Aliya

chapter twenty-eight.

But there wouldn't be Mama in that book. There's never Mama left.

You should go to sleep.

Slowly, slowly, I folded the picture over, placed it in my sleeve, and walked back to bed.

If somebody had asked me how long I'd spent that night, tossing and turning around, falling into what felt like restless, monstrous strokes of sleep, I would not know. It felt like I had spent the whole night doing so, but every single time I opened my eyes, I found the curtains still drawn, Maria still asleep, and the castle still dead silent.

And after the sixth, perhaps seventh — I didn't know, and I wasn't sure if counting would be the best option for my sanity — I got up out of bed.

I just need to take a look.

Just one look.

Just one.

Maria must have been someone Ismal trusted, because there was no way he would have entrusted me to her otherwise. At the same time, I had no doubt that she had been trained to the highest caliber, taught over and over again on how to talk, how to walk, how to take care of a proper, future, possible concubine.

But at the end of the day, she was still a child. A child needed long, long hours of sleep. And if there was one thing I'd learned over the past few nights of sneaking out, it was that this was Ismal's one blind spot.

No matter how much or hard you trained a child, you couldn't train her in her sleep.

I slipped out of the door silently.

By now, the darkened hallways no longer phased me. Well, they did, but they did so in a much lesser effect than they had when I first arrived; although Prince Finn's wings were still unfamiliar, the small nooks and crannies no longer seemed as small, the shadows no longer as terrifying.

In fact, the dark seemed to conceal everything, all of the fuss and huff of the Palace and the glitz and glamor of the princes. If I ignored the occasional glint of the gold sculptures hanging overhead, I could almost pretend as if I was at home, the lights turned off to save power and me quietly sipping tea on another comfortingly lonely night.

As I slipped out of the hallway, tiptoeing down the stairs and onto the first floor, I couldn't help but cheer on my luck.

How lucky I'd been to have had Prince Cairo walk me back to my room before dinner that afternoon.

"It's courtesy," he had said, smilingly. "I'm sure your maid would want you to change, and I think it's only polite for me to walk you back after having had taken your time for so long in the library."

I'd insisted not, but he'd insisted yes, and at that point, my mind had already been so clouded over by his promises that I'd simply agreed.

Earlier today, I'd thought it was fussy. That it wasn't worth all the dirty looks and weird glares I'd gotten all throughout dinner. But now, I was thankful.

Even with Maria's detailed instructions, if he hadn't accompanied me back, I didn't think I'd be able to find my way to the library quite as easily as I had now.

I might owe him a thanks. And perhaps an apology, too, although I'd have to find a different reason to explain it in the first place.

The closer I got to the library, the quicker my steps became, and very soon my tiptoeing had become sprinting, my heels just barely touching the ground, and briefly, I wondered how much noise I was making.