Free Black Keys (The Colorblind Trilogy #1) by Rose B. Mashal Page B

drinks. I figured he was trying to make small talk. I wished he wouldn’t. It made me want to believe that he was a nice person. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t believe it. It was impossible for him to be nice. He was raised to be rude and tough, I was sure of it. But pretending was something he’d been taught as well. He just did it with his servant–he pretended. Maybe that’s why he was acting like that. Maybe…
    “Uh, yeah, it was really good, actually. Mona seems to be a great cook,” I replied.
    “I’m glad,” he said. “Mona didn’t make it, though. It was my mother.”
    I choked on my coffee when he said that and coughed a few times. If I’d known it was his mother who’d cooked, I think I would’ve thought twice about eating it. She could’ve poisoned the food or spit on it or something. I still worried she’d actually done that, but then thought that she wouldn’t do it since her son was supposed to eat with me. Or so I hoped.
    “Your mother? The queen?” I asked in disbelief.
    “Yes.”
    “Wow!” I said. “You don’t, uh, hire cooks?” I couldn’t imagine the queen having nothing better to do.
    “What? Oh, no, of course we hire cooks, but it’s a tradition for the mother-in-law to cook for the bride for a week,” he explained.
    Oh!
    “Even the queen?”
    “I’ve told you before, Princess. We don’t make up the rules or traditions, we only obey them.”
    I nodded, taking what he’d just said in. “Is that only for the royal family?”
    “No, for everyone,” he said. “The bride is–how do you put it?–um, spoiled rotten during her first week of marriage. They serve her–her whole family and friends–even if she was a servant herself.”
    That’s why Mona seemed offended that I did my hair by myself, I thought.
    We went silent for a few moments as we both gazed out of the windows. I watched the bright sun, as it filled everywhere I could see from my spot on the chair I sat on, while the prince stood right in front of the biggest glass window and sipped his tea.
    The sight was mesmerizing, there was no doubt, but I didn’t think I’d ever seen anything prettier than the birds that were flying together in the baby blue sky. It seemed like they were dancing, like they were surfing waves, going up and down, separating and then uniting once again to draw the same shape, or an even better one than they had made not moments ago.
    “This is so beautiful,” I repeated the same words I had said a few times earlier. My voice was full of amazement at the magical sight in front of me.
    The price looked at me over his shoulder and smiled, a small one like the rest of his smiles, and nodded when I pointed with a shrug of my chin to what I was looking at.
    “I’m going to give you a tour once Mona goes to sleep, but we’ll have to be very quiet since she’s practically living here for the week,” he told me. “If you’re up to it, of course.”
    My eyes widened. “The whole palace?” I couldn’t believe it; it would make my escape plan a tiny bit easier if I knew the directions and what was where.
    “No, I’ve already told you we can’t leave,” he said. “I meant a tour of what will be your home for a while. Our wing.”
    My shoulders hunched down. It was very disappointing. I really wanted to look around the palace and see if there was an easy way out, but alas…or, could I convince him?
    “But you left this morning,” I tried.
    “Yes, but that’s the only time the groom can leave his bride, so her family can see if she needs anything after her fir-…you know.”
    “So, you won’t leave the room again for the rest of the week?” I asked.
    “No. Not unless it’s an emergency or something very important.”
    I sighed when he said that. If he wasn’t going to leave my side, it meant that I’d have to wait for the whole week to end before I could get the chance to escape.
    But, I knew I’d figure it out. I always did.
    “Do you want to go inside?” His