The East She was no longer terrified by Wing.
It should have.
Using velvet drapes that swayed despite the lack of wind and hollow-eyed portraits. The sound of her footsteps seemed to disappear beneath her, as though the stones themselves were absorbing them.
But fear had long since faded away in Sayori's heart.
All that was left was a kind of calm and persistent observation.
After delivering her nightly report, her hands were red and raw from cleaning floors that didn't require it, and she went back to the scullery. Not really. The others—the stone-blooded youngster from the mountain clans, the salamander girl who shone in the dark, and the sprite twins—cleaned with magic, quickly, and brightly.
Sayori cleaned in silence. With difficulty. With sore joints and knees on chilly tile.
Nobody volunteered to assist.
However, nobody intervened.
That's the way she liked it. It was safer to be invisible.
She was still cleaning with her back to the door. She had picked up the ability to tune out the din of boiling water and pots to hear what others were saying even when they believed she was deaf.
"Now she's the Alpha's pet," one sneered last night, "creepin around with her dead eyes."
"No magic whatsoever in her." What does he need her for?
"Maybe something to break."
Sayori hadn't spoken at all. As always.
However, she was becoming more aware.
The way Kaelen's servants moved set them apart from the rest. Their outfits were more subdued and refined, with little embroidered sigils that were barely noticeable unless you knew what to search for. One of them was always close to the wine cellar. A further one always lingered close to the messenger rookery.
Sayori had started to memorize faces.
And roles.
And who vanished after the moon rose.
When she walked by Whisper, the dog, in the courtyard that morning, he had rubbed her hand. Something is amiss in the East Wing, she had whispered to him.
As if to say I know, he licked her wrist and wagged his tail.
She was given an assignment later that day.
A straightforward one.
The visitor rooms are located at the conclusion of the western gallery, where you should deliver clean linens.
She carried the bundle in silence.
Went by the enormous silver-mirrored doors and the shining salt lamps. When she saw Kaelen's steward pretending to fix his gloves while hanging around the archway, she didn't budge. When she overheard the chambermaid whispering about "the invitation he sent south," she didn't pause.
However, she recalled.
Each term.
Each glance.
She saw something hidden behind the bed frame when she folded the last piece into place.
A letter.
Unseal.
She refused to accept it. I was afraid to.
However, she only read the first line enough to realize that it wasn't written in a language she could comprehend.
And only enough to see the name Fenris with two lines underneath it.
Whisper was waiting for her when she came back to the hound cages that evening.
His red eyes were riveted on hers as he sat there with amazing calm. Sayori knelt close to him.
"They're up to something," she murmured as she stroked his fur. "Something he hasn't seen coming."
The dog gave a deep, pensive sigh.
She was unsure of whether Lord Fenris would believe her.
However, she would still tell him.
Because she owed him so much.
Because he had given her a name.
Perhaps it indicated that something was now expected of her.
Despite the fact that no one else had seen it yet.
Sayori stood up, her legs shaking and her shoulders hurting. However, she walked with confidence.
The following day, she would go back to the East Wing.
And she would pay closer attention.