The Girl He Sold Returned as the King's Mate novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: The Boathouse

The water gate boathouse stood at the bottom of the castle's river garden, a low wooden shed on pilings above the current.

Beryl stayed on the path behind a hedge with two guards and a lantern shuttered to a slit.

"If I hear a whistle, I'm coming through the roof," she said.

"It's my sister, Beryl."

"Half-sister. And she shoved a paper boat in your hand in front of a hall full of reporters, which is the opposite of subtle."

I went down the planks alone.

Inside, a single candle burned on an upturned crate.

Clara sat beside it with her coat wrapped tight, shivering although the night was warm.

She stood when I came in.

"I'm sorry," she said. "For this morning. I had to say those things in front of him."

"I know."

"Do you?" She wiped her face with both hands. "I wasn't sure you would."

"You were crying before anyone said a word. I thought you were good at it."

She laughed, a wet breath, and then she was crying again, properly this time.

"I folded that boat for you the night before the festival," she said. "I wanted you to float it first. It was the only one in the house with gold paper."

"I remember."

"You told me to float it myself, and you'd float mine."

"I remember that too."

For a moment neither of us said anything.

"They told me you drowned," Clara said. "Father told me at breakfast, and he didn't even sit down. He said you'd gone into the rapids after my boat."

"I was eight," she said. "I thought it was my fault, because it was my boat."

"It wasn't," I said.

"I know that now." She pressed her hands together. "They moved me into your room that week. I've lived in it for thirteen years, Thea. I wear your dresses. Father calls me his only daughter at every dinner, and I smile, and I hate it."

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