THE SILENT SHIELD

CHAPTER 3

By four o'clock that afternoon I had a plan. Lose my shadow, steal a cinnamon roll.

At four every day, our head cook, Hester, pulls a tray of cinnamon rolls out of the big oven, soft in the middle and sticky on top. When I was little, Mom and I used to sneak into the kitchen and grab the biggest one before dinner. It was our secret. After she died I stopped going. That afternoon I wanted it back, and I couldn't have told you why. Maybe it was the page in my pocket. Maybe I just wanted to feel like a kid one more time before I turned eighteen and the whole world decided who I was.

The problem was Torin. He'd followed me through two lessons, a Council meeting where old men argued about harbor fees for three hours, and a tea with Lady Cordelia so stiff I could've cut it with a knife. Three steps behind me, every time, without a sound.

I tried everything. I walked fast, and he walked fast. I stopped to tie my shoe, and he stopped too and looked at the ceiling, politely, like he was giving me privacy. I took a wrong turn down the servants' stairs on purpose, and he was waiting at the bottom before I got there, which I still can't explain.

So I tried the laundry hall. I slipped behind a tall cart of clean sheets, held my breath and counted to ten.

On eleven, a white sheet lifted, and one grey eye looked down at me.

"Really?" I whispered.

He held the sheet up like a curtain and waited.

"Fine," I said, climbing out. "Come on, then. But you don't get a roll."

I could smell the kitchen from three corridors away. Butter and sugar and warm bread, and my stomach growled so loud Torin turned his head.

Hester was at the long table with her sleeves shoved up and flour on her cheek. She's short and round and loud, with a silver braid down her back, and she's run our kitchen for thirty years. She was yelling at a boy about a crate of fish when I crept in.

I slid along the wall with my eyes on the cooling rack. Three rolls left, and one of them was the biggest I'd seen in years. I stretched out my hand. Almost there.

"Liora Vance." Hester didn't even turn around. "Hands off."

"How do you do that?"

"I've got eyes in the back of my head and a nose that knows when a child is stealing." Then she turned, and her face went soft. "Oh, my girl. You came back."

My throat got tight. "It smelled too good."

She wiped her hands and pulled me into a hug that smelled of cinnamon and flour, and she held on longer than usual. When she let go, her eyes were wet. "Your mother would be glad," she said.

Then she looked past me, and her smile slipped.

Torin was in the doorway.

I watched it happen. Hester's hand stopped halfway to her apron, and all the color went out of her round face. A wooden spoon slid out of her fingers and clattered on the stone floor, and nobody moved, not even the fish boy.

"Hester?" I said. "Are you all right?"

"Yes, yes, of course." She bent down for the spoon, but her hand was shaking. "Just old hands. Who's this big fellow?"

"My bodyguard. Dad's idea. He doesn't talk."

"I see." Her voice had gone thin. She set the spoon on the table and stared at Torin for a long time, and he stared back, and neither of them said a word. It was like watching two people read the same sad letter.

Then Hester clapped her hands, a little too loud. "Well, sit! All of you! Nobody guards anybody on an empty stomach."

She put a roll on a plate for me and pushed another at Torin. He shook his head. She pushed harder. "Take it. I don't accept no from men who can't say it."

Slowly, he took the plate. He didn't eat. He held it like someone who'd forgotten what it felt like to be given anything.

I bit into mine. It was perfect, sweet and warm and sticky, and I licked the icing off my thumb without caring who saw. For one second I was ten years old again.

"Eat," Hester told Torin gently. "One bite. For me."

He looked at her. Then he lifted the roll to the right side of his mask and took a small bite, and his shoulders came down an inch.

I made myself a promise right then. I was going to find out why.

A bell rang at the back door, and the fish boy ran to answer it. A man in a brown coat came in carrying a thick envelope and a clipboard, with his cap pulled low. He had big hands, scrubbed much too clean for a delivery man.

"Delivery for the King," he said. "Hand to hand. Sign here."

"The King gets his post at the front desk," said Hester.

"Orders from the Chancellor's office. Urgent."

Torin was already moving.

I didn't see him cross the room. One second he was next to me, and the next he was standing between the man and the table, taking the envelope in one gloved hand and turning it over. The wax seal was black, pressed in the shape of a raven's wing.

"Just sign, sir," said the man, shifting his feet.

Torin held the envelope up to the light and tilted it. Then he stared at that seal so long I could hear the clock ticking on the wall. His hand started to shake again.

"What is it?" I asked.

Nothing. But in his one visible eye I saw something I hadn't expected. It wasn't fear. It was anger, old and deep, like a coal that's been burning for years.

The delivery man snatched back his clipboard. "Never mind the signature. Give it to the King." He was out the door before Torin could stop him. I ran after him, but the yard was empty. No truck, no cap, no footsteps, just the cold evening wind.

When I came back inside, the envelope was lying on the table. Hester was standing right next to Torin, very close, and she must have thought I couldn't hear her over the pans sizzling.

"That's the same seal, isn't it?" she whispered. "The same one from that night."

Torin gave a tiny nod.

"Oh, child." She covered her mouth. "And Wren keeps asking when you're coming home."

Wren? Who was Wren?

I stepped out from behind the doorframe, and Hester went white.

"Princess," she said. "I didn't see you there."

"Who's Wren?"

The whole kitchen went quiet. Hester looked at Torin. Torin looked at the floor. And for the first time since he walked into my life, he took a slow, deep breath, like a man about to speak.

Then the fish boy dropped a whole crate of cod, and everyone jumped, and when I looked back, Torin's mouth was shut tight again. Whatever he'd almost said had gone back inside him. But I'd seen it. He had tried.

He picked up the black envelope. He didn't hand it to me to give to my father. He slid it inside his jacket.

I opened my mouth to protest, and he shook his head once. And I understood that the King was not going to see that letter, not today, and maybe not ever.