“So you think that’s what he wants to discuss?” Aurora buttered two slices of the bread and pushed one toward Marjory.

The girl took a big bite. “Well, Nanny Stoat says that Lord Ortolan doesn’t want you to talk to any of your people but those who are in his pocket. Forgive me for repeating this, but she says he doesn’t want you to have any ideas that he didn’t give you.”

“Nanny Stoat?” Aurora asked.

“Everyone in the village listens to her,” Marjory said. “If there’s a problem, people say, ‘Take it to Nanny Stoat,’ because she’ll figure out how to make it right.”

“So you think Lord Ortolan doesn’t plan to tell me about the townsfolk?” Aurora asked. “And that he will continue to try to send them away?”

Marjory nodded, although she looked guilty as she did so.

Aurora downed the rest of her tea and got out of bed. She went to her dressing table and started brushing out her hair roughly. “I’d better get down there immediately if I want to speak with them. Tell me anything else you’ve heard—rumors, anything!”

“Wait!” said Marjory, jumping off the bed and forcibly taking the brush from Aurora’s hand. “I’ll braid up your hair as swiftly as I can if you stop doing that to it.”

“Do you know what they want?” Aurora asked, sitting and scowling at herself in the mirror.

The girl began to detangle her hair, separating it down the middle with a clean part. “I heard there was a missing boy. A servant here in the castle. He was one of the grooms, so I didn’t know him particularly.”

Aurora turned in her chair. “Missing? What do you mean?”

“He walked home to see his mother,” Marjory said, valiantly holding on to the sections of hair she’d been braiding, “but he never got there, and no one has seen him since.”

A few minutes later, Aurora ran down the stairs in silken slippers and the green gown.

Lord Ortolan tried to interrupt her as she marched toward the palace doors. “Your Majesty, I am so glad you’re up. If I could command your attention for a moment, there’s a matter of some magical flora along the border—”

“I would like to speak with the family of the missing boy,” she said.

His surprise was evident. “But how did you know?”

“That’s not important,” she said as pleasantly as she could, “since it saves you having to explain the matter to me, which I don’t doubt you were just about to do.”

“Certainly,” he said smoothly. “But we have more immediate important matters to discuss. The business of the boy can wait.”

“No,” Aurora said. “I don’t think it can.”