“That I don’t know,” Benton said.

“Right. Orders,” Kerrigan said. “Does Fordham know? I mean, His Royal Highness.”

“We do not know,” Bayton said with a shy smile.

They didn’t really seem to know anything, or they refused to tell her. But this was her ticket out of this room. She’d go with her worst enemy to escape another day of solitude.

“I’ll leave him a note,” Kerrigan said. “Just one moment.”

The attendants protested, but Kerrigan had already darted back into the bedroom. She found a scrap piece of paper and jotted out a little something to let him know where she was going. He’d probably be angry if he came back and saw she was gone. Even worse, if he had no idea where she’d gone.

“All ready,” she said, stepping out of the room and closing the door behind her.

The twins took the lead, navigating the empty corridors with ease. And they truly were still empty. It was so disconcerting. She kept expecting to turn the corner and for the halls to be teeming with people. She found it hard to reconcile it with her home.

“Does no one live here?” she couldn’t help asking the twins.

Benton and Bayton shared a glance. Benton answered, “Did His Royal Highness not inform you of how the court functions?” Then, she swallowed at the question, as if she’d already misstepped by asking it.

“Prince Fordham is famously recalcitrant and restrained,” Kerrigan said.

Bayton stifled a giggle. “That he is, miss.”

“You can call me Kerrigan.”

Benton shook her head. “We couldn’t.”

“I assure you that I would not be offended.”

They shared another look that Kerrigan took to mean that she was odd. But they smiled lightly afterward, as if they liked her strangeness.

“We really aren’t supposed to discuss the inner workings of the court,” Bayton whispered.

“But it wouldn’t hurt her to have some knowledge of where she resided,” Benton said. Bayton blinked at her sister, but Benton continued right on as they went up a flight of stairs, “The entire court has recently been called back into attendance.”

Kerrigan tilted her head. That actually made sense. The court wasn’t always in attendance in Bryonica either. People had their own homes and lives. They were called back when the ruler requested it. But there wasn’t more land for their estates, just the mountain.

“Where do they normally live?”

“Well, Ravinia is the largest of three peaks, but the tunnels into this mountain expand to the other two—Valeria and Tesera. The three families of the House of Shadows have separated between the mountains. The Ollivier royals in Ravinia. We call the other two the little courts for Houses Laurent and Blanchard.”