A Captive of Wing and Feather A Retelling of Swan Lake - Melanie Cellier Page 0,5

his best approach.

I gazed at him in shock. It had been five years since I had seen anyone approach a potentially dangerous situation with such decisive action. I had almost forgotten how little this small forest-bound town reflected the rest of the kingdoms.

His mutterings suddenly ceased, and his eyes swung up to latch onto me, as if his roving thoughts had brought him back to the other puzzle confronting him.

“And what exactly is Lady a nickname for?” he asked. “What is your full name?”

I sucked in a breath. This was dangerous ground.

“Adelaide,” said Wren from behind me, a note of confusion in her voice. “Her name is Adelaide, Your Highness.”

The prince gave a visible start and then took two long strides forward to push back my hood, fully exposing my face. For a moment we both stood frozen, our eyes locked together. Then his gaze broke free to rove over the rest of my features, and I heard his startled intake of air.

His lips moved, forming the beginning of a word, and I didn’t know if he meant to say my name or my title, but it didn’t matter. In another second he would reveal everything and destroy the only refuge I had left. Habit had sealed my lips, but seeing him brought back my old self too forcibly, and I opened my mouth to cut him off.

A loud honking burst from my throat, filling the entryway and sending Gabriel staggering back a step. I clasped my hands over my mouth, liquid filling my eyes. I hadn’t slipped up like that in over a year.

I glared at him, and something about my look must have silenced him since his gaping mouth closed without saying a word.

“Lady? Are you all right?” Cora looked at me with concern, her eyes darting suspiciously to Gabriel.

A giggle broke the tension of the moment. I blinked rapidly, trying to clear the unshed tears before Juniper saw them.

“Do it again, Lady! Do it again!” Juniper bounced at my side, her eyes shining. “You haven’t done that in forever.”

I smiled at her but shook my head, consigning myself once more to muteness. Silence was far better than the only sounds I could now make.

“Do the squeak. Pleeeeease!” she begged.

I shook my head more firmly.

“But—”

Wren scooped her up, cutting off her protest.

“That is enough out of you, little miss. We’re going to go check on Selena and Frank now, and I don’t want to hear any more about it.”

“But Mama…” I heard her saying as Wren marched off down the long hall in the opposite direction to the kitchen.

Gabriel finally found his voice. “The…squeak? Should I even ask?”

“Definitely not,” said Cora. “Now you said you were looking for someone, Your Highness? If I’m sure of one thing, it’s that we don’t have anyone here likely to have a prince looking for them.”

“Are you sure about…” Gabriel let his sentence die off when he caught the pleading look I had trained on him. “Never mind then. I guess I need to look elsewhere.”

“Perhaps you can start at Lord Leander’s Keep,” Cora said in a flat voice. “You seemed mighty interested in it before. And if you run across an Audrey, you can let her know that her sister misses her.”

Gabriel gave a bow—courtly and polished this time. “I will certainly do so if I run across this Audrey.” But even as he said it, his eyes lingered on me.

I frowned. It almost seemed as if the crown prince of Talinos had come here looking for me. But why would Gabriel, of all people, be searching for me? From the things I had been hearing around Brylee for the last few years, Talinos had trouble enough of its own without its prince worrying about a missing Palinaran. And how had he possibly managed to track me to Brylee, anyway?

But the only thing harder to believe than that this royal prince had come here searching for me, was the idea that there might be a second person he knew hiding in this out of the way place.

The silence stretched out until Cora narrowed her eyes.

“Very well, then, Your Highness. If you’re not needing anything else…” She stopped short of actually ordering a prince to leave her property, but it seemed not even the presence of royalty could shake her from her assertive ways.

Cora had been running the haven with open doors for so long that not even the growing timidity that infected the town seemed to have quite managed to stamp