Authors: Amanda Hocking
“Fine.” I turned around to face him. “What do you make of all this?”
“I don’t know.” He flopped back on my bed and folded his hands behind his head. “It
was in poor taste for that Prince to flirt with you while we’re supposed to be looking
for his missing sister-in-law.”
I scowled down at Ridley. “He wasn’t flirting.”
“You never know when anyone is flirting with you,” he muttered.
“I do agree that everyone’s behavior feels a little …
off
.” I sat down on the edge of the bed. “When I met Mikko last week, he was cold and
barely spoke. Now he’s falling apart?” I shook my head. “It doesn’t quite add up.”
The meeting room was even more like a fishbowl. It stuck out from the rest of the
palace in a bubble, with one interior wall and one extra wall of glass domed out around
us. Half the room was still under the palace, with a white antique tin ceiling and
plenty of lighting to keep the darkness of the lake around us at bay.
A very long table sat in the center of the room, but there were only three other people
in there when the footman showed Ridley and me in. Papers were spread out over the
table, but nobody was looking at them. Prince Kennet stood at the far end of the room,
and the other two men had their backs to us.
“Come in!” Kennet waved for us to join them, and then the young men turned to face
us as we approached. “These are our allies from the Trylle.”
The first had unruly chestnut hair that landed just above his ears, and his tanned
skin had an almost greenish hue, subtle but noticeable enough that it meant he had
strong abilities for the Trylle. The more powerful a Trylle was, the greener he or
she was in coloring. He was dressed the less formally of the two—wearing only jeans
and a button-up shirt, while his companion wore a suit.
His companion had short dark brown hair, kept smooth and neat. His features were delicate,
almost feminine, with a small nose and smooth skin. It was his eyes that stood out
the most to me—they were a bright blue, which meant that although he came with the
Trylle, he must have Skojare blood in him, too.
“I’d like you to meet our friends from the Kanin,” Kennet told them, motioning to
us. “These are two of their finest trackers, Ridley Dresden and Bryn Aven.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” the blue-eyed one said, leaning forward and shaking our hands.
“This is the Trylle Chancellor, Bain Ottesen,” Kennet gestured to Blue Eyes. “And
this is Markis Tove Kroner, adviser to the Trylle Queen.”
“Pleasure to meet you both,” I said, bowing slightly to them, since they were both
apparently my superiors.
The Trylle were peculiar, and growing more so since their new Queen had begun her
reign four years ago. They sent white-collar advisers and Chancellors—high-ranking
members of their society—while the Kanin had sent blue-collar trackers. Not only because
it made sense for us to go, since Ridley and I knew more about going after missing
people than an adviser would, but also because our Markis never would do something
like this.
But maybe the Trylle just viewed the situation differently. They may have sent Bain
and Tove more as figureheads to lend support rather than actual aid, while King Evert
had sent Ridley and me because there was a real fear that something dangerous might
be afoot.
“If we’re all here, maybe we should get into it, then?” Tove asked, tucking his hair
behind his ears.
“Yes, I was saying before, we have the reports from the guards that night, and I have
the layout for the palace, if that will help you.” Kennet stepped back and motioned
to the papers on the table.
“So will we actually be able to interview the guards that searched for the Queen?”
Ridley asked.
Kennet shook his head sadly. “The King thought the reports would be adequate enough.”
Tove stepped over to the table and started going through the papers until he found
the report. I stood next to him, peering over his shoulder so I could read it. It
was handwritten, and I couldn’t make out every word. But the general gist seemed to
be that the guards had looked everywhere and found no trace of her.
“So the King was the last person to see her?” Tove asked as he reached the end of
the report.
“Yes,” Kennet said. “They were in their chambers together getting ready for bed when
she went for a swim.”
“Or at least that’s what he told you.” Tove looked up from the report, fixing his
mossy green eyes sharply on Kennet.
Kennet met his gaze evenly and replied, “Yes. That is what he told me.”
“This must be a terrible hardship for the King,” Bain said, rushing to soften his
companion’s veiled accusation. “How is he holding up?”
Tove set down the file and moved on to rummaging through the rest of the papers. I’d
turned to face Kennet, wanting to see his reaction about his brother, but I kept half
an eye on Tove.
“He’s very broken up about it,” Kennet said.
“Will we be able to speak with him again?” I asked. “I think it would be a great help
to get more details from him directly.”
“Perhaps later on this evening.” Kennet appeared regretful. “But you saw him this
morning. You know he’s in no condition to see anyone.”
“We understand,” I said. “But you will let us know when he’s feeling better?”
Kennet smiled easily. “Of course.”
“There’s at least a hundred rooms in here,” Tove announced. He stood hunched over
the blueprints for the palace. “Are they all occupied? How many people live here?”
“Storvatten is a very small town, so many of the Markis and Marksinna are invited
to live in the palace with us,” Kennet explained. “At the present time, there are
seventy-eight royal members living here, not including servants.”
“There’s not enough time to interview them all,” Tove mumbled.
“On a related note,
who
exactly can we interview?” Ridley asked, doing his best not to sound harsh. “The
King and the guards are off the table, which is disappointing, since they’re the closest
thing we have to eyewitnesses.”
“The guards did interview Mikko that night, and it’s all in the report.” Kennet pointed
to the discarded report on the table, which Bain picked up and began to leaf through.
“The guards also interviewed everyone in the palace that night, and came up with nothing.”
“But we can’t interview them?” Ridley asked.
“The King thinks it would be unnecessary to bother them,” Kennet explained.
Ridley sighed and folded his arms over his chest. “I don’t mean to speak out of place,
but with these limits, the King is greatly hampering our investigation. I’m not completely
sure what you’re expecting us to do here.”
Kennet shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not really sure, either.”
“Is this the exit?” Tove tapped the blueprints on the bridge that led from the palace
to the dry land. “This is the only way to get out of the palace, right? And it’s got
guards at the end that we had to speak to before we could enter.”
“How could the Queen get by without the guards noticing her?” I asked, drawing the
same conclusion as Tove.
“That is the only direct way,” Kennet allowed. “But there are doors all over that
lead right out to the lake. If she walked out, or anyone walked out with her, the
guards would’ve spotted her, and they made no mention of it in the reports.”
“But she could have swum away?” Bain asked.
Abruptly, Tove straightened up. “Can I have a moment alone to consult with the others?”
he asked Kennet.
“Um, yeah, yes, of course.” He fumbled for a moment, then smiled at him. “Take all
the time you need.”
Kennet took long, fast strides toward the door, his bare feet slapping on the cold
marble tiles and echoing through the bubble. None of us said anything until he’d gone,
leaving us in a somewhat strained silence.
“What are you thinking?” Bain set aside the file and looked up at Tove with a mixture
of affection and concern.
“There seem to be three clear options.” Tove leaned back against the table and crossed
one foot over the other. “One, someone kidnapped the Queen, somehow bypassing the
guards and all the people in the palace. Two, she snuck out that night and decided
to run away. Or three, which seems the most likely to me, is that the King killed
her and disposed of her body somewhere nearby.”
“You can’t accuse the King,” Bain said quickly, while both Ridley and I stood in silence,
processing what Tove had said.
It really wasn’t that surprising, and honestly, I’d been thinking of it myself. Based
on everything Kennet had told us, it sounded like the King was feigning grief to stonewall
our investigation. Combine that with his marriage to a lonely child bride, and contrast
his indifference at the meeting with his overt distress at her disappearance, like
he was overcompensating, and something didn’t add up.
“No, of course not.” Tove shook his head. “If the King did kill her, there’s nothing
we can do about it. If we were to say anything, it would only start a war between
our kingdoms. The only ones who could lobby accusations without the risk of treason
would be the Prince or maybe Marksinna Lisbet.”
“But if King Mikko did kill her, why call us here?” I asked, deciding to play devil’s
advocate in all of this. “He’d already gotten away with it. Why draw more suspicion
on himself?”
“You know why,” Ridley said, making me look back at him. “Konstantin Black.”
“What would he have to do with this?” I asked.
“The King has to blame his missing wife on someone, and with everything Konstantin
has been up to lately, he would make an excellent scapegoat,” Ridley said. “And of
course, there is the chance that Konstantin
is
actually the one behind the Queen’s disappearance.”
“Who?” Tove asked.
“The Kanin traitor,” Bain reminded him. “He’s been kidnapping Kanin changelings.”
Tove grimaced. “Right. Sorry. I’m bad with names.”
“You really think Konstantin had something to do with this?” I asked Ridley and shook
my head. “It doesn’t make sense. It’s a totally different MO.”
“I’m not saying he did it. There’s no evidence supporting he has anything to do with
this,” Ridley said. “But everyone’s a bit jumpier with him and Bent Stum running around,
especially since we don’t really know why they’re doing any of this.”
“A Queen is a big leap from changeling, though,” Tove reasoned. “Especially the Queen
of another tribe.”
“Bent Stum is Omte and he’s been going after Kanin,” I argued. “Maybe their plan is
to hit all the tribes. The Skojare don’t have changelings, so maybe this is his way
of attacking them.”
Bain and Tove exchanged a look. Bain pursed his lips, then shifted his weight from
one foot to the other.
“That traitor guy probably has nothing to with this.” Tove put his hand on Bain’s
arm, and he seemed to relax a bit.
“Tove is right, and number three is the most likely choice,” Ridley said. “But if
the King did kill her, or even if she ran away, there’s probably not a lot we can
do. So while we’re here, we might as well go on the assumption that someone kidnapped
her. It’s the only way we can actually help.”
“Even if she was kidnapped, what can we do?” I asked. “We’ve read over the guards’
report, and there’s nothing there.”
“There was something I saw in the file.” Bain turned around and grabbed it, flipping
through it quickly. “It caught my eye, then Tove asked Kennet to leave, and I forgot
for a moment, but … yep. Here it is. The Queen had gone down to the pool area to swim,
and she’d discarded her robe, which they found at the side of the pool. And in the
blue satin of her fabric, they found a solitary black hair.”
“Oh, shit,” I said under my breath, and my heartbeat sped up.
“Now, I haven’t met everyone in the palace, but the Skojare have always been very
picky about mixing bloodlines,” Bain said, explaining something I already knew. “If
you marry out of your tribe, you’re gone. So I sincerely doubt that
anybody
in this place has hair darker than blond.”
He was very right. There was absolutely no way my father would’ve been allowed to
live here after he married my mother. In fact, he’d never been allowed to even visit.
For a black hair to get on Linnea’s robe, it had to come from someone outside of the
Skojare.
And although I couldn’t say for certain who it came from, I did know for sure that
Konstantin’s hair was charcoal-black.
The rocks stung my bare feet, but I paid them no mind as I walked with Tove Kroner
along the shore of Lake Superior. I had changed into jeans and a sweater before heading
out, since a dress didn’t seem appropriate for scouting the area for signs of Konstantin
Black, Bent Stum, or Queen Linnea herself. The weather was warm enough to go without
boots, and I always felt better with my feet touching the earth, so I’d forgone footwear.
During our meeting, we’d come to the conclusion that the only way for anyone to make
off with Linnea was through the water. The pool in the lower level of the palace was
freshwater, with a tunnel that led out into the lake. Someone could’ve come inside
and taken her out that way. Admittedly, it would be harder for someone who didn’t
have gills and couldn’t breathe underwater, but not impossible.
If Linnea had been taken that way, she would’ve come out on the nearby shore of the
lake. So we’d decided to split up and search the shore. Ridley suggested that we mix
the search parties, with him pairing with Bain, and me with Tove.
I couldn’t help but think he was looking for a reason to avoid me. We’d been getting
along well since we’d gotten to Storvatten, but I was sure it was because there was
work to be done.
Ridley and Bain had gone east, starting at the bridge and moving outward, and Tove
and I went west. Thick evergreen forests lined the shore, going right down to the
rocky banks of the lake.