by Anna Bright
Beside the long, skinny broom was a tall, skinny chair.
Both were made of little bones the size of fingers.
The girl’s heart turned to ice in her chest, even as it began to beat hard and fast as a little drum.
Then Baba Yaga wrinkled her nose and frowned. “I smell the blood of the Bear,” she said. (For that is what the Yotne called their northern neighbors: the Great Bear.)
“No, no,” lied the little girl, terrified. “We are not Bears. We are Wolves, like you.”
(For that is what the Bears call their Yotne neighbors to the south: Wolves.)
Baba Yaga shook her head. “A Wolf knows other Wolves.”
Baba Yaga locked the door.
After their defeat by the tsarytsya, fifty long years ago, the land of the Great Bear of the North became known merely as Ranneniy Shenok, the Wounded Whelp. And little Yotunkheym rose to take its place.
I traced the gray mass of the Imperiya again, feeling as if my own heart might turn to ice inside me. I crossed my arms, breathing in the smell of my sweater.
Daddy had been younger when he’d worn it, and sturdier. And nearer to me. Most important, nearer.
Worry chased me down, nipping at my ankles.
I wondered how he would feel if they knew I would have to cross the Imperiya’s dark borders alone, missing him so powerfully I thought I might vanish from the spot where I stood and reappear at his side.
The cabin door groaned. Lang stood in the entryway, staring at my arms wrapped around my middle.
Sometimes, when Godmother Althea looked at me, I got the sense that my skin was see-through, that my thoughts were audible, that none of my secrets were secret at all. I felt the same way as Lang stepped forward, dark eyes piercing my armor.
“You seem to have lost this, Seneschal-elect.” One ink-smudged hand took my shoe from the edge of the map, its gold beads and embroidery winking in the lamplight, and offered it to me. I took it from him, then dropped my gaze to the map again.
“They say she lives in a black iron castle.” I swallowed tightly. “That her throne is built of the bones of her enemies, that she can smell their flesh a hundred miles away.”
“The tsarytsya is deep in Yotunkheym, far, far from Terytoriya Shvartsval’d.” Lang dropped his voice. “We’re going to keep you safe. You’re going to be fine.”
“Lang, you’re a well-traveled man. You must have heard the stories.” I spoke lightly, but my voice was thin and strained with worry, remembering the epigraph to the tale I’d first read so long ago.
When Baba Yaga locks the door,
Children pass thereby no more.
I gave a sad, weak laugh. “Inside the Imperiya, nowhere is safe.”
12
The next morning, I entered the galley quietly and sat down near the sailors companionably sipping their coffee, grateful for a few moments’ peace.
“Always chicory,” sighed Andersen.
“Pauvre Andersen. La vie est dure!” said the woman beside him, pouting in jest—I’d heard the others call her Jeanne. Her skin was a beautiful light brown, her amber eyes almost catlike, and her accent lilted romantically.
“It’s giving me a headache.” Yasumaro passed a hand over his forehead.
Basile, a thick-muscled sailor with a deep golden-brown complexion and a bushy mustache, raised his eyebrows. “They got the real thing where you’re from?”
Yasumaro shook his head, smile benevolent as the moon. “Nihon, and no. Tea.”
“Chicory is a staple in La Nouvelle-Orléans,” Jeanne said with an elegant shrug. Made from the little blue flowers that traipsed wild alongside the road, it was our standard in Potomac as well.
Basile gave a mischievous wink, mustache twitching. “In New York, we just go ahead and start the day with whiskey. One glass and you don’t notice the city’s smell so much.”
My stomach and my grip around my mug tightened as I wondered, for a moment, if I should be nervous about Basile being from New York—if he was connected, somehow, to Perrault and Alessandra.
But judging by the affronted look Perrault gave Basile as he joined me at the table, ceremonious, folder in hand, he and Basile were from very different sides of the city.
“You cut our meeting short last night,” Perrault said to me superciliously. Jeanne scooted away from him, amber eyes widening a little, making to return to her work.
“I knew you’d find me again.” I turned my mug around and around on the wooden table. “There are only so many of us here.”
“That sort of emotional petulance is intolerable in a public figure, Selah.” Perrault shuffled the pages in the folder, plucking a sheet from their midst and scanning it with a practiced eye. “As a matter of fact, a lot is going to have to change.”
I stared at him. “Like what?”
“You need to begin a personal care regimen. Practice with cosmetics. Skin treatments. Diet management. Exercises—in your room, of course; it would be inappropriate for you to be seen exerting yourself in public. I can’t believe what your stepmother’s permitted in the past, all this field-hand-sheepherding nonsense.” He rattled all this off airily, oblivious to the raised brows and stalled conversation at the other end of the table.
I flushed but kept my voice neutral. “We don’t keep sheep.”
“Sheep, yaks, pigs, cows—it matters not to me. Stay to the point, please,” Perrault said lightly.
My jaw tightened. “So I need to be thinner and prettier by the time we reach England?” I managed to ask levelly. Basile choked on his drink, the mug nearly slipping from his broad, golden-brown hand.
“Exactly!” Perrault nodded, pleased I’d cottoned on so quickly. “Putting your best foot forward, as they say.”
I stared at the table and said nothing. Andersen, Yasumaro, and Basile quietly slipped from the room.
Daddy had always told me I was beautiful, with no qualifiers.
I missed unconditional approval. I missed him.
“You will remain two weeks with each of your suitors,” Perrault said, scanning his notes. “Once you have completed your first four appointments, you may choose one of the four, if you wish. Should you not find any of them suitable, we will proceed to your secondary visits, at which—”
“Wait,” I interrupted. “Are you saying I can’t choose any of those four suitors until I’ve met all of them?”
“Why would you make a decision without all the relevant information at your disposal?” Perrault looked puzzled.
“Because I don’t want to waste time.” I opened my hands, baffled. “Because if I approve of my first option, and he approves of me, why would I proceed with a two-month charade instead of responding definitively to a proposal?”
I thought of the tick mark I’d put in Momma’s book this morning—a second mark, next to the first.
Two little marks. Two little marks, and so many left, and a thousand miles still to go. And Perrault wanted to make the journey longer even than it had to be.
I hissed out a sigh. “That’s ignoring the fact, of course, that this entire thing is a charade.”
“It is not a charade,” Perrault answered in clipped tones. “And you will not abandon your tour prematurely, because to choose one suitor without even considering the rest would be a public slight with massive political implications, particularly with regard to Potomac’s relationship with the Imperiya.”
The Imperiya. My stomach dropped.
“The other boys wouldn’t care!” I shook my head, my hands suddenly trembling. “Or—they’d understand.”
“You’re right. You wouldn’t think they’d care.” Perrault sat forward, voice sleek as cut glass. “After all, you’re a farm girl. You’re a backwater princess from a backwater colony at the edge of the world—”
“I am not a princess—”
“And the odds that the tsarytsya is even aware of your existence are slim to none.”
“And that doesn’t have to change if I never cross her borders!�
� I was going to be sick.
When Baba Yaga locks the door,
Children pass thereby no more.
“But she will,” Perrault carried on, as if I hadn’t spoken. “She will become aware of you if you dismiss her and the potential match she has approved. And believe me, not-a-princess Selah,” he said, smooth and icy. “You don’t want the tsarytsya taking any particular interest in who you are or where you go.”
“Sir Perrault.” My mouth had gone suddenly dry. I swallowed, staring into the darkness of the kitchen. “You know what they say about that place. You know the story.”
“The singsong rhymes of the fearful,” he said coolly. “The Whelp and its armies were not innocent children on the doorstep of a fearsome old crone.”
“The Imperiya is evil!”
“Perhaps.” Perrault cocked his head. “There is effect because there is cause. There was war because there was provocation. I see we ought to add a proper history education to your finishing lessons. Or perhaps”—he paused—“simply some appreciation for nuance.”
My chicory had gone cold. I rose and set it on the galley counter.
“I don’t need you to educate me, Perrault.” I didn’t look at him as I crossed to the door. “I need you to not throw me to the wolves.”
Lang had told me not to go poking around, but I didn’t wait for a guide or help. Godmother’s note had said there was potting soil somewhere aboard this ship. I was going to find it.
I took the second door into the stern—the correct one, this time—and passed Lang’s blue door, slowing down as I descended the stairs.
It was hard to see on the lower deck. Little rings of daylight came from holes in the hull where oars could extend for rowing, and I could just make out a watercolor wash of light from beneath a cabin door at the front end of the ship.
I peered underneath the nearest of the benches lining the aisle. Nothing.
I shifted experimentally toward the next bench. Nothing but a set of cloths that looked like they’d been wound and unwound a few times, possibly to save a rower from blisters.
Under the next bench I found a crate of apples. The crate under the next was empty.
I found a few other things—an abandoned pair of boots, several other empty crates and bisected barrels, containers of food—but no bags of soil.
Lang had told me the ladder to get below was tricky. But the ship was brand-new. How rickety could it be?
Besides, I wasn’t a helpless thing, dependent on other people to fetch and carry for me. I was the girl Momma and Daddy had raised me to be.
You’re a farm girl. You’re a backwater princess from a backwater colony at the edge of the world.
Perrault had reminded me of that.
I crawled along the floorboards until I found the trapdoor and popped it open.
There was even less light down here. But I put one foot on the first rung, and then another, and then another, until at last, my feet hit the floor. I nearly tripped over a sack of something before my eyes adjusted. My hopes rose, but I squatted and squinted down at the fabric bag and found it was labeled FLOUR in enormous block letters.
I moved to my hands and knees, weaving in the dark between barrels marked SALT PORK and SALT FISH and just SALT. Bags of OATS and SUGAR slumped against walls.
“Where are you?” I mumbled.
As if in answer, my head knocked into a barrel. I rubbed my head, mumbling, and squinted at the barrel. Its label wasn’t in English; they were some sort of East Asian characters, maybe Nihongo or Zhōngwén. I sat on my heels and sighed, still massaging my scalp.
The barrels with the unfamiliar labels numbered at least ten or fifteen, and there were crates, too, with thick cloths thrown over them; too many for soil. I heaved a sigh and pivoted away on my knees, then gave a surprised cry. “Hey there!” I blurted out, delighted.
SOIL sat in the corner behind the barrels, practically grinning at me.
The pale sun warmed my legs as I spread potting soil into a few bisected barrels and crates. Over and over I dipped my finger into the dirt, dropped a beige seed into each hole, and spilled soil on top. Then I jabbed the packet marked coriander at the edge of the row and repeated the process with basil, mint, rosemary, and everything else Godmother Althea had sent me. Now and again, my chest grew tight as I breathed in the scent of earth and the kitchen garden and home.
“Seneschal-elect, what on earth are you doing?” Perrault’s shadow loomed over the bare soil as he loped closer.
I sat back on my heels and grinned up at Perrault and the sailors behind him, all backlit by the sun.
Lang gave an odd half cough, shaking his head as if to gather himself. “Where did you get all that?” he suddenly demanded.
“From below,” I said simply, tweaking the label for the mint.
Lang stiffened. “You weren’t supposed to go below. You should’ve asked someone to get this for you.”
“And I specifically informed you”—Perrault fluttered over me, forcing me to stand—“that you were not to be seen in such a state on deck.” Horrified, the protocol officer straightened my dress, even as he tried not to touch me. A handsome sailor named Vishnu tried not to laugh, crossing his muscled arms so the monsters and mermaids in his tattoo sleeve eddied and shifted like ocean currents against the deep brown of his skin. His brows arched, stretching their empty piercings.
“Furthermore, we don’t have water to spare for these.” One of the sailors, an East Asian man with close-cropped hair and angular dark eyes, frowned at me. “I’m glad you’ve found a way to amuse yourself, but we can’t waste valuable resources so you can grow flowers—”
He broke off as a blur of black clothes and shiny chestnut hair streaked down from the ropes overhead and fell into a crouch, hitting the deck six feet away with a thud. Perrault clapped a hand to his chest. Lang rolled his eyes.
“Enough,” Cobie said, dragging out the word. “Lay off her. Four against one isn’t a fair fight.”
“We’re not fighting her,” Perrault said, officious and offended. “I’m looking after her rep—”
“You’re picking on her,” Cobie said, pointing at Perrault, then at Lang. “You’re high on control.” She nodded at the East Asian sailor. “And, Yu, I’m aware you’re the ship’s doctor, but you’re overly concerned with hydration.”
“What about me?” Vishnu said with a laugh.
“You’re okay,” Cobie conceded. Vishnu grinned at her, and she waved him off. “So—three against one. Still.”
I turned back to Yu. “These aren’t flowers, they’re herbs. And I hadn’t planned on wasting fresh water—or manpower, or any other valuable resources on them,” I added pointedly. “I’ll tend them myself and set up barrels to collect rainwater, if we get any.”
Yu pursed his lips, not replying.
Cobie turned to me. “Now. You—stay out of the lower hold. Lang’s right: you don’t belong down there, and the last thing we need is our royal charge arriving in England with a broken neck.” I jerked back, trying not to let them see how stung I was as Cobie stalked away. Yu and Perrault followed her, apparently not finished with their argument; Vishnu must have had actual responsibilities to manage.
“Do all Potomac’s royals enjoy yard work?” Captain Lang picked at a thread on his navy canvas jacket. Three deep furrows creased his forehead.
I sat back, dusting earth off my palms.
Most everyone in Potomac had their own farms—big enough to feed themselves and their families, and maybe a little to sell or barter when that was done. A few plied other trades. Those who struggled to survive fed themselves from the produce of the common lands. I was responsible for these, helping plant and weed and till and harvest the public fields myself alongside the laborers we paid from taxes. This had once been Daddy’s job; I’d taken it over around a year and a half ago. He’d started getting tired, and I was ready to start doing more.
That life was all I knew. All I wanted. All I wanted to go home to.
I thought back to the first months after Alessandra had arrived, not long after I turned thirteen, when she’d tried to arrange cotillion practices and finishing classes for me.
To hide from her, I took to following Daddy into the fields, and to wandering on my own into the kitchen garden. I’d grown my first eggplant that autumn. The morning I found it, I picked it and marched it straight to the cook, and she promptly chopped it in half and grilled it for me. I ate it standing up and thought it was the best thing I’d ever tasted.
Lang was still watching me, curious. I shrugged, cutting him a grin, sharp and rueful. “I wouldn’t know. I’m not a royal.”
13
“No, not that one,” Perrault pronounced over my shoulder. “You’re an absolute savage.”
I’d reached for my utensils with the wrong hand again.
“Europeans do not cut and switch,” Perrault said delicately. “You Potomacs put your knife down as you eat, blade in, as a gesture of peace. As if the very necessity of the thing were not appalling.” He swore daintily, a feat I’d never before witnessed but sort of wanted to inspire again. Skop made a face, chewing a hunk of potato off the knife in his fist, entirely unbothered.
“It’s really hard to eat with my left hand,” I said defensively.
“Thus, our present exercise. This is not for my own entertainment, I assure you.” Perrault nodded curtly at my plate. “Try to do it properly.”
I sighed and stood.
“Where are you going?” he asked, affronted.
Perrault had been hounding me. Earlier, after I’d returned from gardening, I’d found my folder of suitors—a duplicate to his own—sitting on my bed. When I’d realized what it was, I’d tossed it in my trunk as if it were a live coal, then buried it.
I restrained an eye roll. “Can we pause lessons for a moment? I’m getting more carrots.”
“Oh, no,” Perrault said, imperious. “You’ve a reasonable portion of food. Sit.”
The silence in the galley was complete, deafening. Basile didn’t crack his knuckles; Andersen had abandoned the origami dragon he’d begun with a scrap of paper. Lang’s fork dangled unceremoniously from his right hand.