Page 13 of The Witch in the Dead of Night

“I’ll call for a page to escort you,” he said.

“Thank you, Your Majesty.”

“This may seem forward,” he said as I slipped off the edge of the table, “but I wonder if I could entice you to meet me in the Winter Garden tomorrow evening? Eight o’clock?”

I stared at him blankly. “Why?”

He smiled, the firelight casting a warm glow over his handsome features. “I know it’s an odd request, but I think there may be more for us to discuss. After you’ve gotten some rest, of course.”

My thoughts whirred so feverishly that I wondered if he might hear them, too. The idea that the King should want to speak to someone like me ever again was absurd. And yet, I couldn’t deny him. Not just because he was the king, but also because I didn’t want to. I swallowed. “Of course, Your Majesty.”

“Until tomorrow, then.”

Just before noon, I sat alone in the dingy courtyard behind the kitchen, as far as possible from Mrs. Cathers’s beady stare. Her jaw had dropped nearly to the floor—as had Maxence’s—when I had returned to the servant’s quarters on the arm of the King’s page after sunrise. I thought she might wring my neck when he announced that I was to be excused from my duties indefinitely on the King’s orders.

She had spent every waking hour since shuffling angrily around the servants’ quarters, complaining pointedly about ungrateful peasants who didn’t know their place. Maxence cast a modicum of sympathy in my direction, although only after hearing that I had been rescued by the King himself.

Haunted by nightmares of last night’s events, I’d slept only a few fitful hours, tossing and turning on my straw mattress until I finally retreated to the courtyard to be alone. My fingers ran gingerly along the smooth edges of a glass vial gifted to me by Dr. Murrows this morning. It contained some kind of tonic to bring down inflammation. A pleasant scent, like summer blooms and wild grasses, reached my nose as I uncorked the vial and took a sip. My headache was soon nearly gone, my thoughts much clearer. I’d have to track Dr. Murrows down and thank him.

The events of this morning were so surreal that it felt almost like a dream. I leaned my head against the stone and shut my eyes, my thoughts drifting to the King. I recalled the taut muscles of his chest against my cheek as he had held me, the strong arms that had wrapped around me so delicately. He looked so young, but it was nearly impossible to guess a vampire’s age just by looking at them. They lived for a thousand years, aging so slowly that they could be alive for centuries and still look as young as they did in their third decade of life.

I recalled the curve of his full lips, the way that they parted to reveal the sharp points of his fangs when he smiled. My skin prickled. Up close they weren’t as terrifying as I had imagined.

My eyes flew open as the door opened with a bang. I saw only a wild flurry of curls before I was crushed in Niamh’s embrace. I patted her gently on the back as she was racked by violent sobs. “Oh gods, Finn,” she said finally, tears streaming down her cheeks. “This is all my fault.”

I locked eyes with Maxence, who had trailed after her like a wraith. He shrugged. “It’s not,” I said.

She sniffed. “I’ll never forgive myself for leaving you all alone out there.”

“I’m alright,” I assured her. “I promise.”

“Niamh!” shrieked Mrs. Cathers from the kitchens. “Stop making a fuss and get to work, you absolute chit of a girl!”

Niamh hiccupped, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “Mama practically had a fit when she heard.”

My brow furrowed. “She heard? How?”

“Oh, everyone in the city is talking about it,” she said. “We heard it from the baker who heard it from the tanner. The tanner picked it up outside Rathe’s Tavern. The Confluent Criers have already made up a ballad about it.”

“What?” I cried, incredulous.

“Not about you specifically, but about how the killer on our streets was finally foiled by the King. It’s quite funny, from what I hear … Er, not that it’s a joke what happened,” she faltered. “You remember them, right?”

I did remember them. The Confluent Criers were less of a troupe than they were a public nuisance, constantly hanging around the taverns of Valnar. I had encountered them more than once and been known to giggle at their lyrics satirizing courtly gossip and tidings from around the city. I found it decidedly less funny now that I was the butt of the joke.

I pinched the bridge of my nose between my fingers. “It only happened in the early hours. How did they even find the time?”

“I have no idea. Anyway,” she paused, her cheeks dewy with tears, “Maxence said the man who attacked you was the blacksmith’s apprentice. Is it true? Was it really Ewan?”

I cast a furtive glance at Maxence, whose eyes raked over me as if I were a strange beast. “Not here. Later,” I said in a low voice.

“Gods above, Niamh. Are you deaf?” Mrs. Cathers screeched. She burst through the doors, brandishing her broom like a sword. And she’d use it like one, too, if given the chance.

“Just because the Outlander somehow managed to weasel her way out of work,” she said, pointing her broom in my direction, “doesn’t mean you can as well.”

I exchanged a startled glance with Niamh. “Perhaps we should—”

“Indeed,” she replied before I could finish, jumping to her feet. We scurried out of the courtyard, giving Mrs. Cathers and her broom a wide berth. Her resentment rolled toward me like a storm over the plains.