The Hollow Crown: A Novel of Crosspointe Read Online Free

we part ways,” she told the majicar firmly.
    Ellyn frowned, her gaze turbulent and dark. “You said that you would listen to me.”
    “I have no time now,” Margaret said. Exhaustion was dragging at her. She’d been awake for nearly two whole days. Her body shook with the leftover pain of Ellyn’s majickal attack and she needed to get the satchel somewhere safe.
    “Then when?”
    Margaret eyed her narrowly. “You’re awfully eager.”
    “I am,” Ellyn said sincerely.
    Truth be told, Margaret wanted to hear whatever it was that Ellyn had to say, and to know what she was doing working as a lady’s maid to Alanna Truehelm. She couldn’t afford to walk away without some answers. She thought rapidly. “Meet me in three days at the Spotted Lace Teahouse. I’ll be there at the ninth glass.”
    “Three days?” Ellyn repeated dubiously.
    “I cannot promise sooner. I have obligations.” In fact, she didn’t know if she’d be able to get away in three days. Everything depended on what was in the satchel. She’d opened the vault in her father’s—or rather, the regent’s ill-gotten—office. It was hidden beneath the rug under the regent’s desk chair. To everyone it appeared to be nothing more than a solid parquet floor. Unlocking it required the proper words, chanted with the right intonation and cadence, as well as wearing the right bit of jewelry.
    Every Rampling born on the right side of the blankets was given a cipher at birth. The pendant was hung on an unbreakable necklace that could not be removed and it offered some protection against majickal attacks. The white sylveth drop in the center of the its compass rose had turned black upon the death of the Margaret’s father and would not turn back until a new king or queen sat on the throne. Without the cipher necklace, it would be impossible to unseal her father’s vault. But with majick acting so erratically, she feared that those protections would not last much longer and she was afraid of what the regent might discover inside.
    She’d not taken the time to examine what she took, merely snatching up everything and stuffing it all into her satchel. She’d resealed the vault and had begun to leave when she’d noticed the papers littering the desk. Geoffrey Truehelm’s personal correspondence. She’d cleared the desk and rifled through the drawers, taking everything that looked important.
    She glanced at Ellyn, waiting for her reply.
    The other woman pursed her lips and then gave a short, ungracious nod. “I have no choice. I will be there. Do not be late.”
    Margaret arched one brow. “Or else what?”
    “I’ll find you.”
    “Will you, now. And what then?”
    The majicar’s smile was slow and predatory. “I’ll do what’s necessary.”
    Ellyn turned and walked away, disappearing with an uncanny swiftness. She didn’t use majick; she faded into the shadows like a thief. Margaret stared after her. Who was she? What was she?
    Suddenly making that meeting seemed of paramount importance.
     
    Margaret’s first stop after splitting with Ellyn was to find a safe place for the satchel and get some sleep. She would find a healer in the evening before she took the contents of the satchel to her brother Ryland. Her mouth thinned. He was going to be very unhappy with her. Like most people, he believed in her helpless, simpering, public princess persona far too much to bring himself to acknowledge her as an assassin, a spy, a thief, and sometimes whore. He didn’t want to think his sister capable of such things, really, nor did he want to think of how the king—their father—turned her into such a weapon.
    She sighed, limping along the street to the corner. She wanted to flag down a footspider and have him pull her in his cart, but it would only call attention to her. Better to walk.
    By midmorning she made her way to a ramshackle room down near Blackwater Bay on the north side of the customs docks. The place was located in the back of a tavern