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I grinned.

“And he’s clearly interested in moving up in the ranks,” the Maiden countered.

The curve of my lips flattened. Did she not agree with her companion? She had to. I knew I was quite exciting to look at.

“Why would you say that?”

There was a beat of silence. “Have you ever heard of a Royal Guard that young?”

Well, I couldn’t fault her for saying that. It was a valid question.

“No. You haven’t. That’s what befriending the Commander of the Royal Guard will do for you,” the Maiden said. And, man, she didn’t know how right she was. “I cannot believe that there was no other Royal Guard just as qualified.”

Tawny didn’t respond for a few moments. “You’re having a very strange, unexpected reaction.”

Crossing my arms, I had a feeling her response had more to do with what had happened at the Red Pearl than it did with anything else.

“I don’t know what you mean,” the Maiden said.

Sure, I thought, smirking.

“You don’t?” Tawny, who was quickly becoming one of my favorite people in the kingdom, challenged. “You’ve watched him train in the yard—”

“I have not!” The Maiden’s voice rose.

Such a little liar. She totally had been.

Tawny had my back, even if she didn’t know it. “I’ve been with you on more than one occasion as you watched the guards train from the balcony, and you weren’t watching just any guard. You were watching him.”

I really liked this Tawny.

“You seem almost angry about him being named your guard,” Tawny continued. “And unless there’s something you haven’t told me, then I have no idea why.”

There was silence.

“What haven’t you told me?” Tawny demanded as it became clear the Maiden hadn’t shared details about her trip to the Red Pearl with her companion. “Has he said something to you before?”

My lips pursed. What a rather uncalled-for leap of logic.

“When would I have had a chance for him to speak to me?” the Maiden said.

“As much as you creep around this castle, I’m sure there is a lot you overhear that doesn’t actually require you speaking to someone,” Tawny said, sharing another interesting tidbit while proving one of my suspicions correct. One that said the Maiden had a habit of sneaking around. “Did you overhear him say something bad?”

My eyes narrowed. Tawny was quickly losing that coveted spot in my favorites.

“Poppy…”

There was a long stretch of silence where I briefly considered moving farther from the door so I wasn’t eavesdropping, but I quickly dismissed that idea.

Then the Maiden announced, “I kissed him.”

My jaw unlocked as my head cut to the door. I couldn’t believe she’d actually admitted it.

“What?” Tawny said.

“Or he kissed me,” the Maiden added as a bit of concern started to blossom in my chest. Was this wise of her? Could she trust this Lady in Wait with such information? I sure as fuck hoped so. Not only did it jeopardize what I’d been working toward, I doubted the Teermans would take kindly to learning such information. However, the way Tawny spoke to the Maiden said there was a level of closeness there. “Well, we kissed each other. There was mutual kiss—”

“I get it!” Tawny shrieked, causing me to blink as I glanced down the empty hall. “When did this happen? How did this happen? And why am I just now hearing about this?”

The sound of footsteps came again, and then the Maiden shared, “It was…it was the night I went to the Red Pearl.”

“I knew it.” There was another thud, this time sounding like someone, who I guessed was Tawny, stomping their foot. “I knew something else had happened. You were acting too weird—too worried about being in trouble. Oh! I want to throw something at you. I can’t believe you haven’t said anything. I would be screaming this from the top of the castle.”

Okay. I was flattered, and Tawny was now working her way back into my favorite-person spot.

“You’d be screaming it because you could,” the Maiden replied wryly. “Nothing would happen to you. But me?”

What exactly would happen to her? She didn’t elaborate, and their voices disappointedly dropped too low for me to hear, but I did pick up the Maiden’s voice a few moments later.

“It’s just that…I’ve done a lot of things I shouldn’t do, but this…this is different,” she said, and I wondered what the other things were. “I thought if I didn’t say anything, it would, I don’t know…”

“Go away? That the gods wouldn’t know?” Tawny said, and my eyes rolled. “If the gods know now, they knew then, Poppy.”

She had a point. Except the gods didn’t know shit, and if they did, this whole Maiden and Chosen business was a load of bullshit anyway. Despite what the Ascended said. Despite even what Kieran wondered about the whole shroud crap.

If the Maiden responded, I didn’t hear her, but I heard Tawny as if she were standing next to me.