Chapter 239 --239
"I have two," the Third Consort said. "From my family’s household. They’ve been with me since before I came here."
"Go tonight," Elara said. "Come back with whatever he tells you and anything he has in writing." She paused. "And come back before the third bell tomorrow afternoon."
The Third Consort looked at her steadily. "The Third Princess."
"She requested a meeting," Elara said. "I want everything assembled before I walk into it."
A silence.
"She knows more than she has shown," the Third Consort said carefully. "The Third Princess. She has been — quiet, for someone with her capabilities. That kind of quiet is not neutral."
"No," Elara agreed. "It isn’t."
"Be careful with her," the Third Consort said. Not a warning exactly. More like the specific caution of someone who had watched a particular chess player for years and had opinions about their style. "She is not cruel. She is not reckless. She is the most patient person I have encountered in seventeen years of this palace, which is the most dangerous thing a person in her position can be."
Elara thought about the colonnade. The public witness. The specific phrasing — *before they become complicated.*
"I know," she said.
The Third Consort nodded once. She looked, Elara thought, like someone who had set down something heavy and was still adjusting to the change in balance.
"I’ll go tonight," she said.