Chapter 93 THE CHILD HUNT
Athalia’s heart slammed against her ribs.
“Where is this?” she muttered.
“Is he still inside the kingdom… or the palace?”
She looked up sharply. “That’s impossible. I would have felt...”
Her hands began to shake.
The knock came again, louder.
“Selene! Are you still in there?”
Athalia thrust the mirror back into Selene’s hands and wrapped the cloth around it.
“She’s already left!” she called toward the door. “I need to go before they find me...”
Her mind raced. There had once been a passage behind the east chapel. Bricked up years ago… but maybe not well enough.
Voices drew closer in the corridor.
Athalia pulled her illusion back over herself.
She slipped to the door and paused, breath catching.
“If that cradle holds what I think it does…” she whispered, “…then I may already be too late.”
I need to find my child.
She stepped into the corridor just as two physicians rounded the corner. She lowered her gaze and walked past them, heart pounding, the image of shimmering air above the cradle burned into her mind.
For the first time since she had woken in a forest hut with nothing but pain and questions, Athalia felt fear that had nothing to do with herself.
She left the palace without saying a word to Corin.
The next morning, she wandered the market square.
She didn’t search. She watched.
People brushed past in a blur of color and motion. Laughter rose and fell. A woman scolded a child for reaching into a basket of apples. A dog barked at nothing.
Then she saw him.
He sat alone on the stone edge of a fountain, legs swinging, boots not quite touching the ground. Dark hair fell into his eyes as he leaned over a paper-wrapped pastry, licking sugar from his fingers with deep concentration.
No nursemaid nearby. No parent calling his name.
Athalia slowed.
She didn’t approach right away. She circled the square once, then again, pretending to study bolts of fabric and jars of honey. Each time she passed, he remained there, humming tunelessly, absorbed in his treat.
On the third pass, she stopped a few steps away.
“That looks good,” she said.
The boy glanced up, startled, then grinned. “It is.”
“What is it?”
“Almond twist,” he said proudly, holding it up.
“Lucky,” she replied. “I’ve been walking all morning and haven’t had a thing.”
He frowned, considering this. “You can have some.”
She smiled. “I couldn’t take yours.”
“I can get another,” he said. “My father always gives me coin for two. Says I eat like a wolf.”
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Thomas.”
“Thomas,” she repeated. “I’m Lina.”
He squinted. “You don’t sound like you’re from here.”
“I’m not. I get lost easily.”
He brightened. “I know all the streets.”
“Even the quiet ones?”
“Especially those. That’s where the cats hide.”
“I’m looking for a place,” she said, lowering her voice. “A little shop with blue shutters. A friend said they might have work for me, but I can’t find it.”
“Blue shutters?” He licked sugar from his thumb. “There’s lots of those.”
“This one’s near a garden wall. With ivy.”
He slid off the fountain. “I know that one! Behind Old Mill Street. People don’t go there much.”
“That’s the one.”
He stuffed the last of the pastry into his mouth. “I can show you.”
“That would help me very much.” She pulled a small wrapped sweet from her pocket, bright red through the paper. “For your trouble.”
His eyes widened. “Berry sugar?”
“It is.”
He took it carefully. “You’re nice.”
She held his gaze. “I try to be.”
They walked together, leaving the noise of the square behind. Laundry hung overhead like faded flags. A woman dumped water into the gutter, splashing Thomas’s boots.
“Hey!” he yelped.
She laughed and waved an apology.
Thomas talked the whole way — about a dog he wanted, a boy who cheated at marbles, how he’d join the royal guard someday because they had the best boots.
Athalia listened. Asked questions. Learned which streets he used, which alleys he wasn’t supposed to take but did anyway.
Old Mill Street was quieter. The houses thinned. Ivy crawled along a cracked stone wall just as he’d promised. The air felt cooler here.
Thomas pointed ahead. “See? Told you.”
Athalia slowed. “Is it far?”
“Just around there,” he said, hurrying forward.
She glanced behind them.
No one followed.
“Thomas,” she said gently.
He turned.
“I need to check something before we go farther. Can you help me for just a moment?”
“Okay.”
She stepped closer, lowering her voice. “Hold very still.”
He frowned but obeyed.
Athalia lifted her hand. The charm at her throat warmed — then burned. A whisper of power slid down her arm into her fingertips.
Thomas blinked. “What are you...”
The word never finished.
The air shimmered around him like heat over stone. His outline blurred.
Then he was gone.
The street stood empty.
Athalia exhaled slowly, steadying herself against the wall. The magic pulsed inside her — restless, and hungry. She pressed her palm to her chest until the surge eased.
“Forgive me,” she whispered, though she did not look at the space where he had stood.
A cat darted across the alley, startled by nothing it could see.
Athalia turned and walked back toward the market, her steps measured and calm.
By midday, the square buzzed louder than before. A woman’s voice cut through the noise, sharp with panic.
“Thomas? Thomas!”
Athalia paused near a fruit stall, pretending to examine a row of pears.
A man pushed through the crowd, his face drained of color. “He was right here,” he said. “He never leaves the square.”
“You must have missed him,” someone offered.
“I didn’t,” the man snapped. “I was watching.”
Athalia moved on.
The palace bells rang in the distance, marking the hour.
She didn’t look up, but her jaw tightened.
\---
That night, in a rented room above a cooper’s shop, Athalia drew a circle on the wooden floor and whispered words that tasted like iron. The air inside the circle thickened, bending inward, as if the space itself had deepened.
A small shape lay at the center, unmoving, breathing slow.
Thomas.
He looked as though he were asleep.
Athalia knelt beside him, brushing the hair from his forehead. Her hand trembled once before she stilled it.
“I won’t let it hurt you,” she said quietly.
Outside, somewhere beyond the city walls, something old shifted, sensing the thread she had finally pulled tight.
And in the palace, far above torch lit corridors and guarded doors, a king woke from uneasy sleep with the echo of a child’s laughter in his mind — familiar, impossible, and far too close.