Page 81 of Reaper’s Curse

I know it is not in your nature to accept requests without question, but this time I implore you to listen and heed. This isn’t an order, but an appeal. One I hope you take to your golden black bird heart.

Well, that hadn’t lifted my spirits like I had hoped.

22

Not knowing how to respond to Chace’s request, I didn’t even try.

After folding the letter like I had all the others and slipping it into the hiding place at the back of the headboard, I got dressed and met Neive in the receiving room.

My scheduled time with Valen had been postponed to accommodate a morning fitting with the seamstress, Camilla. The same woman discussed, albeit briefly, in hushed tones roughly an hour earlier. I liked Camilla and her daughters, and for reasons I had yet to understand, Camilla and her daughters really liked me.

I had yet to take the time to understand the dynamics but knew it had something to do with my time spent in the woman’s home while seriously wounded and slowly healing.

Lucas was originally going to escort me to my fitting appointment but had been temporarily retasked with returning a lost article—Winter—to its proper location—likely his apartment.

In his absence, Neive guided me through the many halls of the palace, making our way to the workshop where Camilla waited—a different wing far from my palace apartment. As we passed through an intersection of passageways, I glanced toward the center of the building. The entire royal structure surrounded a large central garden, of which my apartment terrace had a bird’s-eye view. And from where we stood, the passageway to that luscious space beyond was open.

I swung a finger, indicating the outlet. “Would you mind if we detour through the garden? Enjoy a touch of sunlight and fresh air?”

“Lovely idea.” Neive beamed and diverted us through the open doors into an aromatic escape bursting with color.

Anywhere the eye wandered, roses bloomed. But it wasn’t the wonder of the garden that had prompted my request, but rather the opportunity to gain a closer look at the tower Chace had mentioned in his earlier letter. The tower I too had noticed. The one with the odd splash of darkness shadowing the highest window.

I shot my gaze straight to the place in question. Even from the garden, it was difficult to discern what comprised the dark, shifting anomaly. My mind wandered to various options, none of them pleasant; ants, roaches, locusts…enchanted tar.

I shivered. Glanced at Neive. The lady’s maid had her head angled toward the sky and her eyes closed. With her hair spun into a top bun, many of the strands shimmering like white gold in the light of the sun, she reminded me of Antonio Canova’s Greek dancer sculpture.

“Thank you for the detour,” I said softly.

She tipped her head and smiled. “Of course. It’s no problem whatsoever.”

“How much do you know about the palace?” I asked.

Neive folded her hands together at her waist. “Quite a bit, I gander. I’ve been working here since before.”

Before the curse, so at least a century. But I knew that already, based on previous conversations I’d heard.

“And the tower?” I swung my arm toward the high structure and its window shadowed in moving darkness. “What’s the deal with that?”

She tsked. “Such a shame, isn’t it? I have never understood why no one has made an effort to get rid of that blight. It’s been there for as long as the curse has plagued us.”

“Maybe they can’t get rid of it,” I reasoned, regarding what she referred to as that blight…the moving shadow.

“That could be.” She shrugged. “The rumor is that some old family member who is deeply afflicted lives up in that tower. Given the situation was said to be documented before the onset of the curse, I venture a guess that their affliction is different than most, possibly something to do with their magic. I don’t know. But, I suppose, something along those lines could explain the ugly mark that moves around the window.”

An afflicted in the tower with diseased magic. That was a curious thought. I recalled the afflicted woman I had run into shortly after arriving at the castle. The queen’s daughter. Only no darkness followed that royal through the halls.

So, someone else, then.

And if that someone else was someone I was meant to reap, that would explain my draw to the place. Of course, I would need to continue investigating because speculation was nothing compared to hard facts.

No more words passed between us as we made our way to my fitting. It was to be my second, and if all went well, hopefully my last seamstress appointment. After which, I would have more options regarding my apparel.

Camilla and the twins were ready and waiting when Neive left me in the hall outside the workshop’s open door. A rack that hadn’t been there during my last appointment now sat prominently in the room, crammed with garments of varied colors and textures.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Camilla waved me into the room. “Let’s get started. Come in here and strip down.”

I tried on more outfits than I knew what to do with. Some of them I never imagined myself using. Not while I was on task, which I was. I couldn’t allow myself to lose sight of that fact.