The Queen's Secret (The Queen's Secret #2) - Melissa de la Cruz Page 0,75

the arm to move away from the throng.

“They think the queen wanted to harm Lady Cecilia because she was the king’s mistress. I’ve been hearing it for days.”

“Where?”

“Kitchen. Back stairs. The queen, people say, uses black magic to achieve her ends.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Cal demands. A guard jostles him, and another woman screams. But it’s not a scream and not a woman, he realizes. It’s a crow, disturbed from its sleep, flying low over the yard.

“I never bother you with gossip.” Jander sounds indignant. “Every great house and castle I’ve ever known has been rife with it.”

Gossip can be dangerous, Cal knows, especially for a queen from another country, living in a scared and hostile city. He surveys the hall keep, and the floors above it. Light comes from Lilac’s apartments, though her ladies are all supposed to be gone and by now she would have moved to the king’s chambers. Faces cluster in most windows facing the yard, but no one gazes out from Lilac’s window. Why is it lit if no one is there?

Rhema walks up, still brandishing her taper.

“Have all the queen’s ladies left the castle?” he asks her.

“I think so. Apart from the one with the cow face, Lady Marguerite. I saw her out in the yard about a half hour ago, bringing the old scribe indoors. She was in the tower for a while, then she went back to the hall keep. Up to the royal apartments, I assumed.”

Cal has a bad feeling, a churning in his gut. An icy rain is falling now, each drop a sting on his skin.

The burning of Violla Ruza was a diversion. So is the public death of Lady Cecilia.

Cal takes off running, headed for the hall keep and its main stairs to the royal apartments. The secret staircase is sealed with an enchantment, and its door at the top, in the Queen’s Secret, is locked. He has to enter through its main door.

Every taper along the gallery of portraits is extinguished. Outside Lilac’s door, three guards slump on the ground, unconscious. Cal doesn’t pause to check if they’re dead or alive. He has to get inside.

The door is locked, and it’s heavy. He kicks it four times before it begins to budge, then shoulder-slams it so hard he reels with the impact. He grabs an iron brazier from the passage and smashes the lock, over and over. Nothing is giving.

He’s raised the brazier for another attempt when the door handle turns, and the door clicks open.

Someone is letting him in.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Caledon

The first thing he sees is Lilac, sitting on a chair by the fire, her feet on a stool. She’s still, like a doll someone has propped there. Her eyes are open but her lids droop as though she were falling asleep. The only sounds are the crackle of the fire and muted cries from the courtyard below.

The door behind him closes and the lock clicks.

“Well, look who it is,” says a woman’s voice. He turns; it’s Lady Marguerite. She’s holding a dagger. Her eyes are wild. “The Chief Assassin! A little late, but that’s all right. You didn’t need to break in, you know. You might have just knocked. I was expecting you.”

“Lay down the weapon, my lady,” he says in a steady voice. “Let us leave the queen to sleep.”

Lady Marguerite sidles around the back of Lilac’s chair, the knife gripped in her hand.

“The queen!” she says in a mocking tone, her face twisting. “She is an outsider. A witch. She is not a suitable consort for the King of Montrice. Look what she did to those poor children! Drowned them all and didn’t care one bit. She must be stopped before she bewitches the king and gives birth to some half-breed changeling.”

Lilac’s face and body remain immobile during this speech. She’s been drugged, Cal thinks, with some kind of sleeping draft, perhaps.

“The queen is no witch,” Cal says, calm but firm. “And she has always spoken highly of you, Lady Marguerite.”

“If you think I am Lady Marguerite,” the woman says, “then you are not as intelligent as I thought you to be.”

“A shapeshifter?” Cal asks. From the corner of his eye he glimpses Lilac’s hand flex, just a little. Perhaps she’s shrugging off her stupor. Lady Marguerite—or whoever has assumed her form—is still too close to Lilac, the blade of her knife too close to Lilac.

“Once she’s dead, you will get the blame,” Lady Marguerite tells him. “The jealous lover, furious that the