The Queen's Assassin (Queen's Secret #1) - Melissa de la Cruz Page 0,109
peasant skirts and clunky wooden clogs on her feet. She wears a linen cap on her head and opaque spectacles—the type worn by those without sight.
“Mother!” Shadow says. She immediately kneels before the shabby woman who wears an ornate emerald ring on her finger.
Mother? This is Shadow’s mother? The Guild spy?
“I’m terribly sorry for everything,” Shadow says.
Shadow’s mother’s voice is as cold as any Cal has heard. “We will discuss your insubordination later. For the time being there are more important things to discuss than your running away.”
Running away? Cal is confused but doesn’t say anything. Wasn’t Shadow sent to him on orders from the queen?
“Come, eat, child,” says Moriah, ushering her and Cal to the formal dining table, where they all gather. All except for Shadow’s mother, who remains silent in the rocking chair. Moriah passes out bowls of thick beef stew. “There’s a fresh loaf of bread on the table, and fresh butter too.”
Cal doesn’t wait for bread or even for the stew to cool off; he takes a bite immediately. It’s too hot but he doesn’t care. “Delicious,” he says, mouth full.
Moriah chuckles. “Glad you like it!”
“It’s been so long since I had food like this,” he tells her. He hasn’t eaten anything but prison gruel or aristocrat nonsense in many weeks. When’s the last time he had a hearty home-cooked meal? He can’t recall.
Moriah claps her hands. “Excellent! Now that that’s settled, let’s get to it. Where to start?”
“So I take it the ambassador recognized me,” says Shadow.
Shadow’s mother coughs. Aunt Mesha glances in her direction. Aunt Moriah nods. “Yes, he was at the party to confirm your presence. We had alerted the Guild the very day you disappeared. And it goes without saying that we threw a locus spell straightaway.
“It didn’t take too long for them to discover that you’d made your way into Deersia—at least we assumed it was you, considering that Caledon was also missing, sprung from prison ahead of schedule, by a novice stable hand no less, and then appeared in Montrice with a sister matching your description. I mean, honestly, Shadow, hardly subtle. Ambassador Nhicol sent a messenger immediately to let us know what he’d found. We called you here because no other correspondence is safe, and it is imperative that you know what we’re facing immediately.”
It takes a few seconds for Cal to absorb everything that’s been said. He blinks a few times and puts a hand up to halt the conversation. “My apologies, but I was under the impression that Shadow was sent to Deersia by Queen Lilianna, in order to serve as my apprentice.” Now that he’s spoken it aloud, he doesn’t know why he ever believed her. That was, of course, ridiculous. He was so eager to leave that cell, and so distracted with his orders from the queen, that he didn’t think.
There is silence around the table.
Shadow can’t quite meet his eye.
It is Moriah who answers. “You were supposed to be freed by Ambassador Nhicol, who arrived at the prison undercover, as a Montrician spy. But a few days after he arrived, you were gone.”
“Ambassador Nhicol was the Montrician spy! I thought I recognized him; I certainly recognized his voice!” says Shadow.
Cal is stunned.
“Wrongdoing aside, I, for one, am rather impressed by how far you got,” Mesha says, motioning her head toward her niece. “She has no formal training whatsoever.”
“Yes, well, we will sort this all out later,” Moriah says. “We need to stay focused on what’s ahead, not behind.”
Mesha walks up, holding a small box in her hand. “This is why you’re both here.” She opens the small case. Its pillowed interior is lined with dark red satin. On that sits a small shard of iridescent black glass.
Shadow’s eyes widen. “Where did you get that?” She looks from one of the women to the other.
“The Aphrasians have been mining it at Baer Abbey.”
“What is it?” asks Cal. “We found some in the woods at Duke Girt’s estate.”