Lee’s trials

Not allowed

*Thalia*

Nessa leads us through the old music room with a candle cupped in one hand and her fear tucked so tightly behind her teeth that I start to admire her.

The room is dark except for the low blue flames in the wall sconces. Dust covers a grand harp near the window. Its strings hum softly as we pass, though neither Lee nor I touches it.

"Does it do that often?" I whisper.

"No," Nessa says.

"Comforting."

Lee glances over his shoulder at me. Even in the low light, I can see the strain in his face. His curls are falling into his eyes. He has not slept. He has not eaten. He is trying to move like a prince who knows exactly what he is doing, and every few steps his hand goes to the inside pocket of his coat, checking the compass is still there.

Nessa reaches the far wall and presses two fingers against a knot in the wood.

Nothing happens.

She presses harder.

"Come on," she mutters.

The knot glows pale gold. A narrow seam appears in the wall, then widens with a groan of old bark. Cool air spills from the darkness beyond.

Lee stares at it. "I lived here for eighteen years and had no idea."

"My grandmother was very committed to pastries," Nessa says.

"Clearly, I was raised by amateurs."

The passage is barely wide enough for us to walk single file. Roots twist along the walls in thick ropes. Water drips from somewhere overhead. The air smells of damp earth, old wood, and the faint mineral scent of the river.

I put my hand against the nearest root as we move through.

The tree knows this place.

It remembers servants hurrying through with trays covered in linen, children hiding from tutors, a woman crying quietly with her back against the wall. The memories are not pictures exactly. They come as impressions, warmth and grief pressed into living wood.

Then something colder pulses through the roots.

I stop.

Lee turns at once. "What is it?"

"The tree is upset."

Nessa looks back at me, candlelight trembling over her face. "Upset how?"

I search for words that do not make me sound like I have swallowed a particularly dramatic gardening book.

"Like somebody has cut through something they should not have touched." I press my palm harder to the root. "There are ward-lines under the palace. Old ones. They run through the archives, the council chamber, the King's rooms."

"That is normal," Lee says. "The palace has wards everywhere."

"These feel damaged."

His expression tightens.

"Damaged by what?"

"I don't know." I admit.

A sharp c***k travels through the passage.

Nessa flinches. The candle flame goes green for one second, then returns to blue.

"We should keep moving," she says.

No one argues.

The passage ends at a narrow door hidden behind a carved panel of singing birds. Nessa pushes it open a fraction.

Beyond is a gallery lined with portraits.

Lee goes still beside me.

I know why before I look.

At the far end of the hall hangs a large painting of a man with sandy blond hair and blue eyes. He stands in a field of tall white flowers, one hand resting on the shoulder of a young boy with a crooked fringe and an expression that is unmistakably Lee's.

Pericles.

The portrait must have been moved from wherever it was hidden. Or perhaps it was always here, tucked in this forgotten corridor where no councilor had to see it.

Lee does not speak.

His face has gone pale.

The man in the painting is smiling at something beyond the frame. He looks much younger than Fealor, warmer than Fileas. His coat is unbuttoned. His hair is a mess. One of his boots is muddy.

He looks like somebody who would buy candied pears for a sad fifteen-year-old and hand over a compass without making a speech about it.

"Your father?" I ask softly.

Lee nods once.

Nessa shifts her candle to the other hand. "Prince Pericles used to come down here when he wanted quiet."

Lee walks toward the portrait.

I let him.

He stops beneath it and looks up. His throat moves as he swallows.

"He hated sitting for paintings," he says. "He said they made him look like a decorative uncle."

I smile before I can stop myself.

"He looks like he'd lose official documents under a pile of laundry."

"He did." Lee's mouth pulls to one side. "Grandfather used to threaten to appoint a servant to follow him around with a basket."

For a few seconds, the gallery holds something softer than fear.

Then Lee reaches up and touches the bottom corner of the frame.

"Why is it here?" he asks.

Nessa's eyes drop. "I don't know."

I do.

Or I have a guess.

Fileas had removed Pericles's portrait from the map room. He had called it a dead branch. Maybe somebody had saved this one before he could take it too. Maybe a servant had hidden it. Maybe Fealor had ordered it moved and then never admitted he had done it.

Palaces have many rooms for things people refuse to bury.

A bell rings somewhere above us.

One long chime.

Then another.

Nessa sucks in a breath. "The archive wards."

Lee turns sharply toward the gallery doors.

"How long?" he asks.

"Minutes."

"Then let's not spend them having family feelings in a haunted corridor."

It is not a kind thing to say. He knows it. I see the apology start in his eyes.

I catch his hand before he can give it.

"Go," I tell him.

We move.

The archive stairs spiral down through the center of an ancient trunk. By the time we reach the bottom, my calves ache and the green in my hair has darkened again. The roots here are restless beneath the stone floor, their slow current twitching against my skin.

Two guards stand outside the archive doors.

They are young, both in dark green uniforms, both holding spears with silver vinework winding around the shafts. One has freckles across his nose. The other is broad-shouldered and looks as if he has not slept much either.

Nessa steps back into the shadow of the stairwell.

Lee walks toward them.

The guards straighten.

"Your Highness," says Freckles. "The archives are closed."

"I can see that."

"Regent's order."

Lee straightens, "Yes, I heard. I would like to review the Pericles search records before they are transferred."

The broad guard shifts his grip on his spear. "We were told no one enters."

"Not even me?"

The guard's face tightens. "Especially not you."

A tiny silence follows.

Lee's expression remains pleasant. It is the expression he wore when we first arrived and Fileas asked whether I would do well in Eirawen. I have learned to distrust it.

"That is a remarkable instruction," he says.

"We are following orders."

"Whose?"

The freckled guard looks at the floor.

Lee steps closer. "Say it."

"Regent Fileas Swiftarrow's," he says.

"Good. I wanted to be certain I had understood."

The broad guard lifts his chin. "Your Highness, please return to your rooms."

"Or what?"

My stomach knots.

The guard looks as though he wishes very badly to be somewhere else. "We will escort you."

Lee lets out a small breath through his nose. "Right. That would be difficult, considering I am already standing here."

I touch the stone wall beside me.

The roots beneath it shift.

A hairline c***k opens along the floor between the guards' boots. Moss spills through, bright green and fast-growing. The guards jump back as thin vines curl around the base of their spears.

"Thalia," Lee says quietly.

"I know."

The vines keep climbing.

Freckles drops his spear with a startled curse. The broad guard tries to pull his free, but the roots have already wrapped around the silver vinework.

I do not want to hurt them. They are following orders. Fear smells sharp on both of them, like crushed leaves after a storm.

"Please move," I say.

Neither does.

The roots burst through the floor in a thick wave.