older than the princess and worked at the castle to help support her parents and their small farm. The girl’s unbound crimson hair gleamed in the firelight as she tucked a tight curl behind her ear.
“So, I know I promised you your kitchen ventures tonight. However, I thought I should inform you, there’s been some sort of commotion near the tree line. Your parents haven’t been woken, as the staff plan to handle it on their own… but the night sentry guarding the front gate has been attacked.”
Lilac left her brush on the ground and stood up to face Piper. “Attacked,” she repeated.
“Yes, Your Royal Highness.”
“Is he alive? Do they know what it was?”
“Well, he’s scratched up pretty badly and his right leg is injured, but they reckon he’ll live. They think it was a rogue animal. I mean, so far as I know a Darkling has never dared attack anyone here at the castle, so no one thinks one would try now.”
“Is everyone still tending to the guard?”
“Yes, Your Highness. They are treating him in the infirmary on the second floor.”
“Are the guards scouring the grounds outside?”
“Yes… All of them.” Piper’s brow furrowed in confusion at the odd questions and widening grin on the princess’s face.
Lilac ran to the door and slipped her flats on. This was perfect. No one would be on patrol inside the castle for a while, and the kitchen was on the ground floor. If she ran into anyone it would be Hedwig, but whenever she caught Lilac, she stuffed pastries and a cup full of wine into her arms and hastily banished her back to the tower.
“Piper, cover for me?”
“But Your Highness,” Piper protested, her cheeks flushing as red as her hair. “I came here only to tell you—”
“You know how I feel about you calling me that. Only in front of my parents, remember? And please?” She knew she should’ve felt guilty using Piper like this, but she didn’t. Not really.
Sighing, Piper reluctantly followed her charge out of the room and took the usual watch outside the door.
Downstairs, the kitchen was dark, but Lilac kept her eyes shut until her vision adjusted just enough. Feeling her way around, she made it past the stove to the wood cabinet where three glass bottles of mead were stored. The stuff of the honey gods.
A faint rustling across the kitchen almost made her drop the slim neck of the bottle she had just grabbed. Gasping, she turned and backed into the cabinet, scanning the four walls around her. Lilac couldn’t see much of anything, but someone was definitely moving around near the far wall, not even twenty feet in front of her.
Chills ran down her spine when she realized it was still pitch black in the kitchen; usually when Hedwig walked in on her, she’d be holding a candle. Any of the servants would have brought something for light.
More rustling. They were footsteps, she realized, moving from one end of the room to the other. She could make a run for it, but her legs were frozen.
“Hello?” Lilac whisper-cried into the darkness. Squinting, she could make out a low-lying shape. She almost yelled for it to reveal itself, but she wasn’t so sure she wanted that, either.
The shape paused. And then, a voice floated through the darkness, wet and rasping, neither male nor female. The sound echoed oddly, bouncing off the kitchen walls and sounding further away.
“Who’s there?”
Lilac booked it for the open door. Knowing that she could’ve, probably should’ve ran upstairs to the safe confines of her room, curiosity still consumed her. Grabbing the nearest torch from its bracket, she returned to the kitchen and thrust it into the dark—and gasped.
A large gray wolf stared back at her, frozen mid-step, with the top end of what seemed to be a burlap potato sack in its mouth.
Lilac swallowed her nausea. “Did you just—”
The wolf dropped the sack onto the stone floor and backed up until it bumped the far wall of the kitchen. “Don’t tell anyone,” the wolf pleaded, it’s raspy voice continuing to echo. “Please.”
Even with its mouth moving and hearing the sound it produced, Lilac couldn’t believe her eyes.
“Can you… understand me?” she whispered.
“Of course I can,” the wolf replied hesitantly. “Are you a witch or… or vampire, working here? Do they know?”
She had to be dreaming. She must have fallen asleep after her shower. “No, I’m not a—” she gulped. “I’m normal. I mean, human. And does who know what? How are you