“I am trying!”
I stilled, grabbing hold of my skirts so they wouldn’t swish against the polished marble.
“Of course I won’t lose it,” the whisper punctuated the air once more.
It came from just around the corner. I closed my eyes for a second and tried to talk myself out of eavesdropping, but my feet started moving before I gave them permission.
Soon enough I found myself at the corner of the intersecting hallway, nearly submerged in darkness.
“Of course I didn’t plan this!” the whisper argued. “I didn’t know she was still alive, or I would have taken care of it a long time ago.”
I glanced around the corner. My uncle stood there, next to a mottled window that had been covered in heavy, dark drapes, like all the other windows along this corridor. I couldn’t see another person though. He faced the window and brushed the drape aside with his shoulder.
“I am trying,” he hissed. “I have a plan. If tomorrow does not go as I expect it to. I’ve asked—”
I gasped when that familiar clicking sound tapped the windowsill. My uncle swiveled, but I had already ducked around the corner.
I fled back to the place I was supposed to wait for Crenshaw. My heart hammered as I waited for my uncle to appear and demand to know what I was doing in this part of the castle and what I’d heard.
What I’d seen.
But I couldn’t have answered him. I didn’t know what I’d seen. Crenshaw called for me at the end of the hallway and I hurried toward him. Minutes ago I had been worried about what he would do to me if he got me alone, but now he walked me to my room as he always did.
And all the while I replayed that image of the darkened hallway. My uncle leaning into the window, sharing secrets with a bird.
My uncle had been speaking to a bird.
A raven.
Either that made him mad.
Or more had happened in the last eight years than I knew.
28
The day passed with the slowness of a yellow-backed slug. After the excitement of the morning, my afternoon involved staring at the fire. My evening consisted of Matilda cursing my hair and offering no useful gossip. The night stretched into endless hours of sleeplessness.
I kept remembering the crashing chandelier, the crushing force of it that would have killed me. How had the rope been cut? Had it truly been the bird?
What about that strange bodiless light?
Was my uncle somehow in league with the ravens?
Ravanna Presydia’s dress the first morning of Conandra popped into my head. Long black feathers fashioned together to make a skirt. Could those have been raven feathers? Was it too much of a stretch to connect the two?
I jerked my head around on my pillow trying to find a comfortable position. What was I missing?
I hadn’t noticed ravens in the daytime until the river back in Heprin. But in every one of my nightmares, one sat upon the window ledge. I closed my eyes and tried to think back, before my parents were murdered. Had Elysia been filled with ravens then?
I remembered the page with the raven in the pagan tome that Father Garius had shown me.
I needed to see the book again. I needed to find someone who could read it to me. But where in all the realm would I find a person willing to admit that they could read pagan? Furthermore, where would I find the words for them to read?
Where was my mother’s copy now? Had Tyrn found it? Burned it? Was it still hidden within her suites?
I slapped the covers. I could not remember ever feeling this frustrated. Someone was trying to kill me and while it was easy to believe that someone was my uncle, there was also the mystery of the birds. Even my uncle answered to them.
Who controlled the ravens?
My tired eyes fell to the window. I had not bothered to close the curtains.
The stars twinkled. A cool breeze made the trees sway.
My pulse jumped when a reflection moved over the glass. I glanced wildly around the room and held my breath so that I could listen for excess noise. But there was nothing other than Shiksa’s rumbly breathing and the crackling fire.
Still, I could not shake the feeling that I was being watched. I crawled to my knees, reaching for the sword that lay beneath pillows at the end of the bed. My hand felt for the hilt and curled around the familiar leather binding.
The light from the fire cast a glare on the windowpane, but I could still see the blurry outline of something. I slipped from my bed without making a sound.
As I approached the window, I noticed the latch was unlocked. How had that happened? Leaning forward, I held out my sword and prepared for the worst. I yanked the window open and inclined against the ledge.
The person that had been spying on me was pressed against the outside wall of the small balcony as if he could hide himself. I held my sword to the intruder’s throat with a steady hand. “Show yourself,” I growled.
Two hands raised in surrender. “And if I don’t?”
The voice was familiar, but panic kept me from recognizing it. “I’ll slit your throat from ear to ear.” I peered around the wall. “Obviously.”
“You’re a true terror,” Gunter Creshnika announced. “I nearly wet myself just now.”
I stepped back so he could face me, but I never dropped my sword. His hands remained in the air, a smug smile tilting his mouth.
“Are you here to kill me then?” I asked. “Because it will not be easy. I promise you that.”
He stepped through the open window and onto the window seat. I was forced to move back so that I could keep my position. Although now that he towered over me, I felt less in control, even if he had not pulled his sword.
“I believe you,” Gunter replied. He took a step off
