Chapter 85

• It was a quiet, sunny day for the palace.
• It was on that quiet and sunny day that the Queen’s advisors were summoned into the meeting hall. They quietly shuffled inside, Priscilla meeting Xiao’s eyes. She observes him. They had not crossed paths in the castle for weeks. She, preoccupied in the witches’ tower and he, cooped up in the archives. The two places were almost on opposite ends of the palace. And yet he looked no different.
• Xiao feels her gaze and turns her way. He raises an inquisitive brow and she shuts him off with a roll of her eyes. The man, confused, tilts his head. Quietly, they occupy their spots on the right and left of the end of the table, where the Queen’s seat was. That was and had always been their position—they are the left and right hand of the monarch.