lit, the ancient castle was always freezing. The wind blew constantly.
One morning while the other Ospreys were cleaning or looking after the youngest children, Patrick summoned me to the common area, where the big table in the center of the room was covered in stacks of paper, jars of ink, and wooden boxes with rusty latches.
My breath caught at the scribal bounty. “Is this for me?”
Patrick was leaning on the windowsill, his arms crossed. He smiled faintly, an expression that looked out of place on him. It softened him, and eased the sharp effect of the scar above his eye. “I know it’s not the best quality, but it’s what I could get.”
I beamed as I unlatched boxes to peek inside. Pens, spare nibs, and wax-sealing supplies. “These will work just fine.”
“Will you need anything else?” He cast a cool gaze over the table, as though he weren’t proud of all this, but there was a light in his eyes, and one corner of his mouth tipped up.
“We’ll need lots more paper. Lots of different kinds. Inks. Um.” I touched the unlined papers, trying to recall everything that had been on my father’s writing desk in Aecor. “Rulers. Candles. Cleaning cloths. A blotter. Perhaps copybooks, if we can find any. Samples of other people’s handwriting.”
Patrick nodded, keeping everything in his head. He wouldn’t forget anything we needed. “You don’t actually know anything about forgery, do you?”
I cringed and shook my head.
“It’s fine.” He pushed off the windowsill and slid a notebook toward me. “Your idea was good. We will be a lot more effective if we can deliver false notes and forge official papers, but if we’re going to do this, we need to do it correctly. I’ll figure out what else we need and make sure we get it. You get to work actually learning what you’re doing.”
The simultaneous praise and criticism made my emotions knot up. Patrick rarely complimented, but he was right: I’d rushed into the idea of tricking my way into places, not having a solid foundation of experience behind me.
“You can do this, Wilhelmina.” Patrick patted my shoulder awkwardly; he was two years older, but we were the same height, which I could tell annoyed him. His father had been taller. “I’ll do anything I can to help you get back Aecor. So will the other Ospreys.”
“Thank you.” I took the notebook off the table and flipped through the evenly bound pages. Each sheet was lined and unusually perfect, while the cover was rubbed dull from handling. “This looks old.”
“It’s pre-wraith, I think.”
Ah. From before the ban over ninety years ago, when people used magic to manufacture and power everything. It must have been such a different world then, with the freedom to use magic and the ability to get whatever was needed with minimal inconvenience.
If only I’d been born then. It sounded like a better world than this one.
“You should keep it,” Patrick said. “Practice writing in it.”
“It’s too special for practice. That’s what all the scrap paper is for.” My fingers traveled across the cover, bumping through the shallow grooves where braids or vines had been stamped along the edges, but worn away over the century. “Father kept a diary. I don’t know what he wrote in there—he never let me see—but it might be good for me to write about reclaiming Aecor. When I am queen and you are my top general, historians will read what I write here and our efforts will never be forgotten.”
A pleased smile turned up the edges of his perpetual frown. “So you like it?”
“Yes.” I took a chair and ink and found a pen and nib that wasn’t rusty. The curved end of the nib fitted into the holder perfectly. “I like it very much.”
Patrick sat next to me, watching as I shook and then opened a jar of ink, tested the color and flow on a scrap paper, and wrote my name on the inside of the leather-bound notebook.
Property of Wilhelmina Korte, Princess of Aecor.
The following is an account of my return to my kingdom. It is real and true.
The sharp pen nib scraped the paper, making a pleasant scratch scratch as I wrote the date and location. My pen strokes were slow, careful so that the black lines were an even thickness and had proper spacing, just as my tutor had taught me. In fact, the letters looked exactly like my tutor’s.
“You have nice handwriting.”
Well, my tutor had nice handwriting. But I smiled anyway.