by C. L. Polk
“And so we set that bit of work aside.” Severin didn’t look where he was going, preferring to aim all his attention at me. He whirled us through the circling step, fell into the simpler traveling step, but he never let go of me long enough to execute a turn. Everyone watching would wonder at so possessive a gesture, and the chances that I wouldn’t be the subject floating over every breakfasting table in the Western Point plummeted to the ground.
This entire evening had torn the reins from my hands. Avia sat knee to knee with Grand Duchess Aife, their heads bent together in deep conversation. Ray couldn’t stop watching me. His hatred blazed so strongly it should have melted the ice in his drink. Aldis wasn’t anywhere in sight, and that could easily be cause for worry or relief.
“The work never stops,” I said, “even when we don our finest and dance. Thank you for getting me away from Aldis.”
“What did he do to incite your temper?”
“He demanded to know the whereabouts of Sevitii an Vaavut,” I said. “When I wouldn’t tell him, he dropped the glamor over his true visage and tried to compel me into revealing it.”
“He what.” There was something in Severin’s eyes that made me think of the focused but pitiless stare of a falcon.
I fought the urge to lick dry lips. “I lost my temper. It was foolish.”
“It was human,” Prince Severin said. “I know you must sheathe yourself in the impenetrable armor of perfection, but imagine if he’d done that to someone who wasn’t as strong as you. Imagine if he’d done it to me. I will speak to Grand Duchess Aife about this.”
If Aldis had unleashed his power to enthrall on Prince Severin—it was unthinkable. “Thank you,” I said. “But we have to report on the death. We can’t hide it forever.”
“We don’t have to,” Severin said. “We can say that we were negotiating with her, that her death was of unnatural cause, and that we already have a suspect in custody. The matter is in hand. We delayed announcement because of the timing.”
I kept from surveying the curious faces turned toward us but tempered my smiles, hoping it would be enough to thread doubt among the inevitable gossip. Severin was too intent on our subject to realize how interesting his behavior was. “That should satisfy most people.”
“I don’t know if it would satisfy your friend. Inviting her here was imprudent.”
“Aife wished to speak with an ordinary Aelander,” I said.
“Avia Jessup is hardly ordinary.”
“I happen to agree,” I said. “But she was the best choice.”
“She’s a scandal,” Severin declared. “That suit. As if the absurdity of cinema dramatics had any place here.”
The Prince adored the symphony, the opera, the theater and dance presentations, but he had never once accepted an invitation to a cinema premiere. “I didn’t give her enough notice to arrange a ball gown.”
He shrugged, his mouth still sour. “At least her father bought her decent training in manners. She hasn’t done anything unspeakable. But I don’t think you’ll get away with this without hearing from Mother.”
“Certainly not. I expect she’ll be displeased.” When the paper revealed everything we’d worked so hard to keep secret, Queen Constantina would be furious. Maybe even angry enough to charge Avia with sedition.
My stomach did a slow roll. Before the uprising, Avia would hang, and there would be nothing I could do to stop it. I had to convince her to hold back. Everything would fall apart if she went ahead with the story.
“You look worried,” Severin said. “I can be there, if you like. I’ll put in a word or two about the foolishness of denying the Blessed Ones what they ask for, the generosity of your intentions.”
“Thank you.”
The music swelled to its final measures. Severin kept us in hold, our steps whirling us in circles until the very end. He smiled, his hand still at my waist.
“Thank you for the dance.”
He stepped back, laid his hand over his heart, and bowed to me in front of the entire ballroom—gallant, elegant, his form perfect. A gesture of great respect hardly ever delivered from a royal to one of lesser station—even the shallow step down to the Royal Knights. It meant that an insult to me was one to him, and one that he would answer.
I wished that the intricately joined parquet would open beneath my feet and swallow me up. Instead, I bent my knee almost to the floor, bowing my head in complete respect for a royal heir. It was a gesture that returned all courtesy without a presumption of affection, the respect of a subject rather than the familiarity of a friend.
Let the gossips chew on that. I let Severin escort me from the dance floor, watching a group of Amaranthines, including Avia among their number, who stepped onto the dance floor and clapped their hands for a fast-paced square-of-eight dance. The orchestra players glanced at each other, but one violinist stood up and played an energetic dancing tune, and the players who knew it joined in.
It wasn’t done, playing square-of-eight or line dances at a formal ball. Instinct turned my head to look at the Queen. She watched me intently, and when I locked gazes with her, she raised her hand and beckoned.
I slipped my hand from Severin’s arm. “It seems the Queen has no one to partner her at her gaming table. I’ve been summoned.”
“Then you must go, and I must speak to Raymond Blake,” Severin said. “I’ll join you with Mother if I have time.”
I turned my steps toward the dais where Queen Constantina waited for me, her mouth pinched tight.
No board game awaited my arrival. Constantina had no smile as I approached the throne, the seams of my skirt straining as I bent knee and waited for her to speak of whatever she wished to say.
“I wonder if you think before you act, Dame Grace, or if you just do as the whim takes you. What explanation have you for your actions this evening?”
“Majesty,” I began, buying a moment to think. “My most sincere apologies for the disruption. Sir Aldis had taken serious liberties with my will. I ask forgiveness for my outburst. I was desperate to retain the integrity of my loyalties.”
The Queen leaned forward. “Loyalties.”
Oh, fool! “To you, ma’am. To Aeland. To the invisibility of our efforts.”
She sat back. “Rise.”
I was on my feet with hardly a wobble. “I am sorry, ma’am.”
“I know.” She tapped one finger against the arm of her throne, her hand resting on a carved gryphon’s head. “What is your opinion of my son?”
My heart stopped for an instant. “Crown Prince Severin, ma’am?”
Her tone went dry. “I only have one son, girl. What do you think of him?”
“I think he’s a man of strong conscience and integrity. A sober thinker, well-liked—”
“Do you think he’s loyal?”
Behind me, Amaranthines stamped their feet and shouted. “I think he’s deeply committed to Aeland and its way of life, ma’am.”
“Hmph.” Queen Constantina made a sour face. “He appears so to you.”
I kept my face poised in attentive neutrality while a fraction of my mind screeched. She knew. She knew what Severin meant to do, and she knew that I swore to him, and she was going to make us both pay.
She picked up a cordial glass and sipped, but it didn’t sweeten her expression one bit. “He’s trying to bargain Aeland to these Amaranthines. Anything they ask, he nods his head and comes to me with the most ridiculous proposals. You’d shake your head if you knew what they imagine they can demand from us.”
I didn’t say anything. She didn’t need me to.
“I want you to make him see reason. You’re skilled in the art of compromise. You’re keeping the Lower House in line, and you’ve made insightful choices for the Cabinet, considering what you have to work with. Make him see that we can’t hand over the keys to the safe and empty it just because the Amaranthines threaten us.”
So she was trying to deny what the Amaranthines wanted, and put the blame on h
er son, and wanted me to push her refusal. My plan would point a red-stained finger straight at her. How could the First Ring know something the monarch did not, after all? But Severin—Severin had been an infant, if he had even been born yet. Innocent. Idealistic.
I had to play this game of revelations exactly right, or she would kick me out of the Chancellor’s seat. And I couldn’t help anyone if I didn’t have the power to push my changes into law. “Ma’am—”
The music ended to an outpouring of applause. The Queen looked to her left and nodded. The guards at that end of the dais marched onto the dance floor.
Gasps chorused, and murmurs played the counterpoint. Aife’s voice rose above the hum. “Miss Jessup is my dancing partner, and I thank you to release her at once.”
I twisted, but I couldn’t see. “Ma’am, Miss Jessup is my guest. I invited her.”
“Whatever possessed you to invite a journalist, much less a squinting gossip, to a royal dance?”
“She’s my friend,” I said, and winced as Avia came into view, her arms held by a pair of scarlet-coated guards. “Must she leave now?”
“She’s been an embarrassment and a scandal all evening,” the Queen said, “and I have had enough of her antics.”
“But I need to— Ma’am, please excuse me, I apologize wholeheartedly, but I have to—”
The Queen stayed silent as a statue.
“I have to go,” I gasped.
I whirled to dash across the floor, pursuing Avia and her guards to the tune of outraged exclamations. They were halfway down the hall with her before I closed with them.
“I’ll go quietly,” Avia was saying as I clattered down the hall at a run. “You don’t have to bundle me out like a ragbag—Grace.”
“You two. Stop,” I said. “Let go. Miss Jessup is leaving under my escort. You can go now.”
The guards glanced at each other, but they released Avia’s arms. She gingerly pressed her fingers on her upper arms and winced. “That’s a bruise.”
“I’ll ask for a report on their records.”
“Don’t bother,” Avia said, her tone weary. “What do you want, Chancellor?”
“I need to talk to you,” I said, shaking all over.
She shook her head, and every bottle-black strand fell exactly into place. “Do you have anything to say that I haven’t heard before?”
I glanced around, judging what the stationed ceremonial guards might hear even if I whispered. “Not here.”
We retrieved our belongings from the attendants set to guard them. Avia eyed my snow-weasel cloak as I allowed the attendant to drape it over my shoulders. I shivered. She was probably thinking of how the price of it could feed a family for—how long, if milk was usually ten cents a quart? I shook my head, banishing the thought, and led her out to the palace steps. A page ran for the orange sled halfway down the line.
Behind a tall iron gate, protesters huddled around barrel fires, the flickering orange light dancing off their signs, some of which were too dark too see, others stark with a single word: “Shame.” “Shame.” “Shame.”
They deserved better. They deserved to be safe and warm at home, snug in their beds, getting a good night’s rest before earning a day’s fair wages. They shouldn’t be out here, screaming to get our attention.
They should have it. And we should be working to help them.
Avia buttoned up a felted wool coat. “What is it, Chancellor?”
Chancellor. It hit me low in the stomach, solid and cold. “Let me offer you a ride home.”
“Let me invite you to tell me whatever you had to say.”
My stomach writhed. Everything rode on this moment. Avia watched me with narrow eyes as I fought to loosen my tongue. I had to convince her to abandon her article. That meant I had to give her a reason. I had to tell her the truth.
My shoulders untensed. Relief was warm in my middle. There was only one thing I could do, and so I got to it.
“You’re right. I should have confided in you. I’ll start right now,” I said.
But it wasn’t that easy. My mouth dried up, and I squinted as the wind shifted to strike me in the face. I had to fight to say it, to look nowhere but at Avia’s face as I told her the first of a long, long line of truths:
“My father killed Nick Elliot. And if you’re not careful, he’ll kill you too.”
FIFTEEN
Mrs. Sparkle
Avia stared at me without saying anything as the sled pulled up. She stood where she was as William opened the half-door of the rear seat, watching me until a decision flickered in the depths of her eyes.
“Tell me the rest.”
I hid a grateful sigh as she allowed William to assist her. I bundled in after her and we were back in my sled, our toes perched on the foot-warmer, our hands curled around steel hot-water bottles perched in our laps. William sat in the front with George, and I huddled close to Avia, keeping my voice down.
“Father found out what Nick was planning, and my father had him murdered to hide the truth about aether and the asylums. But there’s another thing you have to know.”
“More than one, I reckon.”
I sighed and swiped my hand through my hair, and it flopped into my eyes immediately. “There’s a hundred things you have to know, but please hold your story until I have told you all of them.”
Avia regarded me with an assessing gaze. “And when will you do that, Dame Grace?”
I sucked in a breath of throat-chilling air. “Now,” I said. “I’m a witch. We’re all witches—the Royal Knights, I mean.”
She didn’t seem surprised by that at all. I plunged on. “Aeland depends on our magic to survive. You recall the storm?”
“Of course.”
“We used our magic to calm it as much as we could. That’s what you’ll see—blizzards with winds that could tear off a rooftop. Snow as high as a man is tall, falling in a single day. Spring flooding destroying the first planting; famine, drought, late-summer hurricanes.”
Avia looked up at me, understanding in her eyes. “So that’s the noble reason for asking me to join your conspiracy. Because you protect the people with your magic.”
“No,” I said. “If you print a full exposé, Queen Constantina will have you arrested for sedition. Sedition is treason. Traitors are hanged.”
“And you doubt I care enough about Aeland’s people to become their martyr.”
She made it sound like an insult. I clutched at the sled rug covering our laps and leaned closer. “Don’t you remember what you told me? That you’d listen just so I wouldn’t have to bear it alone? Did you mean that, or was it just something you said to gull me?”
Avia’s gaze flickered to her lap. “I said that. I meant to gently persuade you to help me tell your story—”
“Exactly. And I accept. I will tell you my story. I will tell you everything you want to know, and I will let you tell Aeland. But gradually.”
“How many years will it take?” Avia asked.
“One,” I said. “The whole truth is a long story.”
I’d caught her interest. “And what do you mean to start with?”
“The truth about Aeland Power and Lights,” I said. “The fraud we committed to write a law to imprison the witches. The fact that all the Royal Knights are witches, and what they do to keep Aeland safe. We need the people to understand that we must be kept alive. Their lives depend on ours. After that, you and I start telling the rest.”
Avia rolled her neck, which popped loud enough to sound over the hiss of the sleigh running across hard-packed snow. “Does this mean you want to free the witches?”
“The Queen won’t do it without intense pressure. Even the Amaranthines wanting it as a condition of their mercy hasn’t budged her.”
Avia nodded. “Aife told me that Prince Severin is much more amenable—that if he were in charge, her decision would be much easier.”
I gasped, and the cold chilled my teeth. “I have heard that sentiment from her s
ecretary. And they’re right. This would be simpler if Severin had the power to agree to what they want.”
Avia cocked her head. “We’re talking around something important.”
“We are,” I agreed. “And I will continue to talk around it.”
“But hypothetically—”
I shook my head. “Don’t.”
“All right.” Avia sighed. “But I am holding you to your promise. You will start talking. Tonight.”
“Where?”
Avia’s gaze slid away. “There are things I want to show you. They’re in my apartment.”
“What things?”
“My files and research. The manuscript.” Her shoulders rose. She darted a look at me. “I guess you’ll have to come in.”
I nodded. “I would be pleased to be your guest.”
“It’s not what you’re used to. It’s a tenement. Have you ever been in one?”
“I have not,” I said.
“I’ll give you a tour.” She chuffed out an unamused laugh. “It’ll be short.”
* * *
Avia’s building jostled for space in the middle of a block of buildings made of sooty red bricks and chipped white paint, every dingy window cracked open to let winter in. Black iron staircases scaffolded the outside, frost-rimed and hazardous.
Avia watched me take it in. I slipped the sled rug off my lap and caught her hand, squeezing it. “Are you ready?”
“You’re going to pretend it doesn’t bother you?”
I shrugged the fur collar a little higher on my neck. “Your landlord ought to be pilloried.”
“My landlord is Blake Properties.”
I pressed my lips together. I had come close to liquidating Avia’s home as Raymond drowned in his debts. “Raymond ought to be pilloried, then. And there should be a law.”
“How fortunate that you get to write them.”
“Isn’t it? Let’s go in. I want to see your work.”
It was a five-story climb, each floor a bouquet of cooking odors—I recognized boiled cabbage from my visit to the boardinghouse where Miles had lived. The third floor smelled of burning hashish, tinged with a sweetish edge that I imagined was opium. The floor creaked in agony as Avia turned down a dim hallway with crumbling green-printed wallpaper and stuck her key into a tarnished brass doorplate.