to know the father. He will understand your mistake. Dearest cousin, fear not for your baby, for it is my baby with the price upon its head. I shall send for you when I am settled. Always, Marietta.”
I gasped. “Omigod. What does that mean? And how are they cousins?”
“They can’t be cousins. It must be a term of endearment.” Bastien folded the letter and slipped it into the envelope.
“How about this one,” Arik said. “We must never tell of our discovery. A grandfather like ours is one to be admired, and I fear the scandal would bring him shame.”
“Who wrote that?” I asked.
“Marietta did,” he answered. “She also says she was sorry to hear Sabine was distraught over the news. Who is Sabine?”
“My mother,” Bastien said.
“We should ask her,” I said.
“I always knew she hid letters ’ere someplace,” Bastien’s mother said from the opened door.
“Maman,” Bastien said, scrambling to his feet.
She waved him away. “Please sit down, Bastien.”
Bastien obeyed.
She stayed in the doorway as if it was too painful to enter Jacalyn’s shrine. “Jacalyn and Marietta,” Sabine said. “We all met at ze Sentinel’s school in Asile. After Marietta returned to her own ’aven, we all exchanged letters. Zey became Sentinels and I became ze wife of a High Wizard.
“A few summers afterward, Marietta’s mother died, and Jacalyn went to Asile to console ’er. Since Marietta’s father was expired as well, it was up to Marietta and Philip to sort through zair mother’s belongings. They discovered the unpublished memoir of Marietta’s grandfather, Gian. He admitted to ’aving an affair with Jacalyn’s grandmother, and conceiving a child from zat union—Jacalyn’s mother.”
She sighed. “I did not realize zat Jacalyn and Philip fell in love. I wish I knew—”
“Wouldn’t that make Jacalyn and Professor Attwood cousins?” Arik asked.
“No,” Sabine said. “Marietta and Philip share ze same father and ’ad different mothers. Jacalyn is related to Marietta through her mother.”
My legs were falling asleep, so I adjusted them. “Did you know about Jacalyn’s baby?”
Tears pooled in Sabine’s eyes, and she left them there, until she blinked, and they fell onto her cheek. “No. I do remember seeing ’er a few months before she disappeared. She hardly spoke. If she’d ’ad a baby, well, I did not know. My poor Jacalyn—”
Sabine pulled a lacy handkerchief from her bodice and dabbed at her eyes, then continued, “Jacalyn ’ad spent time training Sentinels in Esteril and met her betrothed, Conemar, there. ’E was obsessed with ’er. After realizing how evil ‘e was, she brought her case to dissolve their betrothal promise to the Wizard Council. I believe ’e murdered ’er because of it. But it could not be proven.” She covered her mouth with the hanky, muffling a sob.
Bastien jumped to his feet. “I should see my mother to her chambers.” He turned to me. “You should come with us.”
“No. I have to hide the letters.”
“With the recent attack, I don’t want you to be alone in the castle.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said. “Arik’s here.”
Bastien looked from me to his mother, then to Arik. “All right. Will you guard her?”
“I kept her safe before you were in the picture,” Arik said, sounding irritated.
Bastien ignored Arik’s statement and steered Sabine out the door.
Arik hopped up. “So there’s wedding bells in your near future.”
“Really?” I shoved him lightly before picking up a handful of letters. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not engaged to him.”
As if. No one is going to make me marry anyone. Besides, I’m only sixteen, and there’d be time to figure that crap out.
I glanced at him gathering envelopes with one hand and dragging the other one through his hair. He caught me staring, and the corners of his lips lifted. He had the hottest smile I’d ever seen. But we were friends, and it was all we could ever be.
Sirens went off somewhere in the castle. “What’s that for?”
“I’ll see what it is,” he said, dropping the letters in his hand and pulling out his sword. “You stay here and hide the letters. Lock yourself in.” He stormed out the door.
I shut the door and bolted it behind him.
Back and forth I went, snatching up letters and slipping them into the opening in the wall. When all the letters were back, I secured the panel, moved the dresser into place, and waited for Arik to return.
The window flew open, and the drapes rose like pink airfoils in the wind. Between the flapping of the drapes, a dark shadow crouched on the windowsill.