Assassin’s Fate

Your eagerness to be efficient and thrifty is praiseworthy. You are managing Withywoods well in my father’s absence. For it is an absence; I am confident he will return.

But as to the changes you suggest, no. Please do not empty my sister Bee’s room. Her possessions are to be tidied, and cleaned if necessary, and then restored to their proper locations. Do not put them into storage. I wish them to be left as they should be. I believe that her tiring maid Caution will know exactly how things were kept. Nothing is to be discarded. Let the doors then be closed and locked. That is my wish.

As for my father’s chamber, I desire that it be left exactly as it was when he departed. Likewise, close and lock the door. No one need bother with anything in there until he returns. I am confident that he will not rebuke anyone for leaving his possessions untouched. There is a room in the lower halls that he used for a study sometimes. I do not mean the estate study; I refer to the chamber that looks out over the lilac bushes. That, too, I wish closed and left undisturbed.

I believe we have already discussed the room that was my mother’s retreat for sewing and reading. It too should be left as it was. That is where her things belong. I do not wish them tidied away.

Before winter closes in on us, both Lord Riddle and I hope to visit Withywoods, if our schedule permits.

Missive from Princess Nettle to Steward Dixon of Withywoods

They made no ceremony of returning me to my cell. Capra inserted and turned her key and then Symphe’s to open the door and repeated the task after the door clashed shut behind me.

‘What of me?’ I dared to ask.

‘What of you?’ she laughed. ‘I may have a use for you. Later. Or sooner.’ She smiled and it frightened me. ‘For now, just sit there and wait. Everything happens in its own time.’ She smiled as if well satisfied, turned and strode off.

Her words did not calm me. She’d sent Fellowdy to see Vindeliar. Was Vindeliar strong enough now to control a White’s mind? If he was, he would want me dead and they would kill me. Little I could do about that. I went back to my bed and sat down. The hilt of the knife poked me. I moved over. I wondered how long it had been since one of the Four had died. What did Symphe’s death mean to them, and why were there four? Or would they go on as three, now? I clasped my hands between my knees and rocked, trying to find calm.

‘So, Bee. What will you do now?’ Prilkop’s whisper reached me.

I kept my own voice low. ‘Sit here, I suppose. I don’t have a lot of other choices.’

‘Don’t you?’

It didn’t feel that way. I felt I was water rushing down a stream bed. Water cannot stop itself nor choose to go uphill. ‘Water goes where the channel leads,’ I said.

I heard him sigh. ‘I remember that dream. It was one of mine. Did someone read it to you?’

‘No. It was just a thing I thought of.’ I moved to the corner of my cell and tried to peer around the wall to see him. It was hopeless.

‘Little Bee. Do you see different futures, different paths?’

‘Sometimes,’ I admitted slowly.

‘You can choose any of them. Pick carefully.’

‘They all seem to lead to the same end.’

‘Not all,’ he disagreed. ‘I have seen something of what may come. If you remain in your cell and do nothing, they will kill you.’

I swallowed. I had not seen that. Or had I? The dreams faded so quickly when I could not write them down.