Page 7

Adelaide

T he cool breeze was a welcome kiss on her cheeks. Taking a deep breath of fresh mountain air, Adelaide relished the illusion of freedom as she stepped foot outside of the Belmont’s estate for the first time in two weeks. Her veins buzzed with excitement, eager to see her parents for the first time in over three years.

So many times these last few years, Adelaide wished she could change her mind. Every night, she bitterly regretted the day she’d put herself in the same path as the Master of Thieves. If only she’d chosen a different person that day, or hadn’t stolen at all, Adelaide wouldn’t be in this position. She wouldn’t be lying to people who were genuinely kind and friendly toward her, which of course only added to her guilt.

But none of that mattered right now, because if she chose to let it bother her, her parents would know, and they would ask about it and how she was doing. Adelaide couldn’t have that. She couldn’t let them worry about her when she wasn’t the one wholly dependent on a treatment they couldn’t afford from a kingdom that Kordouva had shut itself to long ago. If it wasn’t for that, Adelaide wouldn’t have turned desperate. If it wasn’t for the long nights of bargaining with the gods to spare her mother, Adelaide wouldn’t have turned to stealing. And if it wasn’t for that act of desperation, Adelaide wouldn’t have been forced to work for the Master of Thieves.

It was stupid, really. She had been stupid.

But then if she hadn’t begun to steal and caught Mistress Scrabs’s attention, how would her family be now? What would have happened to her mother?

Adelaide shook her head. She couldn’t continue to dwell on this. In a year, Mistress Scrabs would allow her to leave her service. In a year, Adelaide could go free and return to her home. She sincerely doubted Mistress Scrabs would stay true to her word, but if Adelaide let that harsh reality sink its claws into her heart, she feared she would not survive as Mistress Scrabs’s pawn.

So instead, Adelaide held tight to the idea that her future would be blessed by freedom’s embrace. That, and the simple fact that her immediate future was painted by a bright sunset with smiling shades of pink and orange and of a few hours spent with her family. She’d never known what to do with her days off while assigned to other estates in the Master of Thieves’s quest to procure rare magical artifacts from the kingdom’s wealthy. She’d always been too far away, but now that she was here at Castle Belmont, she could. After all of her underhanded work these last four years, she could finally see her family and judge for herself whether everything had been worth it.

Adelaide twisted a strand of her hair around her finger in thought. Gazing past the fields of squat burbairé trees, Adelaide’s eyes saw a world of her own imagination. She feared the longer she stayed at Castle Belmont, the more dangerous her task would become. But in the two weeks she’d been there, Adelaide hadn’t been able to figure out how to trigger the faux wall where Archduke Hughes stowed his most treasured possessions. And anytime she’d scraped together her courage to investigate the restricted areas of the castle, someone had sought her out. Their timing was uncanny. If it wasn’t Sir Maxwell coming around the corner, whistling, then it was the steward or another of the household’s staff.

Then, of course, there were the increasing instances in which she was greeted by Archduke Hughes’s presence. Adelaide let her hair unwind itself. The slight curl at the end of her hair bounced as it settled back on her shoulder.

Adelaide still wasn’t sure what to make of the White Hawk. The rumors she’d heard of his ferocity in battle and the strength of his magic didn’t quite align with the prim and quiet man she’d met. The only thing that seemed to indicate that there was any truth to them was the detached way he’d asked about her wrist. She supposed it was beneath him to ask, but the fact that he had made Adelaide wonder who Archduke Hughes truly was. Maybe he was just misunderstood, or awkward. It couldn’t have been easy fighting in Penumbra’s War as young as they were. It especially couldn’t have been easy for the archduke to take command of the Battle of Rivenfield after Darshovi had decimated Kordouva’s capital and killed the royal family.

Surely someone who fought as fiercely to protect their homeland as the archduke had wasn’t really lacking a heart. And besides, Adelaide reasoned with herself, the rest of the staff seemed happy and well-treated. In fact, she’d refused a handful of invitations to join Cathy and Juliana on their trip into the city. Even Elizabeth had asked if Adelaide would like to accompany her on her own visit home.

Adelaide smiled. She wished she could stay. Despite the circumstances that had brought her to Castle Belmont, she actually quite liked it there. And the wages were better than what she’d had at other estates.

Passing another field of winter greens, Adelaide’s mind came to a halt as the wooden fence, faded from the sun and weather, came into sight. Within its protection sat the house she’d longed to return to.

Grinning at the sight, Adelaide’s steps hastened. Letting herself inside the gate, she walked up the front pathway and up the porch stairs. The door opened before she could knock.

“Addie!” Her brother Ethan pulled her into a hug so strong it squeezed the breath right from her lungs. Pulling away, he looked her in the eyes and seemed to study her from head to toe. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m not allowed to visit?” Adelaide teased.

Ethan laughed, welcoming her inside. “We just weren’t expecting you, but Amber saw you—”

“It’s Addie! It’s really Addie!” Amber called. Adelaide braced herself for another fierce hug as her sister came barreling down the hallway, her braided hair flying behind her. Amber didn’t let a second go to waste, wrapping her arms around Adelaide and nearly knocking her over. “I knew I saw you walking up the road! Ethan tried to tell me it wasn’t you, but I knew it was!”

Adelaide laughed as the fiery-haired girl turned a glare on the other. Ethan only took a step away and put his hands up in surrender. “I can admit when I’m wrong, no need to scold me.”

“Oh, Adelaide, dear!” Adelaide’s heart skipped a beat at how withered her mother’s voice still sounded. She curled a hand into a fist by her side. Her nails bit into her palm, giving her something to actively focus on rather than her concern. Even though her mother was being treated with the proper medication, it still wasn’t enough. Her mother looked as frail as she had when she’d left. Adelaide shoved the irritation aside. That wasn’t true. Her mother was up and walking, albeit with assistance, but she was no longer bedridden, drifting in and out of sleep and a state of delusion. “Look at you! You’ve grown so much!”

Adelaide turned her face away, hiding her laughter behind a hand. “I don’t think I’ve grown since I was fifteen, Mama.”

“That must mean it’s been too long since we’ve seen you,” her father added, smiling softly at her as he helped her mother into a seat by the cold fireplace. “How are you? How are you here? I thought…”

Adelaide’s smile dimmed, knowing these were all questions she had to answer. Even if her parents knew she was involved in something dangerous, they’d never once let on. Adelaide didn’t know how much longer she could tiptoe around the situation. Their ignorance—pretense or genuine—was for the best.

“I’ll grab some spiced mahlder,” Ethan offered, brushing past Adelaide. As he passed, he whispered, “We need to talk.”

Adelaide swallowed and nodded her head solemnly. Tearing her gaze from Ethan’s retreating back, Adelaide let Amber lead her to the couch opposite their mother and father.

“Well,” Adelaide started, “I never really liked working so far away, so I decided to come home. I missed you all.”

Her mother smiled. While her face lacked the vibrancy it once had before she’d fallen ill, Adelaide’s mother had greatly improved. Her eyes were brighter than they’d been the last time Adelaide had seen her. “So you’re here to stay?”

Adelaide’s heart clenched at the hope in her eyes. “I’ll be closer from now on. I’m working at Castle Belmont.”

“Castle Belmont?” Ethan asked. Adelaide let her gaze fall to her lap at the accusation in his voice. As if shaking the knowledge of why Adelaide was really home from his mind, he added, “Congratulations, Addie. That’s a very prestigious position.”

“I know,” she said quietly. She didn’t need to be reminded of that fact, not when the rumors of the archduke’s reputation had lived in her head for the last two weeks. Of course Ethan would feel it necessary to remind her of the precarious situation she was in, especially if she successfully stole from Castle Belmont.

Adelaide snapped from her thoughts as Amber begged her to tell her all about the inside of Castle Belmont.

So Adelaide did. She told them of the whimsical patterns of the carpets and the intricate beams that lined the ceiling in the great hall like a blooming flower. She told them of the painted rafters in the breakfast room and the three-story library that held a secret entryway into the archduke’s personal chambers.

Captivated by the grandeur of the Belmont estate and its stone castle, her family listened, and the more Adelaide told them, the more her worries lessened as her mind was swept away by the normalcy of it all.