Havenfall (Havenfall #1)(37)

“Of course, ma’am,” Taya says, perfectly charming.

When Willow turns and glides away, Taya slumps back against the wall, miming wiping sweat off her brow. “Thanks for that,” she says with a crooked smile.

“No problem.” But I didn’t come here just to get her off the hook. If she was in the tunnels last night at all, even if it was just an accident, I need to know why. And if she saw anything.

“So, um, you were in the tunnels?” My voice trembles a little.

Taya’s smile fades. “I’m sorry. I know I wasn’t supposed to be down there—”

“I’m not mad,” I say. “Just, what brought you down there? They’re not exactly pretty.”

Dirt floors, stone walls, claustrophobia, darkness. Shadows. Monsters. Blood. I sit down on a battered ottoman nearby, balancing my plate on my knees, suddenly not hungry anymore.

“Nothing really.” Taya sits down a few feet from me, her hands twisted together on her lap. “I—I got turned around after cleaning up the ballroom, and something just kept pulling me further down.” She looks down at her hands, like she might be able to see through the woven rug, through the floorboards, down to the tunnels. “I can’t really sleep in a new place until I’ve explored it.”

Something about her voice is weary, like she’s explored too many new places. But if she went down there after cleaning up from the dancing, it must have been late, after everyone else was in bed but before I saw her in the garden. Maybe she was there around the same time as Brekken, if the Silver Prince’s claims about him are true.

“Did you see anything down there?” I ask. My breath comes short as she opens her mouth to respond, and I’m not sure why, not sure what I want her answer to be. If she saw Brekken. Or if she didn’t.

“Not down there, no,” she says. She meets my eyes squarely. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on, Maddie? Because yesterday you were worried about a mountain lion, but I really doubt there’s one running around in the tunnels.”

I blink, startled at the sudden shift in her tone from guilt to challenge. “Um …”

Another classic bit of Marcus advice floats into my mind. People can sniff out lies. If you can’t share the whole truth, share whatever little bit of it you can to get people on your side. Quickly, holding Taya’s gaze, I assemble a new story in my head, fitting pieces together into something that hopefully makes sense.

“Okay, so you were kind of right that I was with someone last night,” I say. True enough, but I don’t mean Graylin in the woods, but earlier, in the hayloft. I don’t have to fake the ashamed blush I can feel burning my cheeks. “A guy. He, um, he stole my keys.” I need to pause to take a breath. It’s absurdly hard to get the words out. “And then disappeared.”

Taya is very still, her eyes trained on my face. When it’s clear I’m not going to say anything else, she lets out a slow breath. “Well,” she says, her voice quiet but still cutting through the noise of the common room. “That seems like a problem.”

I swallow. “Yeah.”

“And that’s why you’re on the lookout for anything weird.”

I nod. “So you’re sure you didn’t see anything?”

Taya hesitates. “Not in the tunnels … but there was something this morning.”

Her eyes cut from side to side, and my heart picks up. “What is it?”

She chews her lip for another moment before pulling a rolled-up newspaper from the pocket of her leather jacket. “I wasn’t going to be a snitch, but I saw someone walking outside today, off the grounds. After you told us at breakfast not to.”

My pulse races. “What did they look like?”

“One of the guests. An older lady,” Taya says. “She was wearing a long purple dress and this frankly amazing hat.”

She smiles, but I don’t, can’t. The picture forms in my mind right away. The Heiress.

“She had a big bag and this paper. She left it in the library.” She shrugs as she hands it to me. “Maybe that will mean something to you. I don’t know.”

I unroll the paper and glance at the date. Today’s. The Briar Star. A cheaply printed local paper that mostly features stories about the weather—consistent only in its strangeness—and yard sales and lost pets. I’m a little relieved when there’s nothing in there about otherworldly monsters or mysterious, gruesome murders. But we’re not in the clear yet.

There’s only one place the Heiress could have gotten the paper. She went to town. But how? The Silver Prince charmed the boundary of the property. The air around the perimeter is compressed, its gravity strengthened with Byrnisian magic so strong that anyone who tries to cross it without an amulet will get stuck there, rooted in place until Marcus’s guards come to collect them. Only Graylin, Willow, the Prince, and I have the charms to pass through.

So how did the Heiress get out? And what was the bag for? I hand Taya back the paper, unsure what to make of this new information.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” Taya says, her gaze intent on mine. “But I can talk it through with you, if that helps. You can trust me.”

Trust. The word is a dagger in me, though Taya couldn’t know that. She couldn’t know how bad my track record with trust really is.