“Bryn Aven.” A sharp voice pulled me from watching Linus, and I looked up to see Astrid Eckwell. “What on earth are you doing here?”
Her raven waves of hair cascaded down her back. The coral chiffon of her dress popped beautifully against the olive tone of her skin. In her arms she held a small rabbit. A smirk was already forming on her lips, and I knew that couldn’t be a good sign.
“Working with Markis Linus Berling,” I told her as I got to my feet. Linus glanced at both Astrid and myself, and then he got up. “You don’t have to stand.”
“What?” He looked uncertainly at me, like it was a trick. “But … you did.”
“Of course she did,” Astrid said as she walked over to us, absently stroking the white rabbit. “She’s the help, and I’m a Marksinna. She has to stand whenever anyone higher up than her enters the room, and that’s everyone.”
“As the Markis Berling, you only need to stand for the King and Queen,” I said, but Linus still didn’t seem to understand.
“Bryn, aren’t you going to introduce us?” Astrid asked as she stared up at him with her wide dark eyes, but he kept looking past her, down at the rabbit in her arms.
“My apologies, Marksinna. Linus Berling, this is Astrid Eckwell.” I motioned between the two of them.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Linus said, and gave her a lopsided smile.
“Likewise. Are you going to the anniversary party tomorrow?” Astrid asked.
“Um, yeah, I think so.” He turned to me for confirmation, and I nodded once.
“He will be there with his parents.”
Astrid looked at me with contempt in her eyes. “I suppose that means you’ll be there too.”
“Most likely I will be assisting Markis Berling and the Högdragen,” I said, and I didn’t sound any more thrilled about it than she did.
“You better dig something nice out of your closet.” She cast a disparaging look over my outfit. “You can’t go to the party wearing your ratty old jeans. That might fly for the trashy Skojare, but you know that won’t do for the Kanin.”
I kept my hands folded neatly behind my back and didn’t look down. As a tracker, I had to dress appropriately for many different occasions, and I knew there was nothing wrong with my outfit. I might be wearing dark denim, but they were nice.
“Thank you for the tip, Marksinna, but I’m certain that you won’t be speaking derogatorily of the Skojare anymore, as their King, Queen, and Prince have already arrived in the palace for tomorrow’s anniversary party,” I replied icily. “You wouldn’t want them to hear you speaking negatively of them, since they are King Evert and Queen Mina’s guests.”
“I know they’re here,” Astrid snapped, and her nostrils flared. “That’s why I’m dressed properly today, unlike you. What would the King of the Skojare say if he saw you running around like that?”
“Since he’s a gentleman, I’m sure he would say hello,” I said.
Taking a deep breath through her nose, Astrid pressed her lips into a thin, acrid smile. “You are just as impossible as you were in school. I can’t believe they let you be a tracker.”
When she spoke like that, it wasn’t hard to remember back when we’d been kids in grade school together. I couldn’t have been more than six or seven years old the first time Astrid pushed me down in the mud and sneered at me as she called me a half-breed.
For the past century or so, the Kanin had been trying to reduce their reliance on changelings. If there were multiple children in a family, only one would be left as a changeling. It wasn’t uncommon for particularly wealthy families to go a whole generation without leaving one.
And in Astrid’s case, both her parents had been changelings, so they were freshly infused with cash from their host families and didn’t need their child to bring in more of an income.
So, unfortunately, that left me forced to deal with Astrid all through grade school. There were many times when I wanted nothing more than to punch her, but Tilda had always held me back, reminding me that violence against a Marksinna could damage my chance of being a tracker.
That hadn’t stopped me from hurling a few insults at Astrid in my time, but that had been long ago, before I’d joined the tracker school. Now I was sworn to protect the Marksinna and Markis, which meant I wasn’t even supposed to speak ill of them.
Astrid knew that, and it pleased her no end.
“Linus, if you ever need any real help, you can always ask me,” she said, with her derisive gaze still fixed on me. “You mustn’t be forced to rely on an inferior tutor like Bryn.”
“Markis,” Linus said.
Startled, she looked up at him. “What?”
“You called me Linus, but I’m your superior, right?” he asked as he stared back down at her. “That’s why I didn’t have to stand when you came in?”
“That’s…” Her smile faltered. “That’s correct.”
“Then you should call me Markis,” Linus told her evenly, and it was a struggle for me not to smile. “If I’m understanding correctly.”
“You understand it right, Markis,” I assured him.
“Yes, of course you are, Markis.” Astrid gave him her best eat-shit grin. “Well, I should let you get back to your lessons. I’m sure you have much to learn before tomorrow night’s ball if you don’t want to make a fool of yourself.”
She turned on her heel, the length of her dress billowing out behind her. Once she was gone, I let out a deep breath, and Linus sat back down at the table.
“That chick seemed kinda like a jerk,” he commented.
“She is,” I agreed, and sat down across from him. “We went to grade school together, and she was always horrible.”
“She wasn’t a changeling?”
“No, she’s been here every day for the past nineteen years.”
“What was the deal with the rabbit?” Linus asked. He sounded so totally baffled by it that I had to laugh.
“Oh, it’s kind of a tradition. They’re Gotland rabbits, and legend has it we brought them over with us when we came from Sweden. Supposedly they helped us find where to build Doldastam and helped us survive the first cold winter.”
“How did they help the Kanin survive?”
“Well, they ate them,” I explained. “But not all of them, and now people raise them, and we’d never eat them because they’re like a sacred mascot. Some of the Marksinna carry them around now, like rich American girls used to do with Chihuahuas. The Queen has a rabbit named Vita. You’ll probably see it.”
He laid his hands flat on the table and looked me in the eye. “Can I be totally candid with you?”
“Of course.” I sat up straighter, preparing myself for any number of inflammatory statements he might make. “I’m your tracker. You can always speak freely with me.”
“You guys are super-weird.”
NINE
regret
“I can’t do this,” I announced as I threw the office door open. It swung back harder than I meant for it to, and when the doorknob banged into the brick wall, Ridley grimaced.
“If by ‘this’ you mean knocking, then yes, that’s very apparent,” he said dryly.
I flopped in the chair across from his large oak desk. A wide-screen monitor for his computer was tilted toward the edge of the desk. Being trolls, we craved all things shiny and new.
Our love of such things extended to the latest gadgets and fastest technology, but once we had them, it seemed that we usually preferred the old ways of doing things. The Kanin royalty collected computers and tablets the way others did baseball cards—storing them in boxes and closets and out of sight.
That’s why the Rektor’s office contained a high-speed computer, a massive printer, and all sorts of devices that would make his work so much easier, but it was rarely used. Stacks of paper covered the desk, since, inevitably, most things were done by hand.
A bulletin board on one side of the room was overflowing with flyers. Reminders for meetings and trai
nings, sign-up sheets for less glamorous jobs like cleaning out the garage, and missing persons posters for the rare changeling who ran away.
Behind Ridley’s desk were two massive paintings of King Evert and Queen Mina. The rest of the wall was covered in smaller eight-by-tens of the latest changelings who had come back, as a reminder of why we did the job.
Outside the office, classes were in session, so I could hear the muted sounds of kids talking.
“I can’t stay here,” I told Ridley.
“Like in this office?” He scribbled something down on a piece of paper in front of him, then he looked at me. “Or can you be more specific?”
“I can’t stay in Doldastam,” I said. His shoulders slacked, and he set the pen down. “Linus is safe. He’s fine. There are tons of people here to watch him. I have no reason to stay.”
“That’s true,” he said sarcastically, then he snapped his fingers like something had just occurred to him. “Oh, wait. There is that one reason. The King ordered you to stay and personally watch Linus.”
I rubbed my forehead, hating that he was right. “I need a break.”
“A break?” Ridley asked in confused shock, and for a few seconds he appeared speechless. “You’re a workaholic. What nonsense are you going on about?”
“I’m not asking to do nothing,” I clarified. “I need a break from here. I just got done breaking in the last changeling, and that went fine, but I was stuck here for weeks and weeks. And then I just got to go out after Linus, and I had to turn around and come back.”
He ran a hand along the dark stubble of his cheek. “What’s going on?” he asked, and his tone softened. “What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Bryn.” From across the desk, he gave me a look—one that said he knew me too well to let me bullshit him.
Instead of replying, I turned away from him. I twisted the silver band around my thumb and looked over at the bulletin board, eyeing the wanted posters.
Any fugitive who was still at large had their picture up, even if they’d escaped years ago. The incident with Viktor Dålig had to have happened fifteen years ago, but his picture was still prominently displayed at the top of the wanted section. The bright red font for “wanted” had faded to more of a dull pink, but his picture was still clear and visible. The heavy dark black beard, his cold eyes, even the scar that ran across his face from just above his left eye down to his right cheek.
There were two new posters that popped out on crisp white paper with fresh ink. An updated one for Konstantin Black, and a brand-new one for Bent Stum. Even in his picture, Konstantin seemed to be smirking at me, like he knew he’d gotten away with what he’d done.
But his eyes caught me. Even in black-and-white, they appeared livelier than when I had seen them in real life. It was the look he’d had when I’d last seen him standing in the crowd in Chicago, and the same look he’d had when I saw him standing over my father. And it was his eyes that had haunted my dreams last night, but I struggled to push that back, refusing to replay it in my head again, the way I had been all morning.
“Bryn,” Ridley repeated, since I hadn’t answered him.
Reluctantly I turned back to look at him. “I just ran into Astrid Eckwell in the library at the palace.”
Ridley shrugged, like he didn’t know why that would bother me. “Astrid’s an idiot.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“You never let her get to you.”
I inhaled deeply. “I usually don’t.”
“What’d she say this time that got under your skin?”
“Nothing, really. It was just the same old crap.” I started bouncing my leg up and down, needing to do something to relieve my agitation. “And usually I’m over it. But this time it was really hard for me to not punch her in the face.”
“Well, I commend you on not doing that. Because that would’ve been very bad.”
“I know. I think I’ve just been cooped up here too long.” I shifted in my chair. “This winter is taking forever to end. And the King is being ridiculous. I should be out in the field, and you know it, Ridley.”
“Shh.” He glanced toward the open door. “Lower your voice. You don’t want the new cadets to hear.”
“I don’t care who hears,” I said, nearly shouting.
Ridley went over to the door and peeked out in the hall, then closed the door. Instead of going back to his chair, he came over to me. He leaned on the desk right in front of me, so he was almost at eye level.
He wore a button-down shirt and vest, but he’d skipped a tie today, so I could see his necklace. It was a thin leather strap with an iron rabbit amulet—his present upon becoming Rektor. The amulet lay against the bronzed skin of his toned chest, and I lowered my eyes.
“I know you’re pissed off, but you don’t need to get in a shitload of trouble because an overzealous tracker-in-training tattles on you to the wrong person,” he said, his voice low and serious.
Technically, speaking any ill of the King was a punishable offense. My saying that he was ridiculous wouldn’t exactly get me executed, but I could end up stuck cleaning toilets in the palace, or demoted, even. The changelings were assigned to us based on our rank, and in terms of trackers, I was third from the top.
“You’re right.” I sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize to me. Just don’t act stupid because you’re mad.”
“I’m more valuable out in the field.” I stared up into Ridley’s dark eyes, imploring him to understand. “And I feel so useless here. I’m not doing anything to help anyone.”
“That’s not true. You’re helping Linus. You know how lost and bumbling changelings are at first.”
“He needs someone, yeah, but it doesn’t have to be me,” I countered. “I’m not actually needed here.”
“I need you,” Ridley said, with a sincerity in his tone that startled me. In the depths of his eyes I saw a flicker of that heat I’d seen before, but just as I’d registered it, he looked away and cleared his throat. “I mean, there’s a lot going on right now. Royalty from all over are on their way right now. You’re a big asset here. I wouldn’t be able to handle everything without your help.”
“Anyone can do what I’m doing,” I said, deciding to ignore the heat I’d seen in his eyes. “I think that’s why Astrid got to me. I already feel like I’m being useless, and she always does such a great job of reminding me how much better than me she is.”
He shook his head. “You know that’s not true.”
I opened my mouth to argue that, but the door to the office opened and interrupted me. I looked back over my shoulder to see Simon Bohlin. Out of habit, I sat up straighter in my chair and tried to look as nonchalant as possible. I still wasn’t completely sure how to act around him.
We’d broken up a few months ago after going out for nearly a year. I’d gone against my own rule about not dating other trackers because Simon was funny and cute and didn’t seem all that intimidated by the fact that I could kick his ass.
But I don’t know why it still felt so awkward. We hadn’t even been that serious. Well, I thought we hadn’t been serious. Then Simon dropped the l-word, and I realized that we wanted two vastly different things out of the relationship.
Simon had been walking into the office, whistling an old tracker work song under his breath, but he stopped short when he saw me.
“Sorry,” Simon said. From underneath his black bangs, his eyes shifted from me to Ridley. “Am I interrupting something?”
“No.” Ridley stood up and stepped away from me. “Not at all.”
“I just came in to get my orders for the new changeling,” Simon said.
“Right. Of course.” Ridley walked around to the other side of his desk, shifting around stacks of paper in search of the file for Simon.
“You’re leaving?” I asked, flashing Simon the friendliest smile I could manage.
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“When?”
; “Um, I think later today,” Simon said.
Ridley found the file and held it up. “That is the plan.”
“So you’re not staying for the party?” I asked.
Simon shook his head, looking disappointed. “Not unless it’s in the next couple hours.”
Then it hit me. Simon was a good tracker, but he’d always enjoyed the parties and balls here more than I had.
I stood up. “We could trade.”
“Trade what?” Simon asked cautiously.
Ridley sighed. “Bryn. No.”
“I’m supposed to stay here and shadow Linus Berling, but you were always so great with the changelings.” I walked over to Simon, getting so excited by the idea that I forgot to feel strange around him. “You could get him all settled and act as his bodyguard, and I could go out into the field.”
“I…” Simon hesitated. “I mean, I don’t know if that’s okay.”
“But would you?” I asked before Ridley could object. “I mean, if it was okay.”
“Why? What’s going on?” Simon asked.
“Bryn’s just going through a case of cabin fever, and it’s making her act crazy,” Ridley explained as he walked over to us.
“I’m not acting crazy,” I insisted and stared hopefully up at Simon. “So, Simon, are you in?”
“Why don’t you come back in, like, half an hour, and we’ll have this all straightened out?” Ridley asked and started ushering Simon to the door.
Simon glanced back at me, then shrugged noncommittally as he left. Once he’d gone, Ridley closed the door. He turned around and leaned back on it, letting out a long sigh as he looked over at me.
“What I’m saying makes sense. It works,” I insisted, already steeling myself for his protests.
“Sit down.” He motioned to the chair.
He went over to the two chairs sitting in front of his desk and turned them so they faced each other. After he sat down, he gestured to the other one, so I went over and sat down across from him. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his legs, and by the gravity in his eyes, I knew this conversation wasn’t going the way I’d hoped it would.
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