As the Crow Falls | ✔

Chapter Seven

Six days after Niccola's encounter in the marketplace, one letter in the day's mail landed in the mail basket with a thunk that could be heard from across the house. Niccola dropped her cloth in the sink and scrubbed her hands dry on her dress as she made for the front door. She couldn't look like she was in a rush, but she also had to see what that was before anyone else in the house got it.

Sitting amidst run-of-the-mill correspondence in the mail basket was an envelope with a red wax seal. Niccola scooped it up, her heart thudding. The paper was so fine, she could see the faint blur of the letter inside, hand-written on a card whose luxury was already detectable through its creamy white sheath. The address on the front was also hand-written.

To the ladies of the Bel Ilan household.

It was an invitation. Niccola didn't need to open it or read further to know; she had seen enough like it back home to recognize the trappings of mail sent out from the palace.

"Oh, what's that?"

Leah's gasp made Niccola jump. She had managed to approach from behind without any of her usual tromping, and snatched the letter from Niccola's hands. She broke the seal, yanked out the invite inside, gasped again, then squealed. "Esther! Esther! Come here; you need to see this! Hurry!"

Niccola tried to move to an angle where she could see the invitation, too, but Leah was already gone, bounding up the stairs to meet her sister.

Lady Selah poked her head from her office room. "Whatever is going on?" she demanded.

"A masked ball, mother," said Esther, while her little sister bounced and clapped her hands. "At the palace. The prince is meeting women from all across the realm."

Lady Selah sniffed. "Who all is invited?"

"Noblewomen," said Leah, with a drawn-out lilt that told Niccola she was lying. Leah looked far too pleased with herself. Seeing Niccola watching her, she tipped her head and held a hand beneath her chin, smiling.

Heat seethed through Niccola's body. She could not let her anger or desperation show on her face; Leah was trying to get a rise out of her, and it would work if she gave it the chance to. Instead, she spun on her heel and strode back to the kitchen.

Leah's voice echoed after her. "Aww, upset that you won't get to meet the prince? He's quite lovely, you know. It would be such a shame to see him marry someone who didn't deserve him."

Niccola ignored her. She had met the prince, and that fact gave her strength to stave off the urge to run up the stairs and snatch that ball invite from the youngest Bel Ilan. But that didn't disarm the sting of the taunts. She needed to see that invitation. Verde had tangentially confirmed that all women were invited to the ball. Niccola could not see it being any different, if the prince who walked around lowland markets in plainclothes had any say in his own marriage process. And even if it was only nobility, she still qualified. Just not in her current station, under her current mask.

That rankled more than anything. For three moons, Niccola had been waiting for a chance like this: the chance to meet the person she was looking for, or get right to the heart of their family. She needed information. She needed connections. She needed something that wasn't endless cycles of gossip and scanning market crowds for familiar features that she now understood she'd never have found there anyway. If her target was born into royalty, she would not have caught them in the markets, or even among the upper-class gatherings she'd infiltrated in her search. It was pure, dumb luck that she'd met the prince, a fortuitious encounter that would never have occurred if he was any less disposed to wandering around incognito.