Incendiary (Hollow Crown #1)(57)
I push away the feather-soft blanket and examine my injured hand. The stitches are swollen and red. It hurts to stretch them, and blood still trickles from the stem of the cut. My other hand is itchy inside the tight leather glove. I’ve never felt as useless as I do now. I’m only glad no one can witness this humiliation. With a damaged hand, I could only manage to wiggle myself into a thin silk robe last night, which I now regret as a draft sends shivers racing across my skin.
I swing my feet over the edge of the bed. The vast room is dark, and I pad to the floor-length curtains, but hesitate upon a closer look at the material. They said this room used to belong to Lady Nuria. I do not remember her from my time at the palace, but she had expensive taste. Feather silk is the lightest fabric ever made, imported from Dauphinique. I wonder if there’s so much of it because the newest queen of Puerto Leones is from there. Just a swatch of it is worth more than anything I’ve ever owned, and Lady Nuria used it for something as mundane as drapes. I’m afraid to even touch them, but I don’t fancy sitting in shadow.
When I pull back the curtains, golden morning light filters through in thick stripes. The immense windows are barred on the outside with black iron, and a cylinder lock on the latch keeps the glass panes closed. My throat tightens. I shouldn’t be this surprised, but I am. As a child, I had free rein of the grounds. Méndez doesn’t think of me as that naive seven-year-old anymore. I will have to regain his trust and find where the weapon is being kept in the palace. I have dozens of old safe houses I can give them. It would thin the justice’s forces and allow the Whispers to smuggle out more refugees. I can stay for more, like Lozar said.
From up here, we’re so high that I can see the entire city center, the familiar maze that seems to have only grown more complicated since I last saw it. Just beyond, there are the green treetops of a forest beginning to grow anew.
Foolishly, I let my eyes drop, falling onto the square below. The memory of the Whispers’ Rebellion rears again, everything crashing back at once: the sticky streets, smoke in my nose, ash on my skin. Bodies shoving and crushing and burning.
“Awake, O Scarlet of the Sands!” an alto voice singsongs cheerfully behind me.
I let out a startled cry and reach for my knife—only for my fingertips to graze silk. Of course. These aren’t my clothes. This isn’t my room. This isn’t where I belong.
“Who in the Six Heavens are you?” I pull my flimsy robe tighter as I take in the man now standing in my room. He’s young, maybe older than me but not by much. Tall with a gleaming head of brown curls that frame a handsome oval face and light brown skin. The king’s jeweled seal catches the morning light on his right jacket pocket.
“Me? I am the royal sun who comes to shine his light on you,” the boy continues to sing, his voice a pleasantly surprising ring. For the first time, I notice a bundle of scarlet in his fine hands, the hands of someone who’s never done manual labor.
I frown. “I don’t know that play.”
He holds the dress out for me to see. I don’t look at it. I already know it’s ridiculous.
“Then we must educate you about the theater if you are to be the lady in my care.”
“Not a lady.” I take the dress from him and, remembering the way the other attendants acted toward me, am surprised when he doesn’t flinch away. The dress is in a choke hold in my leather-clad fist. “I can dress myself. There’s no need for you to be here.”
“I only just took an iron to that, Lady Renata,” the boy tells me, gently removing the dress from my hands.
“I’m not a lady,” I say again.
“That may be so, but I must still treat you as one.”
“Because Justice Méndez asked you to.”
The boy gives a little shake of his head. One of his curls falls out of place and lands over his forehead like a tendril of smoke, or a very tiny snake. “You must know more than anyone that Justice Méndez doesn’t ask for anything. Now, please, let us dress before we feast. You must look your best for the king.”
He takes long, sure strides away from me and through a door leading to the dressing room where he’s already set out perfumes, combs, and brooches. Did I really sleep through the rattle of keys and the heavy tread of his boots? Margo might’ve been right. I have no business being a spy.
“What are you doing?” I say, impatiently following him.
“You see, Lady Renata,” he starts. “There is most certainly a need for me to be here. Your injured hands leave you practically indisposed. The justice has entrusted me, Leonardo Almarada, with your care. You wouldn’t want him to be upset with me, would you?”
“Actually, I’m wondering what you did wrong that you’d be sent to attend someone like me.”
His mouth twitches and his jaw muscles tighten. His sharp green eyes hone in on me. “I’ll have you know I am quite good at my job. I have an incredible amount of patience. When I was a stage actor, I trained a dozen larks to sing to accompany my musical number. Pity there’s not much work these days.”
“I don’t sing,” I say, and do my best to frown. To put him off and scare him away like the girls last night.
“I’m sure that is best for us all,” he says. “Now, let’s get to it.”
He holds the dress by the shoulders, a ridiculous smile playing on his lips because he knows I can’t do this on my own. There are at least two dozen unnecessary buttons on the back, and my wretched hand is still swollen and red. A voice that sounds remarkably like Dez’s whispers in my head. Think of the advantage. If Méndez chose him to attend me, then that means he trusts him. The justice might not know he’s given me a gift. Even if he does sing this early in the morning.