“Bayled!” Thelia rides up in a pine-colored cloak that
makes the specks of green in her dark eyes glow. Her white
palfrey, Parlor Trick, looks grumpy.
“I didn’t know you ever got up this early,” I say. She must
have some reason for leaving her suite before noon.
Thelia arches an eyebrow. “That’s rude. I get up early as
often as I can. Morning is my favorite time of day for a ride.”
I almost laugh. Lies come so easily to Thelia Finegarden,
it’s as if she breathes them. When we were kids still chasing each
other around the courtyard, she always had some lie prepped
when we asked, “What’s that bruise? How did you manage to
pick up two whole hay bales?” She had stronger, firmer arms
than even me, which she’d blame on “a natural disposition.”
The scrapes? She slipped in some gravel. The calluses on her
palms? Working hard on a tapestry, or some horsefish like that.
But it was an open secret that before she ran off, wild-eyed old
Delia was training her daughter in the arts people here consider
inappropriate for ladies.
“I go riding almost every morning and I’ve never seen
you,” I say, even though it’s like approaching a mother biylar
bear, hoping you won’t get attacked by both heads.
“Maybe I was anxious this morning,” she says. “Maybe I’m
worried about my friends after that disaster of a banquet last
night.”
I didn’t expect that, and flounder for a response.
“What’s going to happen with your engagement now?”
she asks.
My spine goes frigid. How does she—? Never mind.
Corene and Thelia tell each other everything.
“It’s over,” I say.
“And you’re not upset?”
22
