Protect the Prince (Crown of Shards #2)(28)

I made a slow circuit of the room, looking for anything that would tell me more about Maeven. I examined every piece of furniture, tapping on all the tables and chairs, along with the writing desk, the nightstand, the armoire, and even the bedframe, searching for secret compartments, but I didn’t find anything. Furniture, pillows, blankets, pens, books. Everything was what it appeared to be and nothing more. Felton was right. Maeven had been very careful, even here in her own room, where no one had been watching her.

To my surprise, Maeven had taken her position as the kitchen steward quite seriously, and I found several recipe cards on the desk, along with proposed menus and notes about which wines paired best with certain dishes. Of course she had taken her position seriously. Maeven had put a lot of time and effort into killing Cordelia, and she wouldn’t have wanted to get dismissed for not doing her job before she could strike.

But Maeven seemed to have a whimsical side as well, since several storybooks were mixed in with everything else, along with maps of places I had never heard of before. I couldn’t tell if the maps went with the storybooks or if they were distant kingdoms that the Mortans wanted to eventually conquer.

The only other thing remotely interesting was a jewelry box on the vanity table. The wooden box itself was nothing special, but the jewelry inside was magnificent. Chandelier earrings, polished cuffs, necklaces that looked more like delicate strands of lace than hard metal.

I’d been apprenticed to Alvis for fifteen years, so I could tell that the pieces had been exquisitely designed and painstakingly handcrafted by a metalstone master. Each item, from the tiniest earring to the widest cuff, was worth a small fortune. Maeven apparently loved jewelry even more than she did maps and storybooks.

I ran my finger over some amethysts embedded in a silver choker. Magiers often wore amethysts to augment their own power, and I could feel and smell the stench of her lightning flowing through the stones. No beauty glamours or other soft, subtle magics for Maeven. Every gem in her jewelry box practically dripped with raw, brutal power. I half expected the amethysts to shock my fingers, but of course they didn’t.

I checked the box just like I had everything else. I took all the jewelry out of the various spaces and felt around the purple velvet inside, once again searching for secret compartments.

I didn’t really expect to find anything, but then my fingers brushed up against a small button hidden inside the velvet, and a drawer popped out from the bottom of the box. I pulled it open and stared at the item inside.

A signet ring.

I grabbed the ring and held it up to the light. Tiny feathers were etched into the silver band, while a small, flat circle of jet was inlaid in the center. A fancy cursive M was embossed in silver in the jet and ringed by midnight-purple amethysts. My nose twitched. The amethysts reeked of Maeven’s magic just like the rest of her jewelry did. I wondered what the M stood for, though. Maeven? Morta? Both?

Either way, Maeven had hidden this ring for a reason. Oh, I doubted there was any real clue in it, but I slid it into my pocket anyway. Perhaps it was petty, but I wanted to take something away from her for a change.

That was the only secret compartment in the jewelry box, so I searched through the rest of the vanity table, but nothing in it told me anything more about Maeven.

Besides her kitchen steward tunics, she had a few more personal items in the armoire, including a beautiful lilac ball gown, while berry balms, shimmering eye shadows, and scented lotions were lined up on the bathroom counter. But they were just clothes and makeup. Silk and thread stitched together, and colored oils and powders pressed into metal tubes, and there was nothing noteworthy or sinister about them.

I was almost ready to admit defeat and return to my own chambers when the scent of magic gusted through the room.

At first, I thought that I was imagining the hot, caustic stench or had just wandered too close to the jewelry box again. But I drew in a breath, and the aroma intensified, strong enough to burn my nose.

I clutched my sword, whirled around, and scanned everything again. Sullivan had checked for magical traps, but my nose told me that he’d missed something.

And that’s when I realized that the mirror in the corner was glowing.

I’d already checked the freestanding mirror, a long, oval glass housed in a plain ebony frame. But now the surface was glowing and rippling as though it was made of liquid silver. My eyes narrowed.

It was a Cardea mirror.

The mirrors were named after Cardea, the glass master who had supposedly created them. The mirrors let people communicate with each other over great distances, or sometimes even physically move themselves and objects from one mirror—and place—to another.

I must have done something to trigger its magic. My gaze cut to the clock on the wall. Or perhaps this midnight hour was the scheduled meeting time between someone in the palace and whoever was on the other side of the glass.

Either way, I wanted to know who had a window into Seven Spire, so I drew my sword and pressed myself up against the wall, so that I could look into the mirror, but whoever was on the other side couldn’t see me. And then I waited.

The silver glow grew brighter and brighter, and the surface began to ripple even more violently, as though it were a lake being assaulted by gale-force winds. The hot, caustic stench of magic filled the room, and I had to twitch my nose to hold back a sneeze. A few seconds later, the silver glow dimmed, the ripples smoothed out, and a woman appeared in the glass.