I did not expect to see a guard posted at my door. But as Allenach escorted me back to the unicorn chamber, I realized that I was to be watched and guarded. My face betrayed nothing, but my heart was tripping over my ribs as I realized there would be no way for me to sneak out to Cartier’s room, for me to sneak out of the castle to get the stone.
“For your protection, Amadine,” Allenach said when we came to the door, the guard standing as determinedly quiet as a statue. “With so many men in the castle, and you without an escort, I would not want you to come to harm.”
“How thoughtful, my lord. I shall sleep peacefully tonight,” I lied and gave him a sweet smile.
He returned it, although the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes as he opened the door for me. “I’ll send the chambermaid to come assist you.”
I nodded and entered the room, the candlelight sighing with my return. Everything was crumbling, I thought as I sat on the edge of my bed. Was this why secret missions always failed, because it was impossible to prepare for every little twist in the road?
I had planned to sneak out the following night, to give myself time to locate the servant doors Liam had described to me, the doors I should use to move in and out of Damhan. And if I couldn’t find a way out of this room . . . I was going to have to adjust my plans. I was going to have to recover the stone during daylight. And that was going to be risky, with the men hunting in the woods.
I needed to conjure a reason to either join the hunt or to be near the woods tomorrow. Both seemed impossible at the moment, when I was tired and overwhelmed and guarded.
The chambermaid finally arrived, to help me undress and stir a fire in the hearth. I was grateful when she left, when I was finally alone wearing nothing but my chemise, my hair loose and tangled. And then I collapsed on my bed and stared at the unicorn tapestry, my head aching.
I thought of Tristan. He had once lived here. Maybe he had once been in this room.
That prompted me to sit forward. I began to pick apart every memory of his I had inherited, searching them until they were softened from so much handling. He had shared a thought with me about Damhan, the day he sparred with his brother. He had thought about the nooks and crannies, the secret passages and hidden doors of this castle.
I rose from the bed and began to access the room. I was instantly drawn to the tapestry. Gently, I pulled it aside and looked at the stone wall beneath. My fingertips began to trace the mortar lines, seeking, seeking . . .
It took me a while. My feet had gone cold on the stone floors by the time I felt a strip of mortar catch beneath my nails. I eased it forward, felt the wall shift as a narrow, ancient door opened into a dark inner corridor that smelled of mold and moss.
A hidden web. An intricate branching of the castle’s veins and arteries. A way to move about without being seen.
I hurried to gather my slippers and a candelabra. And then I dared to step into the passage, letting the shadows swallow me, my candlelight hardly making a splash amid the darkness. I didn’t latch my door, but I did close it as much as I dared. And then I mulled over thresholds, how they were portals and each chamber needed a blessing. If the main doors had signifiers, then surely a hidden door would, as well?
I raised my candelabra, scrutinizing the roughened arch of this door. And there . . . the unicorn was carved, rather crudely, but it was marked.
I could find Cartier’s room like this, I thought, and before my courage could wane, before my better sense could dampen my impulse, I began to walk the passage. I wondered if I could also find a way out of the castle by these routes, and then shivered when I imagined getting hopelessly lost in this dark, twisting maze.
I went cautiously, as if I were a child just learning to walk. I paused every time I heard a sound . . . echoes from the kitchen, doors banging beneath me, the wind howling as a beast on the other side of the wall, peals of laughter. But I began to find the other doors, and I read their blessings. This portion of the castle was the guest wing, and as the inner passage began to curve, I took note of every bend and turn I made, praying Cartier’s chamber would have an inner door.
I lost track of time. I was just about to relent, my feet as ice, the cold air seeping through my thin chemise, when I found his door. Under different circumstances, I would have laughed that Cartier’s room was blessed by a winged weasel. But my heart, my stomach, my mind were all tangled in a knot, and I was trembling, trembling because I was about to see him. Would he be angry at me?
I lifted my fingers and flipped the latch. The secret door opened into the passage, most likely so it wouldn’t scuff the chamber floors. A heavy tapestry met me, to guard the passage as mine had been covered.
I could hear Cartier’s boots on the floor, although he was not coming to me. He was pacing, and I wondered how to greet him without frightening him.
“Master.”
My voice melted through the tapestry, but he heard. And he must have felt the draft. He all but yanked the tapestry from the wall as his eyes fell on me in the yawning of the secret door. For the second time that night, I had rendered him speechless, and I invited myself into his chamber, brushing past him and all but groaning at the warmth and rosy light of the fire.
I stood in the center of his room, waiting for him to come to me. He took the candelabra from my hands and roughly set it on a table, his fingers pulling through his loose hair. He kept his back to me, looking everywhere but at me, until he finally turned. Our eyes locked.
“Amadine Jourdain,” he said with a sorrowful smile. “How did you slip past me?”
“Master Cartier, I am sorry,” I rushed to say, the words tumbling over one another. I think he must have heard the pain in my voice, the pain of having to leave Magnalia so quietly. “I wanted to tell you.”
“And now I understand why you didn’t.” He sighed and noticed my shivering, that I was wearing nothing but my chemise. “Here, come sit by the fire. You and I need to have a little talk.” He drew two chairs before his hearth, and I sank into one, easing my feet forward to catch the warmth. I felt him watching me, that space between us tender and confusing. For I might have left Magnalia without a trace, but he had been keeping secrets as well.
“So,” he said, casting his gaze to the fire. “Jourdain is your patron.”
“Yes. And you are Aodhan Morgane.” I whispered that forbidden name, as if it were honey on my tongue, as if the walls might hear us. But the sound of it seemed to electrify the air between us, for Cartier looked at me, his eyes wide and bright as midsummer, and he gave me a tilt of a smile.
“So I am. And so I am also Theo d’Aramitz.”
“As well as Cartier Évariste,” I added. Three different names, three different faces. All one man.
“I don’t even know where to start, Brienna,” he stated.
“Start at the beginning, Master.”
He seemed to hang on that last word—“master”—as if it reminded him of what our relationship was still supposed to be. But then he found his voice, and his story woke as an ember.
“My father defied Lannon twenty-five years ago, a story you no doubt know very well by now. I was so young I do not remember anything, but my mother and my older sister were slaughtered, and my father ran with me before the same fate could befall me. He came south to Delaroche, became a scribe, and raised me up as a Valenian. About the time that I began to beg him to let me passion, he told me who I truly was. I was not Theo d’Aramitz, as I’d thought I was. I was not Valenian. I was Aodhan, and he was a disgraced Maevan lord who had a score to settle.”
He paused. I could see him remembering his father. Cartier’s face hardened, as if the pain of that loss was still keen.
“He met with Jourdain and Laurent once a year. They began to plan, but everything they thought of was weak. All the while, I thought it was ridiculous. We all had fine, good lives in Valenia. We were safe. Why were the lords still trying to return? Then my father died, eaten up by his grief. I became a master of knowledge, and I took up a new name. I didn’t want to be found. I didn’t want to be drawn into some foolish plan for vengeance. I became Cartier Évariste, and I chose to go to Magnalia because the Dowager had given us aid when we’d crossed the border. I didn’t expect her to recognize me; I had only been a small child when she had sheltered us, but all the same . . . I felt drawn there.”
“Did you tell her who you were?” I asked. Surely, she would have wanted to know it was him. . . .
“I wanted to tell her,” he replied. “I wanted to tell her that I was little Aodhan Morgane, the son of a fallen lord, and that I was alive because of her goodness. But . . . I never found the courage. I remained Cartier, as I wanted, even though I began to change. I began to think more and more of Jourdain, of Laurent, of Luc and Yseult. Of why they wanted to return. I began to think of my mother, my sister, whose blood still cries out from the ground, of the Morgane people, who have been persecuted and scattered while their estranged lord hid. I realized that to stay in Valenia, pretending that Lannon’s atrocities were not happening, was cowardly.
“I almost left Magnalia before my seven-year contract was up. I almost left, hardly able to bear my secrets, my past. Until you asked me to teach you.”
I drew in a slow, deep breath. My gaze was on his face, but he was still looking to the fire, his chest gently rising and falling.
“You asked me to teach you knowledge in three years,” he recounted, and that smile returned. He finally met my gaze, and my heart began to unravel. “You were the very challenge I needed, Brienna. I remained for you, telling myself that after you passioned, I would rejoin Jourdain and Laurent’s efforts to return north. What you asked was nigh impossible, but I was determined to see you gain what you wanted, to see you passion. You kept me so distracted I could hardly think of anything else.”
I glanced down to my hands. There was so much I wanted to say to him, and yet somehow, no words seemed worthy.
“Master Cartier,” I finally breathed, looking at him.
He was about to keep talking, his lips forming a word I would never hear. There was a soft, patterned knock on the door, and Cartier was up from his chair in a blink, motioning for me to follow him.
“You need to leave,” he whispered to me as I trailed him across the room. “This is one of Jourdain’s thanes, and for your protection . . . I do not want him to know of you.” He handed me my candelabra and drew back the tapestry.
I had all but forgotten that d’Aramitz also had a mission here, to secretly rally the remnants of Jourdain’s people. I pushed open the door and stepped into the inner passage, turning to look back at him. There was still so much we had not resolved. And he must have seen the lingering questions and desires in my gaze, for he whispered, “Come to me again tomorrow night?”
“Yes,” I murmured.
“Be careful, Brienna.” And then he lowered the tapestry and I shut the inner door.
I paused only long enough to ensure that I could not hear anything through the wall as he met with the thane, and then I began to wend my way back to my room. I had not once thought of our conversation being overheard. But I should have. He should have. Because one careless move, and Cartier and I would both be dead.
And I still had to retrieve the Stone of Eventide.