Chapter 5: His Closet

The King's rooms were at the top of the east tower, and nobody stopped me.

The guard at the stair just stepped aside.

"His Majesty said you go where you like, miss."

"Did he say I could go in there?"

"He said where you like."

The door wasn't locked.

The sitting room was dark except for the fire. Books on the floor. A cold cup of coffee. A sweater over a chair.

He wasn't there.

I could hear water running somewhere further in.

I should have knocked on that door and waited.

Instead I crossed the room to the tall closet in the corner.

The same door I had watched a stranger open on television.

I opened it myself.

It smelled like cedar and him.

The dark suits. The white shirts.

And at the end of the rail, the old academy shirt on its wooden hanger.

Up close it was smaller than I remembered. The collar had gone yellow.

The signatures had faded to the color of weak tea.

I found mine low on the left side, under the pocket.

Hesper Moreland, in the round careful hand I'd had at twenty-two.

The heart around it was drawn in darker ink. A steadier hand.

And beside it, so small I had to lean in, a line in the same ink.

After the run.

"I meant to show you that part," Evander said behind me.

I didn't jump.

Somehow I'd known he was there.

He stood in the bathroom doorway in a pair of gray sweatpants, a towel around his neck, his hair dripping.

No shirt.

A long pale scar ran down his left side, from under his arm to his hip bone.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I know I said a guest."

"Guests open closets." He came a few steps closer. Not too close. "Mostly mine."

"My father found me after dinner."

He stopped.

"What did he do?"

I held up my wrist. The bruises had come up purple, five neat ovals.

His eyes went gold so fast.

"He said I was there on graduation night," I said quickly. "He said you nearly died, and I should leave it buried."

"You weren't there."

"How do you know?"

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