Chapter 243: The unfinished message

LYSANDER

The kiss was soft and brief, tasting faintly of tea and toothpaste. When I drew back, she was smiling, and something in my chest that had been tight since Bradley’s call finally began to loosen.

"Are you not having dinner?" I asked.

"I’m full."

"You ate half a plate of lamb at noon."

"And I’m still full."

"Nicholas and the cook will be terribly disappointed to hear that."

"Then you will plead my case."

"I suppose I must." I tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "I’ll tell them you were so overcome by the beauty of the house that you lost your appetite."

"That is true."

"It is a lie, but at least it is a flattering one."

I kissed her forehead and let my hand linger briefly against her cheek.

"Go to bed. I’ll be up in a while."

"Don’t be long."

"Never."

She climbed onto the bed and drew the quilt over her knees. I watched her settle against the pillows, her damp hair spilling across them, before turning towards the little table by the window where I had left my phone.

I picked it up.

A single notification illuminated the screen. A voicemail from Bradley.

My brow furrowed. I had seen his missed calls, but he had said nothing about leaving a message during our conversation. I opened it and glanced at the timestamp. It had come through in the afternoon, several hours before he had finally managed to reach me.

I raised the phone to my ear.

At first, there was only static, a dry hiss like wind moving through an open field. Then Bradley’s voice emerged, steady and low.

"I will do as you have asked, Your Majesty. But do call me when you are less occupied."

There was a brief pause, followed by a crackle.

"I also think reaching out to the Shelters will prove difficult. We have not told them what happened to their daughter. Perhaps it is time we did. There may be some young man among them, overcome with grief, who will lash out regardless of how carefully we deliver the news..."

I listened through the rest of it, the measured words and careful diplomacy, until his voice shifted again.

"Also, I probably shouldn’t tell you this in a recording, but I received..."

Caw.

The harsh, rasping cry tore through the recording, so sudden and loud that I jerked the phone away from my ear.

Then the voicemail cut off, leaving me staring at the screen.

I stood very still.

It was nothing. A bird near an open window. I had heard hundreds of them around Cornelius’s study, the ravens that nested in the east chimney, a particularly noisy, ill-tempered lot. There was nothing unusual about a bird crying out.

Except Bradley had said, I should not tell you this on a recording.

And then he had stopped speaking. He had not brought it up during our conversation, either.

I lowered the phone and typed with my thumb.

What did you want to tell me in the voicemail? There was a bird. I think it cut you off.

The message sat on the screen. Behind me, the fire gave a sudden pop, and I glanced towards the bed. Bonnie was already half asleep, her cheek resting against her arm, her breathing growing slower and more even.

Three dots appeared on my screen.

I do not remember.

I stared at the response.

Another message followed.

Probably nothing important.

My brow furrowed.

Are you sure?

The dots flickered, disappeared, then returned.

I would remember if it were important.

I remained by the window, the phone glowing in my hand, as that peculiar chill I had felt at the back of my neck on the lawn crept over me again.

It was such a small thing, really. A man forgetting what he had meant to say. It happened to everyone, particularly after a long day. Soldiers forgot things, too. Names, appointments, the occasional instruction. But Bradley was not everyone. In all the years I had known him, I could not recall him ever forgetting a name, a date, or even the smallest debt owed to him.

I received...

I thought about the unfinished sentence again.

There was something wrong with it. Something I could not quite put my finger on.

And the more I considered it, the stranger it seemed.

I turned the phone over in my palm once, then again.

Eventually, because I was tired, because the woman in my bed was breathing softly beneath the lamplight, and because a good man had earned a night’s rest, I decided to leave it alone.

I placed the phone on the little table and looked towards the bed. Bonnie had curled onto her side, one hand tucked beneath her cheek, the quilt rising and falling gently with each breath. I had promised to plead her case, and a promise made to a sleeping woman was no less binding.

I eased the door open and slipped into the corridor, taking care not to let the latch click behind me.

The house had settled into the particular quiet of old buildings, all its boards and beams giving the occasional sigh as they adjusted beneath their own weight. The lamps along the corridor had been turned low, and the stag’s head in the foyer below seemed to watch me from its shadowed place on the wall.

I descended the stairs barefoot, one hand trailing along the carved banister, and followed the smell of woodsmoke and roasting meat towards the back of the house.

I found Nicholas in the passage outside the kitchen, speaking quietly with the cook, a broad woman in a flour-dusted apron who seemed to have been waiting for someone to give her permission to stop waiting. A covered tray sat on the table between them, steam escaping in thin curls from beneath its lid.

Nicholas noticed me and straightened.

"Your Majesty."

"Nicholas." I scratched the back of my neck. I had never quite managed to feel like a Regent in this man’s presence. "I’m sorry to do this to you, but we won’t be having dinner tonight."

The cook’s expression fell by a noticeable degree.

"Either of us," I added. "Bonnie has already fallen asleep, and I suspect she needs it more than she needs lamb. She asked me to tell you how lovely everything looks. Apparently, she is quite overcome by the beauty of the house."

The cook’s mouth twitched. Nicholas’s expression remained composed, although the corners of his eyes creased. I suspected he had understood precisely how much of that was true.

"Of course, Your Majesty." He inclined his head. "It has been a long day, I imagine."

"You have no idea."

"I have some." His eyes briefly travelled towards the ceiling, as though he could see through the floors to the distant place where a lake had turned itself inside out less than an hour ago. Whatever thought crossed his mind, he kept it to himself. "The kitchen will keep a plate warm in case you wake hungry. There will be bread and meat in the morning regardless."

"That is very kind of you."

"Bad habit." He said it lightly, though there was a quiet warmth beneath the words. "Sleep well, Majesty. The house will be quiet."

"Thank you, Nicholas. Truly."

I gave the cook a grateful nod. She answered with a small, forgiving curtsey, and I turned towards the stairs.

The climb back felt considerably longer than the descent. By the time I reached our door, the day’s exhaustion had finally caught up with me, settling heavily into my shoulders and the backs of my knees.

I pushed the door open without a sound.

The room was dark now. The fire had dwindled to a bed of orange embers, and in their faint glow I could just make out Bonnie, lying exactly where I had left her, one arm stretched across my side of the mattress as though she had been searching for me even in her sleep.

I switched off the lamp, slipped beneath the covers and drew the quilt over us both.

She stirred, murmured something that might have been my name, and instinctively curled against my chest without opening her eyes.

I wrapped an arm around her and lay still, listening to the occasional tick of the dying fire and the slow, even rhythm of her breathing.

For a while, I thought about nothing at all.

Then I fell asleep.