The Queen's Poisoner (Kingfountain, #1)(25)

How had the king talked him into leaving the sanctuary? His memory was a blur. He only remembered how persuasive the king had been, how kind and generous he had seemed. Somehow he had tricked Owen. The boy did not understand how, but he knew it had happened. He gritted his teeth, brushing his tears away on his sleeve.

The day seemed to pass away in a blur and he obeyed the message that had been left with the tiles. He sat and waited and did not eat any food. He did not think he would ever be hungry again. Even when Liona tried to coax him to eat a muffin, he only shook his head.

“By all means give it to me then, Liona!” Mancini said with a laugh. “The boy’s not hungry. The man is!”

The butler Berwick snorted. “Yuv eaten as much as sixteen men!” he complained darkly in his Northern accent. “Your appetite is going to bankrupt the king!”

“Your complaining is going to bankrupt my patience,” Mancini shot back. “If you had the brains the Fountain gave a sheep, you’d know it’s not wise to stand between a fat hungry man and his food. I could eat you, Berwick.”

The butler snorted angrily at the reproof, but Mancini was always joking and no one seemed to pay him any mind.

“He clearly doesn’t want the muffin, Liona.” Mancini continued his campaign for more food, beckoning with his sausage-like fingers. “Bring it over.”

The cook looked pleadingly at Owen, begging him to take it, but he would not.

“See! I told you the lad wasn’t hungry today. And it is certainly a sin to let a muffin go to waste.” Liona almost threw it at him, but he took it greedily and ate it with little mumbles of relish that sickened Owen. “I am Genevese,” he said, spitting a few crumbs as he spoke, to no one in particular. “And I am not ashamed of it! We love our food. This . . . this is the height of deliciousness. I applaud you, morsel! If there are any more, Liona . . . ?”

She gave him a disgusted look and did not reply.

Owen was too tired and hurt to do much that day. He obeyed when Jewel came for him and did as he was told in a listless way. Even her suggestion of reading in the library was met with refusal. He just wanted to sit in the kitchen, to smell the baking bread and try to recapture his memories of Tatton Hall. But his life there was so different from his present reality that the memories were slipping way, dissolving into the air like smoke. He lay down on the warm stone tiles, pressing his cheek against them, and thought about his parents and his siblings. He tried to remember the carefree days he’d spent reading in the library and ambling around the grounds.

He might have fallen asleep there. He dazed and dozed, drifting in and out of consciousness. Sometimes snatches of words, mumbled softly nearby, would linger close enough that he could grab them.

“Poor dear. He misses home,” Liona murmured.

“The king is a cruel man. Do you think he will kill the boy?” Drew asked. “He killed his nephews. The man has no qualms.”

“Carry him to bed, Drew. It’s getting late.”

“Let him sleep, Liona. Let him dream of better days. I’ll come by early in the morning and carry him to his room.”

They left him in the kitchen. The clinking of pots and spoons ended. Mancini grunted as he hiked up the steps. Soon all was peaceful and quiet and warm. Owen’s arm throbbed painfully when he turned over on his shoulder. He blinked, feeling some of his mussed hair tickle his forehead. They had all gone. The windows showed the black night sky, and he saw the outline of the knife-blade tower and a single light coming from the upper window. It looked like a star.

He sat up and listened to the deep quiet. It was vast and penetrating. An occasional sound, like the sloughing of ash in the oven, came like a whisper. Owen’s heart was a painful thing, almost as sore as his bruised arm.

“I don’t want to die,” he whispered into the stillness.

There was a grating sound, so soft he almost did not hear it. It took Owen a moment to place it as the sound of polished stone scuffing stone. Then a woman entered the kitchen from a shadowed recess nearby, where the tiles had awaited him with their cryptic message. She was dressed in a pale gray cloak that seemed to match the color of the stone wall. The cowl was up, concealing her face, so he only caught a glimpse of her hair.

His heart started to beat faster. She was slightly taller than Princess Elyse, and for a brief moment, Owen thought she might be a ghost. Then her arms lifted to lower the cowl, revealing a long coil of dark hair that was pinned up around her head like a crown with a single braid coming down and draped across her shoulder. A thin necklace with a brooch hung at the base of her throat. Her elbow-length gloves matched her gown—a light, satin texture that was silver and fashionable. She stood still for a moment, listening to the silence, wrapped in the velvety darkness of night.

“Owen?” she whispered softly.

His heart beat even faster. He swallowed, afraid but hopeful. She knew his name. She was looking for him. It suddenly dawned on him that Drew was not the one who had been leaving him messages with the tiles after all.

He shifted on the floor and her head turned in response to the little noise, her braid slipping down her back. Though he was half-hidden by shadows in the dark corner, that small sound was all it had taken to capture her attention. Aside from the fire embers, only the moon lit the kitchen.

She walked gracefully toward him, and as she came closer, he realized she was beautiful. She was neither as young as the princess nor as old as the queen. Though he could not tell the color of her eyes in the darkness, they were light, like moonbeams—either gray or blue or green—and so very sad. She absentmindedly reached for the braid and began to tease the tips with her fingers. Then she let it rest across her front again, barely touching the laced bodice.