Her hand tightens on my arm. “I am quite weary. Although being with you invigorates me.”
And just like that, she gives me the perfect excuse to escape. With a click of my tongue, I say, “We can’t have that. You will need your rest for our exciting trip to the garden.”
Her eyes widen as realization seems to set in, but I’m already unhooking her fingers from my forearm. “Senan, I didn’t mean?—”
“Bell!” I call to the guard waiting at the far end of the hallway. “Would you mind escorting the princess to her chambers? She is quite weary.”
Leeri lets out a frustrated groan and stamps her foot, but I’m already back in the dining room before she can call me back.
I search the sea of white-clad servants, my gaze snagging on one in particular. As if she can feel my eyes on her, her masked face lifts.
It’s her.
It must be.
Did she just stiffen?
She did.
She stiffened.
My heart rate spikes when the maid grabs a stack of dishes and whirls toward the servant’s stairs. “You there,” I call with a wave that she completely ignores.
The other servants’ heads swing toward the one I called after. Her shoulders hunch when she picks up her pace.
If she reaches the servants’ door, the wards won’t let me follow. There is no telling if I’ll ever get a chance to see her again.
I don’t walk. I run, eating up the distance between us and skidding to a halt in the nick of time, blocking her exit. When she tries to skirt around me, I hold out my arms. “Stop. I must speak with you.”
The dishes in her arms rattle when her head swings this way and that, as if searching for another way out.
I don’t know what I think I’ll find, but there issomethingabout this woman that feels too familiar to ignore.
“Everyone else out!” I order, waiting until only the two of us remain in the cavernous dining room. I swear I can hear my heartbeat echo off the coffered ceiling. The longer I stare, the more of a tug I feel toward this woman. As if she and I are tethered by some invisible cord.
You’re wrong.
There is no way it’s her.
Swallowing past the sudden lump in my throat, I take a tentative step forward. “You lied to me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she counters, skirting backward.
The timbre of her voice is exactly the same. There must be hundreds of servants in this castle. I can’t believe I found her. “Yesterday, you gave me a false name.”
Her hood slips a little when she shakes her head, but the shadows are too dark to see what lies beneath. “I didn’t.”
“Do you really think lying to a prince of the realm for a second time is a good idea? If you do not tell me your real name this instant, then I will?—”
“Wynn?” a high voice calls from the servant’s entrance. “Do you need help?”
Wynn. Wynn. Wynn.
The name pulses through my skull as bitter disappointment settles in my bones.
“No. I’m…I’m fine,” the woman, Wynn, says, her voice trembling and Nimbiss accent gone.
Not only was she lying about her name, she has been using a false accent as well.