Duchess Merolanna hesitated at the bottom of the tower steps as the door creaked shut behind them. “Oh, I’m a fool.”

The creak ended in a low, shuddering thump as the door swung closed. The breeze set the torches fluttering in their brackets. “What do you mean, Your Grace?”

“I have brought us here without a single guard. What if these are murderers?”

“But you wished this kept a secret. Don’t worry yourself too much, Duchess—I am reasonably fit, and I can use one of these torches to defend you, if necessary.” Utta stretched up to lift one from its socket. “Even a murderer will not relish being struck in the face with this.”

Merolanna laughed. “I was worrying about you, good Sister Utta, rather than myself. You do not deserve to be harmed because of these strange games I find myself playing. I care not what happens to me. I am old, and all my chicks are dead or fled or lost…” For a moment her face became painfully sober and her lip trembled. “Ah, well. Ah, well.” The duchess took a breath and straightened, swelling her sizable bosom so that she seemed suddenly a small but daunting ship of war. “It does us no good to stand here whispering like frightened girls. Come, Utta. You have the torch. Lead the way.”

They made their way up the winding staircase. The first floor was unoccupied. The single, undivided chamber contained several large tables bearing plaster models of the castle, some true to life and others showing possible improvements, the fruits of one of King Olin’s enthusiasms now as forgotten as the dusty, mummified corpse of a mouse that lay in the middle of the doorway.

Merolanna eyed the tiny body with distaste. “Somebody should do something. What use is it having cats if they do not eat the mice instead of leaving them around to rot?”

“Cats don’t always eat their prey, Your Grace,” Utta said. “Sometimes they only play with them and then kill them for sport.”

“Nasty creatures. I never did like cats. Give me a hound any day. Stupid but honest.” Merolanna looked around for eavesdroppers—a reflex because they were quite alone. Still, when she spoke again it was in a low voice. “That’s why I preferred Gailon Tolly, for all his faults, to his brothers. Hendon is a cat if ever there was one. You can see the cruelty—he wears it like a fancy outfit, with pride.”

Utta nodded as they returned to the stairs, leaving the cobwebbed models behind. Even Zoria herself, she felt sure, would have found it hard to feel charitable toward Hendon Tolly.

The doors on the second and third floors were smaller, and locked. She guessed that at least the upper one contained part of King Olin’s famous library. This tower had always been his private sanctuary, and even with him gone so long she felt disrespectful poking around without royal permission.

But I am with Merolanna—the king’s own aunt, she reminded herself. If that is not permission enough, what is?