"That creature is inside the royal nursery."
Celine set the platter down on the chest at the foot of the cradle and came close to him—close enough to smell the wet iron of his armor and the woodsmoke of the guardroom fire—and lifted two fingers between them.
"Shh," she whispered. "Keep your voice down."
"Where did it come from?"
"My sister."
Something moved in his face, quick and badly hidden, the way a man flinches from a blow he has been expecting for weeks. "Your sister died last month."
"She gave it to me before she died."
"Why?"
"Because she knew father would kill it."
The squeaking had become frantic. Celine turned from him and bent over the cradle and lifted the creature out, both hands beneath it, the way she had learned over the past month in the dark of her own chamber with a bolster against the door.
It was no longer than her forearm, not counting the tail. Its scales were the grey of slate after rain, darkening to black along the spine and at the joints of its small leathery wings, which it held half-open for balance and then folded against itself as she drew it to her breast. The tail found her wrist and wound around it twice. Its eyes, when it lifted its head, were the color of a candle flame seen through amber—orange at the rim, yellow at the heart—and they fixed on her with an attention that had frightened her the first week and now did something worse. It made her feel known.
It chirped, high and sharp, and then, as she tucked it under her chin, let out a soft rolling trill she could feel in her collarbones.
Mattias had not moved. His hand had gone, without his permission, to the hilt of his sword, and stayed there.
"Why would a princess have a Wilkin?"