chapter twenty-five.

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PRINCE CAIRO DID NOT COME to breakfast the next morning

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PRINCE CAIRO DID NOT COME to breakfast the next morning.

To be fair, none of the princes, nor the King — though I hadn't expected (nor hoped) the latter to be there anyway — were at the table that morning, their seats barren and sitting oddly at the front of an otherwise full dining hall.

I didn't have to wonder to know that they were most probably still doing some type of damage control, even if they'd been present at dinner last night. After all, it was so much easier to pretend everything was alright when the sky was dark and your stomach was full enough to lull you back into whispering, haunting dreams that spoke and showed shiny, clean tiles and calm palace staff.

In the light of day, with the sun streaming in through gigantic windows and mosaic glass, staining onto wooden floors and gold gilded walls, cases like last night were much harder to hide or ignore, no matter how hard they might have tried.

Just like right now.

At first glance, the dining hall seemed quiet, the table lined with girls with ducked-down heads and slow, silver-and-gold ware clinks, but I didn't have to try very hard to catch little bits and pieces of conversations fluttering out of the corner of pursed mouths.

"Why aren't any of the Princes here?" one girl whispered. She was one I'd never heard the name of before — which, at this period of time, was really quite rare. In the back of my mind, a tiny voice whispered that she must be incredibly forgettable — incredibly lucky.

"Do you really have to ask?" her friend hissed back — a girl named Eden, if I wasn't mistaken, and one of the most beautiful girls I'd ever seen in my life. "Do you really think they'd have the free time to have breakfast with us right now?"

"So? Can I not dream?" the first girl replied. "I haven't gotten the opportunity to talk to any of the Princes yet."

Mother had taught me to never judge somebody by their appearance, but as the girl spoke, I couldn't stop myself from thinking that she sounded quite ditsy.

After all, someone had died. It was hard for me to even stomach an appetite, remembering the sting of the smell of blood in my nostrils and the way the servants ran to and fro with large, sloshing buckets of water, all tinted a little too red for my liking — and here there was a person thinking about the Princes.

For all she knew, the killer could be one of them.

The killer could be one of them.

As soon as the thought passed my head, I felt the back of my dress turn cold.

For some odd reason, I don't think that that's a thought that I should've had.

But why? No one would know, anyway.

But even with that thought in my head, I couldn't stop myself from shifting to and fro, to and fro, to and fro, the little silver spoon in my hand — so small and delicate that I felt that even the slightest touch would snap it in half or, at the very least, bend it — clattering against my equally little salad plate.

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