Reborn, I Let My Sister Take the Poisoned Crown novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: The Steward's Choice

Hester knew a way into the palace laundry, and by dusk I was inside it with a basket of wet sheets on my hip.

"The kitchens are on the east side," she whispered at the cellar stair. "The Healer's Tower stands behind them. Find your sister, and stay out of any room with a window onto the avenue."

"Why?"

"Because the king looked straight at you this morning, and he won't have forgotten."

I climbed the back stairs with my head down.

The corridors were long and cold, lit by iron lamps, and every servant I passed looked through me without a flicker.

Nobody sees a woman with a laundry basket.

I turned the last corner, and walked into my brother.

He was carrying a sheaf of papers and wearing his steward's blue coat, and for a moment he did not move at all.

Then his papers hit the floor.

"Neve."

His voice cracked.

"Neve, what are you doing here?"

He seized my arm and pulled me into a doorway behind a tapestry.

He was thinner than he had been in Highmoor, and there were dark smudges under his eyes.

"You've broken the decree," he whispered. "Do you understand what that means? You could be hanged. I could be dismissed. Sorrel could be ruined."

"Sorrel is why I'm here."

"Go home. Tonight. I'll arrange a cart."

"I'm not going home."

"Neve."

"Edric, look at me."

I put my fingers to my mouth and coughed.

It came up easily now, and I held my palm out under the lamp so he could see the grey in it.

He stared at it.

"It's silver," I said. "It's been in my blood for weeks, since the night of the moot. I felt it in Highmoor. I tasted it, Edric. Four hundred miles away."

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