“I wasn’t there, Susan,” Madeleine said. “I was all right. But I’ve brought you a visitor.” She gestured at me. “May I introduce you to Her Majesty, Queen Freya? I’ve told her all about your work here, and she wanted to come and visit.”
“Oh!” Susan stared at me for a long moment, her mouth open. Then she seemed to realize what she was doing, and sank into a curtsy. “It is an honor to have you here, Your Majesty. I’m afraid the place is a bit of a mess. The children, you know. They can be quite a handful.”
I wasn’t sure what to say in response to that, so I just nodded.
“Please. Come in, come in.” She tried to beckon Madeleine forward while also curtsying respectfully to me. She didn’t entirely succeed.
The inside of the building did not match Susan’s warm demeanor. The stone walls were damp and bare, with mold growing near the ceiling. A few cracks ran up from the floor, and the few pieces of furniture had more repairs than actual material. The sounds of children playing and screaming echoed from somewhere above us.
Susan must have seen my surprised expression. “I know, Your Majesty, it’s not suitable at all. But it’s the best we can do, really, with the money we have.”
“Can—can I help?”
“That’s very kind, Your Majesty. We always appreciate donations, of anything. Food and clothes and toys as well as money. But, well.” She pressed her lips together. “If you don’t mind my saying so, Your Majesty, we need a lot more. You’re helping us just by being here, making people take notice, but—the children need more than donations. They need more than this place.”
That was fairly clear. I’d always felt so sorry for myself, the awkward girl who never fit in, but I’d had a home, and my father, and enough money that I’d never even thought about it. I’d been such an idiot. “What happened to them?”
“Many things. They all lost their parents, one way or another. I used to just take in orphans, but when people heard about my work, they started leaving babies on the doorstep. There’s nowhere else for them to go, you know. The older ones are on the street otherwise, while the younger ones just starve.”
A little girl appeared in the doorway to the left. She had wisp-blond hair that hung to her waist, and freckles all over her face. She scowled at me. “Who are you?” The question came out as a challenge.
I moved closer to her. Her front tooth was missing. “I’m Freya,” I said. “I’m a friend of Madeleine’s. What’s your name?”
“Lucy.” She continued to scowl at me. “Have you come to play with us?”
I nodded, and Lucy reached out to grab my hand. “We don’t play in this room,” she said firmly. “It’s not allowed.”
“All right.”
Lucy looked me up and down again. “Are you a princess?”
“No,” I said softly. “Not a princess.”
“I’m so sorry, Your Majesty,” Susan said, hurrying forward. “Lucy, this is Queen Freya. She’s the woman in charge of the entire kingdom.”
Lucy did not look impressed. She stuck up her chin. “I’m going to be a princess,” she said, almost daring me to disagree. “When I’m grown up.”
“Lucy, I’ve told you,” Susan said, her voice harsher now. “Only very special people are queens and princesses. They’re not like you and me. I’m sorry,” she added again, seeming to address everyone in the room.
But I didn’t want her to be sorry. I knelt in front of Lucy. Small children usually made me uncomfortable—you never quite knew what they were going to do—but Lucy would clearly not accept uncertainty or dismissal. “I wasn’t a princess,” I said. “I was never one of those special people, and I became queen.”
Lucy nodded, like she suspected it all along. “We can only play in the playroom,” she said, as she let go of my hand. “You should come.” And she strode away.
“I mean no disrespect, Your Majesty,” Susan said, “but I do wish you hadn’t told her that. It’s no good to give them false hope. What these children need is food, a home, a chance for work when they’re older, maybe. Hope won’t keep them alive.”
After leaving our gift purses at the orphanage, our group began to walk back to the carriage. The driver had followed us most of the way through the streets, but the carriage couldn’t fit down the narrow alleys in this part of the city.
I was happy to walk again. It helped me think.
Playing with Lucy and the others had been surprisingly fun. She had a boldness that reminded me a little of myself when I was little, but was seemingly unconcerned with people’s reactions. It was impossible to be reticent around her.
She had been intelligent, too. Intelligent and brave. She’d achieve great things, if given the chance.
I moved to walk beside Holt. “I want to call a council meeting when we get back,” I said.
He nodded. “Are you planning to make a bigger donation?”
“I’m planning to get them what they need.” Surely I could find some way to fund a real place for the children to live.
Holt nodded again. “I’ll see that it’s done.”
TWENTY-TWO
“WE COULD DO SO MUCH,” I SAID TO FITZROY, FOR AT least the fourth time that night. “Just think about it. We have so many empty manors in the city after the attack. We could easily give one to them. We could even make it a day school, as well, for children who can’t afford tutors. Everyone would have a chance to learn.” I was practically bouncing on the spot from excitement, but Fitzroy didn’t look convinced.
“I don’t think people will be happy if you take away their houses,” he said, leaning against the central table of the lab. “They still belong to somebody. And how will you pay for it all?”
“The court is full of gold,” I said. “We could easily sell some of it.”
“And what about when that runs out? How will you get more?”
“That’s far in the future,” I said, even though I knew he was right. But the gold was wasted in the palace, and we had time to come up with more solutions. “We could ask people to pay to stay at court. We could trade more abroad. We could do lots of things.”
“Maybe sell this poison detector?”
“Maybe. If we ever figure it out.”
I turned back to my notes. Nothing had really reacted with the arsenic solution so far. The closest thing to a breakthrough had come from mixing the powder with spirit of niter—it had dissolved, reluctantly, and when I distilled the result, it left glassy crystals behind, almost like salt. It probably wouldn’t work as a test, but something was happening there. What if I added something else to make the reaction more obvious? Something to catalyze it?
I’d try metals first. “Could you prepare me some more baths of spirit of niter?” I said to Fitzroy, as I climbed off the stool.
“Got another plan?”
“Something like one.”
I crossed the room and considered the jars of metals.
I began to weigh out some copper. Beside me, Fitzroy pulled on his gloves, ready to measure the acid.
“I guess you never thought you’d be doing anything like this,” I said softly.
“What, playing with acid in the old torture room? That’s how I’ve always spent my evenings.”
I smiled. Then Naomi’s teasing words came back to me. It wasn’t possible that Fitzroy liked me, not in the way she had joked. It wasn’t possible for me to like him, not considering all that had happened, not when I hardly even knew him. He was—he was a presence that I was always aware of, my skin prickled when he accidentally brushed against me, my heart was beating a little faster as I thought of him, yes. And yes, scientifically, when I gathered that evidence together, perhaps an impartial observer would hear those facts and reach that conclusion. Possibly. But they’d be wrong.
However, a lot of things weren’t entirely logical right now. Like why Fitzroy was still here, when he’d known Sten so much longer, when he had no evidence that I hadn’t been involved.
“Why did you stay here?”
/>
He was quiet for a long moment. “What do you mean?”
“When Sten left. You’ve known him for years, and you don’t hate him. You’ve barely known me a couple of weeks, and I’m not—” I removed the copper from the scales. “I’m not likely to win this. Anyone with good sense would have left. So why did you stay?”
“Lots of reasons,” he said. “I think Sten’s wrong. You didn’t kill my father, and you definitely don’t deserve to die. I think you’ll be a good queen. And travel is so annoying. All that dust, and never having anywhere to sleep? Why would I choose that?”
I laughed, but the tension remained in my chest.
“Plus,” he added, his voice slightly lower. I could sense him arranging the vials beside me, still working, constantly moving. “I like you.”
I turned my head to look at him. He was studying the jars. “You like me?”
“Of course. What’s not to like?”
“I—” He was speaking so casually. What did he mean? Was he saying he liked me as in “We’re friends, of course I wouldn’t betray you”? Or as in “You’re not an awful person, and I’m happy for you to be queen”? Or . . . or did he mean he liked me, as in he liked me? As in had feelings for me?
I should ask him.
I was definitely not going to ask him.
“Are you ready?” I said, with more confidence than I felt. “We’ll start with the copper.”
Fitzroy raised his eyebrows at that, but then he nodded.
The first two attempts yielded nothing of use. The copper was uninterested in reacting, the iron similarly bored. Then I tossed in some zinc.
The reaction was almost immediate. The zinc fizzed, releasing a gas that smelled strongly of garlic.
“Get back,” Fitzroy said. “It could be poisonous.”
But I just stared at the gas. A reaction. I’d finally gotten a reaction, a visible, testable reaction. Had I done it?
I had to be sure. “Quick. Fetch me some food.”
“Food?”
“So I can poison it! I need to lace something with arsenic, and then test it, to make sure it works.” I waved my right hand at him, already reaching for more of the powder with my left. “Fetch some, quickly, quickly!”
Fitzroy nodded and strode out of the lab, and I laughed. Spirit of niter and zinc! I’d known the answer was lurking here somewhere. I’d known I could do it.
I grabbed another bowl and filled it with more acid, ready for Fitzroy’s return.
When he finally came back, he carried a piece of bread with jam spread on top. It had a bite taken out of it—he must have stolen someone’s supper. I sprinkled arsenic powder into the jam, stirring it with a knife until it vanished, and then took a glob of it and added it to the acid. I threw in another piece of zinc and waited.
Another cloud of garlicky gas burst out.
“I did it,” I said, as Fitzroy pulled me away from the still-streaming gas. “I did it!” I wanted to jump up and down. I wanted to spin on the spot. I wanted to squeal. And why not? I did all three at once, the world spinning around me, already slightly dizzy from how wide I was grinning. And Fitzroy was there, grinning too, looking at me like . . . like I was someone who’d just figured out how to jump up to the moon, like I’d figured out how to fly, like I could solve all the world’s mysteries if I put my mind to it. So I threw my arms around him, pulling him close, still laughing and squealing. He pressed his hands against my back, holding me steady, and another thrill ran over my skin, the sense of him so close.
I giggled and twisted back to look at the central table again.
“Now we have to test the cake,” I said. “Just to be sure.”
The poisoned sponge was growing mold in a cupboard. I hoped the addition wouldn’t affect the test.
It didn’t. That test worked, too. Fizzing zinc, garlic gas. I jumped on the spot. I’d solved it. A test for arsenic. A way to save lives. A way to find the murderer, if I used it right.
I hugged Fitzroy again. I could do this. I was almost there.
I went to Holt’s office first thing the following morning, carrying spirit of niter and zinc. When I told him I’d found a way to test for arsenic, he stared at me.
“Are you sure?”
I nodded. “Watch.” And I demonstrated the test, talking him through the theory, as far as I understood it.
“Spirit of niter is dangerous, of course, so we’ll have to be careful how it’s used. But the materials are common enough, so the test shouldn’t be too expensive. And if we train the current tasters to use the acid safely, we could pay them for that. I mean, we’ll still need tasters for a while, because this is just one poison, but—it’s a start, isn’t it? Even having a reliable test will discourage people from trying it.”
“Yes,” Holt said. “Yes, it will.” If he wasn’t so dignified, I might have described his expression as a grin. “This is most impressive, Your Majesty. Most impressive. We are lucky to have you, truly we are.”
“It was simply science.”
“But you made the effort to do it. The Forgotten chose well in you, Your Majesty. Once we get through all this, you will be magnificent.”
“I—thank you.” I picked at the skin around my fingernail. He’d meant to praise me, but his words were unsettling, somehow. They reminded me of that woman I’d encountered in the streets. Mary. “About what happened yesterday—that woman who asked for my blessing. I don’t understand why she thought that would help.”
Holt templed his fingertips together. “I’ve told you, Your Majesty, that I believe you were chosen by the Forgotten. It is no surprise that others have reached the same conclusion. Or that they would think you have divine powers of your own. The past weeks have been unusual for the kingdom, to say the least. It is not surprising that people are looking for their own explanations.”
“But I don’t have any powers. I couldn’t say I didn’t then, but—I don’t have any powers like that.”
It felt so dishonest, to let people imagine that my touch, my words, could do that good. That I was somehow innately blessed.
“These things can work in strange ways, Your Majesty. I think anyone expecting to wake up with a pile of money at the foot of their bed because of the kindness of the Forgotten will be very disappointed. But they find their ways to help us, when they wish to. They have their agents in this kingdom, their believers, their chosen. Putting a mind like yours on the throne . . . that could still be their blessing.”
“But—how can people think the Forgotten care about us, and also think that they wanted the entire old court to die?”
Holt considered me in silence for a long moment. “The old court was choking this kingdom, Your Majesty. You have to weed the garden before you can plant flowers, must you not?”
I stared at him. “People aren’t weeds.”
“You are right, of course, Your Majesty. I only meant—we cannot always understand why the divine act as they do. But we must have faith that it will all work out for the best in the end.”
But cold had settled inside me, too deep for his apology to dislodge. The Forgotten had agents in this world, he said. What if he believed he was one of them?
TWENTY-THREE
THE NEXT MORNING, MY ADVISERS BROUGHT MORE bad news. Sten had attacked the convoy to Rickstone Castle, and captured all of the prisoners. And then he had taken control of the prison himself.
He’d left the guards unharmed—they, he claimed, had done nothing wrong—and one had returned to the capital to warn us. The rest had defected to Sten.
“He’s gathering support in the south, as we expected,” Holt said, his fingers trailing over a map on the table. “Most of the minor nobles are siding with him—hoping for the favor of a new king, no doubt—and providing men for his cause. The Darkwoods in the east have also been contacted by him. We can hope they won’t get involved, after so many deaths, but if they believe you were the killer . . .” Holt shook his head. “We have received letters from other noble
s around the kingdom, telling us how loyal they are, but how difficult it is to support us. Asking for lower taxes, more land, special favors. We cannot grant them all.”
“Subtlety is a lost art,” Norling said, wrinkling her nose.
“Indeed,” Holt said. “Well, we could try to bribe these nobles to support us, but to be frank, Sten, with his vast fortunes, can offer them more.”
“A low price to pay, if Her Majesty survives.”
I sucked my bottom lip under my teeth. I didn’t know what to do. I had wanted all decisions to travel through me, but my advisers had been right. I really didn’t know what I was talking about. I didn’t know what would be best. “We can review laws,” I said slowly. “And of course we’ll change anything that’s unjust. And if land is not being used, perhaps we can find new owners for it, once all this is done. But maybe—we could suggest our disbelief that they’d only support the queen for monetary gain. It seems unworthy of the greatest nobles of Epria.”
The words sounded utterly ridiculous. But Holt was nodding. “Perhaps invoke the Forgotten there, too. Why would they demand land in order to support their chosen queen?”
I didn’t like the idea of more lies, building a legend around me. But these wouldn’t hurt anyone. We needed to do it.
“We believe Sten is staying in Newsam Manor, here,” Holt said, pointing to a spot on the map about seventy miles south of the capital, “but he will not remain there for long. No doubt he has gone there because the Manor has the greatest collection of old weapons and armor that we know of, beyond his own.”
“You cannot support an army with a mishmash of old relics,” Norling said.
“Yet he lacks the time or the skill to forge new ones. It’ll help his cause that we don’t have weapons or armor, either. The ones we do have are more ceremonial than sharp. Even without supplies or training, he will be better prepared than we are.”
“More people have been leaving the city,” Norling said. “Mostly nobles, but some merchants, too. We’ve lost the Renshaws, and Nicholas Anderson. More will follow them.”
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