The Deepest Blue(82)
As she hoped, Lord Maarte took the bait. “The east tower. He will not be disturbed there, and the views are lovely.”
“Thank you.”
“And while he works, I will show you the wonders of our little slice of paradise. You’ll be pleased to hear we’ve acquired a new chef. . . .” As he continued to extol the luxuries of the Neran Stronghold, Queen Asana allowed him to escort her off the ship. She didn’t look back at either Lady Garnah or Kelo. They knew what to do.
KELO DIDN’T KNOW HOW HE HAD ENDED UP HERE. HOME BUT NOT home. As he set up his easel in the east tower of the Neran Stronghold, he looked out over the turquoise water and tried not to feel as if he’d fallen off a cliff and was still falling.
I can do this. For Mayara.
“It will be the same as in the palace,” Lady Garnah murmured. “Calm yourself.”
This time, Lady Garnah would be present for the interrogations. There was no point in hiding Kelo’s connection with the queen anymore—he’d come with her. If they failed, it would reflect on the queen.
We can’t fail.
His first portrait was a young girl who squirmed as he tried to sketch her, one of Lord Maarte’s nieces. She greedily drank the beverage with Garnah’s potion, but she knew little about who else lived in the stronghold. Her world centered around her tutors and her games. She didn’t venture far beyond her wing.
Next was an elderly man. And then a steward of the fortress, who should have known every detail of what happened within the walls but didn’t. Kelo began to wonder if they were asking the right questions.
If a girl and her grandparents had lived here for years, shouldn’t someone be aware of it? He began to wonder if their information was wrong, if the queen’s family wasn’t here at all.
But then they had luck.
It came in the form of another child, younger than the niece. Kelo missed how this one was connected to Lord Maarte’s family, but the boy hadn’t missed much. He was a little explorer and told them that proudly, even before he drank the beverage. He claimed he’d seen every inch of the fortress.
Kelo’s hand shook as he laid a streak of charcoal across the easel. He knew he should feel guilt over drugging a child, but he didn’t. He felt hope.
“In all your exploring, have you seen a family of three: a girl who would now be eighteen and her two grandparents?” He described them carefully, exactly as Queen Asana had described them to him: the girl had anemone-orange-colored hair, the grandfather had eyebrows that looked like sea cucumbers, and the grandmother walked with a limp and sounded like a dolphin when she laughed hard enough.
“Oh yes,” the boy said happily. And he proceeded to tell Kelo about a caretaker’s house within the gardens. Most people ignored it, but he noticed that it always had guards around it. It wasn’t obvious—no soldier standing at attention the way they did outside the treasure room—but there was always one walking by, resting on a bench, chatting “casually” with another guard. It made the boy think there was something special inside, but that Lord Maarte didn’t want anyone to know there was something special inside.
Which is exactly why he had to see what was inside. He was very good at finding special things, he said.
And so, one day, he pretended to play in the garden and tossed his ball up too high so that it flew over the wall into the caretaker’s yard. He scrambled up the wall after it—and that’s when he found her. A young woman with anemone-orange hair was weeding in the garden. She handed the ball back to him, asked his name, and talked to him until a guard found him and dragged him out by the ear. She’d told him her name was Rokalara.
They let the boy scamper away when they were finished, and Lady Garnah burst out in a cackle. “I love children! A dozen adults, and they don’t see a thing. They only see what they expect to see. But a child . . . Beautiful! That was delightfully easy. Bodes well, doesn’t it?”
Kelo was smiling too. If all continued to go as planned, they’d save Queen Asana’s family tonight, and then he’d be home with Mayara tomorrow.
“I will tell the queen.” She then frowned at Kelo’s easel. “You realize you made that child look like a rabbit, don’t you?”
Startled, he looked at the canvas. He’d been so distracted that he hadn’t captured the child’s features at all.
“If this works, that will become a part of history—the moment the rabbit boy changed the world. You might want to burn it before history gets ahold of it.”
He carried the canvas over to the fireplace and set it into the flames. But he wasn’t burning it because he was ashamed of his mistake—he was burning it for the rabbit boy, to protect him, so that later, whether this succeeded or failed, no one would guess that boy had been the key and no one would punish him for it. No more innocents will suffer, Kelo thought.
Tonight, they were going to set the world right.
IT WAS A RISK TO PULL HER MIND AWAY FROM THE LEVIATHANS IN THE Deepest Blue and concentrate on the spirits of Belene, but Queen Asana had recently reinforced their dreams. She thought she could spare some power for tonight’s task, so long as she returned to impose her will on the monsters within a few hours.
It will be over soon.
The years of separation. Of loss. Of fear. Of failing to be both a mother and a daughter. She hadn’t been able to save her husband, but she hoped he’d be proud of her after today.