Maybe Breck senses my unease, or maybe she’s uncomfortable too, because her voice lowers. “Eerie, right? I told ya. A witch.”
I don’t know whether I believe the witch part or not, but something tells me not to find out. I can only imagine what someone with that ability would see if she looked inside my soul.
Death? Hatred? Self-contempt?
Murderer.
Elemental.
I glance back out over Adora’s ballroom and search through the unfamiliar faces for the king and the Cashlin princess, suddenly desperate to know what she looks like so I can avoid her.
Breck grunts. “You see her?”
“No.”
“Well, this is only ’er second visit to Faelen, so not a lot ’ave. When you do, describe ’er to me. Gotta see what all the fuss is about. Cuz if you ask me—which no one is, mind you—she sounds like a floozy.” Breck leaves the curtain and moves over to nibble on her food.
“Why did Adora invite her?”
She shrugs and takes a bite of oliphant meat. I force down a gag. “Adora has to,” she says with her mouth full. “Princess Rasha is an ambassador. Meaning she might be useful, you know?”
Right.
“You want some?” Breck offers a slab of what she’s inhaling.
“No thanks,” I mutter, and try not to vomit. Is she aware it’s oliphant meat? But then, the smell is unmistakable. I’m tempted to ask if she’s ever truly eaten at peasant level, but maybe she has, and that’s why she’s so keen on the food here.
“Is there a way I can get closer to see the ambassador and the king?”
She smacks her lips and uses her dress to mop the horse grease from her face. “We can go around and haves a look out onto the banquet room. It’s where they’ll be headed.” She takes a gulp from her water jug. “I’ll take you in a minute.”
The trumpet blares again, and it’s just as disconcerting as the other times. But Breck just goes on with her second dinner as if having your eardrums shattered by the sound of a honking monkey was the height in luxurious music for dining.
I sit. And glare. And tap my leg.
An eternity later, she wipes her fingers and stands. Burps. “You ready?”
I follow her back through the hall the men came down, past the doors in the first passage, and around the house kitchen, where Breck stops to drop off her plate and jug. She then leads me down another hallway, this one ending in a different kind of nook. It’s shallow and walled in on all sides except the point where we entered. She pats her hand along the wall until she hits a square panel that’s made to look like a miniature window. Sliding it open, she beckons me to peek out.
It opens straight into the main banquet room.
Party guests are already pouring in from one end, and the place is teeming with laughter and music.
Breck shifts aside to make more room for me and stands stock-still as if she’s listening for bits of conversation floating about.
“How will I know which is the king?” I look around.
“He’ll be seated next to Adora.”
I search the room for the frog-queen amid a sea of gossamer gowns and brocaded vests. Guests in costumes ranging from rabid ladybugs to purple bears surround rows of food-laden banquet tables, while images of countless years of starving women and sick babies drift through my mind. I wonder if the king is as grandiose as his politically positioned subjects.
How can these people be so lard-headed?
Or worse, so unconcerned?
Someone in black steps right in front of my peephole and startles me. I begin to duck, afraid I’ve been spotted, but then realize he’s not fully facing me.
I start to move my gaze on when the man moves his hand in a tipsy, familiar gesture. I squint and peer closer.
Breck is still chattering on about Adora and the king.
I stop listening.
The man. He’s the pontiff from Poorland Arch, home of my seventh owner.
A sour bubble emerges in my stomach and pushes up my throat, making it hard to breathe. I pull my dress sleeves higher, tugging them close to my neck. The last time I saw him, he was flirting with a slave girl my age who kept trying to duck his advances. She disappeared that night, and no one saw her again.
He’s babbling about the Bron king’s missing twin brother, who’d been master general of their army, and how if he’d become ruler instead of Odion, Faelen wouldn’t have lasted even this long. I can’t see who he’s talking to, but everything within me is recoiling. Without taking my gaze off of him, I interrupt Breck. “Do you know anything about the pontiff from Poorland Arch?”
“Describe ’im.”
“Grayish-blond hair, drunker than a nursing—”
“I meant describe ’is voice. But yeah, I know who you’s talking about.” She hesitates. “Last week Colin ’ad a run-in with ’im over a servant girl they was both flirtin’ with and almost got in trouble with Adora. I hear he’s quite popular with the ladies. Why?”
I bet he is. My mouth turns tasteless.
“Why’re you asking?” she asks again.