Wulfyddia (The Tattersall Trilogy Book 1) by Steele Alexandra

breath.
    “She’s very well.” Abigail said, “Very brave,
very smart. A wonderful girl.”
    Frederica nodded as though she already knew
as much. “Yet the Queen can’t see it. It scares me the way my mother-in-law
looks at Justine sometimes. How could that woman’s mind be so poisoned against
her own granddaughter? What could my daughter have said to Tryphena?” She was
rambling now, musing to herself as if Abigail wasn’t there at all.
    “My Lady, I’m sure nothing Justine said could
have offended the Queen, why, Justine was just a child when she was first
locked away.”
    “Who?” Frederica asked.
    “Justine…”
    “No,” Frederica stared up at Abigail, her
face frozen somewhere between sadness and fury. “Not Justine. Cicely.”
    Thoroughly confused, Abigail opened her mouth
and then closed it again. They had begun by speaking about Justine and her
imprisonment in the tower. When had their conversation turned to the other
daughter, the only one even more isolated than Justine?
    The confusion on Abigail’s face seemed to
remind Frederica that she was not speaking to an insider, but rather a
stranger, and a common stranger at that. The princess pulled herself together.
She recoiled suddenly from Abigail and then looked her up and down, coolly,
appraisingly, as though they were just now meeting and hadn’t spoken before.
“Take care of her,” Frederica said, but now her tone was clipped.
    “Of course,” Abigail curtsied deeply, and
before she had straightened up the princess was on her way.
    ***
    Spencer should have known that the sisters
would not give up on their plan to take him calling on the castle witch and her
apprentice. They had caught him at the mouth of the footbridge, just as he was
about to return to the Haligorn. He would have put up more resistance, but he
had just spent an entire morning running errands for his mother and he was not
looking forward to being assigned a whole new slew of tasks upon his return. And
so he found himself following the sisters down the mazelike corridors of the
keep, listening to Daphne and Lorna bicker the entire way. As he chuckled softly
behind them, he realized that for the first time since he’d met Daphne and
Lorna, he’d almost forgotten they were royalty.
    They turned the corner, and there was a
strange cloying smell. It was a blend of herbs, foreign and smoky. As they
followed the scent, the architecture of the corridor changed. The ceiling was lower,
the walls were carved of darker stone, and the doors along the hall were not engraved
with flowers or royal insignia like those in the other corridors. Instead they were
carved with darker, more dynamic images. Dragons twisted and flailed against
each other, embroiled in battle. Three magicians summoned a double-headed demon
in a magic circle. Instead of lion’s head door knockers there were gaping inhuman
faces. Perhaps they were supposed to be goblins, or maybe elves, it was hard to
say, but their wide, animalistic eyes, so realistically carved, made his skin
crawl.
    As they drew closer to the end of the hall, Spencer
could hear someone making a soft noise. It sounded like singing but it was hard
to say for sure because the voice was low and quiet and the tone was subdued.
As they stopped in front of the final door on the corridor, which had the most grotesque
doorknocker of all, a second voice joined the first one. This one was higher,
clearer and colder, and then Spencer heard enough to know that they were
singing in some foreign tongue.
    Daphne wasn’t the least bit shy about
interrupting them as she raised her hand and knocked firmly on the door. The
singing stopped immediately and Spencer heard rapid footsteps. The door was
flung open by a very tall, very slender woman with long brown hair. “I told you
that—” she paused and faltered when she saw that they weren’t whoever she was
expecting.
    She was in her early to mid-thirties and had
a pretty face but slightly crooked teeth. She