Bitterblue

8

SOME WONDERFUL PERSON had gotten every trace of Danzhol's blood out of the stone of her office floor. Even looking for it, Bitterblue couldn't find it.

She read the charter once more, carefully, letting each word sink in, and then she signed it. There was no point not to now.

"What will we do with his body?" she asked Thiel.

"It has been burned, Lady Queen," said Thiel.

"What? Already! Why was I not informed? I would have liked to go to the ceremony."

The door to the tower room opened. Death the librarian came in.

"I'm afraid the body couldn't wait for burning, Lady Queen," said Thiel. "It's only just September."

"And it was no different from any other burning ceremony, Lady Queen," added Runnemood from the window.

"That is not the point!" said Bitterblue. "I killed the man, for rot's sake. I should have been at the burning."

"It's not actually Monsean tradition to burn the dead, you know, Lady Queen," Death put in. "It never has been."

"Nonsense," said Bitterblue, really quite upset. "We all perform fire ceremonies."

"I suppose it's not politic to contradict the queen," Death replied with such undisguised sarcasm that Bitterblue was surprised into looking at him hard. This man, nearing seventy, had the paper-thin skin of a man in his nineties. His mismatched eyes were always dry and blinking, one green like seaweed, the other purplish like his pinched lips. "Many people in Monsea do burn the dead, Lady Queen," he went on, "but it is not the Monsean way, as I'm sure your advisers know. It was King Leck's way. It's his tradition we honor when we burn our dead. Monseans before King Leck wrapped the body in a cloth infused with herbs and buried it in the ground at midnight. They've done so for as long as records have been kept. Those who know as much still do."

Bitterblue thought, suddenly, of the graveyard she ran through most nights, and of Ivan the engineer, who'd replaced watermelons with gravestones. What was the point of looking at things if she couldn't see them? "If this is true," she said, "then why have we not gone back to the Monsean ways?"

Her question was directed at Thiel, who stood before her looking patient and concerned. "I suppose we have not wanted to upset people unnecessarily, Lady Queen," he said.

"But why should it be upsetting?"

Runnemood answered. "There's no reason to disturb our mourners, Lady Queen. If people like the fire ceremonies, why should we stop them?"

"But, how is that forward-thinking?" said Bitterblue in confusion. "If we want to move away from Leck, why not teach people that it's the Monsean way to bury their dead?"

"It's a little thing, Lady Queen," said Runnemood. "It barely matters. Why remind people of their grief? Why give them reason to feel that perhaps they've been honoring their dead wrongly?"

It is not a little thing, thought Bitterblue. It has to do with tradition and respect, and with recovering what it means to be Monsean. "Was my mother's body burned or buried?"

The question seemed both to startle Thiel and bewilder him. He sat down hard in one of the chairs before her desk and did not answer.

"King Leck burned Queen Ashen's body," announced Death the librarian, "at the top of the high walkways on Monster Bridge at night, Lady Queen. It was how he preferred to perform such ceremonies. I believe he liked the grandness of the setting and the spectacle of the bridges lit up with fire."

"Was anyone there who actually cared?" she asked.

"Not that I know of, Lady Queen," said Death. "I, for one, was not."

It was time to change the subject, for Thiel was worrying her, sitting there with that empty look in his eyes. Like his soul had gone away. "Why are you here, Death?" Bitterblue snapped.

"Many people have forgotten the Monsean ways, Lady Queen," said Death obstinately. "Especially inhabitants of the castle, where Leck's influence was strongest, and especially the many in both city and castle who cannot read."

"Everyone in the castle can read," said Bitterblue.

"Can they?" Death dropped a small roll of leather onto her desk and, in the same motion, bowed, somehow making a mockery of the gesture. Then he turned and left the room.

"What has he given you?" asked Runnemood.

"Have you been lying to me about literacy statistics, Runnemood?" Bitterblue countered.

"Of course not, Lady Queen," said Runnemood in exasperation. "Your castle is literate. What would you like? Another survey on the matter?"

"Yes, another survey, of both the castle and the city."

"Very well. Another survey, to dispel the slander of an antisocial librarian. I hope you won't expect us to furnish evidence every time he makes an accusation."

"He was right about the burying," said Bitterblue.

Releasing a breath, Runnemood said patiently, "We've never denied the truth about the burying, Lady Queen. This is the first we've ever discussed it. Now, what has he given you?"

Bitterblue pulled at the tie that held the small roll closed. The leather flattened itself before her. "Just another useless map," she said, rolling it up again and shoving it aside.

Later, when Runnemood had gone to an appointment somewhere and Thiel stood stiffly at his stand, his back to her and his mind somewhere else, Bitterblue slipped the little map into the pocket of her gown. It wasn't a useless map. It was a lovely, soft miniature of all the major streets in the city, perfect for carrying on one's person.

IN THE EAST city that night, she sought out the graveyard. The paths were lit, but dimly, and there was no moon; she couldn't make out the inscriptions. Walking among the nameless dead, she tried to find a way to fit "burning versus burial" onto her list of puzzle pieces. It was starting to seem to her that being "forward-thinking" too often involved avoiding any kind of thought at all—especially about things that might benefit from a great deal of thinking. What had Danzhol said about the town charters being a promise of the queen's considerate inattention? Clearly, her inattention to Danzhol had led to disastrous results. Were there people at whom she should be looking more closely?

She stumbled across a grave with loose soil in the shape of a mound. Someone newly dead. How sad, she thought. There's something horribly sad, but also right, about the body of someone who has died disappearing into the ground. Burning a body was sad too. And yet Bitterblue felt deeply that burning was also right.

No one who loved Mama was there to mark her passing. She burned alone.

Bitterblue felt her feet planted in the ground of this graveyard, as if she were a tree, unable to move; as if her body were a gravestone, dense and heavy.

I left her behind, for Leck to pretend to mourn. I shouldn't still feel this way, she thought with an unexpected flash of fury. It was years ago.

"Sparks?" said a voice behind her. She turned to find herself staring into the face of Sapphire.

Her heart flew into her throat. "Why are you here?" she cried. "Not Teddy!"

"No!" Saf said. "Don't worry. Teddy's well enough, for a man who's been cut open."

"Then why?" she said. "Are you a grave robber?"

He snorted. "Don't be daft. It's a shortcut. Are you all right, Sparks? I'm sorry if I interrupted something."

"You didn't."

"You're crying."

"I'm not."

"Right," he said mildly. "I suppose you got rained on."

Somewhere, one of the city clocks began to strike midnight. "Where are you going?" Bitterblue asked.

"Home."

"Let's go, then," she said.

"Sparks," he said, "you're not invited."

"Do you burn your dead," she said, ignoring this, leading him out of the graveyard, "or bury them?"

"Well, it depends where I am, doesn't it? It's Lienid tradition to bury people at sea. In Monsea, it's tradition to bury them in the ground."

"How do you know the old Monsean traditions?"

"I could ask you the same question; I wouldn't have expected you to know. Except that I never expect the expected from you, Sparks," he added, a tired sort of dreariness coming over his voice. "How is your mother?"

"What?" she said, startled.

"I hope the tears are nothing to do with your mother. Is she well?"

"Oh," Bitterblue said, remembering that she was a castle baker girl. "Yes, she's well. I saw her tonight."

"Then that's not what's wrong?"

"Saf," she said. "Not everyone who lives in the castle can read."

"Huh?"

She didn't know why she was saying this now; she didn't know why she was saying it at all. She hadn't even realized until this moment that she believed it. It was just that she had the need to tell him something honest, something honest and unhappy, because cheerful lies tonight were too depressing and too sharp, turning in on her like pins. "I said before that everyone under the queen's roof reads," she said. "I've—developed doubts."

"All right," he said warily. "I knew that for a corker when you first said it. So did Teddy. Why are you admitting it now?"

"Saf," she said, stopping in her tracks in the middle of the street to face him, needing at this moment to know. "Why did you steal that gargoyle?"

"Hm," he said, amused in an unamused sort of way. "What's your game tonight, Sparks?"

"I don't have a game," Bitterblue said miserably. "I just want things to start making sense. Here," she said, pulling a small parcel from her pocket and shoving it into Saf's hand. "These are from Madlen."

"More medicines?"

"Yes."

Musing over the medicines, his feet square in the street, Saf seemed to be considering something. Then he glanced at her. "What about a game of trading truth for truth?" he said.

This struck her as a terrible idea. "How many rounds?"

"Three, and we must both swear to be honest. You must swear on your mother's life."

Well then, she thought. If he presses me too hard, I can lie, for my mother is dead. He would lie, if pressed, too, she added stubbornly, arguing with the part of her that rose up to insist that a game like this should be played in good faith. "All right," she said. "Why did you steal the gargoyle?"

"No, I go first, because the game was my idea. Are you a spy for the queen?"

"Great seas!" Bitterblue said. "No."

"That's all I get? A 'no'?"

She glared into his grinning face. "I'm not anyone's spy but my own," she said, realizing, too late, that her own spy would inevitably be the queen's spy. Annoyed to find herself lying already, she said, "My turn. The gargoyle. Why?"

"Hm. Let's walk," he said, motioning her up the street.

"You're not allowed to avoid my question."

"I'm not avoiding it. I'm just trying to come up with an answer that doesn't incriminate others. Leck stole," he said, startling her with the randomness of it. "Anything he wanted—knives, clothing, horses, paper—he took. He stole people's children. He destroyed people's property. He also hired people to build the bridges and never paid them. He hired artists to decorate his castle—never paid them either."

"I see," said Bitterblue, working through the implications of his statement. "Did you steal a gargoyle from the castle because Leck never paid the artist who made it?"

"Essentially," said Saf.

"But—what did you do with it?"

"We return things to their rightful owners."

"So, there's a gargoyle artist somewhere and you're bringing him back his gargoyles? What possible use could he have for them now?"

"Don't ask me," said Saf. "I've never understood the use of a gargoyle. They're creepy."

"They're lovely!" said Bitterblue in indignation.

"All right!" said Saf. "Whatever. They're creepily lovely. I don't know what he wants with them. He only asked us for a few of his favorites."

"A few? Four?"

"Four from the east wall. Two from the west and one from the south that we haven't managed to steal yet, and possibly won't, now. The guard presence on the walls has increased since we stole the last one. They must've finally noticed that gargoyles are going missing."

Noticed, because Bitterblue had pointed it out? Were her advisers the ones who'd arranged for more guards? Why would they do that, unless they believed the gargoyles actually were being stolen? And if they believed it, why had they lied?

"Where's your mind, Sparks?" asked Saf.

"So, people ask you for things," Bitterblue repeated. "They make requests for specific items Leck stole, and you steal the items back for them?"

Saf considered her. There was something new in his expression tonight. For some reason, it frightened her. His eyes, which used to be hard and suspicious, were softer, touching her face and hood and shoulders, wondering something about her.

She recognized what was happening. He was deciding whether or not to trust her. When he reached into the pocket of his coat and handed her a small bundle, she found that suddenly, whatever it was, she didn't want it.

"No," she said, pushing it back at him.

Stubbornly, he pressed it back into her hands. "What's wrong with you? Open it."

"It'll be too much truth, Saf," she insisted. "It'll make us unequal."

"Is this an act?" he said. "Because it's a stupid one. You saved Teddy's life: We'll never be equal. It's not any deep, dark secret, Sparks. It won't tell you anything I haven't already said."

Uncomfortable, but counting on this promise, she untied the bundle. It contained three papers, folded small. She moved closer to a streetlamp. Then she stood there, in rising distress, as the papers told her a thousand things Saf hadn't said, immediately.

It was a chart, three pages long, composed of three columns. Running down the left column was an alphabetical list of names, straightforward enough. The right-hand column listed dates, all falling in the years of Leck's reign. The items in the middle column, each one presumably corresponding to the name on the left, were more difficult to characterize. Across from the name "Alderin, farmer" was written, "3 farm dogs, 1 pig." Across from the second instance of the name "Alderin, farmer" was written, "Book: The Kissing Traditions of Monsea." Across from the name "Annis, teacher" was written "Grettel, 9." Across from "Barrie, ink-maker": "Ink, every kind, too much to quantify." Across from "Bessit, scribe": "Book: Monsean Ciphers and Codes; paper, too much to quantify."

It was an inventory. Except that the middle column of inventoried items seemed to be as crowded with people—"Mara, 11," "Cress, 10"—as it was with books, paper, farm animals, money. Almost all of the people named as inventory were children. Girls.

And that wasn't all this paper told her, not by a far shot, for Bitterblue recognized the handwriting. The paper, even, and the ink. One remembered such particulars when one had killed a lord with a knife; one remembered accusing the lord, before killing him, of stealing his people's books and farm animals. She drew the list to her nose, knowing how the paper would smell: just like the charter of the people from the town of Danzhol.

One lonely puzzle piece clicked into place. "This is an inventory of items Leck stole?" asked Bitterblue shakily.

"In this case, someone else stole them, but it's clear that it was on Leck's behalf. Those are the types of things Leck liked to collect, and the little girls clinch it, wouldn't you say?"

But—why hadn't Danzhol simply told her that he'd stolen from his townspeople on Leck's behalf? That his ruin had begun with Leck's greed? Why hide behind hints when he could have defended himself with that truth? She would have listened to that defense, no matter how mad or disgusting he was. And why had the people of Danzhol mentioned missing farm animals in their charter, but not their missing daughters? She had imagined that Leck had taken castle people, city people. Those were the people the fablers talked about in their stories. She hadn't known that his reach had extended to the distant country estates of his lords.

And that wasn't all. "Why would you be stealing these things back?" she asked, almost frantically. "Why would this list make its way to you, not to the queen?"

"What could the queen do?" asked Saf. "These items were stolen during Leck's reign. The queen has issued blanket pardons for all crimes committed during Leck's reign."

"But, surely, she hasn't pardoned Leck's crimes!"

"What did Leck ever do for himself? You don't think he marched around smashing windows and grabbing books? I told you, these things were stolen by someone else. That lord who just tried to kidnap the queen, actually, and ended up poked in the gizzard," he added, as if this piece of trivia should amuse her.

"It makes no sense, Saf," she said. "If these people sent this list to the queen, she would find some legal way to provide remuneration."

"The queen is looking ahead," Saf said glibly, "haven't you heard? She has no time for all the lists she would receive, and we manage it quite well, you know."

"How many lists are there?"

"I expect every town in the kingdom could provide one, if pressed," he said. "Don't you?"

The names of children crowded thick before her eyes. "It's wrong," she insisted. "There must be a legal recourse."

Saf took the papers from her hands. "If it's any comfort to your law-abiding heart, Sparks," he said, folding the papers up again, "we cannot steal what we cannot find. It's rare that we locate any of the items on these lists."

"But you just told me that you manage it quite well!"

"Better than the queen could," he said, sighing. "Have I answered your question?"

"What question!"

"We're playing a game, remember?" said Saf. "You asked me why I stole a gargoyle. I told you. Now I believe it's my turn. Were your people part of the resistance? Is that how your father was killed?"

"I don't know what you're talking about. What resistance?"

"You don't know about the resistance?"

"Perhaps I call it by a different name," she said, doubting this but not caring, for her mind was still wrapped up in the last matter.

"Well, it's no secret," he said, "so I'll explain it for free. There was a resistance movement in the kingdom while Leck was alive. A small group of people who knew what he was—or who knew it part of the time, at least, and kept it in writing—tried to spread the word, remind each other of the truth whenever his lies grew too strong. The most powerful among them were mind readers, who had the advantage of always knowing what Leck was trying to do. A lot of the members of the resistance were killed. Leck knew they existed and was always trying to stamp them out. Especially the mind readers."

Bitterblue was paying attention now.

"You really didn't know," Saf said, noting her surprise.

"I had no idea," she said. "That's why Leck kept burning Teddy's parents' print shop, isn't it? And that's how you knew about burying. Your family was part of this resistance and kept written records of the old traditions, or something. Right?"

"Is that your second question?" asked Saf.

"No. I'm not wasting a question on something I already know the answer to; I want to know why you grew up on a Lienid ship."

"Ah. That's an easy one," he said. "My eyes settled when I was six months old. Leck was king then, of course. Gracelings in Monsea were not free, but as you've already guessed, my mother and father were in the resistance. They knew what Leck was, most of the time. They also knew that Gracelings in Lienid were free. So they took me south to Monport, snuck me aboard a Lienid ship, and left me on the deck."

Bitterblue's mouth dropped open. "You mean they abandoned you. To strangers who could've decided to throw you overboard!"

He shrugged, smiling lightly. "They saved me from Leck's service, Sparks, in the best way they could manage. And after Leck died, my sister went to great lengths to find me—even though all she knew about me was my age, my eye colors, and the ship they'd left me on. Also, Lienid sailors do not throw babies overboard."

They turned onto Tinker Street and drew up outside the shop door. "They're dead now, aren't they," she said. "Your parents. Leck killed them."

"Yes," he said, then reached out to her when he saw her expression. "Sparks, hey—it's all right. I never really knew them."

"Let's go in," she said, pushing him off, too frustrated with her own helplessness to show him the sorrow she felt. There were crimes for which a queen could never provide enough remuneration.

"We've got one more round of questions, Sparks," he said.

"No. No more."

"I'll ask a nice one, Sparks, I promise."

"A nice one?" Bitterblue snorted. "What's your idea of a nice question, Saf?"

"I'll ask about your mother."

It was the very last thing she had the energy to lie about. "No."

"Oh, come on. What's it like?"

"What's what like?"

"To have a mother."

"Why should you want to ask me that?" she snapped at him, exasperated. "What's wrong with you?"

"Why are you biting my head off, Sparks? The closest thing I ever had to a mother was a sailor named Pinky who taught me to climb a rope with a dagger in my mouth and piss on people from the topmast."

"That's disgusting."

"Well? That's my point. Your mother probably never taught you anything disgusting."

If you had any idea what you were asking me, she thought. If you had the slightest idea to whom you were speaking. She could see nothing sentimental or vulnerable in his face. This wasn't his prologue to pouring out the heart-rending tale of a child sailor on a foreign ship who'd yearned for a mother. He was merely curious; he wanted to know about mothers, and Bitterblue was the only one made vulnerable by the question.

"What do you mean, you want to know about her?" she asked with slightly more patience. "Your question is too vague."

He shrugged. "I'm not picky. Is it she who taught you to read? When you were young, did you live together in the castle and eat your meals together? Or do castle children live in the nurseries? Does she talk of Lienid? Is she the person who taught you to bake bread?"

Bitterblue's mind flickered around all the things he said, images coming to her. Memories, some of them wanting precision. "I did not live in the nurseries," she said honestly. "I was with my mother most of the time. I don't think it was she who taught me to read, but she taught me other things. She taught me mathematics and all about Lienid." Then Bitterblue spoke another certainty that came to her like a thunderbolt. "I believe—I remember—my father taught me to read!"

Grasping her head, she turned away from him, remembering Leck helping her spell out words, in her mother's rooms, at the table. Remembering the feel of a small, colorful book in her hands; remembering his voice, his encouragement, his pride at her progress as she struggled to put letters together. "Darling!" he'd said. "You're fabulous. You're a genius." She'd been so small that she'd had to kneel in the chair to reach the table.

It was an utterly disorienting memory. For a moment, in the middle of the street, Bitterblue was lost. "Give me a mathematics problem, would you?" she said to Saf unsteadily.

"Huh?" he said. "You mean like, what's twelve times twelve?"

She glared at him. "That's just insulting."

"Sparks," he said, "have you quite lost your mind?"

"Let me sleep here tonight," she said. "I need to sleep here. Can I sleep here?"

"What? Of course not!"

"I won't snoop around. I'm not a spy, remember?"

"I'm not certain you should come in at all, Sparks."

"At least let me see Teddy!"

"Don't you want to ask your last question?"

"You'll owe me one."

Sapphire considered her skeptically. Then, shaking his head, sighing, he produced a key. He opened the door a Sparks-sized crack and motioned her inside.

TEDDY LAY FLAT and limp on a cot in the corner, like a leaf in the road that's been snowed on all winter and rained on all spring; but he was awake. When he saw her, the sweetest of smiles spread across his face. "Give me your hand," he whispered.

Bitterblue gave him her hand, tiny and strong. His own hands were long, beautifully formed, with ink rimming the fingernails. And strengthless. She used her own strength to move her hand where he pulled it. He brought her fingers to his mouth. He kissed them.

"Thank you for what you did," he whispered. "I always knew you'd be lucky for us, Sparks. We should have called you Lucky."

"How are you feeling, Teddy?"

"Tell me a story, Lucky," he whispered. "Tell me one of the stories you've heard."

There was only one story in her mind: the tale of Princess Bitterblue's escape from the city eight years ago with Queen Ashen, who'd hugged the princess hard and kissed her, kneeling in a field of snow. And then given her a knife and sent her on ahead, telling her that though she was only a little girl, she had the heart and the mind of a queen, strong and fierce enough to survive what was coming.

Bitterblue pulled her hand away from Teddy's. She pressed her temples and rubbed them, breathing carefully to calm herself.

"I'll tell you the story of a city where the river jumps into the sky and takes flight," she said.

SOMETIME LATER, SAF shook her shoulder. She woke, startled, to find herself snoozing in the hard chair, neck twisted and rigid with pain. "What is it?" she cried. "What happened?"

"Shh!" said Saf. "You were crying out, Sparks. Disturbing Teddy's sleep. I figured it was a nightmare."

"Oh," she said, becoming conscious of a monumental headache. She reached up to bring down her braids, releasing her hair, rubbing at her aching scalp. Teddy slept nearby, his breath a gentle whistle. Tilda and Bren were climbing the stairs together to the apartments above. "I think I was dreaming that my father was teaching me to read," Bitterblue said vaguely. "It was making my head hurt."

"You're a strange one," Saf said. "Go sleep on the floor by the fire, Sparks. Dream something nice, like babies. I'll bring you a blanket, and wake you before dawn."

She lay down and fell asleep, dreaming of herself as a baby in her mother's arms.

9

BITTERBLUE RAN BACK to the castle in a thick, gray dawn. She raced the sun, hoping, fervently, that Po wasn't planning to ruin her breakfast again. Find something useful to do with your morning, she thought to him as she neared her chambers. Do something heroic in front of an audience. Knock a child into the river while no one's looking and then rescue him.

Entering her rooms, she found herself face-to-face with Fox, who stood in the foyer with a feather duster. "Oh," said Bitterblue, calculating fast, but not coming up with much in the way of a creative excuse. "Balls."

Fox regarded the queen calmly with unmatching gray eyes. She wore a new hood that was just like the old one, the one Bitterblue was wearing at this moment. The difference between the two women was marked: Bitterblue small, plain, guilty, and not particularly clean; Fox tall and striking, with nothing to be ashamed of.

"Lady Queen," she said, "I won't tell a soul."

"Oh, thank you," Bitterblue said, almost light-headed with relief. "Thank you."

Fox bowed her head, stepped aside, and that was that.

Minutes later, soaking in the bath, Bitterblue heard rain, thudding on the castle roofs.

She was grateful to the skies for waiting until she'd gotten home.

RAIN STREAMED DOWN the canted glass roofs of her tower office and raced into the gutters.

"Thiel?"

He was at his stand, pen scritching across paper. "Yes, Lady Queen?"

"Thiel, Lord Danzhol said some things after he knocked you out that worry me."

"Oh?" Thiel set his pen down and came to stand before her, all concern. "I'm sorry to hear that, Lady Queen. If you'll tell me what he said, I'm confident that we'll be able to resolve it."

"He was some sort of crony of Leck's, wasn't he?"

Thiel blinked. "Was he, Lady Queen? What did he tell you?"

"Do you know what it meant to be a crony of Leck's?" Bitterblue asked. "I know you don't like questions like that, Thiel, but I must know the basics of what happened, you see, if I'm to know how to help my people."

"Lady Queen," said Thiel, "my reason for disliking such a question is that I don't know the answer. I had my own run-ins with King Leck, as you know, as I expect we all did, and would all prefer not to talk about. But he would disappear for hours, Lady Queen, and I haven't the foggiest notion where he would go. I know nothing beyond the bare fact that he would go. None of your advisers do. I hope you'll trust me on that, and not trouble the others. We've only just got Rood back into the offices. You know he's not strong."

"Danzhol told me," Bitterblue lied, "that everything he stole from his people, he stole for Leck's sake, and that other lords stole from their people for Leck too. That means there are other lords and ladies out there like Danzhol, Thiel, and it also means that there are citizens from whom Leck stole who could benefit from remuneration. You do understand that the crown is liable to these people, Thiel? It will help us all move forward to settle such debts."

"Oh, dear," Thiel said, steadying a hand on her desk. "I see," he said. "Lord Danzhol, of course, was mad, Lady Queen."

"But I've asked my personal spies to make some inquiries, Thiel," Bitterblue improvised smoothly. "It seems that Danzhol was right."

"Your personal spies," Thiel repeated. His eyes were beginning to shift to confusion, then to a kind of blankness, so quickly that she reached out to stop him.

"No," she said, pleading with the fading feeling in his eyes. "Please, Thiel, don't. Why do you do that? I need your help!"

But Thiel was wrapped in himself, not speaking, not seeming to hear.

It's like being left alone in a room with a shell, thought Bitterblue. And it happens so fast. "I'll just have to go down and ask one of the others," she said.

A rough voice came out of the middle of him somewhere. "Don't leave me quite yet, Lady Queen," he said. "Please wait. I have the right answer. May I—may I sit, Lady Queen?"

"Of course!"

Heavily, he did so. After a moment, he said, "The trouble lies with the blanket pardons, Lady Queen. The blanket pardons, and the impossibility of ever proving, beyond doubt, that those who stole, stole for Leck and not for themselves."

"Wasn't the very reason for the blanket pardons the assumption that Leck was the true cause of all crime?"

"No, Lady Queen," said Thiel. "The reason for the blanket pardons was the acknowledgment of the impossibility of our ever knowing the truth about anything."

What a depressing notion. "Nonetheless, someone needs to provide reparation to those who were victimized."

"Don't you think, Lady Queen, that if citizens wished your reparation, they would tell you so?"

"Do they have means?"

"Anyone may write the court a letter, Lady Queen, and every letter is read by your clerks."

"But do they know how to write?"

The eyes Thiel trained on her face were awake now, and filled with a perfect comprehension of her meaning. "After yesterday's argument, Lady Queen," he said, "I challenged Runnemood on the matter of the literacy statistics. I'm sorry to say that he admitted that he has, in fact, been embellishing them. He has a habit of . . . erring on the side of optimism in his representations. It is," said Thiel, clearing his throat delicately, "one of the qualities that makes him a valuable agent of the court in the city. But of course, he must be transparent with us. He will be from now on. I've made that plain to him. And, yes, Lady Queen," Thiel added firmly. "Enough of your citizens know how to write; you've seen the charters. I maintain that if they wished reparation, they would write."

"Well then, I'm sorry, but it's not good enough, Thiel. I can't bear to walk around knowing how much this court owes people. I don't care whether they want it from me or not. It's not fair for me not to give it."

Thiel considered her silently, hands folded before him. She didn't understand the peculiar hopelessness in his eyes. "Thiel," she said, almost begging. "Please. What is it? What's wrong?"

After a moment, he said quietly, "I understand you, Lady Queen, and I'm pleased you came to me about this. I hope you always will come to me first with such matters. Here is what I recommend: Write to your uncle and ask his advice. When he visits, perhaps we can discuss the way to proceed."

It was true that Ror would know what to do and how best to do it. It wasn't terrible advice. But Ror's visit was scheduled for January, and it was only just September.

Perhaps, if she wrote to him, he could send suggestions ahead of his visit, in letters.

THE RAIN WAS soporific, throwing itself against her glass roof and the stone of her round walls. She wondered what it was like in the great courtyard today, where water pounded on the glass ceilings and overflow from the gutters poured into a fat rain pipe that snaked down the courtyard wall, ending with a gargoyle that vomited rainwater into the fountain pool. On days like this, the pool overflowed onto the courtyard floor. No water was wasted: It found drains in the floor that led to cisterns in the cellars and the prison.

It was impractical, the courtyard flood that accompanied rainy days. It was a strange design, easy enough to reverse. Except that it did no structural damage in a courtyard that had originally been built to be rained on; and except that Bitterblue loved it, on the rare occasions when she was able to escape her office to see it. The tiles on the floor surrounding the fountain were adorned with mosaics of fish that seemed to flop and swim under the sheen of water. Leck had intended the courtyard to be dramatic in the rain.

When Darby pushed into the room with a pile of papers so high that he needed both arms, Bitterblue announced that she was taking a walk to the royal smithy to order a sword.

But good heavens, they responded, did she realize that to reach the smithy, one must cross the grounds, in the rain? Had it not occurred to her that it would save time to summon a smith to her tower, rather than go herself? Had she not considered that it might be viewed as unusual—

"Oh, for mercy's sake," Bitterblue snapped at her advisers. "I'm proposing a walk to the smithy, not an expedition to the moon. I'll be back in a matter of minutes. In the meantime, you can all return to work and stop being annoying, if such a thing is possible."

"At least take an umbrella, Lady Queen," pleaded Rood.

"I won't," she said, then swept out of the room as dramatically as possible.

STANDING IN THE east vestibule, peeking through an arch at the pounding water of the fountain, the swirling water on the floor, the gurgling water in the drains, Bitterblue allowed the noise and the earthy smell of it all to soothe her irritation.

"Lady Queen," said a quiet voice to her side. "How are you?"

Bitterblue was mildly embarrassed to find herself in the company of Lord Giddon. "Oh," she said. "Giddon. Hello. I'm all right, I suppose. I'm sorry about the other night. The falling asleep, I mean," she bumbled, "and—the hair."

"Don't apologize, Lady Queen," he said. "An ordeal like the one with Danzhol is bound to be exhausting; it was the end of an extraordinary day."

"That it was," she said, sighing.

"How is your puzzle going?"

"Dreadfully," she said, grateful to him for remembering. "I have lords like Danzhol, who stole for Leck, connecting with thieves who are stealing the things back, connecting with a strange piece of misinformation about gargoyles my advisers gave me, connecting with other kinds of knowledge my advisers seem to prefer to discourage, connecting with knowledge the thieves would like to keep from me as well, such as why someone would stick knives in their guts. I don't understand the courtyard decoration either," she said grouchily, glaring at the shrubberies that a moment before had been delighting her.

"Hm," said Giddon. "I confess, it doesn't sound very illuminating."

"It's a disaster," Bitterblue said.

"Well," said Giddon with mild amusement. "Your great courtyard is lovely in the rain."

"Thank you. Did you know that my being here to look at it, alone, in the middle of the day, requires a lengthy debate? And I'm not even alone," she added, indicating, with a nod, the man tucked behind an arch in the south vestibule. "That's one of my Graced guards, Alinor, pretending not to watch us. I bet you my crown that they sent him along to spy on me."

"Or perhaps to keep an eye out for your safety, Lady Queen?" suggested Giddon. "You were recently attacked while in their care. They might be feeling a bit twitchy, not to mention guilty."

"It's just—I did something today that I should be happy about, Giddon. I proposed a policy of remuneration from the crown for those who were robbed during Leck's reign. But all I feel is impatience, fury for the opposition I anticipate and the lies I'm going to have to tell to make it happen, and frustration that I can't even take a walk without them sending someone to hover. Attack me," she said.

"I beg your pardon, Lady Queen?"

"You should attack me, and we'll see what he does. He's probably quite bored—it'll be a relief to him."

"Mightn't he run me through with his sword?"

"Oh." Bitterblue chuckled. "Yes, I suppose he might. That would be a shame."

"I'm gratified that you think so," said Giddon dryly.

Bitterblue squinted at a muddy person wading into the courtyard from the west vestibule, which was the route from the stables. Her heart leapt; she jumped forward. "Giddon!" she cried. "It's Katsa!"

Suddenly Po shot into the courtyard from the north vestibule, whooping. Katsa, seeing him, broke into a run and they tore at each other through the wash. Just before the moment of impact, Po shifted to one side, crouched, scooped Katsa up, and, with admirable precision, propelled them both sideways into the pool.

THEY WERE STILL thrashing around and laughing and screaming, and Bitterblue and Giddon were still watching, when a stiff little clerk spotted Bitterblue, trotted up to her, and said, "Good day, Lady Queen. Lady Katsa of the Middluns has arrived at court, Lady Queen."

Bitterblue raised an eyebrow. "You don't say?"

The clerk, who seemed not to have risen to his position on the merits of his powers of observation, confirmed his announcement humorlessly, then added, "Prince Raffin of the Middluns has accompanied her this time, Lady Queen."

"Oh! Where is he?"

"He is finding his rooms, Lady Queen."

"Is Bann with him?" asked Giddon.

"He is, My Lord," said the clerk.

"They'll be exhausted," said Giddon to Bitterblue as the clerk slipped away. "Katsa'll have ridden them hard through the rain."

Katsa and Po were trying to drown each other and, judging from their hoots of laughter, enjoying it immensely. People had begun to gather in archways and on balconies—servants, guards—pointing, staring.

"I expect this will make a good story for the rumor mills," Bitterblue ventured.

"Another chapter in The Heroic Adventures Of?" Giddon asked quietly. Then he shot her a grin that reached all the way to his very nice, but ordinary, matching brown eyes, and Bitterblue had the feeling suddenly of not being so alone. She'd forgotten, in her first joy, what this was always like. Preoccupied with Po, Katsa hadn't even noticed her.

"I was actually headed to the royal smithy," Bitterblue said to Giddon, in the way of also having preoccupations and places to go, "but the truth is that I'm not certain where it is. I wasn't going to admit that to my advisers, of course."

"I've been there, Lady Queen," Giddon said. "It's on the western grounds, north of the stables. Shall I point you in the right direction or would you like company?"

"Join me."

"It looks like the entertainment is breaking up, anyway," Lord Giddon said. And indeed, the splashing and the noise seemed to have calmed. Katsa and Po had their arms around each other. It was difficult to tell if they were still wrestling or if the kissing had begun.

Bitterblue turned away with a small flash of resentment.

"Wait!"

It was Katsa's voice; it slapped against Bitterblue's back and spun her around. Katsa had climbed out of the fountain and out of Po's arms. Katsa was running toward her, eyes shining blue and green, clothes and hair streaming. She slammed into Bitterblue and gathered her into a hug. She picked Bitterblue up, put her down, squeezed her harder, kissed the top of her head. Crushed painfully against Katsa, Bitterblue heard the wild, strong thump of Katsa's heart. She held Katsa tight. Tears pricked her eyes.

Then Katsa was gone, flying back to Po.

AS BITTERBLUE AND Giddon moved through the western castle to the exit nearest the smithy, Giddon told her that remuneration for a king's thefts was one of the Council's specialties. "It can be quite beautiful in execution, Lady Queen," he said. "Of course, when we do it, it involves trickery, and our thieving kings are still alive. But I think you'll feel the same satisfaction we do."

He was a big man beside her, as tall as Thiel and broader. "How old are you?" she asked bluntly, deciding that queens had the privilege of asking nosy questions.

"Twenty-seven last month, Lady Queen," he answered, not seeming to mind the question.

Then they were all of a similar age—Giddon, Po, Katsa, Bann, and Raffin. "How long have you been Katsa's friend?" she asked, remembering, with mild indignation, that Katsa hadn't greeted him in the courtyard.

"Oh," he said, calculating, "well, some ten or eleven years? I offered myself to her and Raffin as soon as the Council began. Of course, I knew of her before that; I'd seen her at court many times. I used to watch her practices."

"Did you grow up at King Randa's court, then?"

"My family's estate is near to Randa's court, Lady Queen. As a boy, I spent as much time at court as I did at home. My father, while he was alive, was a great friend of Randa's."

"Your priorities differed from your father's."

He glanced at her in surprise, then made an unamused noise. "Not really, Lady Queen."

"Well, you chose the Council over any allegiance to Randa, didn't you?"

"I joined the Council more out of fascination for its founder than anything else, Lady Queen. Katsa, and the promise of adventure. I don't think I much cared what it was for. At the time, I was one of Randa's most reliable bullies."

Bitterblue remembered then that Giddon was among those excluded from the truth of Po's Grace. Was this why? Was he a bully? But Giddon was one of Po's closest friends now, wasn't he? How did a man who was crony to a bad king undo that entanglement while the king was still alive?

"Giddon?" she said. "Do you care about the Council's purpose now?"

When he looked into her face, she saw his answer before he gave it. "With all my heart."

They stepped into a dimly lit foyer where tall, gray windows rattled with rain. A pair of Monsean Guards stood to either side of a postern doorway. When Bitterblue passed through, she found herself on a covered slate terrace, looking out over a field of soggy snapdragons. Beyond the flowers sat a squat stone building with smoke rising from several chimneys. The musical clangs of metal, in various pitches and rhythms, suggested that they'd succeeded in their search for the smithy.

"Giddon," she said. "Wasn't it a bit rude for Katsa not to greet you in the courtyard just now? It's been some time since you've seen each other, hasn't it?"

His smile was sudden and enormous; he began to chuckle. "Katsa and I don't like each other very much," he said.

"Why? What did you do?"

"Why must it be something I did?"

"Well? Wasn't it?"

"Katsa will hold a grudge," Giddon said, still grinning, "for years."

"You're the one who seems to be holding a grudge," Bitterblue said hotly. "Katsa's heart is true. She would not dislike you for no reason."

"Lady Queen," he said mildly, "I meant no offense to you, or to her. Any courage I have, I learned from her example. I would go so far as to say that her Council has saved my life. I can work with Katsa whether she greets me in the courtyard or not."

His tone, and his words, brought her back to herself. She unclenched her fists and wiped her hands on her skirts. "Giddon. Forgive my temper."

"Katsa is fortunate to have your loyalty," said Giddon.

"Yes," Bitterblue said, confused, then gesturing through the downpour to the smithy, more than ready to put an end to the conversation. "Shall we make a dash for it?"

Within seconds, she was soaked through. The snapdragon bed was a swamp and one of her boots sunk deep in the mud, nearly toppling her. When Giddon came to her and took her arms in an attempt to pull her free, his own boots stuck. With a vague expression of impending disaster, he plummeted backward into the flowers, his falling momentum popping her out of the mud but also sending her sprawling.

On her stomach amidst snapdragons, Bitterblue spat out dirt. And there really wasn't any use for decorum after that. Covered with mud and snapdragon carcasses, they dragged each other up and staggered, gasping with laughter, into the lean-to that comprised the front half of the smithy building. A man came stomping out whom Bitterblue recognized, small, with a sharp, sensitive face, dressed in the black of the Monsean Guard with distinctive silver chains on his sleeves. "Wait," Bitterblue said to him, trying to wipe mud from her skirts. "You're my Captain of the Monsean Guard, aren't you? You're Captain Smit."

The man's eyes flicked across her bedraggled appearance, then absorbed Giddon's as well. "I am, Lady Queen," he said with crisp correctness. "It's a pleasure to see you, Lady Queen."

"Indeed," said Bitterblue. "Is it you who decides the number of guards patrolling the castle walls?"

"Ultimately, yes, Lady Queen."

"May I ask why you've increased their number recently?"

"Of course, Lady Queen," he said. "It was in response to the news of unrest in Nander. In fact, now that we've heard that the Nanderan king is deposed, I may increase their number even more, Lady Queen. Such news has the potential to encourage unruly behavior. The castle's security—and yours, Lady Queen—are among my highest priorities."

When Captain Smit had gone, Bitterblue frowned after him. "That was a perfectly reasonable explanation," she said grumpily. "Perhaps my advisers don't lie to me."

"Isn't that what you'd want?" asked Giddon.

"Well, yes, but it doesn't elucidate my puzzle!"

"If I may say so, Lady Queen," said Giddon, "it's not always easy to follow your conversation."

"Oh, Giddon," she said, sighing. "If it's any comfort, I don't follow it either."

A second man came from inside the smithy then, and stood blinking at them. He was youngish and sooty, his sleeves rolled up to reveal muscular forearms, and he held in both hands the most massive sword Bitterblue had ever seen, dripping with water from the slack trough and gleaming like lightning.

"Oh, Ornik," Giddon said, going to the smith, trailing snapdragons and slime. "This is good work." He took the sword from the man carefully, balanced it, and held the hilt out to Bitterblue. "Lady Queen?"

The sword was nearly Bitterblue's height and so heavy that she needed to throw her shoulders and legs into the lifting of it. She muscled it gamely into the air and gazed at it in admiration, liking its fine, simple hilt and its even gleam; liking the solid, steady weight of it pushing her into the floor. "It's beautiful, Ornik," she said. And then, "We're muddying it up, which is shameful." And finally, "Help me, Giddon," because she didn't trust herself to lower it without crashing the tip into the stone floor. "Ornik," she said, "we've come about a sword for myself."

Ornik stood back, hands on hips, looking her small frame up and down in a way only Helda ever did, and then only when Bitterblue was trying a new gown.

She said defensively, "I like heft, and I am not weak."

"As I saw, Lady Queen," Ornik said. "Allow me to present you with a few possibilities, Lady Queen. If we have nothing to suit you, we'll design something that does. Excuse me."

Ornik bowed and went inside. Alone with Giddon again, Bitterblue considered him, rather liking the mud streaks on his face. He looked like a handsome sunken rowboat. "How is it that you know my smiths by name, Giddon? Have you been ordering swords?"

Giddon glanced at the door to the inner forge. He lowered his voice. "Has Po spoken to you yet about the situation in Estill, Lady Queen?"

Bitterblue narrowed her eyes. "Nander, yes. Estill, no. What's going on?"

"I think it's time we included you in a Council meeting. Perhaps tomorrow's, if your schedule allows it."

"When is it?"

"Midnight."

"Where do I go?"

"Katsa's rooms, I believe, now that she's here."

"Very well. What's the situation in Estill?"

Giddon glanced again at the doorway and pitched his voice even lower. "The Council anticipates a popular uprising against King Thigpen, Lady Queen."

She stared at him in astonishment. "As in Nander?"

"As in Nander," he said, "and the rebels are asking the Council for help."

10

THAT NIGHT, PADDING through the great courtyard, Bitterblue tried to come to terms with her own unease.

She trusted her friends in their work. But, for a group of people who claimed to be concerned for her safety, they did seem to have developed rather a habit of encouraging uprisings against monarchs. Well, she would see what they meant by it tomorrow at midnight.

The rain had turned to mist by the time she knocked on the door at Tinker Street, infinitesimal beads soaking her clothing and hair so thickly that she dripped like a forest of trees. It was some time before her knock was answered—by Saf, who hauled her across the shop by one arm. "Hey! Hands off!" she said, trying to get a good look at the room, which was lit so violently that it hurt her eyes. He had rushed her through this room on her way out that morning as well. Tonight she glimpsed paper, everywhere, rolls of it, sheets of it; high tables cluttered with mysterious objects; a row of jars containing what must be ink; and that large, oddly shaped structure in the middle of the room that creaked and thumped and stank of grease and metal and was so enthralling that Bitterblue actually kicked Saf—not hard—to make him stop pulling her away.

"Ow!" he yelled. "Everyone abuses me!"

"I want to see the press," she said.

"You're not allowed to see the press," he said. "Kick me again and I'll kick you back."

Tilda and Bren stood together at the press, working companionably. Turning their faces in tandem to see what the fuss was about; rolling their eyes at each other.

A moment later, Saf had yanked her into the back room and shut the door; and finally, she took a good look at him. One of his eyes was swollen half shut, blackish purple. "Balls," she said. "What happened to you?"

"Street fight."

She squared her shoulders. "Tell the truth."

"Why? Is it your third question?"

"What?"

"If you must go out again, Saf," said Teddy's voice weakly from the bed, "avoid Callender Street. The girls told me a building came down and brought two others with it."

"Three buildings down!" Bitterblue exclaimed. "Why is the east city so fragile?"

"Is that your third question?" asked Saf.

"I'll answer both your questions, Lucky," said Teddy. In response to this, Saf stormed into another room and slammed the door in disgust.

Bitterblue went to Teddy's corner and sat with him in his little circle of light. Papers were strewn all over the bed where he lay. Some had found their way to the floor. "Thank you," he said as Bitterblue collected them. "Did you know that Madlen stopped in on me this morning, Lucky? She says I'm going to live."

"Oh, Teddy," said Bitterblue, hugging the papers to herself. "That's wonderful."

"Now, you wanted to know why the east city is falling apart?"

"Yes—and why there are some strange repairs. Broken things repainted."

"Ah, yes. Well, it's the same answer for both questions. It's the crown's ninety-eight percent employment rate."

"What!"

"You're aware that the queen's administration has been aggressive about finding people work? It's part of their philosophy for recovery."

Bitterblue was aware that Runnemood had told her that nearly everyone in the city had work. These days, she wasn't so quick to believe any of his statistics. "Are you saying that the ninety-eight percent employment rate is real?"

"For the most part, yes. And some of the new work has to do with repairing structures that were neglected during Leck's reign. Each part of the city has a different team of builders and engineers assigned to the job, and, Lucky, the engineer leading the team in the east city is an absolute nutpot. So is his immediate underling and a few of his workers. They're just hopeless."

"What's the leader's name?" asked Bitterblue, knowing the answer.

"Ivan," said Teddy. "He was a phenomenal engineer once. He built the bridges. Now it's lucky if he doesn't kill us all. We do what we can to repair things ourselves, but we're all working too, you know. No one has time."

"But, why is it allowed to go on?"

"The queen has no time," said Teddy simply. "The queen is at the helm of a kingdom that's waking up from the thirty-five-year spell of a madman. She may be older now than she was, but she still has more headaches and more complications and confusions to deal with than the other six kingdoms combined. I'm sure she'll get to it when she can."

She was touched by his faith, but baffled by it too. Will I? she thought numbly. Do I? I'll grant that I'm dealing with confusions. The confusions push themselves in from everywhere, but I don't particularly feel like I'm dealing with anything; and how can I correct problems I don't even know about?

"As far as Saf's injuries go," Teddy continued, "there's this group of four or five idiots we cross paths with now and then. Brains the size of buttons. They never liked Saf to begin with, because he's Lienid and has those eyes and, well, has some tendencies they don't like. And then one night they told him to demonstrate his Grace, and of course he couldn't demonstrate a thing. So they decided he's hiding something. That he's a mind reader, I mean," Teddy explained. "Whenever they see him now, they punish him as a matter of course."

"Oh," whispered Bitterblue. She couldn't stop her mind from playing it out for her, the punching and kicking that probably constituted their kind of punishment. Punching and kicking of Saf, of his face. She pushed it away. "So then—it wasn't the same people who attacked you?"

"It wasn't, Lucky."

"Teddy, who did attack you?"

Teddy answered this with a quiet smile, then said, "What did Saf mean about you asking your third question? Are you two playing a game?"

"Sort of."

"Sparks, if I were you, I wouldn't agree to play Saf's games."

"Why?" asked Bitterblue. "Do you think he lies to me?"

"No," said Teddy. "But I think there are ways in which he could be dangerous to you without ever telling a single lie."

"Teddy," said Bitterblue, sighing. "I don't want to talk riddles with you. Could we please not talk riddles?"

Teddy smiled. "All right. What should we talk about?"

"What are these papers?" she asked, passing them to him. "Is this your book of words or your book of truths?"

"These are my words," said Teddy, holding the papers to his chest, hugging them protectively. "My dear words. Today I was thinking about the P's. Oh, Lucky, how will I ever think of every word and every definition? Sometimes, when I'm having a conversation, I become unable to pay attention, because all I can do is tear apart other people's sentences and obsess over whether I've remembered to include all their words. My dictionary is destined to have great gaps of meaning."

Great gaps of meaning, thought Bitterblue, taking a breath, breathing air through the phrase. Yes. "You're going to do a wonderful job, Teddy," she said. "Only a person with the true heart of a dictionary-writer would be lying in bed, three days after being stabbed in the gut, worrying about his P's."

"You only used one word beginning with P in that sentence," said Teddy dreamily.

The door opened and Saf stuck his head in, glaring at Teddy. "Have you divulged our every secret yet?"

"There were no P-words in that sentence," said Teddy, half asleep.

Saf made an impatient noise. "I'm going out."

Teddy woke right up, tried to sit up, then winced. "Please don't go out if it's only to look for trouble, Saf."

"When do I ever have to look for it?"

"Well, at least bandage that arm," he insisted, proffering a bandage from the small table beside his bed.

"Arm?" said Bitterblue. "Did they hurt your arm?" She saw, then, the way he was holding his arm close to his chest. She got up and went to him. "Let me see," she said.

"Go away."

"I'll help you bandage it."

"I can do it."

"One-armed?"

After a moment, with an irritated snort, Saf stalked to the table, hooked his foot around a chair leg, yanked the chair out, and sat. Then he pushed his left sleeve to his elbow and scowled at Bitterblue, who tried to keep her face from showing what she felt at the sight of his arm. The entire forearm was bruised and swollen. A long, even cut, fully the length of her hand, ran along the top, neatly stitched together with thread, the dark reddish tinge of which came, she knew, from Saf's own blood.

So, pain was at the base of Saf's fury tonight. And perhaps humiliation? Had they held him down and cut him deliberately? The incision was long and neat.

"Is it deep?" Bitterblue asked as she bandaged it. "Did someone clean it properly and give you medicines?"

"Roke may not be a queen's healer, Sparks," Saf said sarcastically, "but he does know how to keep a person from dying of a flesh wound."

"Where are you going, Saf?" asked Teddy wearily.

"To the silver docks," said Saf. "I got a tip tonight."

"Sparks, I'd feel better if you went with him," Teddy said. "He's more likely to behave if he knows he needs to look after you."

Bitterblue was of a different opinion. Touching Saf's arm, she could almost feel the tension humming in his body. He had an instinct toward recklessness tonight, and it was rooted in his anger.

And that was why she went with him—not so that he would have someone to look after, but so that someone, no matter how small and reluctant, would be there to look after him.

IT WAS GOOD that she was a strong runner, or Saf might have left her behind.

"Word is that Lady Katsa arrived in the city today," Saf said. "Is that true? And is Prince Po still at court?"

"Why do you care? Planning to rob them or something?"

"Sparks, I'd sooner rob myself than rob my prince. How is your mother?"

His strange, persistent courtesy toward her mother seemed almost funny tonight, what with his rough appearance and his madcap way of barreling through the wet streets as if he were looking for something to smash. "She's well," Bitterblue said. "Thank you," she added, not certain, at first, what she was thankful for. Then realizing, with a small implosion of shame, that it was for his adamant belief in her mother.

At the silver docks, the river wind pushed the rain right through to their skin. The ships shivered and dripped, their sails tied up tight. They were not really as tall as they looked in the darkness. Bitterblue knew that; they were not ocean vessels but river ships, designed to carry heavy loads north against the current of the River Dell, from the mines and refineries in the south. But they seemed massive at night, looming over the piers, silhouettes of soldiers lining their decks, for this was the landing place of the kingdom's wealth.

And the treasury, where that wealth is kept, is mine, Bitterblue thought. And the ships are mine, and they're manned by my soldiers, and they bear my fortune from the mines and refineries that are also mine. This is all mine, because I am queen. How strange it is to think it.

"I wonder what it would take to storm one of the queen's treasure ships," Saf said.

Bitterblue smirked. "Pirates make attempts now and then—or, so I've heard—near the refineries. Catastrophic attempts. For the pirates, I mean."

"Yes," Saf said, an irritable edge to his voice. "Well, each of the queen's ships contains a small army, of course, and the pirates wouldn't be safe with their loot anyway, until they'd escaped into the sea. I bet the sweep of river from the refineries to the bay is well-patrolled by the queen's water police. It's no easy task to hide a pirate ship on a river."

"How do you know all that?" Bitterblue asked, suddenly uneasy. "Great seas. Don't tell me you're a pirate! Your parents snuck you aboard a pirate ship! They did! I can tell just by looking at you!"

"Of course they didn't," he said with a long-suffering sigh. "Don't be daft, Sparks. Pirates murder and rape, and sink ships. Is that what you think of me?"

"Oh, you make me crazy," Bitterblue said tartly. "The lot of you sneak around thieving and getting knifed, except for when you're writing abstract books or printing Lienid-knows-what in your printing shop. You tell me nothing and then you get all huffy when I try to understand it on my own."

Saf turned away from the docks into a dark street Bitterblue didn't know. Near the entrance to what was obviously a story room, he faced her, grinning in the darkness.

"I've done a bit of treasure hunting," he said.

"Treasure hunting?"

"But I've never been a pirate, and never would, as I like to think you'd know without me having to tell you, Sparks."

"What is treasure hunting?"

"Well, ships go down, you know. They're wrecked in storms, or they burn, or they founder. Treasure hunters come later and dive to the floor of the sea, looking for treasure to salvage from the wreck."

Bitterblue studied his battered face. His conversation was amiable enough; fond, even. He liked to talk to her. But he had not lost any of his earlier anger. Something hard and hurt sat in his eyes, and he held his injured arm close to his body.

This sailor, treasure hunter, thief—whatever he was—should be in a warm, dry bed tonight, recovering his health and his temper. Not thieving, or treasure hunting, or whatever he'd come out here to do.

"It sounds dangerous," she said with a sigh.

"It is," he said. "But it's not illegal. Now, come inside. You're going to like what I steal tonight." Swinging the door open, he gestured her into the yellow light and the steam, the smell of bodies and musty wool, and a low-throated rasp that pulled Bitterblue forward: the voice of a fabler.

ON THE COUNTERS and tables of this story room, pots and buckets pinged with a tinny rhythm of falling drops. Bitterblue shot a dubious glance at the ceiling and kept to the edges of the room.

The fabler was a squat woman with a deep, melodious voice. The story was one of Leck's old animal tales: a boy in a boat on a frozen river. A fuchsia bird of prey with silver claws like anchor hooks—a gorgeous, mesmerizing, vicious creature. Bitterblue hated the story. She remembered Leck telling it to her, or one very similar. She could almost see Leck right there on the bar, one eye covered, the other gray, keen, and careful.

An image flickered then and flashed bright: the terrible wreck of the eye behind Leck's eye patch.

"Come on, let's go," Saf was saying. "Sparks. I'm done here. Let's go."

Bitterblue didn't hear him. Leck had removed the patch for her, just once, laughing, saying something about a horse that had reared and kicked him. She had seen the globe of his eyeball swollen purple with blood and had thought that the vivid crimson of the pupil was a bloodstain, not a clue to the truth of everything. A clue that explained why she felt so plodding and stupid and forgetful so much of the time—especially every time she sat with him, wanting to show off how well she read, hoping to please him.

Saf took hold of her wrist and tried to tug her away. Suddenly she was awake, galvanized. She swung out at him but he grabbed that wrist too, held her in a double grip, and muttered low, "Sparks, don't fight me here. Wait till we're outside. Let's go."

When had the room gotten so crowded and hot? A man sidling too close to her said in a voice too smooth, "Is this golden fellow giving you a hard time, boy? Do you need a friend?"

Saf spun on the man with a growl. The man backed away, hands raised, eyebrows raised, conceding defeat, and now it was Bitterblue grabbing on to Saf as Saf pushed after the man, Bitterblue grasping Saf's injured arm intentionally to cause him pain, to turn his fury back onto her, whom she knew he would not hurt, and away from everyone else in the room, whom she was less certain about.

"None of that," she said. "Let's go."

Saf was gasping. Tears brightened his eyes. She'd hurt him more than she'd meant to, but perhaps not more than she'd needed to; and anyway, it didn't matter, because they were leaving now, pushing through the people and scrambling out into the rain.

Outside, Saf ran, turned into an alleyway, and crouched low under the shelter of an awning. Bitterblue followed him and stood above him as he cradled his arm to his chest, swearing bloody murder.

"I'm sorry," she said, when he finally seemed to be switching from words to deep breaths.

"Sparks." A few more deep breaths. "What happened in there? I lost you. You weren't hearing a word I said."

"Teddy was right," she said. "It helped you to have me to look after. And I was right too. You needed someone to look after you." Then she heard her own words and shook her head to clear it. "I really am sorry, Saf—I was somewhere else. That story transported me."

"Well," Saf said, standing carefully. "I'll show you something that'll bring you back."

"You had time to steal something?"

"Sparks, it only takes a moment."

He pulled a gold disc from his coat pocket and held it under a guttering streetlamp. When he flicked the disc open, she took the edge of his hand, adjusting the angle so that she could see what she thought she saw: a large pocket watch with a face that had not twelve, but fifteen hours, and not sixty, but fifty minutes.

"Feel like explaining this to me?"

"Oh," he said, "it was one of Leck's games. He had an artist who was brilliant with small mechanics and liked to tinker with timepieces. Leck got her to make pocket watches that divided the half day into fifteen hours, but ran through them more quickly to make up the difference. Apparently, he liked to have all the people around him talking gibberish about the time, and believing their own gibberish. 'It's half past fourteen, Lord King. Would you like your lunch?' That sort of thing."

How creepy that this should sound familiar as he said it. Not a memory, not anything specific, just a feeling that she'd always known pocket watches like these but hadn't thought them worth considering for the past eight years. "He had a perverted sense of humor," she said.

"They're popular now, in certain circles. Worth a small fortune," Saf said quietly, "but considered to be stolen property. Leck compelled the woman to build them without compensating her. Then, presumably, he murdered her, as he did most of his artists, and hoarded the watches for himself. They made their way to the black market once he died. I'm recovering them for the woman's family."

"Do they keep good time?"

"Yes, but you need to work through some tricky arithmetic to figure out the real time."

"Yes," Bitterblue said. "I suppose you could convert everything into minutes. Twelve times sixty is seven hundred twenty, and fifteen times fifty is seven hundred fifty. So our seven-hundred-twenty-minute half day equals its seven-hundred-fifty-minute half day. Let's see . . . Right now, the watch reads a time of nearly twenty-five past two. That's one hundred twenty-five total minutes, which, divided by seven hundred fifty, should equal our time in minutes divided by seven hundred twenty . . . so, seven hundred twenty times one hundred twenty-five is . . . give me a moment . . . ninety thousand . . . divided by seven hundred fifty . . . is one hundred twenty . . . which means . . . well! The numbers are quite neat, aren't they? It's just about two o'clock. I should go home."

Saf had begun to chuckle partway through this litany. When, right on cue, a distant clock tower chimed twice, he burst into laughter.

"I, for one, would find it simpler to memorize which time signifies what," Bitterblue added.

"Naturally," Saf said, still chuckling.

"What's so funny?"

"I should know by now not to be surprised by anything you say or do, shouldn't I, Sparks?"

His voice had gone gentle somehow. Teasing. They stood close, heads bent together over the watch, her fingers still holding his hand. She understood something suddenly, not with her mind, but in the air that touched her throat and made her shiver when she looked up into his bruised face.

"Ah," she said. "Good night, Saf," then she slipped away.

11

NOTHING HAD HAPPENED. Still, the next day, she couldn't stop thinking about it. Astonishing, how much thought could be generated about nothing. Heat came upon her at the most inconvenient moments, so that she was certain everyone who looked into her eyes knew exactly what she was thinking about. It was a good thing, really, that the Council meeting was planned for that night. She needed to cool down before she went out again.

Katsa burst into her rooms far too early. "Po tells me you need sword practice," she said, then committed an outrage by pulling Bitterblue's sheets away.

"I don't even have a sword yet," Bitterblue moaned, trying to burrow back under. "They're making it."

"As if we'd be starting with anything but wooden swords. Come on! Get up! Think how satisfying it'll be to attack me with a sword."

Katsa rushed out again. For a moment, Bitterblue lay there, bemoaning all existence. Then she rolled up and out of bed, the plush red softness of the carpet swallowing her toes. Bitterblue's bedroom walls were upholstered with a fabric woven in exquisite patterns of scarlet, russet, silver, and gold. The ceiling was high, deep, and dark blue like in her sitting room, scattered with gold and scarlet stars. The tile of the bathing room shone gold through a doorway across from her. It was a room like a sunrise.

As she pulled off her shift, she caught her own reflection in the tall mirror. It stopped her. She stared at herself, suddenly thinking of two incongruous people: Danzhol, who had kissed her, and Saf.

I do not suit this dazzling room, she thought. My eyes are big and dull. My hair is heavy and my chin pointy. I'm so small that my husband won't be able to find me in the bed. And when he does, he'll discover that my breasts are uneven and I'm shaped like an eggplant.

She snorted, laughing at herself; then was suddenly close to tears, kneeling on the floor before the mirror, naked. My mother was so pretty.

Is an eggplant ever pretty?

Nothing came through the pith of her mind to answer that question.

She remembered every part of her body Danzhol had touched. How far removed his kiss had been from how she'd imagined kissing. She knew that wasn't how it was supposed to feel. She had seen Katsa and Po kissing, she'd stumbled upon them once in her own stables, one of them pushing the other against a tower of hay, and once at the end of a corridor late at night, where they'd been little more than dark shapes and glimmers of gold, making small noises, barely moving, oblivious. Plainly, they enjoyed it.

But Po and Katsa are so beautiful, Bitterblue thought. Of course they know the right way to do it.

She had an imagination, and she wasn't shy of her own body; she'd made discoveries. And she knew the mechanics of two people. Helda had explained it to her, and she was pretty sure her mother had too, a long time ago. But understanding want and understanding mechanics did not go far toward elucidating how you could invite someone else to see you, to touch you in that way.

She hoped that all the kisses of her life, and all the things beyond, would not be with lords who only wanted her money. How simple it would be if she really were a baker girl. Baker girls met kitchen boys, and no one was a lord after a queen's money, and maybe it didn't matter so much if you were plain.

She hugged herself.

Then she stood, ashamed of herself for dwelling on these things when there was so much else to worry about.

PRINCE RAFFIN, KING Randa's son and the heir to the Middluns throne, and his companion Bann were also at sword practice, not looking entirely awake.

"Lady Queen," Raffin said, bending down from great heights to place a kiss on Bitterblue's hand. "How are you?"

"I'm so glad you came," said Bitterblue. "Both of you."

"We are too," said Raffin. "Though I'm afraid we had no choice, Lady Queen. We were attacked by Nanderan enemies of the Council. Katsa convinced us we'd be safer joining her wherever she went." The yellow-haired prince then beamed down upon Bitterblue as if he hadn't a trouble in the world.

Bann, who took Bitterblue's other hand, was, like Raffin, a Council leader and medicine maker who radiated calm—a broad mountain of a man, with eyes like the gray sea. "Lady Queen," he said. "It's lovely to see you. I'm afraid they pulverized our workrooms."

"We'd spent almost a year on that nausea infusion," said Raffin grumpily. "Months of us heaving our guts up, all lost."

"I don't know, it sounds to me as if you were quite successful," said Katsa.

"It was meant to be an infusion for reducing nausea!" Raffin said. "Not inducing it. We were close, I'm sure of it."

"That last batch barely caused you to vomit at all," Bann said.

"Wait," Katsa said suspiciously. "Is this why you both vomited on me while I was rescuing you? You'd been guzzling down your own infusion? Why would anyone bother trying to kill you?" she said, throwing her hands in the air. "Why not just wait for you to kill yourselves? Here, take this," she said, shoving a wooden sword so hard against Raffin's chest that he coughed. "If I have anything to do about it, the next time someone comes across the world to kill you, you'll be ready."

Bitterblue had forgotten how good this could be: a project with straightforward, identifiable, and physical goals. An instructor whose confidence in one's ability was absolute—even when one caught one's sword in one's skirts, tripped, and fell on one's face.

"Skirts are an imbecilic invention," said Katsa, who always wore trousers and cut her hair short. Then she picked Bitterblue up and set her on her feet so quickly that Bitterblue was no longer certain she'd been lying on the floor in the first place. "I expect they were a man's idea. Don't you have any practice trousers?"

Bitterblue's single pair of practice trousers were also her midnight escape trousers and, as such, were currently muddy and soaking wet, drying as best they could on the floor of her dressing room, where she hoped Helda wouldn't find them. She supposed she could ask Helda for more trousers now, with these lessons as the excuse. "I thought I should practice in the clothing I was likely to be wearing when attacked," she improvised.

"That does make sense. Did you knock your head?" Katsa asked, smoothing Bitterblue's hair back.

"Yes," Bitterblue lied, to keep Katsa touching her.

"You're doing well," Katsa said. "You have quick instincts—you always have. Not like that nincompoop," she added, with a roll of her eyes at Raffin, who was sparring with Bann awkwardly at the other end of the practice room.

Raffin and Bann were far from evenly matched. Bann wasn't just bigger, he was faster and stronger. The cowering prince, who handled his own sword ponderously, as if it were an impediment, never seemed to see an attack coming, even if he'd been told exactly when to expect it.

"Raff," Katsa said, "your problem is that your heart's not in it. We need to find something to strengthen your defensive resolve. What if you pretended he's trying to smash your favorite medicinal plant?"

"The rare blue safflower," Bann suggested.

"Yes," Katsa said gamely, "pretend he's after your snaffler."

"Bann would never come after my rare blue safflower," Raffin said distinctly. "The very notion is absurd."

"Pretend he's not Bann. Pretend he's your father," Katsa said.

This did seem to have some effect, if not on Raffin's speed, then at least on his enthusiasm. Bitterblue focused on her own drills, soothed by the noises of productive work going on nearby, allowing herself to empty her mind. No memories, no questions, no Saf; only sword, sheath, speed, and air.

SHE WROTE A ciphered letter to Ror on the subject of remuneration and entrusted it to Thiel, who carried it gravely to his stand. It was hard to predict how long a letter would take to reach Ror City. It depended entirely on what ship carried it and on the weather. If conditions were ideal, she might look for a response in two months—the beginning of November.

In the meantime, something had to be done about Ivan in the east city. But Bitterblue couldn't claim to have learned of him through her spies as well, or her credibility would begin to wear thin. Perhaps if she were allowed to roam the castle every day, then she could reasonably pretend to have overheard conversations. She could claim a broader familiarity, with everything.

"Thiel," she said, "do you think I could have one task every day that took me out of this tower? If only for a few minutes?"

"Are you restless, Lady Queen?" asked Thiel gently.

Yes, and it was also that she was distracted and far away from here, in a rainy alleyway under a guttering lamp, with a boy. Embarrassed, she touched her flushing throat. "I am," she said. "And I don't want to fight every time. You must let me do more than shuffle paper, Thiel, or I'm going to go mad."

"It's a matter of finding the time, Lady Queen, as you know. But Rood says there's a murder trial in the High Court today," added Thiel benevolently, noting the disappointment on her face. "Why don't you go to that, and we'll look for something relevant for tomorrow?"

THE ACCUSED WAS a shaking man with a history of erratic behavior and an odor that Bitterblue pretended not to notice. He had stabbed a man to death, an utter stranger, in broad daylight, for no reason he was able to explain. He had just . . . felt like it. As he made no attempt to deny the charge, he was convicted unanimously.

"Are murderers always executed?" Bitterblue asked Quall to her right.

"Yes, Lady Queen."

Bitterblue watched the guards take the shaking man away, stunned at the brevity of the trial. So little time, so little explanation needed to condemn a man to death. "Wait," she said.

The guards to either side of the shaking man stopped, turning him around to face her again. She stared at the prisoner, whose eyes rolled in his head as he tried to look at her.

He was disgusting and he'd done a horrible thing. But did no one else feel in his gut that something was wrong here?

"Before this man is executed," she said, "I should like my healer Madlen to meet with him and determine whether he's in his right mind. I don't wish to execute a person incapable of rational thought. It's not fair. And at the very least, I insist on some greater attempt at finding his reason for doing something so senseless."

LATER THAT DAY, Runnemood and Thiel were carefully pleasant to her, but seemed to stiffen around each other, avoiding conversation between them. She wondered if they were having a row. Did her advisers have rows? She'd never witnessed one before.

"Lady Queen," said Rood near evening, when he and she were momentarily alone. Rood most certainly wasn't squabbling with anyone. He'd been walking around meekly, trying to avoid people altogether. "It pleases me that you're kind," he said.

Bitterblue was rendered speechless at this. She knew she wasn't kind. She was largely ignorant, she was trapped behind unknowable things, she was trapped behind things she knew but couldn't admit she knew, she was a liar—and what she wanted to be was useful, logical, helpful. If a situation presented itself in which the right and the wrong seemed clear to her, then she was going to grab on tight. The world presented too few anchors for her to let one pass.

She hoped that the Council meeting would be another anchor.

AT MIDNIGHT, BITTERBLUE slipped down stairways and through dim-lit corridors to Katsa's rooms. As Bitterblue approached Katsa's door, it opened and Po emerged. These were not Katsa's usual rooms. Normally Katsa took rooms abutting Po's, near to Bitterblue and all of her personal guests, but Po, for some reason, had arranged for Katsa to occupy south castle rooms this time and sent Bitterblue directions.

"Cousin," Po said. "Do you know about the secret staircase behind Katsa's bathing room?"

Moments later, Bitterblue watched in astonishment as Po and Katsa climbed into Katsa's bath. The bath itself was rather astonishing, lined with bright tiles decorated with colorful insects that looked so real that Bitterblue didn't think it could possibly be relaxing to bathe. Po reached down to the floor behind the bath and pressed on something. There was a clicking noise. Then a section of the marble wall behind the bath swung inward, revealing a small, low doorway.

"How did you find it?" asked Bitterblue.

"It leads up to the art gallery and down to the library," said Po. "I was in the library when I noticed it. That's where we're going."

"Is it a staircase?"

"Yes. A spiral."

I hate spiral staircases.

Still standing in the bath, Po held out his hand. "I'll be before you," he said, "and Katsa will be behind."

SEVERAL COBWEBBY, DUSTY, sneezy minutes later, Bitterblue crawled through a small door in a wall, pushed a hanging aside, and stepped into the royal library. It was a back alcove somewhere. The bookcases, dark, thick wood, were tall as trees and had the musty, living, moldering smell of a forest. The copper, brown, and orange books were like leaves; the ceilings were high and blue.

Bitterblue turned in circles. It was the first time she'd been in the library for as long as she could recall, and it was exactly how she remembered it.

12

AN ODD LITTLE assortment of castle people were present for the meeting. Helda, of course, which didn't surprise her; but also Ornik the swordsmith, young and earnest-looking when not smeared with soot; an older woman with a weathered face, named Dyan, who was introduced to Bitterblue as her head gardener; and Anna, a tall woman with short, dark hair and strong, striking features, who was apparently the head baker in the kitchens. In my imaginary world, thought Bitterblue, she is my employer.

Finally, and most surprisingly, one of the judges on her High Court was here. "Lord Piper," Bitterblue said calmly. "I didn't know you had a yen for overturning monarchies."

"Lady Queen," he responded, mopping his bald pate with a handkerchief, swallowing uncomfortably, and looking for all the world as if the presence of a talking horse at the meeting would have been less alarming than the presence of the queen. Indeed, all four castle people seemed a bit taken aback at her presence.

"Some of you are surprised that Queen Bitterblue is joining us," Po said to the group. "You'll understand that the Council is composed of her family and friends. This is our first time holding a meeting in Monsea and inviting Monseans. We don't require the queen to involve herself in our dealings, but we are, of course, unlikely to operate at her court without her knowledge or permission."

These words seemed to mollify not a single person in the group.

Scratching his head, beginning to grin, Po put an arm around Bitterblue and cocked a significant eyebrow at Giddon. While Giddon led everyone through a row of bookshelves and into a dark corner, Po spoke quietly into Bitterblue's ear. "The Council is an organization of lawbreakers, Bitterblue, and you are the law to these Monseans. They've all snuck here tonight, then come face-to-face with their queen. It'll take them a little while to adjust to you."

"I understand completely," said Bitterblue blandly.

Po snorted. "Yes. Well, stop making Piper nervous on purpose just because you don't like him."

The carpet here was thick, shaggy, green. When Giddon sat directly on the floor and motioned for Bitterblue to do the same, the others, with a moment's hesitation, formed a loose circle and began to sit as well. Even Helda plunked herself down, pulled knitting needles and yarn from a pocket, and set to work.

"Let's start with the basics," Giddon began without preamble. "Whereas the overthrow of Drowden in Nander began with the dissatisfaction of the nobility, in Estill, what we're looking at is a popular revolution. The people are starving. They're the world's most overtaxed, by King Thigpen and by their lords. Lucky for the rebels, our success with army deserters in Nander has frightened Thigpen. He's tightened the screws on his own soldiers, severely, and an unhappy army is something rebels can work with. I believe, and Po agrees, that there are enough desperate people in Estill—and enough thoughtful, meticulous people—for something to come of this."

"What frightens me is that they don't know what they want," said Katsa. "In Nander, we essentially kidnapped the king for them, then a coalition of nobles that they'd chosen beforehand slipped into place—"

"It was a thousand times messier than that," said Giddon.

"I know that. My point is that powerful people had a plan," said Katsa. "In Estill, people with no power whatsoever know that they don't want King Thigpen, but what do they want? Thigpen's son? Or some kind of massive change? A republic? How? They've got nothing in place, no structure to take over once Thigpen is gone. If they're not careful, King Murgon will move in from Sunder and we'll be calling Estill East Sunder. And Murgon will become twice the bully he is now. Doesn't that terrify you?"

"Yes," Giddon said coldly. "Which is why I vote that we answer their call for our help. Do you agree?"

"Completely," Katsa said, glowering.

"Isn't it lovely to be all together again?" Raffin said, throwing one arm around Po and the other around Bann. "My vote is yes."

"As is mine," said Bann, smiling.

"And mine," said Po.

"Your face will freeze like that, you know, Kat," Raffin said helpfully to Katsa.

"Maybe I should rearrange your face, Raff," said Katsa.

"I should like smaller ears," Raffin offered.

"Prince Raffin has nice, handsome ears," Helda said, not looking up from her knitting. "As will his children. Your children will have no ears at all, My Lady," she said sternly to Katsa.

Katsa stared back at her, flabbergasted.

"I believe it's more that her ears won't have children," began Raffin, "which, you'll agree, sounds much less—"

"Very good," Giddon interrupted, loudly, though perhaps no more so than circumstances warranted. "In the absence of Oll, it's unanimous. The Council will involve itself in the Estillan people's overthrow of their king."

IT WAS, FOR Bitterblue, a statement that required some time to absorb. The others moved on to the whos, whens, and hows, but Bitterblue wasn't one of the people who was going to carry a sword into Estill, or tip King Thigpen merrily into a sack, or however they decided to do it. Thinking that perhaps Ornik the smith, Dyan the gardener, Anna the baker, and Piper the judge would be less shy with their input were she not part of the circle, she pushed herself to her feet. Waving away their hasty attempts to rise, she wandered into the bookshelves, toward the tapestry that hung over the opening she'd come through. She noticed, absentmindedly, that the woman in the hanging, dressed in white furs and surrounded by stark white forest, had eyes green as moss and hair bright and wild, like a sunset or like fire. She was too vivid, too strange to be human. Yet another odd decorative object of Leck's.

Bitterblue needed to think.

A monarch was responsible for the welfare of the people he ruled. If he hurt them deliberately, he should lose the privilege of sovereignty. But what of the monarch who hurt people, but not deliberately? Hurt them by not helping them. Not fixing their buildings. Not returning their losses. Not standing beside them as they grieved for their children. Not hesitating to send the mad or the troubled to be executed.

I know one thing, she thought, staring into the sad eyes of the woman in the hanging. I would not like to be deposed. It would hurt like being skinned, or like being torn into pieces.

And yet, what am I as a queen? My mother said I was strong and brave enough for this. But I'm not, I'm useless. Mama? What happened to us? How can this be, that you're dead and I'm queen of a kingdom I can't even touch?

There was a marble sculpture here, set on the floor with the hanging as its backdrop. A child, five or six, perhaps, whose skirts were metamorphosing into rows of brick, for the child was turning into a castle. Clearly, this was the work of the same sculptor whose woman-turned-mountain-lion was in the back garden. One of the child's arms, reaching up to the sky, shifted form at the elbow and became a tower. On the flat roof of the tower, where her fingers should have been, stood five tiny, finger-sized guards: four with arrows drawn and notched, one with a sword at the ready. All aiming upward, as if some threat came from above, from the sky. Perfect in form and absolutely fierce.

The voices of her friends came to her in snatches. Katsa said something about the length of time it took to travel north through the mountain pass to Estill from here. Days and days; weeks. An argument began about which kingdom would make the best base for an operation in Estill.

Half listening, half observing the castle child, Bitterblue was overtaken suddenly by a most peculiar sense of recognition. It crawled up the base of her spine. She knew the stubborn mouth and the small, pointy chin of the sculpture child; she knew those big, calm eyes. She was looking into her own face.

It was a statue of herself.

Bitterblue tottered backward. The end of a bookshelf stopped her and held her up as she stared at the girl who seemed to stare back at her; the girl who was her.

"A tunnel connects Monsea and Estill," a voice said. Piper, the judge. "It's a secret passage under the mountains. Narrow and unpleasant, but passable. The journey from here to Estill by that route is a matter of days, depending on how hard you like to push your horse."

"What!" Katsa exclaimed. "I can't believe it. Can you believe it? I can't believe it!"

"We've established that Katsa can't believe it," said Raffin.

"I can't believe it either," said Giddon. "How many times have I crossed those mountains at the pass?"

"I assure you, it exists, My Lady, My Lord," said Piper. "My estate is at Monsea's northwesternmost point. The tunnel begins on my land. We used it to smuggle Gracelings out of Monsea during King Leck's reign, and now we use it to smuggle Estillan Gracelings in."

"This is going to change our lives," said Katsa.

"If the Council based itself in Monsea during the initial planning," Piper said, "Estillans could come to you swiftly through the tunnel, and you to them. You could smuggle weapons north to them, and any other supplies they needed."

"Except that we're not going to base ourselves in Monsea," said Po. "We're not going to make Bitterblue into a target for every angry king's vengeance. She's enough of a target already; we still haven't determined whom Danzhol was planning to ransom her to. And what if one of the kings decides to be less subtle than that? What's to stop one of them from declaring war on Monsea?"

The sculpture-Bitterblue looked so defiant. The little soldiers on her palm were ready to defend her with their lives. Bitterblue was amazed that a sculptor had been able to imagine her that way once: so strong and certain, so steady on the earth. She knew she wasn't those things.

She also knew what would happen if her friends chose to base their operation someplace other than Monsea. Walking back to the group, waving them down again when they all moved to rise, she said quietly, "You must use my city as your base."

"Hm," Po said. "I don't think so."

"I'm only offering it as a temporary base as you get yourselves organized," Bitterblue said. "I will not provide you with soldiers, nor will I allow you to employ Monsea's craftworkers to make any arms you need." Perhaps, she thought to Po alone, calculating, I'll write to your father. There are two ways for an army to invade Monsea: the mountain pass, which is easy to defend, and the sea. Lienid is the only kingdom with a proper navy. Do you think Ror would bring part of his fleet along this winter? I should like to see it. I think sometimes about building my own, and his will look very nice and threatening sitting in my harbor.

Po rubbed his head vigorously at this. He even let out a small moan. "We understand, Bitterblue, and we're grateful," he said. "But some angry friends of Drowden crossed into the Middluns to kill Bann and Raffin in reparation for what we did in Nander, you do realize that? Estillans could just as easily cross into Monsea—"

"Yes," she said. "I know. I heard what you said about war, and about Danzhol."

"It isn't just Danzhol," Po snapped. "There may well be others. I won't risk involving you in this."

"I'm already involved," said Bitterblue. "My problems are already your problems. My family is your family."

Po was still clutching his head worriedly. "You're not invited to any more meetings."

"That's fine," she said. "It will look better if I'm not seen to be in on the planning."

The circle considered Bitterblue's words in silence. The four Monseans who worked in the castle seemed rather startled. Helda, stopping her knitting, peered upon Bitterblue with gratified approval.

"Well then," Katsa said. "Of course, we'll operate with the greatest possible secrecy, Bitterblue. And for what it's worth, we'll deny your involvement to our dying breaths, and I'll kill anyone who doesn't."

Bann began to laugh into Raffin's shoulder. Smiling, Raffin said sideways to him, "Can you imagine what it would be like to be able to say that and mean it?"

Bitterblue didn't smile. She may have impressed them with fine words and sentiments, but her true reason for offering her city as their base was that she didn't want them to leave. She wanted them near, even if they were subsumed by their own affairs, she needed them at sword practice in the morning, at dinner at night, moving and shifting around her, there and gone, back again, arguing, teasing, acting like people who knew who they were. They understood the world and how to mold it. If she could keep them near, maybe one day she'd wake up and discover that she'd become strong that way too.

ONE MORE UNSETTLING thing happened before Bitterblue left the library that night. It involved a book she found by accident, while returning to the secret passage. An awkward shape, square and flat, it protruded from a shelf, or perhaps a lantern caught the gleam of its cover; either way, when her eyes lit upon it, she knew, instantly, that she'd seen it before. That book, with the same scratch through the gold filigree on its spine, had used to sit on the bookshelves in her blue sitting room, back when that sitting room had been her mother's.

Bitterblue pulled the book down. The title on the cover, gold printing on leather, said Book of True Things. Opening it to the first page, she found herself looking at a simple but beautifully rendered drawing of a knife. Underneath the knife, someone had written the word Medicine. Turning the page, memory came to her like a dream, like sleepwalking, so that she knew what she would find: a drawing of a collection of sculptures on pedestals, and underneath, the word Art. On the next page, a drawing of Winged Bridge and the word Architecture. Next, a drawing of a strange, green, clawed, furry creature, a kind of bear, and the word Monster. Next, a person—a corpse? Its eyes were open, painted two different colors, but something was wrong with this person, its face was stiff and frozen—and the word underneath was Graceling. Finally, a drawing of a handsome man with an eye patch and the word Father.

She remembered an artist bringing this book of pictures to her father. She remembered her father sitting at the table in the sitting room and writing the words in himself, then bringing it to her and helping her read it.

Bitterblue shoved the book back onto the shelf, suddenly furious. This book, this memory did not help her. She didn't need more bizarre things to make sense of.

But she couldn't leave it here either, not really. It called itself Book of True Things. True things were what she wanted to know, and this book that she didn't understand had to be a clue to the truth about something.

Bitterblue reached for the book again. When she returned to her bedroom, she laid it on the table by her bed and stuck her list of puzzle pieces inside.

13

IN THE MORNING, Bitterblue pulled her list out of the book and read it again. There were some pieces she'd answered and others that remained unsolved.

Teddy's words. Who are my "first men"? What did he mean by cutting and stitching? Am I in danger? Whose prey am I?

Danzhol's words. What did he SEE? What was he trying to say?

Darby's records. Was he lying to me about the gargoyles never having been there?

General mysteries. Who attacked Teddy?

Things I've seen with my own eyes. Why is the east city falling apart but decorated anyway? Why was Leck so peculiar about decorating the castle?

What did Leck DO? Tortured pets. Made people disappear. Cut. Burned printing shops. (Built bridges. Did castle renovations.) Honestly, how can I know how to rule my kingdom when I have no idea what happened in Leck's time? How can I understand what my people need? How can I find out more? In the story rooms?

She stopped on this part. Last night, her friends' meeting had brought her to what was, essentially, the kingdom's biggest story room. What if there were more books like the Book of True Things she'd found, but that she could make sense of? Books that could touch her memory and fill in some of these great gaps of meaning? Could she learn more about what Leck had done? If she knew what he'd done and why, mightn't it be easier to understand some of the things people were doing now?

She added to her list two questions: Why are there so many missing pieces everywhere? Will the library hold any answers?

When Katsa dragged her out of bed for sword practice, Bitterblue found that she'd dragged not just Raffin and Bann, but Giddon and Po along as well. The lot of them waited in Bitterblue's sitting room, picking at her breakfast while she dressed. Giddon, muddy and rumpled in last night's clothing, showed every sign of having been out all night. Collapsing on her sofa, he actually fell asleep for a moment.

Raffin and Bann stood together, propped against the wall and against each other, half dozing. At one point, Raffin, not knowing he had one small, curious witness, gave Bann a sleepy kiss on the ear.

Bitterblue had wondered that about them. It was nice when something in the world became clear. Especially when it was a nice thing.

"THIEL," SHE SAID in her office later that morning. "Do you remember that mad engineer with the watermelons?"

"You mean Ivan, Lady Queen?" said Thiel.

"Yes, Ivan. When I was walking back from that murder trial yesterday, Thiel, I overheard a conversation that concerned me. Apparently, Ivan is in charge of the renovation of the east city and is doing a mad, useless job of it. Could we have someone look into that? It sounds as if there's actual danger of buildings collapsing and so on."

"Oh," said Thiel, then sat down randomly, rubbing his forehead in an absent manner.

"Are you all right, Thiel?"

"Forgive me, Lady Queen," he said. "I'm perfectly all right. This Ivan business is a dreadful oversight on our part. We'll see to it immediately."

"Thank you," she said, looking at him doubtfully. "And will I be going to another High Court case today? Or will it be some new adventure?"

"There's not much of interest in the High Court today, Lady Queen. Let me see what other extra-office task I can rustle up."

"That's all right, Thiel."

"Oh? Have you lost your wanderlust, Lady Queen?" he asked hopefully.

"No," she said, rising. "I'm going to the library."

WHEN APPROACHING THE library in the usual manner, one walked into the north vestibule of the great courtyard, then stepped straight through the library doors. The first room, Bitterblue discovered, had ladders that ran on tracks and led to balconied mezzanines connected by bridges. Everywhere, tall bookshelves cut into the window glare like dark tree trunks. Dust hung suspended in shafts of light from the high windows. As she had the night before, Bitterblue turned in circles, sensing the familiarity and trying to remember.

Why had it been so long since she'd come here? When had she stopped reading, aside from the charters and reports that crossed her desk? When she'd become queen, and her advisers had taken over her education?

She walked past Death's desk, covered with papers and one sleeping cat, the skinniest, most wretched creature Bitterblue had ever seen. It lifted its hoary head and hissed at her as she passed. "I expect you and Death get along quite well," she said to it.

Arbitrary steps, one or two here or there, seemed to be part of the library's design. The farther she advanced into the library, the more steps she descended or climbed. The farther into the shelves, the darker and mustier her landscape, until she needed to backtrack and remove a lantern from a wall to light her way. Entering a nook lit by dim lamps stretching from the walls on long arms, she reached up and traced a carving in the wooden end of a bookcase. Then she realized that the carving was a curiously shaped set of letters that spelled out large, floppy words: Stories and Explorations, Monsea's East.

"Lady Queen?" said a voice behind her.

She had been thinking of the story rooms, of tales of strange creatures in the mountains. The sneer of her librarian dragged her unceremoniously back into reality. "Death," she said.

"May I help you find anything, Lady Queen?" Death asked with an attitude of palpable unhelpfulness.

Bitterblue studied Death's face, his green and purple eyes that glinted with antagonism. "I found a book here," she said, "recently, that I remember reading as a child."

"That couldn't surprise me less, Lady Queen. Your father and mother both encouraged your presence in the libraries."

"Did they? Death, have you been the caretaker of this library all my life?"

"Lady Queen, I have been the caretaker of this library for fifty years."

"Are there books here that tell about the time of Leck's rule?"

"Not a one," he said. "Leck kept no records that I know of."

"All right, then," she said. "Let's focus on the last eighteen years. How old was I when I used to come here?"

Death sniffed. "As young as three, Lady Queen."

"And what kind of books did I read?"

"Your father directed your studies for the most part, Lady Queen. He presented you with books of every kind. Stories he himself wrote; stories by others; the journals of Monsean explorers; the written appreciation of Monsean art. Some, he wanted you to read most particularly. I would go to great lengths to find them, or him to write them."

His words flickered like lights just out of her grasp. "Death," she said, "do you recall which books I read?"

He had begun to dust the volumes on the shelf before him with a handkerchief. "Lady Queen," he said, "I can list them in the order in which you read them, and then I can recite their contents to you, one after the other, word for word."

"No," Bitterblue said, deciding. "I want to read them myself. Bring the ones he most particularly wanted me to read, Death, in the order he gave me them."

Perhaps she could find missing pieces by starting with herself.

IN THE NEXT few days, reading whenever she could, staying in at night and stealing time from her sleep, Bitterblue worked her way fast through a number of books in which pictures outnumbered words. Lots of them, as she reread them, climbed into her and spread to her edges in a way that felt obscurely familiar, as if they were comfortable inside her, as if they remembered being there before; and when this happened, she kept the book in her sitting room for the time being, rather than returning it to the library. Very few of them were as obscure as the Book of True Things. Most were educational. One described, in simple words, on thick, cream colored pages, each of the seven kingdoms. It had a page with a colored illustration of a Lienid ship cresting a wave, from the up-high perspective of a sailor in the riggings—every sailor on the deck below with rings on each hand and studs in each ear, painted with the world's tiniest brush, the paint burnished with real gold. Bitterblue could remember having read it, over and over, and having loved it, as a child.

Unless it was her own journey on a Lienid ship, fleeing Leck, that touched something comfortable inside her? How frustrating to feel a familiarity yet not be able to trace the feeling back to why. Did this happen to everyone, or was it one of Leck's special bequests? Bitterblue squinted at the empty shelves lining the walls of this room, certain too that when these rooms had been her mother's, the shelves had not been empty. What books had her mother kept on these shelves, and where were they now?

The library became Bitterblue's default extra-office destination every day for a week, for Rood had no interesting High Court cases to offer and she didn't feel like inspecting the drains with Runnemood, or seeing the rooms where Darby filed paperwork, or whatever other task Thiel suggested.

She walked into the library on the fourth day to find the cat guarding the entrance. It bared its teeth at the sight of her, its hair standing in a ridge on its back, its ragged coat a mix of blotches and stripes that seemed to sit wrong, somehow, on its body. As if it were wearing a coat that was the wrong shape for it.

"It's my library, you know," Bitterblue said, stamping her foot. The cat shot away in alarm.

"Nice cat you have," she said to Death when she reached his desk.

Death extended a book toward her, dangled between two fingers as if it smelled.

"What is that?" asked Bitterblue.

"The next volume in your rereading project, Lady Queen," Death said. "Stories written by your father the king."

After the briefest hesitation, she took the book from him. Leaving the library, she found herself carrying it in the same manner, some distance from her body, then placing it at the farthest edge of her sitting room table.

She could only absorb it in small portions. It gave her nightmares, such that she stopped reading it in bed or keeping it at her bedside, as she was wont to do with the other books. His handwriting, with its large, slightly off-kilter letters, was so organically familiar that she had dreams that every word she'd ever read had been written in that handwriting. Dreams too of the veins of her own body standing blue under her skin, turning and looping into that handwriting. But then she had another dream: Leck big like a wall bent over his pages, writing all the time in letters that wound and dipped and, when she tried to read them, weren't actually letters at all. That dream was more than a dream: It was a memory. Bitterblue had thrown her father's strange scribbles into the fire once.

The stories in the book included the usual nonsense: colorful, flying monsters that tore each other apart. Colorful caged monsters that screamed for blood. But he'd written true stories too. He'd written down stories of Katsa! Of broken necks, broken arms, chopped-off fingers; of the cousin Katsa had killed by accident when she was a child. He'd written them with transparent awe for what Katsa could do. It made Bitterblue shudder to feel his reverence for things Katsa was so ashamed of.

One of his stories was about a woman with impossible red, gold, and pink hair who controlled people with her venomous mind, living her life forever alone because her power was so hateful. Bitterblue knew this could only be the woman in the hanging in the library, the woman in white. But that woman had no venom in her eyes; that woman wasn't hateful. It calmed Bitterblue to stand before the hanging and gaze at her. Either Leck had described her wrong to the artist or the artist had changed her on purpose.

When she lay down at night to sleep, sometimes Bitterblue would comfort herself with that other dream she'd had, the night she'd slept in Teddy and Saf's apartment, about being a baby in her mother's arms.

A WEEK OF reading went by before she went out into the city again. Bitterblue had been trying to use the reading to get Saf out of her mind. It hadn't really worked. There was something Bitterblue was undecided about, something vaguely alarming, though she wasn't sure what it was.

When she finally returned to the shop, it wasn't because she'd decided anything; she just couldn't help herself any longer. Staying inside night after night was claustrophobic, she didn't like being out of touch with the night streets, and anyway, she missed Teddy.

Tilda was working at the press when she arrived. Saf was out, which was a tiny dart of disappointment. In the back room, Bren helped Teddy drink from a bowl of broth. He smiled beatifically at Bren when she caught the dribbles on his chin with a spoon, causing Bitterblue to wonder what feelings Teddy had for Saf's sister, and whether Bren returned them.

Bren was gentle, but firm, with Teddy's dinner. "You will eat it," she said flatly when Teddy began to shift and sigh and ignore the spoon. "You need to shave," she said next. "Your beard makes you look like a cadaver." Not particularly romantic words, but they brought a grin to Teddy's face. Bren smiled too, and, rising, kissed his forehead. Then she went to join Tilda in the shop, leaving them alone.

"Teddy," Bitterblue said to him, "you told me before that you were writing a book of words and a book of truths. I would like to read your book of truths."

Teddy grinned again. "Truths are dangerous," he said.

"Then why are you writing them in a book?"

"To catch them between the pages," said Teddy, "and trap them before they disappear."

"If they're dangerous, why not let them disappear?"

"Because when truths disappear, they leave behind blank spaces, and that is also dangerous."

"You're too poetic for me, Teddy," said Bitterblue, sighing.

"I'll give you a plainer answer," said Teddy. "I can't let you read my book of truths because I haven't written it yet. It's all in my head."

"Will you at least tell me what kind of truths it's going to be about? Is it truths of what Leck did? Do you know what he did with all the people he stole?"

"Sparks," said Teddy, "I think those people are the only ones who know, don't you? And they're gone."

Voices rose in the shop. The door opened, filling the room with light, and Saf stepped in. "Oh, wonderful," he said, glaring at the bedside tableau. "Has she been feeding you drugs, then asking you questions?"

"I did bring drugs, for you, actually," said Bitterblue, reaching into her pocket. "For your pain."

"Or as a bribe?" Saf said, disappearing into the small closet that served as a pantry. "I'm ravenous," came his voice, followed by a considerable clatter.

A moment later, he popped his head out and said with utter sincerity, "Sparks, thank Madlen, all right? And tell her she needs to start charging us. We can pay."

Bitterblue put her finger to her lips. Teddy was asleep.

LATER, BITTERBLUE SAT with Saf at the table while he spread cheese on bread. "Let me do that," she said, noticing his gritted teeth.

"I can manage," he said.

"So can I," Bitterblue said, "and it doesn't hurt me." In addition to which, it gave her something to do with her hands, something to occupy her attention. She liked Saf too much as he sat there bruised and chewing; she liked being in this room too much, both trusting and not trusting him, both prepared to tell him lies and prepared to tell him the truth. None of what she was feeling was wise.

She said, "I'd very much like to know what Tilda and Bren are printing in there every night that I'm not allowed to see."

He held a hand out to her.

"What?" she asked, suspicious.

"Give me your hand."

"Why should I?"

"Sparks," he said, "what do you think? I'm going to bite you?"

His hand was broad and calloused, like every sailor's hand she'd ever seen. He wore a ring on every finger—not fine, heavy rings like Po's, not a prince's rings, but true Lienid gold nonetheless, just like the studs in his ears. The Lienid didn't skimp on those things. He'd extended his injured arm, which had to be aching, waiting like that.

She gave him her hand. He took it in both of his and set to inspecting it with great deliberation, tracing each finger with the tips of his, examining her knuckles, her nails. He lowered his freck led face to her palm and she felt herself held between the heat of his breath and the heat of his skin. She no longer wanted him to give her hand back—but, now he straightened and let her go.

Somehow, she managed to inject sarcasm into her question. "What's wrong with you?"

He grinned. "You've got ink under your fingernails, baker girl," he said, "not flour. Your hand smells like ink. It's too bad," he said. "If your hand smelled like flour, I was going to tell you what we're printing."

Bitterblue snorted. "Your lies aren't usually so obvious."

"Sparks, I don't lie to you."

"Oh? You were never going to tell me what you're printing."

He grinned. "And your hand was never going to smell like flour."

"Of course not, when I made the bread some twenty hours ago!"

"What are the ingredients of bread, Sparks?"

"What is your Grace?" Bitterblue countered.

"Oh, now you're just hurting my feelings," said Saf, not looking remotely hurt about anything. "I've said it before and I'll say it again: I do not tell you lies."

"That doesn't mean you tell the truth."

Saf leaned back comfortably, smiling, cradling his injured forearm and chewing on more bread. "Why don't you tell me who you work for?"

"Why don't you tell me who attacked Teddy?"

"Tell me who you work for, Sparks."

"Saf," Bitterblue said, beginning to be sad and frustrated about all the lies and wanting very much, suddenly, to get past his willfulness that was keeping her questions from being answered. "I work for myself. I work alone, Saf, I deal in knowledge and truth and I have contacts and power. I don't trust you, but it doesn't matter; I don't believe that anything you're doing could make us enemies. I want your knowledge. Share what you know with me and I'll help you. We could be a team."

"If you think I'm going to jump at a vague offer like that, I'm insulted."

"I'll bring you proof," Bitterblue said, with no idea what she meant by it, but certain, desperately, that she would figure it out. "I'll prove to you that I can help you. I've helped you before, haven't I?"

"I don't believe you work alone," Saf said, "but I'm corked if I can place who you work for. Is your mother part of this? Does she know you come out at nights?"

Bitterblue thought about how to answer that. Finally, she said in a sort of a hopeless voice, "If she knew, I'm not sure what she would think."

Sapphire considered her for a moment, the purples of his eyes soft and clear. She considered him in return, then looked away, wishing she weren't so conscious of certain people sometimes, people who were more alive to her, somehow, more breathing, more invigorating, than other people. "Do you suppose that if you bring proof that we can trust you," Saf said, "you and I will start having conversations that move in straight lines?"

Bitterblue smiled.

Grabbing another handful of food, shooting to his feet, Saf cocked his head at the shop door. "I'll walk you home."

"There's no need."

"Think of it as my payment for the medicines, Sparks," he said, bouncing on his heels. "I'll deliver you safely to your mother."

His energy, and his words, too often, brought to mind things she wanted and couldn't have. She had nothing left to argue with.

IT WAS A great relief to leave Leck's stories behind and move on to the journals of Grella, the ancient Monsean explorer. The volume she was reading was called Grella's Harrowing Journey to the Source of the XXXXXX, and the name of the river, clearly the Dell by context, was obliterated every time it appeared. Odd.

She entered the library one day in mid-September to find Death scribbling at his desk, the cat glaring at his elbow. As Bitterblue stopped before them, Death pushed something toward her without looking up.

"The next book?" she asked.

"What else would it be, Lady Queen?"

The reason she'd asked was that the volume appeared to be not a book but a stack of papers, wrapped in a length of rough leather, tied shut. Now she read the card secured under its leather tie: The Book of Ciphers.

"Oh!" Bitterblue said, the hairs of her body suddenly standing on end. "I remember that book. Did my father really give it to me?"

"No, Lady Queen," said Death. "I thought you might like to read a volume your mother chose for you."

"Yes!" Bitterblue said, unfastening the ties. "I remember that I read this with my mother. 'It will keep our minds sharp,' she said. But—" Bitterblue flipped through the loose, handwritten pages, confused. "This is not the book we read. That book had a dark cover and was typeset. What is this? I don't know the handwriting."

"It is my handwriting, Lady Queen," said Death, not looking up from his work.

"Why? Are you the author?"

"No."

"Then why—"

"I have been rewriting, by hand, the books King Leck burned, Lady Queen."

Something tightened in Bitterblue's throat. "Leck burned books?"

"Yes, Lady Queen."

"From this library?"

"Yes, and other libraries, Lady Queen, and private collections. Once he'd decided to destroy a book, he sought out every copy."

"What books?"

"A variety. Books on history, the philosophy of monarchy, medicine—"

"He burned books about medicine?"

"A select few, Lady Queen. And books on Monsean tradition—"

"Such as burying the dead instead of burning."

Death managed to combine his nod with a frown, thus maintaining, in agreement, the appropriate level of disagreeableness. "Yes, Lady Queen."

"And books on ciphers that I read with my mother."

"It would seem so, Lady Queen."

"How many books?"

"How many books what, Lady Queen?"

"How many books did he destroy!"

"Four thousand thirty-one unique titles, Lady Queen," Death said crisply. "Tens of thousands of individual volumes."

"Skies," Bitterblue said, breathless. "And how many have you managed to rewrite?"

"Two hundred forty-five titles, Lady Queen," he said, "over the past eight years."

245, out of 4,031? She calculated: just over six percent; some thirty books a year. It meant that Death took an entire book down by hand, more than an entire book, every two weeks, which was a mammoth feat, but it was absurd; he needed help. He needed a row of printers at nine or ten presses. He needed to recite ten different books at once, feeding each typesetter one page at a time. Or, one sentence? How fast could a setter lay down type? How fast could someone like Bren or Tilda print multiple copies and move to the next page? And—oh, this was dreadful. What if Death took ill? What if he died? There were . . . 3,786 books that existed nowhere, no place but in the Graceling mind of this man. Was he getting enough sleep? Did he eat well? How old was he? At this rate, it was a project that would take him . . . over 120 years!

Death was speaking again. With effort, she pulled her thoughts back. "In addition to the books King Leck obliterated," he was saying, "he also forced me to alter one thousand four hundred forty-five titles, Lady Queen, removing or replacing words, sentences, passages he considered objectionable. The rectification of such errors waits until I've completed my current, more urgent project."

"Of course," Bitterblue said, barely hearing, progressing unstoppably to the conviction that no books in the kingdom were more important for her to read right now than the 245 that Death had rewritten, 245 books that had offended Leck so deeply that he'd destroyed them. It could only be because they'd contained the truth, about something. About anything; it didn't matter. She needed to read them.

"Grella's Harrowing Journey to the Source of the River XXXXXX," she added, suddenly realizing. "Leck forced you to cross out the word Dell throughout."

"No, Lady Queen. He forced me to cross out the word Silver."

"Silver? But the book is about the River Dell. I recognize the geography."

"The true name of the River Dell is the River Silver, Lady Queen," Death said.

Bitterblue stared at him, not comprehending. "But, everyone calls it the Dell!"

"Yes," he said. "Thanks to Leck, almost everyone does. They are wrong."

She leaned both hands against the desk, too overwhelmed, suddenly, to stand without support. "Death," she said with her eyes closed.

"Yes, Lady Queen?" he asked impatiently.

"Are you familiar with the library alcove that has a hanging of a red-haired woman and a sculpture of a child turning into a castle?"

"Of course, Lady Queen."

"I want a table moved into that alcove, and I want you to pile all the volumes you've rewritten on that table. I wish to read them and I wish that to be my workspace."

Bitterblue left the library, holding the cipher manuscript tight to her chest as if it might not actually be real. As if, if she stopped pressing it to herself, it might disappear.

14

THERE WAS LITTLE information in The Book of Ciphers that Bitterblue didn't already know. She wasn't sure if this was because she remembered it from reading it before or simply because ciphers, of various kinds, were part of her daily life. Her personal correspondence with Ror, Skye, with her Council friends, even with Helda was routinely ciphered. She had a mind for it.

The Book of Ciphers seemed to be a history of ciphers through time, beginning with the Sunderan king's secretary, centuries ago, who'd noticed one day that the unique designs in the molding along the wall of his office numbered twenty-eight, as did the letters in the alphabet at that time. This led to the world's first simple substitution cipher, one design assigned to each letter of the alphabet—and worked successfully for only as long as it took someone to notice the way the king's secretary stared at the walls while writing. Next came the notion of a scrambled alphabet that substituted for the real alphabet, and which required a key for decipherment. This was the method Bitterblue used with Helda. Take the key SALTED CARAMEL. First, one removed any repeating letters from the key, which left S A L T E D C R M. Then, one continued forward with the known twenty-six-letter alphabet from the place where the key left off, skipping any letters that had already been used, starting again at A once one had reached Z. The resulting alphabet, S A L T E D C R M N O P Q U V W X Y Z B F G H I J K, became the alphabet for use in writing the ciphered message, like so—

—such that the secret missive "A letter has arrived from Lady Katsa," became "S P E B B E Y R S Z S Y Y M G E T D Y V Q P S T J O S B Z S."

Bitterblue's ciphers with Ror began with a similar premise but operated on a number of levels simultaneously, several different alphabets in use in the course of one message, the total number in use and the order in which they were used depending on a changing series of keys. Communicating these keys to Bitterblue in a subtle manner only she would understand was one of the jobs of Skye's own ciphered letters.

Bitterblue was astonished—utterly—at Death's Grace. She supposed she'd never quite considered before what Death could do. Now she held it in her hands: the regeneration of a book that introduced some ten or twelve different kinds of ciphers, presenting examples of each, some of which were dreadfully complicated in execution, most of which looked to the reader like nothing more than a senseless string of random letters. Does he understand everything he reads? Or is it just the look of the thing he remembers—the symbols, and how they sit on the page in relation to each other?

There seemed to be little in this rewritten book worth study ing. And still, she read every line, letting each one linger, trying to resurrect the memory of sitting before the fire with Ashen, reading this book.

WHEN SHE COULD make the time, Bitterblue continued her nightly excursions. By mid-September Teddy was doing better, sitting up, even moving from room to room, with help. One night, when nothing was being printed, Teddy let Bitterblue come into the shop and taught her how to set type. The tiny letter molds were awkward to manage.

"You pick it up quickly," Teddy mused as she fought with an i that would not land base side down in the tray.

"Don't flatter me. My fingers are clumsy as sausages."

"True, but you have no trouble spelling words backwards with backward letters. Tilda, Bren, and Saf have good fingers, but they're always transposing letters and mixing up the ones that mirror each other. You haven't once."

Bitterblue shrugged, fingers moving faster now with letters that had a bit more heft, m's and o's and w's. "It's like writing in cipher. Some part of my brain goes quiet and translates for me."

"Write in cipher much, do you, baker girl?" Saf asked, coming through the outside door, startling her, so that she dropped a w in the wrong place. "The castle kitchen's secret recipes?"

ON A MORNING a week later, Bitterblue climbed the stairs to her tower, entered, and found her guard Holt standing balanced inside the frame of an open window. His back to the room, he leaned out, nothing but a casual handhold on the molding keeping him from falling.

"Holt!" she cried, convinced, in that first irrational moment, that someone had fallen out the window and Holt was looking down at the body. "What happened?"

"Oh, nothing, Lady Queen," Holt said calmly.

"Nothing?" Bitterblue cried. "You're certain? Where is everyone?"

"Thiel is downstairs somewhere," he said, still leaning perilously out of the window, speaking loudly, but evenly, so that she could hear. "Darby is drunk. Runnemood is in the city having meetings and Rood is consulting with the judges of the High Court about their schedule."

"But—" Bitterblue's heart was trying to hammer its way out of her chest. She wanted to go to him and yank him back into the room, but she was afraid that if she got too close, she would touch him in the wrong way and send him plummeting. "Holt! Get down from there! What are you doing?"

"I was just wondering what would happen, Lady Queen," he said, still leaning out.

"You come back into this room this instant," she said.

Shrugging, Holt stepped down onto the floor, just as Thiel pushed into the room. "What is it?" Thiel asked sharply, looking from Bitterblue to Holt. "What's going on here?"

"What do you mean," said Bitterblue, ignoring Thiel, "you were wondering what would happen?"

"Don't you ever wonder what would happen if you jumped out a high window, Lady Queen?" asked Holt.

"No," cried Bitterblue, "I don't wonder what would happen! I know what would happen. My body would be crushed to death. Yours would too. Your Grace is strength, Holt, nothing else!"

"I wasn't planning to jump, Lady Queen," he said with a nonchalance that was beginning to make her furious. "I only wanted to see what would happen."

"Holt," said Bitterblue through gritted teeth. "I forbid you, absolutely forbid you, to climb into any more window frames and look down, wondering what would happen. Do you understand me?"

"Honestly," said Thiel, going to Holt and grabbing his collar, then pushing Holt to the door in a manner that was almost comical, as Holt was bigger than Thiel, almost twenty years younger, and enormously stronger. But Holt just shrugged again, making no protest. "Pull yourself together, man," said Thiel. "Stop giving the queen frights." Then he opened the door and shoved Holt through it.

"Are you all right, Lady Queen?" said Thiel, slamming the door shut, turning back to her.

"I don't understand anyone," Bitterblue said miserably, "or anything. Thiel, how am I to be queen in a kingdom of crackpots?"

"Indeed, Lady Queen," said Thiel. "That was an extraordinary display." Then he picked up a pile of charters from his stand, dropped them on the floor, picked them up again, and handed them to her with a grim face and shaking hands.

"Thiel?" Bitterblue said, seeing a bandage peeking out of one sleeve. "What did you do to yourself?"

"It's nothing, Lady Queen," he said. "Just a cut."

"Did someone competent look at it?"

"It doesn't warrant a healer, Lady Queen. I dealt with it myself."

"I'd like Madlen to examine it. It might need stitches."

"It needs nothing."

"That's a question for a healer to decide, Thiel."

Thiel made himself tall and straight. "A healer has already stitched it, Lady Queen," he said sternly.

"Well, then! Why did you tell me you'd dealt with it yourself?"

"I dealt with it by bringing it to a healer."

"I don't believe you. Show me the stitches."

"Lady Queen—"

"Rood," Bitterblue snapped at her white-haired adviser who'd just entered the room, puffing from the effort of the stairs. "Help Thiel unwrap his bandage so that I may see his stitches."

Not a little confused, Rood did as he was told. A moment later, the three of them gazed down upon a long, diagonal slice across Thiel's inner wrist and the base of his hand, neatly stitched.

"How did you do this?" Rood asked, clearly shaken.

"A broken mirror," Thiel said flatly.

"A wound like this left unattended would be quite serious," Rood said.

"This particular wound is rather over-attended," said Thiel. "Now, if you'll both allow me, there is much to do."

"Thiel," Bitterblue said quickly, wanting to keep him here beside her, but not knowing how. Would a question about the name of the river make things better or worse? "The name of the river," she ventured.

"Yes, Lady Queen?" he said.

She studied him for a moment, searching for an opening in the fortress of his face, the steel traps of his eyes, and finding nothing but a strange, personal misery. Rood put a hand on Thiel's shoulder and made tut-tut noises. Shaking him off, Thiel went to his stand. She noticed now that he was limping.

"Thiel?" said Bitterblue. She'd ask something else.

"Yes, Lady Queen?" whispered Thiel with his back to her.

"Would you happen to know the ingredients of bread?"

After a moment, Thiel turned to face her. "A yeast of some kind, Lady Queen," he said, "as a leavening agent. Flour, which is, I believe, the ingredient with the largest share. Water or milk," he said, gaining confidence. "Perhaps salt? Shall I find you a recipe, Lady Queen?"

"Yes, please, Thiel."

Thiel went off to find Bitterblue a recipe for bread, which was a ridiculous task for the queen's foremost adviser. Watching him as he limped through the door, she noticed that his hair was thinning on top. She'd never noticed that about him before, and it was somehow unbearable. She could remember Thiel dark-haired. She could remember him bossy and confident; she could also remember him broken and crying, confused, bleeding, on her mother's floor. She could remember Thiel a lot of ways, but she had never thought of him before as a man growing old.

SHE WENT TO the library next, stopping in her rooms to glare at her list of puzzle pieces. Snatching it out of the strange picture book and reading it again, she supposed that the list was a sort of cipher too, in the sense that each part of it meant something it wasn't saying yet. Fighting tears and fed up with worry, fed up with people who made no sense and lied, she wrote "BALLS" in big letters across the bottom, a general expression of dissatisfaction with the state of all things. It could be a cipher, and "balls" could be the key. Wouldn't that be blessedly simple?

Po, she thought as she stomped away to the library, the list clenched in her hand. Are you around? I have questions for you.

In the library, no one was at Death's desk except for the cat, curled tight in a ball, every vertebra sharp and visible. Bitterblue gave it a wide berth. Wandering room to room, she finally found Death standing between two rows of shelves, using a blank shelf before him as a desk for his furious scribbling. Pages and pages. He came to the end of one page, lifted the paper, shook it around to dry the ink, and pushed it aside, his writing hand already zipping across the next page before the last was disposed of. She almost couldn't believe how fast he was writing. He came to the end of that page and began another without pause. At the end of that page he began the next, then dropped his pen suddenly and stood with eyes closed, massaging his hand.

Bitterblue cleared her throat. Death jumped, flashing wide, uneven eyes at her. "Ah, Lady Queen," he said, not unlike the way someone checking a hole in an apple might say, "Ah, worms."

"Death," Bitterblue said, waving her list at him, "I have a list of questions. I want to know if you, as my librarian, know the answers or how to find them."

Death looked thoroughly put out by this, as if she weren't asking him to do his precise job. He continued rubbing his hand, which she hoped was in an agony of cramps. Finally, wordlessly, he reached out and snatched the paper from her.

"Hey!" Bitterblue said, startled. "Give that back!"

He glanced at it front and back, then returned it to her, not even looking at her, not seeming to look at anything, brow creased in thought. Bitterblue, remembering with alarm that once Death read something, he would recall it forever and never need to refer to it again, reread both sides of the paper herself, trying to assess the damage.

"A number of these questions, Lady Queen," Death said, still peering into empty air, "are a bit general, wouldn't you say? For example, the question 'Why is everybody crackpots?' and the question about why you're plagued by missing pieces everywhere—"

"That's not what I've come to you about," said Bitterblue testily. "I want to know if you know anything about what Leck did, and who, if anyone, is lying to me."

"Regarding the middle question, about man's reasons for stealing a gargoyle, Lady Queen," Death continued, "criminality is a natural form of human expression. We are all part light and part shadow—"

"Death," Bitterblue interrupted. "Stop wasting my time."

"Is 'BALLS' a question, Lady Queen?"

Bitterblue was now dangerously on the verge of doing something she would never forgive herself for: laughing. She bit her lip and changed her tone. "Why did you give me that map?"

"Map, Lady Queen?"

"The little, soft leather one," said Bitterblue. "Why, when your work is so important and can bear no interruption, did you make a special trip to my office to deliver that map?"

"Because Prince Po asked me to, Lady Queen," said Death.

"I see," Bitterblue said. "And?"

"And, Lady Queen?"

Bitterblue waited patiently, holding his eyes.

Finally, he relented. "I have no idea who might be lying to you, Lady Queen. I have no reason to think that anyone would, beyond that it is a thing people do. And if you're asking me what King Leck did in secret, Lady Queen, you would know better than I. You spent more time with him than I did."

"I don't know his secrets."

"Nor do I, Lady Queen, and I've already told you that I know of no records he kept. Nor do I know of records kept by anyone else."

She didn't like to give Death the satisfaction of knowing he'd caused her disappointment. She tried to turn away before he could see it in her face.

"I can answer your first question, Lady Queen," he said to her back.

Bitterblue stopped in her tracks. The first question was Who are my "first men"?

"The question refers, quite conspicuously, to the words written on the back of your list, doesn't it, Lady Queen?"

Teddy's words. "Yes," said Bitterblue, turning to face him again.

"'I suppose the little queen is safe without you today, for her first men can do what you would,'" Death recited. "'Once you learn cutting and stitching, do you ever forget it, whatever comes between? Even if Leck comes between? I worry for her. It's my dream that the queen be a truthseeker, but not if it makes her someone's prey.' Were these words addressed to one of your healers, Lady Queen?"

"They were," whispered Bitterblue.

"May I assume then, Lady Queen, that you are unaware that forty-some years ago, before Leck came to power, your advisers Thiel, Darby, Runnemood, and Rood were brilliant young healers?"

"Healers! Trained healers?"

"Then Leck murdered the old king and queen," Death went on, "crowned himself, and made the healers part of his advising team—perhaps 'coming between' the men and their medical profession, if you will, Lady Queen. These words seem to suggest that a healer some forty years ago is still a healer today, rendering you safe in the company of your 'first men,' your advisers, Lady Queen, even when your official healers are unavailable."

"How do you know this about my advisers?"

"It's not a secret, Lady Queen, to anyone who can remember. My memory is aided by medical pamphlets in this library, written long ago by Thiel, Darby, Runnemood, and Rood, when they were students of the healing arts. I gather that they were, all four of them, considered to be stellar prospects, very young."

Bitterblue's mind was full of the memory of Rood and Thiel, moments ago, both staring at Thiel's wound. Full of her argument with Thiel, who'd first claimed to have dealt with the injury himself and then claimed to have brought it to a healer for stitching.

Could both claims have been true? He wouldn't have stitched it himself, would he? And then hidden his skill from her, as he had done for as long as she could remember?

"My advisers were healers," she said aloud, suddenly deflated. "Why would Leck choose healers to be his political advisers?"

"I haven't the foggiest notion," Death said impatiently. "I only know that he did. Do you wish to read the medical pamphlets, Lady Queen?"

"Yes, all right," she said with no enthusiasm.

Po appeared through the bookshelves then, carrying the cat and, of all things, making smooching noises into its crooked fur. "Death," he said, "Lovejoy is smelling excellent today. Did you bathe him?"

"Lovejoy?" Bitterblue repeated, staring at Death incredulously. "The cat's name is Lovejoy? Could you have named him anything more ironic?"

Death made a small, scornful noise. Then he took Lovejoy gently from Po's arms, scooped his papers up, and marched away.

"You shouldn't insult a man's cat," said Po mildly.

Ignoring this, Bitterblue rubbed her braids. "Po," she said. "Thank you for coming. May I use you?"

"Possibly," said Po. "What do you have in mind?"

"Two questions," Bitterblue said, "for two people."

"Yes?" said Po. "Holt?"

Bitterblue let out a short sigh. "I want to know what's wrong with him. Will you ask him why he was perched in my tower window today, and see what you think of his answer?"

"I suppose," said Po. "Perched how, exactly?"

Bitterblue opened the memory to Po.

"Hm," he said. "That is very odd, indeed." Then his eyes flashed at her, gentle lights. "You're not certain what question you want me to ask Thiel."

"No," she admitted. "I'm at a bit of a loss with Thiel. I'm finding him unpredictable. He's rattled too easily, and today he had the most horrific cut on his arm that he wouldn't be straight with me about."

"I can tell you he cares for you deeply, Beetle. But if you're finding yourself with actual reason to doubt his trustworthiness, I'll ask him an entire book of questions, whether you want me to or not."

"It's not that I don't trust him," said Bitterblue, frowning. "It's that he worries me, but I'm not sure why."

Po removed a small sack from his pocket and held it open to her. She reached in and pulled out a chocolate peppermint.

"I've learned that Danzhol had family and connections in Estill, Beetle," said Po, rocking on his heels and also eating a peppermint. "What do you think of that?"

"I think he's dead," Bitterblue said dully. "I think it doesn't matter."

"It does matter," said Po. "If he was thinking of selling you to someone in Estill, it means you have enemies in Estill, and that matters."

"Yes," said Bitterblue, sighing again. "I know."

"You know, but you don't care."

"I care, Po. It's just, I've got other things to worry about as well. If you wouldn't mind . . ."

"Yes?"

"Ask Thiel why he's limping."

15

THE NEXT DAY, Bitterblue found evidence of her usefulness to give to Saf.

She was in the library—again—wondering how many more times she could abandon her office for this alcove before her advisers lost their patience completely. On the alcove table were 244 handwritten manuscripts, stacked in towering piles, each manuscript enclosed in a soft leather wrapping and tied with soft leather strings. Under the ties of each book, Death had tucked a card with scribbles that indicated the book's title, author, date of first printing, date of destruction, and date of restoration. Bitterblue moved the manuscripts around, pushing and re-piling and lugging, reading all the titles. Books about Monsean customs and traditions, Monsean holidays, recent Monsean history pre-Leck. Books by philosophers who argued the merits of monarchy versus republic. Books about medicine. An odd little biographical volume about a number of Gracelings who were famous for having concealed their true Graces from the world, until their truths were discovered.

It was hard to know where to start. Hard because I don't know what I'm looking for, she thought, in the very moment that she found something. Not a big, mysterious something, just a small thing, but important, and she gaped at it, hardly believing she'd found it at all. The Kissing Traditions of Monsea.

That title had been on the list Saf had shown her, the list of items he was trying to recover for the people of Danzhol. And here that book was, sitting before her, returned to life.

I may as well take a look, she thought, unwinding the leather ties. Clearing a space in a patch of sunlight, she sat down and began to read.

"LADY QUEEN."

Bitterblue jumped. She'd been absorbed in a description of Monsea's four celebrations of darkness and light: the equinoxes in spring and fall and the solstices in winter and summer. Bitterblue was used to a party around the time of the winter solstice to celebrate the return of the light, but apparently, before the time of Leck, all four occasions had been times of festival in Monsea. People had used to dress up in bright clothing, decorate their faces with paint, and, traditionally, kiss everybody. Bitterblue's imagination had snagged itself on the kissing everybody part. It was less than delightful to look up into Death's sour face.

"Yes?" she said.

"I regret that I am unable to lend you the medical pamphlets written by your advisers after all, Lady Queen," he said.

"Why not?"

"They are missing, Lady Queen," he said, enunciating each syllable.

"Missing! What do you mean?"

"I mean that they're not on the shelves where they belong, Lady Queen," he said, "and now I shall have to take time away from my more important work to locate them."

"Hm," Bitterblue said, suddenly not trusting him. Perhaps the pamphlets had never existed. Perhaps Death had read her list of puzzle pieces and made up the entire tale for his own amusement. She certainly hoped not, since he claimed to be restoring—accurately—truths Leck had erased.

THE NEXT TIME Death interrupted her, Bitterblue had dozed off, her cheek pillowed on The Kissing Traditions.

"Lady Queen?"

Gasping, Bitterblue shot upright too fast, so that a muscle in her neck pulled and tightened. Ow. Where—

She'd been dreaming. As she woke, the dream fled, as dreams do, and she grabbed at it: her mother, embroidering, reading. Doing both at once? No, Ashen had been embroidering, her fingers like lightning, while Bitterblue had read aloud from a book Ashen had chosen, a difficult book, but fascinating in the moments that Bitterblue understood it. Until Leck had found them sitting together and asked about the book, listened to Bitterblue's explanation, then laughed and kissed Bitterblue's cheek and neck and throat and taken the book away and thrown it into the fire.

Yes. Now she remembered the destruction of The Book of Ciphers.

Bitterblue wiped at her throat, which felt dirty. She massaged the sore knot of muscle in her neck, slightly drunk with departing sleep and with the sense that she wasn't entirely attached to the earth. "What is it now, Death?"

"Pardon me for interrupting your nap, Lady Queen," he said, looking down his nose.

"Oh, don't be a twit, Death."

Death cleared his throat noisily. "Lady Queen," he said. "Is the rereading of your childhood books a project you still wish to pursue? If so, I have here a collection of tall tales about fabulous medical recoveries."

"From my father?"

"Yes, Lady Queen."

Bitterblue sat up straight and shuffled through the manuscripts on the table, looking for the two books about medicine that Death had rewritten. The rewritten books were not tall tales, but factual. "And so, he obliterated some medical books from existence but encouraged me to read others?"

"If it exists in my mind, Lady Queen," Death said, offended, "then it is not obliterated."

"Of course," she said, sighing. "Very well. I'll find time for it. What time is it now? I'd better go back to my office, before they come looking for me."

But when Bitterblue stepped into the great courtyard, she saw Giddon sitting on the edge of the pool, hands propped on knees. He was talking easily to a woman who seemed to be shaping the rump of a rearing shrubbery horse with shears. Dyan, the head gardener. Not far from them, Fox dangled from the high limbs of a tree, pruning the flowering ivy, dropping a shower of dark, overripe petals. "Fox," said Bitterblue, walking over with a pile of books and papers in her arms, craning her neck. "You work everywhere, don't you?"

"Wherever I'm useful, Lady Queen," said Fox, blinking down at her with those uneven gray eyes, her hair bright against the leaves. She smiled.

The green horse Dyan was working on rose from the bases of two shrubberies planted close together. Flowering ivy swirled across its rearing chest and trailed down its legs. "No, don't get up," Bitterblue said to Dyan and Giddon as she reached them, but Giddon already had, holding out a hand to help her with her armload. "Very well—here," she said, passing him the two medical rewrites and the reread, then sitting so that she could bind the pages of The Kissing Traditions safely back into their leather cover. "Are the shrubberies your design, Dyan?" she asked, glancing at the horse, which really was rather impressive.

"They were the design of King Leck's gardener, Lady Queen," Dyan said shortly, "and of King Leck himself. I merely maintain them."

"You were not King Leck's gardener?"

"My father was King Leck's gardener, Lady Queen. My father is dead," Dyan said, then gave an oof as she rose and stumped across the courtyard to a man-shaped shrubbery with flowering blue hair.

"Well," Bitterblue said to Giddon, a bit deflated. "It's always nice to hear of someone new one's father has murdered."

"She was rude to you," said Giddon apologetically, sitting back down beside her.

"I hope I didn't interrupt anything."

"No, Lady Queen," said Giddon. "I was only telling her about my home."

"You come from the grasslands of the Middluns, don't you, Giddon?"

"Yes, Lady Queen, west of Randa City."

"Is it very nice, your home?"

"I think so, Lady Queen. It's my favorite patch of land in all seven kingdoms," he said, leaning back, beginning to smile.

His face was transformed and quite suddenly, the more pleasant traditions of Monsea's light festivals came to her mind. She wondered if Giddon shared a woman's bed here at court, or a man's. Flushing now, she asked hastily, "How is your planning going?"

"It's coming along," Giddon said, pitching his voice low, directing his eyebrows significantly to where Fox was still pruning. The noise of the fountain muffled his voice. "We're going to send someone through Piper's tunnel to make contact with the Estillan rebels who asked for our help. And there may be a second tunnel that leads to a place near one of Thigpen's army bases in the eastern Estillan mountains. One of us is going to see if that tunnel is a reality. It's been poked at from both ends, but no one seems to have followed it all the way through from one end to the other."

"Katsa?" said Bitterblue. "Or Po?"

"Katsa will search for the second tunnel," said Giddon. "Po or I will head through the first tunnel to make contact. More likely, we'll both go together."

"Is Po going to be a bit conspicuous, appearing suddenly in Estill, meeting with commoners and asking pointed questions? He's a bit of a glowing Lienid peacock, isn't he?"

"Po is impossible to disguise," he said. "But he also has a knack for sneaking around. And he's oddly good at getting people talking," he added, with something significant in his voice that made Bitterblue watch her hands for a beat, rather than his eyes, afraid of what her own eyes might convey.

She sent a burst of unpleasantness to Po. You realize he puts himself into danger alongside you, don't you? Shouldn't he know the skills his partner possesses? Do you think he won't find out one day? Or that when he does, he won't mind? Then she dropped her head into her hands and gripped her hair.

"Lady Queen," Giddon said. "Are you all right?"

She was not all right; she was having a crisis that had nothing to do with Po's lies and only with her own. "Giddon," she said, "I'm going to try an experiment on you that I've never tried on anyone else."

"Very well," he said good-humoredly. "Should I wear a helmet?"

"Maybe," she said, grinning, "if Katsa ever announces that she's trying an experiment. I only meant that I'd like to have someone I never lie to. From now on, you're it. I won't even equivocate to you. I'll either tell you the truth or say nothing at all."

"Huh," said Giddon, scratching his head. "I'll have to think up a lot of nosy questions."

"Don't push your luck. I wouldn't even try this if you were in the habit of asking me nosy questions. It also helps that you're not my adviser, my cousin, or my servant; you're not even Monsean, so you've no imaginary moral obligation to interfere with my business. Nor do I think you'll run off and tell Po all I say."

"Or even think about telling Po all you say," Giddon said, his tone so perfectly nonchalant that it raised hairs on the back of her neck. Po, she thought, shivering, for goodness sake. Tell him what he already knows.

"For what it's worth, Lady Queen," Giddon continued quietly, "I understand that your trust is a gift, not something I've earned. I promise to guard faithfully, as secret, anything you choose to tell me."

Flustered, she said, "Thank you, Giddon," then sat there, playing with the ties of The Kissing Traditions of Monsea, knowing that she ought to get up, that Runnemood was stewing somewhere, that Thiel was probably working too hard to deal with the paperwork she had abandoned. "Giddon," she said.

"Yes, Lady Queen?"

Trust is stupid, she thought. What's the true reason I've decided I trust him? Certainly his Council work recommends him, his choice of friends. But isn't it just as much the timbre of his voice? I like to hear him say words. I trust the deep way he says "Yes, Lady Queen."

She made a noise that was part snort, part sigh. Then, before she could ask her question, Runnemood stalked in from the grand foyer, saw her, and crossed to her.

"Lady Queen," he said sharply, crowding her, so that she had to crane her neck to look up at him. "You have been spending an inordinate percentage of each workday away from your desk."

He was looking quite sure of himself today, thrusting his jewel-ringed fingers through dark hair. Runnemood's hair showed no signs of thinning. "Have I?" Bitterblue said warily.

"I'm afraid I am a less indulgent man than Thiel," said Runnemood, flashing a smile. "Both Darby and Rood are indisposed today, yet I return from the city to find you chatting with friends and dabbling with dusty old manuscripts in a patch of sun. Thiel and I are quite overwhelmed with the work you're neglecting, Lady Queen. Do you take my meaning?"

Passing The Kissing Traditions to Giddon, Bitterblue stood, so that Runnemood had to jump backward in order to avoid them colliding. She took not just his meaning, but his condescending tone, and it was the tone that offended her. Nor did she like the way his eyes played over the books Giddon was holding, not as if he truly believed them to be harmless, dusty old manuscripts; more as if he were trying to assess each one and disliking all that he saw.

She wanted to tell him that a trained dog could do the work she was neglecting. She wanted to tell him that she knew somehow, in some way she could neither justify nor explain, that this time she spent outside her office was just as important to the kingdom as the work she did in her tower with charters, orders, and laws. But some instinct told her to protect these thoughts from him. To protect these books Giddon was guarding against his chest.

"Runnemood," she said instead, "I hear you're supposed to be good at manipulating people. Try a little harder to make me like you, all right? I'm the queen. Your life will be nicer if I like you."

She had the satisfaction of Runnemood's surprise. He stood with his eyebrows high and his mouth forming a small O. It was pleasant to see him looking silly, pleasant to see him struggling to regain his dignified scorn. Finally, he simply stalked away into the castle.

Bitterblue sat down again beside Giddon, who seemed to be having some trouble subduing an amused expression.

"I was about to ask you something unpleasant," Bitterblue said, "when he came along."

"Lady Queen," he said, still fighting with his face, "I'm all yours."

"Can you think of a reason why Leck would have chosen four healers as his advisers?"

Giddon thought about this for a moment. "Well," he said. "Yes."

"Go on," she said miserably. "It's nothing I'm not already thinking."

"Well," said Giddon again, "Leck is well known for his behavior with his animals. Cutting them, letting them heal, then cutting them again. What if he liked to hurt people, then let them heal? If it was a part of the way he liked to conduct his politics—as sick as it sounds—then it would've made sense for him to have had healers at his side all the time."

"They've lied to me, you know," whispered Bitterblue. "They've told me they don't know the secret things he did, but if they were mending his victims, then they saw, plainly, what he did."

Giddon paused. "Some things are too painful to talk about, Lady Queen," he said quietly.

"I know," she said. "Giddon, I know. Asking would be unpardonably cruel. But how can I help anyone now if I don't understand what happened then? I need the truth, don't you see?"

16

IT WAS SAF who came barreling straight at her in an alleyway that night, Saf, who, gasping, grabbed her and hoisted her through some sort of broken doorway into a rank-smelling room and smashed her against a wall; Saf, who, through the entire enterprise, whispered to her fiercely, "Sparks, it's me, it's me, I beg you, don't hurt me, it's me"—but still, she'd whipped her knives out and also kneed him in the groin before she'd entirely comprehended what was happening.

"Arrhhlglm," he said, more or less, doubling over, still crushing her.

"What the high skies are you doing?" Bitterblue hissed, trying to wriggle out of his grip.

"If they find us," he said, "they're going to kill us, so shut your mouth."

Bitterblue was shaking, not just from her own shock and confusion, but from fear of what she could have done to him in those first moments, had he provided her with room to drive a knife. Then footsteps slapped in the alley outside and she forgot all that.

The footsteps pattered past the broken doorway, continued on, slowed. Stopped. When they reversed direction, creeping back toward the building where they hid, Saf swore in her ear. "I know a place," he said, hauling her across the dark room. When a low, deep, living exhalation of breath nearby caused her to jump nearly out of her wits, he whispered, "Climb." Bewildered, she groped forward and discovered a ladder. The smell of the place made sense to her suddenly. This was a barn of some sort, the thing that had breathed was a cow, and Saf wanted her to climb.

"Climb," he repeated when she hesitated, pushing her forward. "Go!"

Bitterblue reached up, took an iron grip, and climbed. Don't think, she said to herself. Don't feel. Just climb. She couldn't see where she was headed or how many rungs were left to climb. Nor could she see how high she'd gone so far, and she imagined only empty space below her.

Saf, at her heels, finally scuttled up around her and spoke low in her ear. "You don't like ladders."

"In the dark," she said, humiliated. "In the—"

"All right," he said. "Quick," and then he hoisted her up, turning her so that he was carrying her like a child, front to front. She wrapped her arms and legs around him as if he were the earth's pillar, because there did not seem to be any other alternative. He sped up the ladder. It was only when he lowered her onto some sort of solid ground that she was able to contemplate her outrage. And then there was no more time for that, because he was pulling her across what she suddenly recognized as a roof. He was pushing her up onto the higher roof of a higher building, and tugging her, running, they were swarming up a tinny, slippery slant, over an apex, down its opposite side, then down onto another roof, then up onto another and another.

He dragged her up the slant of the sixth or seventh roof to an adjoining wall and crouched against the siding. She dropped beside him, pressing up against the beautiful, solid wall, shaking.

"I hate you," she said. "I hate you."

"I know," he said. "I'm sorry."

"I'm going to kill you," she said. "I'm going—"

She was going to vomit. She turned her back to him, lopsided on her knees across the roof, hands clinging to slippery tin, trying to push the sourness down. A minute passed in which she successfully managed not to throw up. Miserably, she said, "How do we get down from here?"

"This is the shop," he said. "We step right through that window there into Bren and Tilda's bedroom. No more ladders, I promise. All right?"

The shop. Taking a gulp of air, she found that the tin of the roof seemed less like it was trying to buck her off. Shifting carefully, so that her back was to the wall, she sat, adjusting the Kissing Traditions manuscript, which was hanging in a bag across her front. Then she glanced over at Sapphire. He lay on his back, dark in profile, knees bent, considering the sky. She caught the faintest gleam in one of his ears.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I'm not rational about heights."

He tilted his head to her. "No worries, Sparks. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help. Mathematics?" he suggested brightly, perking up, then reaching into his coat pocket and pulling out a gold disc she recognized. "Here," he said, tossing the heavy watch into her lap. "Tell me what time it is."

"I thought you were supposed to return this to the family of the watchmaker," said Bitterblue.

"Ah," he said, looking sheepish. "I was, and no doubt I will. It's just, I'm rather fond of that one."

"Fond of it," said Bitterblue, snorting. She opened the watch, read a time of half past fourteen, sat in an empty room with the numbers for a moment, then announced to Saf that it would be midnight in twenty-four minutes.

"It seems that the whole city got started early tonight," said Saf to that, dryly.

"I assume they didn't hear us? We wouldn't be sitting here stargazing if they were still after us, would we?"

"I threw a few chickens around before I came up that ladder," he said. "You didn't hear them making a racket?"

"I was distracted by the conviction that I was going to die."

A smile. "Well, they covered our noise, and the dogs were awake too by the time we reached the roof, which is what I was counting on. No one will have gotten past the dogs."

"You know that barn."

"It belongs to a friend. It was where I was headed when you appeared."

"I very nearly stuck a knife into you."

"Yes, I recall. I should've left you there in the alley. You could've driven them off for me all by yourself."

"Who were they? It wasn't just bullies this time, was it, Saf? It was the people who tried to kill Teddy."

"Let's talk about what's in the bag you're carrying tonight instead," said Saf, propping one ankle on the other knee and yawning at the stars. "Did you bring me a present?"

"I did, actually," she said. "It's something to prove that if you'll help me, I can help you."

"Oh? Bring it here, then."

"If you think I'm leaving this spot, you're mad."

He rolled to his feet on the uneven tin so fast, so easily, that she closed her eyes against the dizziness. When she opened them again, he'd settled down beside her, leaning his back against the wall, as she was doing.

"Perhaps your Grace is fearlessness," she said.

"I'm afraid of plenty of things," he said. "I just do them anyway. Let me see what you've got."

She extracted The Kissing Traditions of Monsea from the bag and placed it into his hands. He blinked at it. "Papers bound in leather?"

"It's something for you to make lots of copies of," she said. "A manuscript of a book called The Kissing Traditions of Monsea."

Humphing in surprise, he brought it closer to his nose to inspect the label in the dark.

"It was handwritten by the queen's own librarian," Bitterblue continued, "who's Graced with fast reading and with remembering every book and sentence and word—every letter—he's ever read. Did you know of his Grace?"

"We have heard of Death," Saf said, pulling the leather ties loose, throwing the leather flaps aside and flipping through the pages, squinting hard. "Are you telling me truth? This is what you say it is—and Death is rewriting the books King Leck made disappear?"

She thought that perhaps Sparks the baker girl wouldn't know too much about the business of the queen's own librarian. "I don't know what Death is doing. I don't know him personally. This was lent me by the friend of a friend. Death relinquished it only because he was promised that the person who wanted it was a printer who would make copies. Those are the conditions, Saf. You may borrow it, if you'll make copies. Death will see that you're paid for your labor and expenses, of course," she added, cursing herself for thinking up that sudden complication, but not certain how she could avoid it. It couldn't be cheap to print a book, and she couldn't expect them to finance the restoration of the queen's library, could she? Would it be so outlandish for a baker girl who'd never met Death to be the courier of the queen's money? And did this mean she was going to have to pawn more of her own jewelry?

"Sparks," Saf said. "Tie me with twine and mail me to Ror City. If this really is what you say it is—let's bring it down to the shop, shall we? I'm going blind here."

"Yes, all right," she said, "but . . ."

He looked up from the pages into her face. His eyes were black and full of stars. "I never wished I was a mind reader before I knew you," he said. "You know that, Sparks? What is it?"

"I'm frightened to move," she said, ashamed of herself.

"Sparks," Saf said. Then he slapped the Kissing Traditions manuscript shut and took hold of both of her small, cold hands. "Sparks," he said again, looking into her eyes, "I'll help you. I swear to you, you will not fall. Do you believe me?"

She did believe him. There on a roof with his familiar silhouette, his voice, all the things about him she was used to, holding tight to his hands, she believed him completely. "I'm ready to ask my third question," she said.

He exhaled. "Oh, weaselbugger," he said grimly.

"Who's trying to kill you and Teddy?" she asked. "Saf, I'm on your side. Tonight, I became their target too. Just tell me. Who is it?"

Saf didn't answer, just sat there, playing with her hands. She thought he wasn't going to answer. Then, as the moments passed, she stopped caring so much, because his touch began to seem more important than her question.

"There are people in the kingdom who are truthseekers," he finally said. "Not many people, but a few. People like Teddy and Tilda and Bren—people whose families were in the resistance and who place the highest value on knowing the truth of things. Leck is dead now, but there's still so much truth to uncover. That's their business, you understand, Sparks? They're trying to help people figure out what happened, sometimes reassemble memories. Return what Leck stole, and, when they can, undo what Leck did, through thievery, through education—however they can."

"You too," Bitterblue interjected. "You keep saying 'they,' but it's you too."

Saf shrugged. "I came to Monsea to know my sister better, and this is who my sister turned out to be. I like my friends here and I like to steal. While I'm here, I'll help. But I'm Lienid, Sparks. It's not my cause."

"Prince Po would be disgusted with that attitude."

"If Prince Po told me to fall off the earth, Sparks, I would," said Saf. "I told you. I'm Lienid."

"You make no sense whatsoever!"

"Oh?" said Saf, pulling on her hands, grinning wickedly. "And you do?"

Flustered, Bitterblue said nothing, just waited.

"There's a force in the kingdom working against us, Sparks," said Saf quietly. "The truth is that I can't answer your question, because we don't know who it is. But someone knows what we're doing. There's someone out there who hates us and will go to any length to stop us and people like us. Remember the new grave I found you standing in front of that night in the graveyard? That was our colleague, stabbed to death in broad daylight by a hired killer who's in no state to tell us who hired him. Our people are murdered. Or sometimes they're framed for crimes they didn't commit and get thrown into prison, where we'll never see them again."

"Saf!" Bitterblue said, appalled. "Are you serious about this? Are you sure?"

"Teddy was stabbed and you're asking me if I'm sure?"

"But, why? Why would someone go to so much trouble?"

"For silence," Saf said. "Is it really so surprising? Everyone wants silence. Everyone is happy forgetting Leck ever hurt anyone and pretending Monsea was born, fully formed, eight years ago. If they can't get their own heads to be silent, they go to the story rooms, get drunk, and start a fight."

"That's not why people go to the story rooms," Bitterblue protested.

"Oh, Sparks," Saf said, sighing, tugging at her hands. "It's not why you, I, or the fablers go to the story rooms. You go to hear the stories. Other people go to drown out the stories with drink. Remember, you asked me before why lists of stolen items make their way to us instead of to the queen? Often it's because no one ever even thinks about cataloging their losses until someone like Teddy comes around and suggests it. People aren't thinking. They want silence. The queen wants silence. And someone out there needs silence, Sparks. Someone out there is killing for it."

"Why haven't you taken this to the queen?" asked Bitterblue, trying to swallow the distress in her voice so that he wouldn't sense its extent. "People murdering people to silence the truth are breaking the law. Why haven't you taken your case to the queen!"

"Sparks," said Saf flatly. "Why do you think?"

Bitterblue was quiet for a moment, understanding him. "You think the queen is behind it."

A city clock began its midnight chime. "I'm not ready to say that," said Saf, shrugging. "None of us are. But we've gotten in the habit of warning people not to draw attention to any knowledge they might have of what Leck did, Sparks. Towns applying to the queen for independence, for example. They state their case against their lords plainly and refer to Leck as little as possible. They make no mention of the daughters that their lords mysteriously stole, or the people who disappeared. Whoever our villain is, it's someone with a very long arm. If I were you, Sparks, I would tread carefully in that castle of yours."

17

LECK IS DEAD.

But if Leck is dead, why isn't it over?

Treading carefully through her corridors that night, up her staircases, Bitterblue tried to wrap her head around these murder attempts that baffled her. She could understand an instinct to move on, move ahead, leave the pain of Leck's time behind. But react by becoming like Leck himself? Kill? It was insane.

Her guards let her into her rooms. Hearing voices inside, she froze, panicking. Her brain caught up with her instincts: The voices, which came from her bedroom, belonged to Helda and Katsa. "Weaselbugger," she whispered under her breath. Then a male voice cleared its throat in her sitting room and she had a small heart attack before realizing it was Po.

Marching in to him, she said in a low voice, "You told them."

He sat in an armchair, making folds in a piece of paper against his thigh. "I didn't."

"Then what are they doing in my bedroom?"

"I believe they're having an argument," said Po. "I'm waiting for them to finish so that I can resume the argument I'm having with Katsa."

There was something funny about Po's face, about the way he was steadfastly not turning it to her. "Look at me," she said.

"Can't," he said glibly. "I'm blind."

"Po," she said. "If you could even begin to imagine the night I've had—"

Po turned. The skin under his silver eye was spectacularly bruised and his nose was swollen.

"Po!" she cried. "What happened? Katsa didn't hit you in the face!"

Making a final fold in the paper he was working with, Po raised it over his shoulder and hurled it across the room. Long, slender, and winged, it glided on air, swerved dramatically leftward, and crashed into a bookcase. "Hm," Po said with maddening calmness. "Fascinating."

"Po," said Bitterblue through clenched teeth. "You are being provoking."

"I have some answers to your questions," he said, getting up to recover his glider.

"What? You've asked them already?"

"No, I haven't asked any of them," he said, "but I've gathered some data." He smoothed the crumpled nose of the glider and flung the thing again, this time straight at the wall from a short distance. It crashed and fell. "Just as I thought," he said musingly.

Bitterblue collapsed on the sofa. "Po," she said, "take pity on me."

He came to sit beside her. "Thiel has a cut on his leg," he said.

"Oh!" said Bitterblue. "Poor Thiel. A bad cut? Do you know how it happened?"

"He's got a big broken mirror in his room," said Po, "but beyond that, I really couldn't say. Did you know he plays the harp?"

"Why does he keep that broken mirror around?" exclaimed Bitterblue. "Is the wound stitched?"

"Yes, and it's healing cleanly."

"It's a bit creepy what you can do," she said, leaning back, closing her eyes. "You know that, Po?"

"I had time tonight to poke around," he said blandly, "while I was lying in bed with ice on my face. Next, you won't believe what Holt did earlier tonight."

"Oh," said Bitterblue, moaning. "Did he dive under a team of galloping horses, just to see what would happen?"

"Have you ever been to your art gallery?"

The art gallery? Bitterblue wasn't even entirely certain where it was. "Is it on the top floor, overlooking the great courtyard from the north?"

"Yes. Several floors directly above the library. It's quite neglected, did you know? Dust everywhere, except where pieces of art have been recently removed—which is why I was able to count the exact number of sculptures that have been stolen from the sculpture room. Five, in case you were wondering."

Bitterblue's eyes popped open. "Someone's stealing my sculptures," she said as a statement, not a question. "And returning them to the artist? Who's the artist?"

"Ah," said Po, pleased. "You seem already to be familiar with the overriding concept here. Excellent. I had to go have a chat with someone—Giddon—to understand it myself. Here's the situation: Holt had a sister named Bellamew who was a sculptor."

Bellamew. Bitterblue had an image of a woman in the castle: tall, broad-shouldered, with kind eyes. That woman had been a sculptor?

"Bellamew sculpted transformations for Leck," Po continued. "A woman turning into a tree. A man turning into a mountain, and so on."

"Ah," said Bitterblue, understanding now that not only did she have some familiarity with Bellamew's work, but Bellamew had had familiarity with her once. "Did Giddon tell you all this? Why does Giddon always know more about my castle than I do?"

Po shrugged. "He knows Holt. Really, you should be asking Giddon what's wrong with Holt, not me. Though I didn't tell Giddon what I witnessed."

"Well? What did you witness?"

Po smiled. "Are you ready for this? I witnessed Holt entering the castle from the city with a sack on his shoulder. He carried it up to the art gallery, removed a sculpture from the sack, and placed the sculpture in the sculpture room, right on the non-dusty spot it was missing from. That girl who disguised Danzhol's boat and turned into canvas, you remember her?"

"Oh, balls!" said Bitterblue. "I'd forgotten all about her. We need to find her and arrest her."

"I feel more and more that we don't," said Po. "She was with Holt tonight, because, guess what? She's Bellamew's daughter and Holt's niece. Her name is Hava."

"Wait," Bitterblue said. "What? I'm confused. Someone stole my sculptures to give back to Bellamew, but Holt and Bellamew's daughter are bringing them back to me?"

"Bellamew is dead," said Po. "Holt stole your sculptures. Holt brought them to Hava, Bellamew's daughter, but Hava told Holt, no, the sculptures had to go back to the queen. So Holt brought them back, with Hava supervising."

"What! Why?"

"Holt puzzles me," said Po, musing. "He may or may not be mad. He's certainly confused."

"I don't understand!" said Bitterblue. "Holt stole from me, then changed his mind?"

"I think he's trying to do the right thing," said Po, "but is confused about what the right thing is. I understand that Leck used Bellamew, then killed her. Holt feels that Hava is the rightful owner of the sculptures."

"Is Giddon the one who told you about Hava?" asked Bitterblue. "Shouldn't something be done about Hava if she's floating around the castle? She tried to kidnap me!"

"Giddon doesn't know about Hava."

"Then how did you figure all this out?" cried Bitterblue.

"I just—did," said Po, looking sheepish.

"What do you mean, you just did? How can I be sure it's all true on the basis of 'you just did'?"

"I'm quite certain it's all true, Beetle. I'll explain why another time."

Bitterblue studied his battered face as he smoothed the glider against his leg. It was clear to her that he was upset about something he wasn't saying. "What are Helda and Katsa arguing about?" she asked quietly.

"Babies," he responded, flashing her a tiny grin. "As usual."

"And what are you and Katsa arguing about?"

His grin faded. "Giddon."

"Why? Is it about Katsa not liking him? I would love someone to explain that to me."

"Bitterblue, don't pry into the man's business."

"Oh, such commendable advice, coming from a mind reader. You can pry into his business whenever you like."

Po raised his eyes to her face. "As he well knows," he said.

"You told Giddon," she said, understanding everything now; understanding when he hung his head. "Giddon hit you," she continued. "And Katsa is angry with you for telling Giddon."

"Katsa is frightened," said Po quietly. "Katsa is too aware of the strain I'm under. It frightens her, knowing how many people I'd like to tell."

"How many people would you like to tell?"

This time, when he raised his eyes to her face, Bitterblue was also frightened. "Po," she whispered. "Please start small. If you're going to do this, tell Skye. Tell Helda. Maybe tell your father. Then wait, and get advice, and think. Please?"

"All I'm doing is thinking," he said. "I can't stop thinking. I'm so tired, Beetle."

His problems were so peculiar. Bitterblue's heart reached out to this cousin who slumped on the sofa looking weary, disgruntled, and sore. "Po," she said, going to him. She smoothed his hair and kissed the top of his head. "What can I do?"

Sighing, he said, "You could go comfort Giddon."

A VOICE ANSWERED her knock. When she entered Giddon's rooms, Giddon was sitting against the wall on the floor, in rapt contemplation of his left hand.

"You're left-handed," Bitterblue said. "I suppose I should have noticed that before."

He flexed the hand and spoke grimly, not looking up. "I spar sometimes with my right, just for practice."

"Have you hurt yourself?"

"No."

"Is left-handedness an advantage in fights?"

He shot Bitterblue a sardonic glance. "Against Po?"

"Against normal people."

A disinterested shrug. "Sometimes. Most fighters are better trained to defend against a right-handed assault."

Even Giddon's grumpy voice was nice in timbre. "Shall I stay?" Bitterblue asked lightly. "Or shall I go?"

He dropped his hand then and looked up at her, looked straight at her. His face softened. "Stay, Lady Queen." Then, seeming to remember his manners, he made a move to stand up.

"Oh, please," Bitterblue said. "It's a stupid custom," and she lowered herself to the floor beside him, putting her back to the wall for symmetry's sake, commencing an inspection of her own hands.

"Less than two hours ago," she said, "I sat beside a friend, just like this, on the roof of a shop in the city."

"What? Really?"

"We'd been chased there by people who wanted to kill him."

"Lady Queen," Giddon said, almost choking, "are you serious?"

"Don't tell anyone," Bitterblue said, "and don't interfere."

"You mean that Katsa and Po—"

"Don't think of him and think of it at the same time," Bitterblue said calmly. "Don't ever bring him up in any conversation or contemplation you don't wish him to be a part of."

Giddon made a noise of disbelief; then went quiet, working that over for a while. "Let's discuss what you've just told me another time, Lady Queen," he said, "for my thoughts are rather singlemindedly on Po right now."

"The only point I wanted to make," Bitterblue said, "is that I have an irrational terror of heights."

"Heights," Giddon said, sounding lost.

"On occasion," she said, "it is profoundly humiliating."

Giddon went quiet again. When he next spoke, he was not lost. "I've shown you my worst behavior, Lady Queen, and you respond with kindness."

"If that's really the worst you've got," Bitterblue said, "then Po has an excellent friend, indeed."

Giddon stared into his hands again, which were broad and big as plates. Bitterblue resisted the urge to hold hers up to his and marvel at the difference in size.

"I've been trying to decide which is the most humiliating," he said. "That I was only able to hit him because he let me—he stood there like a punching bag, Lady Queen—"

"Mm? And you know, you won't get the credit for it," said Bitterblue. "Everyone will think Katsa made a mistake in one of their practice fights. No one will believe you managed it."

"Don't feel the need to spare my feelings, Lady Queen," he said dryly.

"Go on," Bitterblue said, grinning. "You were enumerating the points of your humiliation."

"Yes, you're very thoughtful. Second, it's not pleasant to be the last person to know."

"Ah," Bitterblue said. "I'll just point out that you're far from the last person to know."

"But you understand me, Lady Queen. I spend more time with Po than any of the rest of you. Even Katsa. Though really, there's no contest."

"What do you mean?"

"The truest humiliation," he said, then stopped, suddenly stiff-jawed and miserable, drawing his arms and shoulders close to his body, as if it were a thing he could protect himself from physically, like a blow, or like cold weather. Which, of course, it wasn't.

Bitterblue stretched her legs out straight and made a quiet show of smoothing her trousers, to spare him the embarrassment of being watched. She said simply, "I know."

He nodded, once. "I've opened so much of myself to him. Especially in the early years, when I had no suspicions and never thought to take care with my thoughts—and also happened to hate him. He knew every point of resentment I bore against him; every jealous thought, he knew. And now I'm remembering all of it, every single piece of malice, and the humiliation is double, because as I relive it, he does too."

Yes. This was the worst, the most unfair and humiliating thing about any mind reader, especially a secret mind reader. It was the reason Katsa was so frightened: a great wellspring of wrath and humiliation, all focused on Po, especially if Po began telling his truth indiscriminately.

"Katsa has told me that she was also humiliated when Po first told her," Bitterblue said, "and furious. She threatened to tell everyone. She never wanted to see him again."

"Yes," Giddon said. "And then she ran away with him."

He spoke those words mildly, which interested her. Bitterblue considered his tone for an instant, then decided to seize it as justification for asking an utterly inappropriate question about something she'd been wondering. "Are you in love with her?"

He shot her an incredulous brown glare. "Is that any of your business?"

"No," she said. "Are you in love with him?"

Giddon rubbed his eyebrows in wonderment. "Lady Queen, where is this coming from?"

"Well, it fits, doesn't it? It explains the tension with Katsa."

"I hope you haven't been stirring up this sort of talk with the others. If you have nosy questions about me, ask me."

"I am," Bitterblue said.

"Yes," Giddon said, chewing on the word with admirable good humor, "you are."

"I haven't," she said.

"Lady Queen?"

"Asked anyone this question but you," she said. "And no one has said anything definitive about it to me. And I can keep a secret."

"Ah," he said. "Well, it's not much of a secret, really, and I suppose I don't mind telling you."

"Thank you."

"Oh, my pleasure. It's your delicacy, you know. It makes a fellow want to bare his soul."

Bitterblue grinned.

"I was—rather obsessed—with Katsa once," he said, "for a long time. I said some wrong-headed things I'm ashamed of and Katsa won't forgive me. In the meantime, I've recovered from my obsession."

"Is that true?"

"Lady Queen," he said patiently, "among my less attractive qualities is a certain pride that serves me well when I discover that a woman I love never would, and never could, give me the things I want."

"The things you want?" Bitterblue repeated acidly. "Is that what it's about: the things you want? What are these things?"

"Someone who can bear the grievousness of my company, to start with. I'm afraid I insist upon it."

Bitterblue burst into laughter. He watched her, smiling, then sighed. "Some bad feelings linger," he said quietly, "even when the thing that brought them into being has died. I've wanted to hit Po practically since the first time I laid eyes on him. I'm glad it's finally done. Now I can see what an empty wish it was."

"Oh, Giddon," Bitterblue said, then went quiet, because the things she wanted to say were things she couldn't articulate. Bitterblue loved Katsa and Po with a love as big as the earth. But she knew what it was like to be lost on the edges of their love for each other.

"I need your help," she said, thinking that distraction might be a comfort to him.

He looked at her in surprise. "What is it, Lady Queen?"

"Someone is trying to kill people who wish to bring Leck's crimes to light," she said. "If, in your wanderings, you hear anything about it, will you let me know?"

"Of course," he said. "Goodness. Do you think it's someone like Danzhol? Other nobles who stole for Leck and don't want the truths of their past to come out?"

"I have no idea," she said. "But at least that would make some sort of logical sense; yes, I'll have to look into that. Though I hardly know where to start," she added tiredly. "I've got hundreds of nobles I've never even heard of. Giddon, what do you think of my guard Holt?"

"Holt is a Council ally, Lady Queen," Giddon said. "He stood guard during the meeting that took place in the library."

"Did he?" Bitterblue said. "He's also been stealing my sculptures."

Giddon stared at her in the sheerest amazement.

"Then bringing them back," said Bitterblue. "Will you pay him close attention in your dealings, Giddon? I'm worried about his health."

"You want me to pay close attention to Holt, who is stealing your sculptures, because you're concerned for his health," Giddon repeated incredulously.

"Yes. His mental health. Please don't tell him I mentioned the sculptures. You do trust him, though, Giddon?"

"Holt, who is stealing your sculptures and is of questionable mental health?"

"Yes."

"I trusted him five minutes ago. Now I'm at a bit of a loss."

"Your opinion five minutes ago is good enough for me," Bitterblue said. "You have good instincts."

"Have I?"

"I suppose I should go back to my rooms now," Bitterblue said, sighing. "Katsa is there. I expect she intends to yell at me."

"I very much doubt that, Lady Queen."

"The two of them together can be so pushy, you know," said Bitterblue impishly. "Part of me hopes you broke his nose."

The knuckles of Giddon's left hand were darkening with bruises from their impact with Po's face. He did not rise to her bait. Instead, still studying his own hand, he said quietly, "I will never tell his secret."

BACK IN HER rooms, she looked in on Po. Finding him asleep on the sofa, snoring with the clogged snore of someone whose nose is swollen, she covered him with a blanket. Then, having no more excuses, she went to her bedroom.

Katsa and Helda were making up the sheets to her bed. "Thank goodness," Katsa said at the sight of her. "Helda's been trying to impress me with the embroidery on the sheets. One more minute and I thought I might use them to hang myself."

"My mother did the embroidery," Bitterblue said.

Katsa clapped her mouth shut and glared at Helda. "Thank you, Helda, for mentioning that detail."

Helda expertly snapped a blanket open so that it billowed over the bed. "Can I be blamed for forgetting details when I'm worried to distraction at finding the queen missing from her bed?" she said. Then she marched to the pillows and beat them mercilessly until they lay puffed out like obedient clouds.

Bitterblue thought it might be to her advantage to take control of this conversation from the start. "Helda," she said, "I need the help of my spies. People in the city who're trying to uncover truths about Leck's time are being killed. I need to know who's behind this. Can we find out?"

"Of course we can find out," said Helda with a self-righteous sniff. "And in the meantime, while killers are running around on the loose, you'll be moving among them dressed like a boy with no guard to look out for you and not even your own name to protect you. The two of you think I'm a foolish old woman whose opinions don't matter."

"Helda!" Katsa exclaimed, practically vaulting over the bed to be near her. "That's certainly not what we think."

"It's all right," Helda said, giving the pillows one last thrashing, then straightening to face her two young ladies with unapproachable dignity. "It hardly matters. Even if you thought me Graced with supreme knowledge, you'd none of you listen to me and every one of you do whatever harebrained thing you liked. You all think you're invincible, don't you? You think the only thing that doesn't matter is your own safety. It's enough to drive a woman wild." She reached deep into a pocket and flung a small bundle onto Bitterblue's bed. "I've known from the beginning that you sneak out nights, Lady Queen. The two nights you never came home were sleepless nights for me. You might remember that, the next time you contemplate lying in some bed other than your own. I won't pretend that I don't know the pressures you're under—and that goes for you too, My Lady," she added, gesturing at Katsa. "I won't deny but that your responsibilities differ from any I've ever known, and when push comes to shove, you're to be held to a different standard than other people. But that does not mean that it feels nice to be lied to and taken for a fool. Tell your young man that," she finished, raising her chin a notch to stare into Katsa's eyes. Then she marched from the room.

A long silence followed.

"She's rather good at keeping secrets, isn't she," Bitterblue said, somewhere between shame and alarm.

"She's your spymaster," said Katsa, dropping onto the bed, splaying out on her back. "I feel like mud."

"Me too."

"I wonder what she meant about Po, exactly. He's said nothing about her knowing. Is that true, Bitterblue, about the killing in your city? If it is, I don't want to leave."

"It is," said Bitterblue quietly, "and I don't want you to leave either, but I think you belong to Estill right now, don't you?"

"Bitterblue, come here, won't you?"

Bitterblue let Katsa grab her arm and pull her to the bed. They sat facing each other, Katsa holding her hand. Katsa's hands were strong, alive, and hot like a furnace.

"Where do you go at night?" Katsa asked.

Like that, the spell was broken. Bitterblue pulled away. "That's not a fair question."

"Then don't answer it," Katsa said, surprised. "I'm not Po."

But I can't lie to you, she thought. If you ask me for something, I'll give it. "I go to the east city," she said, "to visit friends."

"What kind of friends?"

"A printer, and a sailor who works with him."

"Is it dangerous?"

"Yes," she said, "sometimes. It's not your business and it's nothing I can't handle, so stop asking questions."

Katsa sat for a moment, frowning into the middle distance. Then she said quietly, "This printer and this sailor, Bitterblue. Have you—" She paused. "Have you lost your heart to either of them?"

"No," Bitterblue said, stunned and breathless. "Stop asking me questions."

"Do you need me? Is there anything you'll let me do?"

No. Go away.

Yes. Stay with me, stay here until I fall asleep. Tell me I'm safe and my world will make sense. Tell me what to do about how I feel when Saf touches me. Tell me what it means to lose your heart to somebody.

Katsa turned to her, pushed her hair back, kissed her forehead; pressed something into her hand. "This may be a thing you neither want nor need," she said. "But I'd rather you have it, wishing you didn't, than not have it and wish you did."

And Katsa left, closing the door behind her. Off to who knew what adventure. Her bed, most likely, with Po, where they would lose themselves to each other.

Bitterblue examined the item in her hand. It was a medicinal envelope with a label written clear across the front: "Seabane, for the prevention of pregnancy."

Numbly, she read the instructions. Then, setting the seabane aside, she tried to sort out what she felt, but got nowhere. Remembering the bundle Helda had thrown onto the blanket, she reached for it. It was a cloth pouch, which opened to reveal another medicinal envelope, also clearly labeled.

She laughed, not certain what was so funny about a girl with a muddled heart having enough seabane to last the entirety of her childbearing years.

Then, exhausted almost to dizziness, she stretched onto her side and pressed her face, where Katsa had kissed it, into Helda's impeccable pillows.

18

BITTERBLUE WAS HAVING a dream of a man, a friend. He began as Po, then turned to Giddon, then Saf. When he became Saf, he began to kiss her.

"Will it hurt?" Bitterblue asked.

Then her mother was there between them, saying to her calmly, "It's all right, sweetheart. He doesn't mean to hurt you. Take his hand."

"I don't mind if it hurts," Bitterblue said. "I just want to know."

"I won't let him hurt you," Ashen said, suddenly wild and frantic, and Bitterblue saw that the man had changed again. Now he was Leck. Ashen was standing between Bitterblue and Leck, guarding Bitterblue from him. Bitterblue was a little girl.

"I would never hurt her," said Leck, smiling. He was holding a knife.

"I won't let you near her," said Ashen, shaking but certain. "Her life will not be like mine. I will protect her from that."

Leck sheathed his knife. Then he punched Ashen in the stomach, pushed her to the floor, kicked her, and walked away, while Bitterblue screamed.

In her bed, Bitterblue woke in tears. The last part of the dream was more than a dream; it was a memory. Ashen had never let Leck talk Bitterblue into going away with him to his rooms, his cages. Leck had always punished Ashen for interfering. And whenever Bitterblue had run to her mother crumpled on the floor, Ashen had always whispered, "You must never go with him. Promise me, Bitterblue. It would hurt me more than anything he could ever do to me."

I never did, Mama, she thought, tears soaking into her sheets. I never went with him. I kept my promise. But you died anyway.

AT MORNING PRACTICE, sparring with Bann, she couldn't focus.

"What's wrong, Lady Queen?" he asked.

"I had a bad dream," she told him, rubbing her face. "It was a dream of my father hurting my mother. Then I woke up and realized it was true."

Bann paused his sword to consider this. His calm eyes touched her, reminding her of the beginning of the dream, the part where Ashen had comforted her. "Dreams like that can be awful," he said. "I have one that recurs sometimes, about the circumstances of my own parents' deaths. It can torment me cruelly."

"Oh, Bann," she said. "I'm sorry. How did they die?"

"Illness," he said. "They had terrible hallucinations and said cruel things I know now they didn't mean. But when I was a child, I didn't understand that they were being cruel only because of the illness. When I'm dreaming, it's the same."

"I hate dreams," said Bitterblue, angry now in his defense.

"What if you attacked your dream while you're awake, Lady Queen?" said Bann. "Could you act out what it would be like to fight back against your father? You could pretend I'm him and get your revenge right now," he said, raising his sword in preparation for her attack.

It did improve her swordplay for the morning, pretending to attack the Leck of her dream. But Bann was a big, kind man in the real world, and she could hurt him if she came at him too hard. Her imagination wouldn't quite allow her to forget that. At lesson's end, she had a muscle cramp in her hand and she was still out of sorts.

IN HER TOWER office, Bitterblue watched Thiel and Runnemood shift carefully around each other with silent, stiff faces. Whatever argument they were having today, it was as big as a third person in the room. She wondered what to say to them about the truthseekers under attack. She couldn't claim to have accidentally overheard a detailed conversation about knifings and bloody street murders; that would border on the absurd. She would have to use the spy excuse again, but spreading false information about things her spies supposedly knew, could she put her spies in danger? Also, Teddy, Saf, and their friends broke the law. Was it fair to bring that to Thiel and Runnemood's attention?

"Why don't I know more about my nobles?" she said. "Why are there hundreds of lords and ladies I wouldn't recognize if they walked through that door?"

"Lady Queen," said Thiel gently, "it's our job to prevent you from having to deal with every small matter."

"Ah. But as you're so overwhelmed with my work," she said significantly, "I think it best I learn what I can. I should like to know their stories and reassure myself that they aren't all mad like Danzhol. Are we three alone again today?" she added, then clarified, needing to force the point, "Is Rood having nervous fits and Darby still drunk?"

Runnemood rose from his perch in the window. "What an inconsiderate thing to say, Lady Queen," he said, sounding actually hurt. "Rood cannot help his nerves."

"I never said he could," said Bitterblue. "I only said he has them. Why must we always pretend? Wouldn't it be more productive to talk about the things we know?" Deciding there was something she wanted, needed, she stood up.

"Where are you going, Lady Queen?" asked Runnemood.

"To Madlen," she said. "I need a healer."

"Are you ill, Lady Queen?" asked Thiel in distress, taking a step forward, reaching out a hand.

"That's a matter for me to discuss with a healer," she said, holding his eyes to let it sink in. "Are you a healer, Thiel?"

Then she left, so that she wouldn't have to see him crushed—by nothing, by words that shouldn't matter—and feel her shame.

WHEN BITTERBLUE STEPPED into Madlen's room, Madlen was scribbling in symbols at a desk covered with papers. "Lady Queen," Madlen said, gathering her papers together and pushing them under her blotter. "I hope you're here to rescue me from my medical writing. Are you all right?" she asked, taking in Bitterblue's expression.

"Madlen," said Bitterblue, sitting on the bed. "I had a dream last night that my mother refused to let my father take me away, so he hit her. Only it wasn't a dream, Madlen; it was a memory. It's a thing that happened over and over, and I was never able to protect her." Shivering, Bitterblue hugged herself. "Maybe I could have protected her if I'd gone with him when he asked. But I never did. She made me promise not to."

Madlen came to sit beside her on the bed. "Lady Queen," she said with her own particular brand of rough gentleness. "It is not the job of a child to protect her mother. It's the mother's job to protect the child. By allowing your mother to protect you, you gave her a gift. Do you understand me?"

Bitterblue had never thought of it this way before. She found that she was holding Madlen's hand, her eyes full of tears.

Finally, after a while, she said, "The dream didn't start out bad."

"Oh?" said Madlen. "Did you come here to talk about your dream, Lady Queen?"

Yes. "My hand hurts," said Bitterblue, opening her hand and showing it to Madlen.

"Is it serious?"

"I think I was holding my sword too hard at practice this morning."

"Well," said Madlen, seeming to understand. She took Bitterblue's hand and explored it with light fingers. "That sounds easily mended, Lady Queen."

It did mend something, those few minutes of Madlen's gentle touch.

ON HER WAY back to her tower, Bitterblue encountered Raffin in the middle of the hallway, peering worriedly at a knife in his hands.

"What is it?" asked Bitterblue, stopping before him. "Has something happened, Raffin?"

"Lady Queen," he said, politely moving the knife far away from her and, in the process, nearly poking a passing member of the Monsean Guard, who jumped away in alarm. "Oh, dear," Raffin said. "That's just it."

"What's just it, Raffin?"

"Bann and I are taking a trip into Sunder, and Katsa says I must wear this on my arm, but I truly feel the danger is greater if I do. What if it falls out and impales me? What if it flings itself from my sleeve and lodges in someone else? I'm perfectly content poisoning people," Raffin muttered, pulling up his sleeve and holstering the knife. "Poison is civilized and controlled. Why must everything involve knives and blood?"

"It will not fly out of your sleeve, Raffin," said Bitterblue soothingly. "I promise. Sunder?"

"Only briefly, Lady Queen. Po will stay here with you."

"I thought Po and Giddon were taking the tunnel into Estill."

Raffin cleared his throat. "Giddon isn't desirous of Po's company just now, Lady Queen," he said delicately. "Giddon is going alone."

"I see," said Bitterblue. "Where will you go after Sunder? Not back home?"

"As it happens, Lady Queen," said Raffin, "that is not an option. My father has made it known that members of the Council aren't welcome in the Middluns at the moment."

"What?" said Bitterblue. "Even his own son?"

"Oh, it's only political bluster, Lady Queen. I know my father, regrettably. He's trying to appease the kings of Estill, Sunder, and Wester because they dislike him even more than they used to, now that Nander has fallen at the hands of an organization that likely includes me and Katsa. I don't expect he could keep any of us out without making more of a scene than he wants to. But it's no inconvenience to us at the moment, so we won't protest. It'll chafe at Giddon most, if it continues. He never likes to be away from his estate for too long. Is it really supposed to feel like this?" Raffin demanded, shaking his forearm.

"Like you have a blade against your skin?" asked Bitterblue. "Yes. And if someone tries to hurt you, you must use it, Raffin. Assuming there's no time to respond with poison, of course," she added dryly.

"I've done it before," Raffin said darkly. "It's only a matter of information. As long as I know an attack is being planned, I can foil the whole thing as well as anyone else. And usually no one needs to die." Then he sighed. "How have things come to this, Lady Queen?"

"Have things ever been any other way?"

"Peaceful, you mean, and safe?" he said. "I suppose not. And I suppose we may as well be in the thick of the violence, trying to take some control over the way it plays out."

Bitterblue considered this prince, the son of a bully king, the cousin of a fireball like Katsa. "Will you like to be king, Raffin?"

His answer was in the resignation that came over his face. "Does it matter?" he responded quietly. Then he added, shrugging, "I shall have less time for mayhem. And, sadly, less time for my medicines. And I will have to marry, because a king must produce heirs." Glancing into her face, he said with a small smile, "You know, I would ask you to marry me, except that it's not a thing I would ask anyone without Bann present, nor would I actually make you such an inadequate offer in earnest. It would solve a great many of my problems and create problems for you, hm?"

She couldn't help smiling. "I confess it's not a future I would wish for," she said. "On the other hand, it's no less romantic than any other proposal I've ever gotten. Ask me again in five years. Perhaps then I'll be in need of something complicated and strange that looks good to the rest of the world."

Chuckling, Raffin practiced straightening his arm, bending it, straightening it again. "What if I stick Bann by accident?" he asked grumpily.

"Just open your eyes wide and look where you're stabbing," said Bitterblue cheerfully.

RUNNING THROUGH THE east city that night, she wasn't certain what she was running toward. With truthseekers and truth killers on her mind she was alert, trusting no one she passed, conscious of the blades on her own arms, of how quickly she could whip them out if she needed to. When a hooded woman passed under a streetlamp and gold paint on her lips caught the light, it stopped Bitterblue like a shock. Gold paint, and glitter around her eyes.

Bitterblue stood, breathing hard. Yes, it was late September; yes, it could very well be the equinox. Yes, it did seem likely that some people in the city would celebrate, discreetly, those traditional rituals. For example, the same people who buried their dead and stole back truths.

For the merest instant, Bitterblue was uncertain. In that instant, she could have turned back. It wasn't thought; it didn't go that deep. It was in the fingertips she brought to her lips, and on her skin.

She ran on.

TILDA ANSWERED HER knock and pulled her into a room she barely recognized, so full was it of people and noise. Tilda bent down and kissed Bitterblue on the lips, smiling, wearing an ornament in her hair, more like a hat, really, made of hanging, swaying drops of glass.

"Come kiss Teddy," Tilda said. Or, at least, it was what Bitterblue thought she said, for two young men to her right were singing raucously, arms linked. One of them, seeing Bitterblue, leaned in, pulling the other along, and gave her a peck on the lips. Half of his face was painted with silver glitter, to dazzling effect—he was attractive, they were both attractive—and Bitterblue began to understand that it was going to be an alarming night.

Tilda led her through the doorway into Teddy and Saf's apartment, where light blazed on people's jewelry and face glitter, on the golden drinks they held in tumblers. The room was too small for so many people. Bren appeared out of nowhere, took Bitterblue's chin, and kissed her. Flowers were painted all across Bren's cheekbones and down her neck.

When Bitterblue finally reached Teddy's cot in the corner, she dropped into a chair beside him, breathless, relieved to find him unpainted and dressed just like his usual self. "I suppose I have to kiss you," she said.

"Indeed," he said cheerily. Pulling on her hand, drawing her near, he gave her a soft and sweet kiss. "Isn't it marvelous?" he said, smacking one last little kiss onto her nose.

"Well, it's something," said Bitterblue, whose head was spinning.

"I just love parties," he said.

"Teddy," she said, noticing the glass in his hand, full of some amber liquid, "should you be drinking that in your condition?"

"Perhaps not. I'm drunk," he said gleefully, then threw back his glass and held it out to a fellow nearby for a refill. The fellow gave him both a refill and a kiss. Someone took Bitterblue's hand and pulled her up from the chair. Turning, she was kissing Saf.

It was not like the other kisses, not at all. "Sparks," he whispered into the place beneath her ear, nuzzling her, pulling her hood back, which made her crane her face up and kiss him more. He seemed amenable to more kissing. When it occurred to her that eventually he might stop kissing her, her hands reached to take hold of his shirt and anchor him there, and she bit him.

"Sparks," he said, grinning, then chuckling, but staying right where he was. His eyelids and the skin around his eyes were painted gold in the shape of a mask, which was startling, and exciting.

Rough hands yanked them apart.

"Hello," said a man Bitterblue had never seen before, pale-haired and mean-looking and clearly not sober. He shoved his finger in Saf's face. "I don't think you understand the nature of this holiday, Sapphire."

"I don't think you understand the nature of our relationship, Ander," Saf said with sudden ferocity, then smashed his fist into the other man's face so fast that Bitterblue was left gasping. An instant later, people had grabbed on to both of them and pulled them apart, pulled them away, taken them out of the room, and Bitterblue stood there, dazed and bereft.

"Lucky," said a voice.

Teddy was holding his hand out to her from the cot, like a rope to pull her to shore. Going to him numbly, Bitterblue took his hand and sat. After a moment of trying to figure it out on her own, she said, "What just happened?"

"Oh, Sparks," said Teddy, patting her hand. "Welcome to Sapphire's world."

"No, seriously, Teddy," she said. "Please don't talk in riddles. What just happened? Was that one of the bullies who like to beat him up?"

"No," said Teddy, shaking his head ponderously. "That was a different kind of bully. Saf keeps a vast range of bullies on hand at all times. That one seemed to be of the jealous variety."

"Jealous? Of me?"

"Well, you're the one who was kissing him in rather a non-holiday manner, weren't you?"

"But, is that man his—"

"No," Teddy repeated. "Not now. Unfortunately, Ander is a psychopath. Saf has the most bizarre taste, Sparks, present company excluded, of course, and I really cannot warn you strongly enough against getting involved, but what good will it do?" Teddy flapped his free hand in a gesture of despair, sloshing his drink. "It's clear you're already involved. I'll talk to him. He likes you. Maybe I can get through to him about you."

"Who else is there?" she heard herself ask.

Teddy shook his head unhappily. "No one," he said. "But he's not good for you, Sparks, do you understand that? He's not going to marry you."

"I don't want him to marry me," said Bitterblue.

"Whatever you want him to do to you," Teddy said flatly, "I beg you to remember that he is reckless." Then, taking another big sip of his drink, he added, "I fear that you're the one who's drunk."

SHE LEFT THE party with the feeling, physical and painful, that something was unfinished. But there was nothing to be done about it. Saf had not returned.

Outside, she pulled her hood close, for the night air held a chill and the promise of rain. When she stepped into the graveyard, a shape moved in the shadows. She reached for her knives—then saw that it was Saf.

"Sparks," he said.

As he moved toward her, she understood something all at once, something that had to do with his gold, his recklessness, the mad sparkle of his face paint. His aliveness and roughness and realness that reminded her too much, suddenly, of Katsa, of Po, of everyone she loved and fought with and worried about.

"Sparks," he said breathlessly, stopping before her. "I've been waiting for you so I can apologize. I'm sorry for what I did in there."

She looked up at him, unable to answer.

"Sparks," he said. "Why are you crying?"

"I'm not."

"I made you cry," he said in distress, closing the space between them and gathering her into a hug. Then he began kissing her and she lost her hold on what had been making her cry.

It was different this time, because of the silence and because they were alone. Standing in the graveyard, they were the only two people on earth. He shifted and began to be more gentle, too gentle, on purpose. He was making her crazy, on purpose, with want, teasing her, she knew it from his smile. Vaguely she was conscious that their clothing was in the way of the kind of touching she wanted.

"Sparks."

He'd murmured something she hadn't heard. "Huh?"

"Teddy's going to kill me," he said.

"Teddy?"

"The thing is, I like you. I know I'm a mess, but I like you."

"Mhm?"

"I know you don't trust me."

Thoughts came slowly. "No," she whispered, understanding, grinning. "You're a thief."

Now he was smiling too much to kiss properly. "I'll be the thief," he said, "and you can be the liar."

"Saf—"

"You're my liar," he whispered. "Will you tell me a lie, Sparks? Tell me your name."

"My name," she whispered, began to speak, then caught herself. Froze and stopped kissing him. She'd very nearly said her name aloud. "Saf," she said, jangling with the pain of abruptly, jaggedly becoming conscious. "Wait," she said, gasping. "Wait. Let me think."

"Sparks?"

She struggled against his hold; he tried to stop her, then he too came awake and understood. "Sparks?" he said again, releasing her, blinking, confused. "What is it?"

She stared at him, sober now to what she was doing in this graveyard with a boy who liked her and had no idea who she was. No idea of the magnitude of the lie he was begging her to tell.

"I have to go," she said, because she needed to be where he couldn't see her comprehension.

"Now?" he said. "What's wrong? I'll walk with you."

"No," she said. "I have to go, Saf." She turned and ran.

NEVER AGAIN. I must never even visit them again, no matter how much I want to.

Am I mad? Am I positively mad? Look at the kind of queen I am. Look what I would do to one of my own people.

My father would be pleased with my perfect lie.

SHE WAS BEYOND any care as she ran with her hood low, beyond taking notice of anything around her. And so she was woefully unprepared when a person reared out of a dark doorway just outside the castle and clamped a hand to her mouth.

19

TRAINING KICKED IN. Bitterblue did what Katsa had taught her and dropped like a stone, surprising her assailant with her sudden weight, then connecting her elbow to some soft part of a torso. The person lost his balance and she fell with him, scrabbling for her knives, cursing, shouting, gasping. And then a small cart parked across the street transformed into something with shrouded arms and legs that burst toward them, flapping, swinging, knife flashing, chasing her assailant away.

Bitterblue lay in the gutter where she'd been flung, stunned, slowly realizing that she was alone. What in the skies just happened?

Shoving herself to her feet, she assessed the damage. Aching head and shoulder and ankle. But nothing broken or unworking. When she touched her stinging forehead, blood came away on her fingers.

Paying much greater attention now, she ran the rest of the way to the castle and, once inside, set out to find Po.

HE WAS NOT in his rooms.

Katsa's rooms seemed particularly far away in the dead of night. By the time Bitterblue got there, her head was splitting with pain and consumed with a specific question: Had the person who attacked her known whom he was attacking, or had it been a random attack on a stranger? And if he had known, what had he known? Had he thought himself to be attacking the queen, or merely the queen's spy? Or perhaps a miscellaneous friend of Saf and Teddy's? Had their struggle on the ground elucidated her identity to him? She had not recognized him. Nor had she heard him speak, so she couldn't say if he was Monsean. She knew nothing at all.

Bitterblue tapped Katsa's door.

The door shot open partway and Katsa slammed herself into the crack, torso wrapped in a sheet, eyes glaring, bare shoulders blocking ingress.

"Oh, hello," she said, letting the door go. "What happened? Are you all right?"

"I need Po," Bitterblue said. "Is he awake?"

The door swung open to reveal the bed, where Po lay sleeping. "He's exhausted," said Katsa. "What happened, sweetheart?" she asked again.

"Someone attacked me outside the castle," Bitterblue said.

Katsa's eyes blazed blue and green and Po sat up in bed like a mechanical doll. "What is it?" he said blearily. "Wildcat? Is it morning?"

"It's the middle of the night and Bitterblue's been attacked," Katsa said.

"Seas," Po said, launching himself out of bed, dragging his sheet with him, knotting it around his waist and blundering back and forth like he was still half asleep. His bruised face looked thoroughly disreputable. "Who? Where? Which street? Did they speak with an accent? Are you all right? You seem all right. Which way did they go?"

"I don't even know if the attack was meant for me or for the spy I was pretending to be," Bitterblue said. "Nor do I know who it was. It was no one I recognized and he didn't speak. But I believe that the Graceling was there, Po. Holt's niece, with the Grace of disguise. I believe she may have come to my aid."

"Ah," Po said, going still all of a sudden, then placing his hands on his hips and taking on a bizarre expression. A sort of studied nonchalance.

"Holt's niece?" Katsa said, peering at Po, puzzled. "Hava? What about her? And why do you have sparkly stuff all over your face, Bitterblue?"

"Oh." Bitterblue found a chair and sat, rubbing randomly at the paint she couldn't see on her face, the entire unhappy night flowing into her at once. "Don't ask me about the paint while Po is here, Katsa, please," she said, fighting tears. "The paint is private. It has nothing to do with the attack."

Katsa seemed to understand this. Going to a side table, she poured water into a bowl. Then, kneeling, she stroked Bitterblue's face with the soft cloth and cool water, patted her stinging forehead. This gentleness was too much. Big, seeping tears began to run down Bitterblue's cheeks, which Katsa accepted in stride, patting them away.

"Po," Katsa said in a measured voice, "why are you standing there trying to look innocent? What's going on with Hava?"

"I am innocent," Po said indignantly. "A week or so ago I met her, is all."

"Ah," said Bitterblue, Po's perfect comprehension of the Holt-sculpture debacle last night finally making sense. "You're friends with my kidnapper. Lovely."

"She was in the castle sneaking around," Po went on, waving this away, "trying to visit Holt. I sensed her pretending to be a sculpture in one of the hallways and apprehended her. We had a little chat. I trust her. She was very out of the loop that day with Danzhol, Bitterblue. She didn't realize, until it all happened, that he'd been intending to go so far as to kidnap you. She feels awful about it. Anyway, she agreed to spend some time in the wee hours of the morning keeping an eye out for your safety. I worry that she hasn't contacted me," he added, rubbing his face with both palms, "because I asked her to get in touch if anything ever happened. How far from the castle did the attack take place, Bitterblue? I can't find her anywhere outside."

"Get in touch how?" Katsa asked, absently passing the cloth to Bitterblue.

"It was near to the east wall," Bitterblue said, "not in view of it, but one street beyond. What exactly are you doing, asking her to keep an eye out for me, Po? She's a wanted fugitive! And does this mean you've told her I go out nights?"

"How was she supposed to get in touch with you?" Katsa asked.

"I told you," Po said to Bitterblue, "I trust her."

"Then trust her with your secrets, not mine! Po! Tell me she doesn't know!"

"Po," Katsa said, in such a strange voice that both Po and Bitterblue stopped, turning to look at her. She had backed away nearly to the door and wrapped her bare arms around her sheet dress, as if she were cold. "Po," she said again, "how was Hava to get in touch with you? Was she to come knocking on our doors?"

"What do you mean?" he asked; then swallowed; then rubbed the back of his neck, looking uncomfortable.

"How," Katsa said, "did you explain to her that you knew she was a person, not a sculpture?"

"You're jumping to conclusions," Po said.

Katsa stared at Po with an expression on her face Bitterblue didn't often see. The look of a person who's been punched in the gut. "Po," Katsa whispered. "She's a total stranger. We don't know the first thing about her."

Hands on hips, head hanging, Po blew a breath of air at the floor. "I don't need your permission," he said, rather helplessly.

"But you're being reckless, Po. And devious! You made a promise that you would tell me whenever you decided to tell someone new. Don't you remember?"

"Telling you would have meant fighting a war with you about it, Katsa. I should be able to decide about my own secrets without having to go into battle with you every single time!"

"But if you've changed your mind about a promise," Katsa said desperately, "you must tell me. Otherwise, you're breaking the promise, and I'm left feeling that you've lied. How is it that I should need to explain this to you? This is the sort of thing you usually have to explain to me!"

"You know what?" said Po suddenly, forcefully. "I can't do this with you around. I can't work through this thing when I know every moment how much it frightens you!"

"If you imagine that I'm going to leave you while you're in this mind-set—"

"You have to leave. It's been agreed. You go north to look for the tunnel to Estill."

"I won't go. None of us will! If you're determined to ruin your own life, at least your friends will be here for you when it happens!"

Katsa was yelling now; they were both yelling, and Bitterblue had made herself small in her chair, flinching at the terrible noise, clutching the damp cloth to her chest with both hands. "Ruin my life?" Po cried. "Perhaps I'm trying to save my life!"

"Save your life? You—"

"Remember the deal, Katsa. If you won't leave, then I will, and you'll let me go!"

Katsa was holding the door handle, her fingers so tight that Bitterblue half expected the handle to snap off. Katsa stared at Po for a long time, saying nothing.

"You were leaving anyway," Po said quietly, taking a step toward her, reaching out a hand. "Love. You were leaving, and then you were going to come back. That's all I need right now. I need time."

"Don't come any closer," Katsa said. "No. Don't say any more," as he opened his mouth again to speak. A tear slid down Katsa's face. "I understand you," she said, "completely." And she pulled on the door, slipped through the crack, and was gone.

"Where is she going?" Bitterblue asked, startled. "She's not dressed."

Po sank onto the bed. Dropping his head into his hands, he said, "She's going north to search for the tunnel to Estill."

"Now? But she has no supplies! She's wearing a sheet!"

"I've located Hava," he said roughly. "She's hiding in the art gallery. She has blood on her hands and she's telling me that your attacker is dead. I'll get dressed and go up to her to see what she knows."

"Po! Will you let Katsa go like this?"

He made no response. She understood, from the tears he was trying to hide from her, that he had no wish to discuss it.

Bitterblue watched him for a moment. Then, going to him, she touched his hair. "I love you, Po," she said. "Whatever you do."

Then she left.

A LAMP WAS lit in her sitting room. The blue of the room was swallowed in darkness and a silver sword lay gleaming on the table, seeming to hold all the light.

Beside it was a note.

Lady Queen,

It's been decided I must leave for Estill in the morning, but I wanted to deliver this from Ornik first. I hope you're as pleased with it as I am and will have no cause to use it while I'm gone. I'm sorry I won't be around to help you with your various puzzles.

Yours, Giddon

Bitterblue lifted the sword. It was a solid shaft, weighty and wellbalanced, well-fitted to her hand, her arm. Simple in design, dazzling in the darkness. Ornik did well, she thought, holding it aloft. I could have used it tonight.

In her bedroom, Bitterblue made a place for the sword and belt on her bedside table. The mirror showed her a girl with a scrape on her forehead, raw and ugly; a girl who was tear-stained, paint-smudged, chap-lipped, messy-haired. All that she'd done tonight was visible on her face. She almost couldn't believe that the morning had started with her dream, her visit to Madlen. That only last night, she'd run with Saf across the city roofs and learned about the truth killers. Now Katsa was gone, on her way to some tunnel. Giddon was soon to leave too, and Raffin and Bann. How did so much happen in so little time?

Saf.

Her mother's embroidery, happy fish and snowflakes and castles in their rows, boats and anchors, the sun and stars, filled Bitterblue with loneliness. Before she even laid herself down properly, she was asleep.

IN THE MORNING, both Thiel and Runnemood were quite taken aback by the scrape on her forehead. Thiel, in particular, acted as if her head were hanging on by a mere thread, until she snapped at him to take hold of himself. Runnemood, seated in the window as usual, pushed his hand through his hair, jeweled rings glinting, eyes glinting. He would not stop staring at her. Bitterblue got the feeling that when she told him the scrape was from practice with Katsa, he didn't believe her.

When Darby came bounding in, sober, bright-eyed, and alarmed that the queen should exhibit something as dreadful as a scratch, Bitterblue decided it was high time to take a break from her tower. "Library," she said in response to Runnemood's inquiring eyebrow. "Don't get your pants in a knot. I won't stay long."

Making her way down the spiral steps, leaning on the wall to steady herself, Bitterblue changed her mind. She wasn't spending much time in her High Court these days. There never seemed to be anything interesting going on. But today, she'd like to sit with her judges for just a short while, even if it meant gritting her teeth through a tedious boundary dispute or some such. She'd like to look into their faces and measure their manners, get a feel for whether any of those eight powerful men might be the type to silence the city's truthseekers.

The city's truthseekers. Whenever she touched them with her thoughts today, her heart was a bright burst of sadness and shame.

When she walked into the High Court, a trial had already begun. At the sight of her, the entire court stood. "Catch me up," she said to the clerk as she crossed the dais to her chair.

"Accused of murder in the first degree, Lady Queen," said the clerk briskly. "Monsean name, Birch; Lienid name, Sapphire. Sapphire Birch."

Her mouth had dropped open and her eyes had whipped to the accused before her brain had even processed what it was hearing. Frozen, Bitterblue stared into the bruised, bloody, and utterly dumbfounded face of Sapphire.

20

BITTERBLUE COULD NOT breathe and, for a moment, she saw stars.

Turning her back to the judges, the floor, the gallery, she stumbled in confusion to the table behind the dais where supplies were kept and where the clerks stood, so that as few people as possible would see her confusion. Clinging to the table so that she wouldn't fall, she reached for a pen, touched it to ink, blotted. She pretended to be jotting something down, something of dire importance that she'd just remembered. She had never held a pen so hard.

When her lungs seemed to be accepting air again, she said, almost whispering, "Who hurt him?"

"If you'll sit, Lady Queen," said the voice of Lord Piper, "we'll put the question to the accused."

Carefully, Bitterblue turned to face the standing court. "Tell me," she said, "this instant, who hurt him."

"Hmm," Piper said, scrutinizing her in puzzlement. "The accused will answer the queen's inquiry."

A moment of silence. She didn't want to look at Saf again but it was impossible not to. His mouth was a bloody gash and one eye was swollen almost shut. His coat, so familiar to her, was rent at one of the shoulder seams and spattered with dried blood. "The Monsean Guard hurt me," he said, then stopped, then added, "Lady Queen." Then, "Lady Queen," he repeated in bafflement. "Lady Queen."

"That will do," Piper said sternly.

"Lady Queen," Saf said again, suddenly falling into his chair, giggling hysterically, and adding, "How could you?"

"The queen is not the one who hit you," Piper snapped, "and if she had, it would not be yours to question. Stand up, man. Show respect!"

"No," Bitterblue said. "Every single person here, sit."

A suspended moment of silence followed. Then, hastily, hundreds of people sat. She spotted Bren in the audience, golden-haired, tight-faced, sitting four or five rows behind her brother. She caught Bren's eye. Bren stared back at her with a look like she wanted to spit in Bitterblue's face. And now Bitterblue was thinking of Teddy, at home in his cot. Teddy would be so disappointed in her when he heard this truth.

Holding tight to her own fingers, Bitterblue moved to her seat and also sat; then jumped up, startled; then sat again, this time not on her own sword. Po. Can you hear me? Will you come? Oh, come quickly!

Keeping a channel open to Po but directing her attention to the large guard presence in the prisoner's hold with Saf, she said, "Which of you soldiers would care to explain the Monsean Guard's abuse of this man?"

One of the soldiers stood, squinting at her through two impressively bruised eye sockets. "Lady Queen," he said, "I am the captain of this unit. The prisoner resisted arrest, to the extent that one of our men is in the infirmary with a broken arm. We wouldn't have touched him otherwise."

"You little bitch," Saf said wonderingly.

"Don't!" Bitterblue yelled, rising, extending a finger at the guard, who'd drawn a fist back to strike Saf again. "I don't care what he calls you," she said to the guard, knowing perfectly well whom Saf had meant. "There will be no striking of prisoners, except in selfdefense." Oh, Po, he's not making this easy. If he starts telling the truth, I don't know what I'll do. Pretend he's insane? Insanity won't help to free him. And everyone was half standing again, which made her want to scream. Dropping into her seat once more, she said, "What evidence have I missed? Who's he supposed to have murdered?"

"An engineer in the east city named Ivan, Lady Queen," Piper said.

"Ivan! The one who built the bridges and stole the watermelons? He's dead?"

"Yes, Lady Queen. That Ivan."

"When did it happen?"

"Two nights ago, Lady Queen," said Piper.

"Two nights ago," Bitterblue repeated, then understood what that meant. Her eyes bored into Piper's. "The night before last night? At what time?"

"Just before midnight, Lady Queen, under the clock tower on Monster Bridge. There is a witness who saw everything. The hour struck moments later."

Her heart sinking into her boots, into the floor, into the earth beneath her castle, Bitterblue forced herself to look at Saf. And yes, of course he stared back at her with crossed arms and a nasty, twisted smirk to his broken mouth, for Saf knew perfectly well that just before midnight the night before last, he'd been holding her hands on the roof of the shop, answering her third question, and keeping her from feeling that she would fall off the face of the earth. He'd tossed her his watch to comfort her height sickness. They'd heard the clock chime together. Oh, Po, I don't understand what's happening here. Someone is lying. What am I to do? If I tell the truth, my advisers will know I've been sneaking out, and I can't bear them knowing, I just can't, they'll never trust me again, they'll fight me on everything, they'll try to control me. And the whole kingdom will speculate about whether I'm having a secret affair with a Lienid sailor who's a thief. I'll lose my credibility with everyone. I'll shame myself and everyone who supports me. What do I do? What's the way out of this?

Where are you?

You don't hear me, do you. You're not coming.

"The accused has offered an alibi, Lady Queen," Piper continued. "He claims to have been stargazing with a friend on his roof. He further claims that his friend lives in the castle but that he doesn't know the friend's true identity. Perversely, he then refuses to describe the friend for us so that we might produce him. Which is all in the way of saying that he has no alibi at all."

Which is all in the way of saying that even when faced with the charge of murder, Saf protects the secrets of the people he considers to be friends. Even when he doesn't have the privilege of knowing those secrets himself.

Saf's expression hadn't changed, except to grow harder, tighter, more bitterly amused. She saw no softness for herself there. The softness had been for Sparks, and Sparks was gone now.

Po. I have no choice.

Bitterblue rose and said, "Everyone remain seated." She couldn't control her trembling. To stop herself from hugging her own arms, she took hold of her sword hilt. Then she looked into Saf's face and said, "I know his companion's true name."

The doors at the back of the courtroom crashed open and Po exploded through so forcefully that the audience spun around on their benches, craning to see what the ruckus was. Standing in the center aisle, himself bruised and gasping, Po called up to Bitterblue, "Cousin! Sticky door you've got there!" Then he pretended to pass his eyes over the people in the room. What followed was the most masterly impression of shocked recognition that Bitterblue had ever seen. Po's body went still and his face registered perfect amazement. "Saf," he said. "Great seas, is that you? You're not accused of something, are you?"

Bitterblue's relief was premature, she knew that. Still, it was the only emotion she could feel as she fell into her chair. She wasn't going to say a thing until she understood exactly what Po was up to, other than, perhaps, the single word Piper, so that Piper would know to run through the charges against Saf once more and Po could go through the dramatics of pretending to be astonished and appalled.

"But, this is extraordinary," Po said, walking up the aisle, coming alongside the prisoner's hold, where Saf sat gaping at Po as if Po were a dancing bear that had just jumped out of a cake. In one easy motion, Po swung himself over the gate, pushed through Saf's startled, rising guards, and took Saf's shoulder. "Why are you protecting me, man? Don't you know what happens to murderers in Monsea? Lady Queen, he didn't murder that man. He was on the roof that night, just as he says, and I was with him."

THANK YOU, PO. Thank you. Thank you.

She was like the paper glider she'd watched Po fling into the wall. She thought she might slide right off the edge of her chair and crumple onto the floor.

A furious argument had begun between Po and her judges.

"My business is none of your business," Po said flatly when Lord Quall asked, with a smarmy smile, why he'd been stargazing on a roof with a sailor in the east city at midnight. "Nor does it have anything to do with whether Saf is innocent or guilty." And later, "What do you mean, how long have I been friends with him? Haven't you asked him?" I don't know if they've asked him, Bitterblue thought to him; but apparently Po had already determined that they hadn't—which was lucky—for he continued without missing a beat. "We met for the first time that night. Can you wonder that I fell in talking with him? Look at him! I don't ignore my own people!"

Don't draw any more attention to him than you need to, Po. He's not coping well. For if Po's apparent surprise at finding his new best friend on trial for murder was well acted, it paled in comparison to Saf's confoundedness at finding the Graceling prince of Lienid at his side, knowing who he was, claiming to be his friend, knowing obscure details about his whereabouts two nights ago, and lying to the High Court on his behalf.

Quall asked Po if he could furnish any other witnesses.

Po took a step to the front of the hold. "Am I on trial here? Perhaps you think the two of us killed the man together."

"Naturally not, Lord Prince," said Quall. "But you'll understand our hesitation in trusting a Lienid Graceling who claims to have no Grace."

"When have I ever claimed to have no Grace?"

"Not you, of course, Lord Prince. The accused."

Po spun back to Saf. "Saf? Did you tell these judges that you have no Grace?"

Saf swallowed. "No, Lord Prince," he whispered. "I only claimed not to know my Grace, Lord Prince."

"You do perceive the difference?" Po asked, rather sarcastically, turning back to Quall.

"And still, it's certain that the accused lied, Lord Prince, for he also claimed not to know your true identity."

"It's obvious he lied to protect me and my business," Po said impatiently. "He is loyal to a fault."

"My Prince," Saf piped up miserably, "I would rather be convicted of a crime I didn't commit than put you in jeopardy."

Oh, finish this, Po, please, thought Bitterblue. I cannot bear how pathetic he is.

And then Po shot Bitterblue the briefest of sardonic expressions. Bitterblue, hardly able to believe it, studied Saf more closely. Surely his humility wasn't an act? Could Saf act in a moment like this?

"He is proud of lying!" Quall said triumphantly.

Bitterblue had given up on identifying the authenticity of anyone's emotions. She only knew that Po seemed genuinely fed up with Quall. Swinging himself over the gate of the hold—not quite as smoothly as he had before—he came to stand before the dais. "What is your problem?" he asked Quall. "Do you doubt the truth of my testimony?"

Quall worked his mouth. "Not at all, Lord Prince."

"Then you acknowledge that he must be innocent; but still, you can't let it go. Why don't you like him? Is it because he's Graced? Or might it be because he's Lienid?"

"He's a funny sort of Lienid," said Quall, with a touch of contempt that suggested some personal disregard.

"To your eyes, perhaps," Po said coolly, "but he would not be wearing those rings or that gold in his ears if the Lienid didn't consider him to be Lienid. Many Lienid look just like him. While your Monsean king was murdering people indiscriminately, our Lienid king was opening his arms to Gracelings seeking freedom. A Lienid is the reason your queen is alive today. Her Lienid mother had a mind stronger than any of the rest of you. Your Monsean king killed my father's Lienid sister. Your own queen is half Lienid!"

Po, Bitterblue thought, beginning to be thoroughly confused. We're getting off course here, don't you think?

"Your Monsean witness is the one who's a criminal liar," Po said, extending his hand toward a broad, handsome man in the first row of the audience.

Po! No one's told you which one is the witness! Bitterblue jumped to her feet so that everyone would have to focus on figuring out whether to rise or remain seated, rather than on Po's strange perceptiveness. Pull yourself together, she snapped at him. "Arrest the witness," she snapped at the guards around Sapphire, "and release the accused from the hold. He's free to go."

"He did break the arm of a member of the Monsean Guard, Lady Queen," Piper reminded her.

"Who was arresting him for a murder he didn't commit!"

"Nonetheless, Lady Queen, I don't believe we can tolerate behavior like that. He also lied to the court."

"I sentence him to the black eye and bloody mouth he already has," Bitterblue said, gazing at Piper squarely. "Unless every one of you objects to that, he's free to go."

Piper cleared his throat. "That's acceptable to me, Lady Queen."

"Very well," Bitterblue said. She turned and, without another glance at Saf or Po or any of the gaping audience, marched to the exit at the back of the dais.

Po, don't let him get away. Bring him somewhere where I can talk to him privately. Bring him to my rooms.

21

WHEN BITTERBLUE BURST into her sitting room, Fox was polishing the royal crown.

"Shall I come back later, Lady Queen?" she asked, with one glance at the queen.

"No. Yes. No," said Bitterblue, a bit wildly. "Where is Helda?"

"Lady Queen?" Helda's voice came from the doorway behind her. "What on earth is the matter?"

"Helda," said Bitterblue, "I did something terrible. Don't let anyone in but Po and whoever he brings, all right? I can't talk to anyone else."

"Of course, Lady Queen," said Helda. "What happened?"

Bitterblue began to pace. She couldn't begin to explain. To get away from the need to do so, she waved her hands hopelessly, then pushed past Helda to the foyer and her bedroom and shut the door. Inside, she commenced pacing again, her sword slamming against her leg every time she turned.

Where is Po? Why must they take so long?

Not certain when or how she'd crossed the room, she found herself bent over her mother's chest, clinging to its edges. The figures carved into its lid blurred with her tears.

Then the door opened and Bitterblue scrambled to her feet, turned, tripped, sat down hard on the trunk. Po came in and shut the door behind him.

"Where is he?" Bitterblue asked.

"In your sitting room," Po said. "I've asked Helda and that girl to step out. Is there any way I can convince you not to do this now? He's had an awful lot thrown at him and no time to absorb it."

"I need to explain."

"I really think that if you gave him some time—"

"I promise I'll give him cartloads of time, after I explain."

"Bitterblue—"

Bitterblue stood, swept toward Po, and stopped before him, chin raised, staring at him.

"Yes, all right," Po said, rubbing his face with both ring-covered hands, defeated. "I'm not leaving," he added flatly.

"Po—"

"Be as queeny as you like, Bitterblue. He's angry, he's hurt; he's clever and slippery; this morning he broke someone's arm. I will not leave you alone in these rooms with him."

"Can't you just extract some sort of Lienid oath of honor from him or something?" she shot at him sarcastically.

"I already have," Po said. "I'm still not leaving." Marching to the bed, he sat, crossing legs and arms.

Bitterblue watched him for a moment, knowing that she was releasing feelings of one kind or another to him, not knowing herself exactly what they were. Managing, through some heroic effort of will, to contain how much she wished he would get past this addleheaded crisis about his Grace. Po said, "That ass Quall on your High Court hates the Lienid. He tells himself he thinks that we're inbred, over-muscled simpletons, but really what bothers him is that, in his opinion, we're better looking than he is. There's no logic to it, either, for he's lumped Saf into it, even though, as he himself pointed out, Saf doesn't look Lienid. He's jealous of how well Saf and I look in our gold. Can you believe that? If he could've convicted us both of murder and taken our freedom away by virtue of that alone, he would have. He kept trying to imagine us without it."

"Without . . . your freedom?"

"Without our gold," Po said. "I'll stay in here while you talk to Sapphire. If he touches you, I'll come in and choke him to death."

Saf'S GOLD WAS the first thing she saw when she entered the sitting room, sunlit in his ears and on his fingers. She understood all at once that she wouldn't like to see him without it. It would be like seeing him with eyes that weren't his, or hearing him speak in a different voice.

The gash in his coat broke her heart. She wanted to touch him.

Then he turned to her and she saw the disgust carried in every feature of his battered face and in every line of his body.

He dropped to his knees, eyes raised, staring straight into hers—the perfect mockery of subservience, for no man on his knees ever raised his eyes to a sovereign's face. It defeated the purpose of lowering oneself.

"Stop that!" she said. "Get up."

"Whatever you wish, Lady Queen," he said sarcastically, leaping to his feet.

She was beginning to understand the game. "Please don't do this, Saf," she pleaded. "You know it's just me."

Saf snorted.

"What? What is it?"

"Nothing at all," he said, "Lady Queen."

"Oh, just tell me, Saf."

"I wouldn't dream of contradicting the queen, Lady Queen."

In another place, in another conversation between them, she might have slapped his smug face. Perhaps Sparks would have slapped him right now. But Bitterblue couldn't, for Bitterblue, slapping Saf, would only be playing into his game: The mighty queen slaps the lowly subject. And the more like a subject she treated him, the more control he had over the situation. Which confused her, because it made no sense that a queen should transfer power to her subject by mistreating him.

She just wanted to be able to talk to him. "Saf," she said. "Until now, we've been friends and equals."

He shot her a look of pure derision.

"What?" she begged. "Tell me. Please talk to me."

Saf took a few steps toward the crown on its stand and put his hand full on it, stroking the soft gold of its face, measuring the gems between his fingers. She kept her mouth shut, even though it felt like a bodily assault. But when he went so far as to lift it, placing it on his own head, turning to stare at her balefully, a ruin-eyed, bloody-mouthed, tattered-coat king, she couldn't stop herself. "Put that down," she hissed.

"Hm?" he murmured as he removed the crown, setting it back on its velvet cushion. "We're not equals after all, then, are we?"

"I don't care about the stupid crown," she said, flustered. "I only care that my father was the last man I ever saw wear it, and when you put it on, I remember him."

"Ironic," he said, "for I've been thinking of how much you make me think of him."

It didn't matter that she'd had the same thoughts herself. It hurt far more coming from Saf. "You have lied just as much as I," she whispered.

"I have never once lied," he snarled in an ugly voice, taking a step toward her, so that she had to step back, startled. "I've kept things from you when I needed to. But I've never lied!"

"You knew I wasn't who I said. That was no secret!"

"You're the queen!" Saf yelled, taking another step forward. "The rutting queen! You manipulated me! And not just for information!"

Po appeared in the doorway. He took hold of the door frame above his head, casually, with one hand. Raising his eyebrows, he leaned and waited.

"Forgive me, Lord Prince," Saf said miserably, confusing Bitterblue by lowering his eyes before Po, hanging his head, stepping back from her with no equivocation.

"The queen is my cousin," said Po calmly.

"I understand, Lord Prince," Saf said meekly.

I, on the other hand, do not understand, Bitterblue thought to Po, and I could kick you. I want him angry. When he's angry, we get to the truth.

Po assumed a bland expression, turned on his heel, and left the room.

"He has no idea," Saf said, "does he. He has no idea what a snake you are."

Taking a breath, Bitterblue said quietly, "I didn't manipulate you."

"Horseshit," Saf said. "You told Prince Po every last detail about me, every minute of everything we've ever done, yet I'm to believe you never told your little people? You think I'm so naïve that I haven't figured out how I got pulled in for a murder I didn't commit, or who's paying that witness to lie? Or who's responsible for the attacks on Teddy and me?"

"What?" she cried. "Saf! No! How can you think I'm behind all those things when Po and I just saved you? You're not thinking!"

"And that last little bit of fun—did you enjoy that? Do you get a kick out of debasing yourself with commoners and then telling others? I cannot believe how much feeling I wasted in worry," he said, voice going low, stepping toward her again. "Fearing I would injure you somehow. Thinking you were innocent!"

Knowing it was a wild and unwise thing to do, she took hold of his arm. "Saf, I swear to you, I'm not your villain. I'm as baffled about that as you are. I'm on your side! I'm trying to find the truth! And I've never told anyone your every last detail—anyone but Po," she amended desperately, "and even he doesn't know the private things. Hardly anyone else even knows I go out at night!"

"You're lying again," he said, trying to push her off. "Let go."

She clung to him. "No. Please."

"Let go," he said between his teeth, "or I'll punch you in the face and shame myself before my prince."

"I want you to punch me in the face," she said, which wasn't true, but at least it would be fair. Her guards had punched him in the face.

"Of course," he said, "because then I'll land right back in prison." He twisted his arm away and she gave up, turned her back to him, wrapping arms around herself, hugging herself desolately.

Finally, she said in a small, clear voice, "I have lied, Saf, but never with the intention of hurting you or your friends, or any truthseekers, or anyone, I swear it. I only ever went out to see what my city was like at night, because my advisers keep me blind in a tower and I wanted to know. I never meant to meet you. I never meant to like you and I never meant to become your friend. Once I did, how was I to tell you the truth?"

She couldn't see him, but he seemed to be laughing. "You're unbelievable."

"Why? What is it? Explain what you mean!"

"You seem to have this daydream," Saf said, "that when we were spending time together and I didn't know you were the queen, we were friends. Equals. But knowledge is power. You knew you were the queen and I didn't. We have never once been equal, and as far as friendship goes," he said—then stopped. "Your mother is dead," he said in a different kind of voice, bitter, and final. "You've lied to me about everything."

"I told you things that were more precious to me than the truth," she whispered.

A silence stretched between them, empty. A distance. It lasted a long, long time.

"Let's suppose for a minute that you're telling the truth," he finally said, "about not being the person behind the attacks."

"I am telling the truth," she whispered. "Saf, I swear it. The only thing I lied about is who I am."

Another short silence. When he spoke again, it was with a sadness and a quietness that she did not know how to associate with the Saf she knew. "But I don't think you understand who you are," he said. "I don't think you realize how big it is, or how it maroons me. You're so high in the world that you can't see down as far as me. You don't see what you've done." And Saf moved around her, vanishing into the foyer without leave, shouldering through the outside doors, so abruptly that, finding herself alone, she made a small noise of surprise.

Slowly, Bitterblue unfolded herself, turning to take in the room, the midday light. She searched for the clock on the mantel, to see how many hours of this day were left to live through before she could hide in the covers of her bed.

Her eyes didn't make it as far as the clock, for the crown was missing from its velvet cushion.

Bitterblue spun frantically, her body refusing her mind's immediate comprehension, but of course, the crown was nowhere else in the room either. Hissing Saf's name, she ran after him, burst through her outside doors, and found herself staring into the faces of two very startled Lienid guards.

"Is anything wrong, Lady Queen?" the guard to the left inquired.

And what was she going to do, anyway? Race through the castle, higgledy-piggledy, having no idea of his route, in the hopes that she'd cross his path in a courtyard somewhere? And then what? Ask him, before an audience of passersby, to please give back the crown he was hiding in his coat? Then, when he refused, grapple with him for it? He'd be arrested all over again, and this time for a crime he had committed.

"Everything is marvelous," Bitterblue said. "This is the best day of my life. Thank you for asking."

Then she went to kick in her bedroom door and demand of Po why he'd let this happen.

The answer was straightforward enough. Po was asleep.

22

WHEN PO BURST back into her rooms an hour later, he was not carrying the crown.

"Where is it?" Bitterblue hissed from her place on the sofa, where she'd spent the hour pushing away the food Helda pressed on her, fending off visits from her puzzled advisers, and pulling at her cuticles.

Po collapsed beside her, rumpled and soaking wet. "I lost him."

"You lost him! How?"

"He had a head start, Bitterblue, and his sister met him just outside, and they ran together, splitting up sometimes. And it's raining, which makes things harder for me. And I cannot keep all your streets in my mind, and all the houses, and all the moving people, while also focusing on someone who grows farther and farther away; I got lost, I had to backtrack. And all the hundreds of folk who saw me were having dramatic reactions at me, wanting to know why I was running around like a lunatic, and I cannot even begin to describe how distracting that is. The power of the rumor mill, if you could feel it as I do, would boggle your mind. Too many people out there know, somehow, that Katsa left abruptly in the middle of the night, sobbing her eyes out, wearing Raffin's clothing, and taking a horse over Winged Bridge. Every one of them who looked at me wanted to know what horrible thing I'd done to her."

"In addition to that," a dignified voice said from the doorway, "look at what a sight he is, Lady Queen. I've never tried running after young men through the city streets myself, but I expect it's difficult with heavy legs and tired eyes. He looks as if he hasn't slept in days, and who can blame him, with his lady up and leaving him?" Coming into the room, Helda went to a side table, poured a cup of cider, and brought it to Po.

"She left because I asked her to, Helda," he said quietly, accepting the cup.

Sitting down across from them, sniffing, Helda said, "Who's going to tell me what's going on?"

Bitterblue was lost. Had Po told Helda his truth, then? Or was he revealing it to her this very moment? Had he even meant to, or had she snuck up on him somehow? If one of the Lienid guards stepped in, or one of the spies, would Po reveal it to them too? Why not hang a banner from the windows?

She tore a hangnail too close to the root and sucked her breath in through her teeth. "Well," she said to Helda, watching the bead of blood grow. "Today, a city person I know was arrested for a murder he didn't commit. He was acquitted. Then Po brought him here so that I could talk to him."

"I saw him when he came in, Lady Queen," Helda said severely, "before Prince Po shooed me back to my rooms and told me to stay there. He looked like an incurable ruffian. And when he began yelling at you, and I came out to knock some sense into him, Prince Po shooed me away again."

"His name is Sapphire," Bitterblue said, swallowing, "and he didn't know until he saw me in the High Court today that I was the queen. I'd told him that I worked in the kitchens."

Helda narrowed her eyes. "I see."

"He's a friend, Helda," Bitterblue said hopelessly. "Except that on the way out, he stole the crown."

Settling herself more firmly into her chair, Helda said again, dryly, "I see."

"I can't see with my eyes," Po said to Helda, perhaps a bit out of the blue, thrusting a hand through his soggy hair. "I believe you've gathered the rest, but if you're to know the whole truth, I should tell you I lost my eyesight eight years ago."

Helda opened her mouth; closed it.

"I sense things," Po went on. "Not just thoughts, but objects, bodies, force, momentum, the world around me, and so my blindness, much of the time, is not the hindrance it would otherwise be. But it's the reason I can't read. I can't see color; the world is gray shapes. The sun and moon are too far away for me to sense and I can't see light."

Still working her mouth, Helda reached into her pocket for a handkerchief, which she handed to Bitterblue. After a moment, she extracted another handkerchief, then set to folding it precisely, as if matching corner to corner were the day's most critical task. When she pressed it to her lips, then dabbed her eyes, Po's head dropped. "Regarding the crown," he said, clearing his throat. "They seemed to be heading east, perhaps toward the silver docks, before I lost them."

"Did you go to the shop?"

"I don't know the location of the shop, Bitterblue. No one's thought the map straight at me. Do it yourself and I'll go there now."

"No," she said, "I'll go."

"I don't advise that."

"I must."

"Bitterblue," Po said, beginning to lose his patience, "I advised you against meeting him the first time and he stole your crown. What do you think he'll do the second time?"

"But if I keep trying—"

"While I stand outside ready to come bursting in to cover for you when he, oh, I don't know, gets it into his head to drag you into the street and start screaming that the boy in the hood is really the queen of the kingdom? I don't have time for this, Bitterblue, and I don't have the energy to keep straightening your tangles!"

White-lipped, Bitterblue rose to her feet. "Shall I stop straightening your tangles, then, too, Po? How often do I lie for your sake? How often did you lie to me in the first years of our acquaintance? You, who are immune to being lied to yourself. How inconvenient it must be when you have to complicate your peace by lying for the sake of others."

"Sometimes," Po said with bitterness, "you are utterly without pity."

"I'd say you've enough pity for yourself," said Bitterblue. "You, of all people, should understand my need for Saf's forgiveness. What I've done to him, you do to everyone all the time. Help me or don't help me; fine. But don't talk to me as if I'm a child who trips around carelessly making messes. There are situations in my city and my kingdom that you know nothing about." Then she sat down again, suddenly, dismal and deflated. "Oh, Po," she said, dropping her face into her hands. "I'm sorry. Please, give me your advice. What should I say to him? What do you say when you've hurt someone with a lie?"

Po was quiet for a moment. Then he almost seemed to be laughing, mournfully, under his breath. "I apologize."

"Yes, I've done that," Bitterblue said, her mind running through the horrible conversation she'd had with Saf. Then running through it again. "Oh." She stared at Po in dismay. "I never once said I was sorry."

"You must," Po said, gently now. "Beyond that, you must tell him as much of the truth as you possibly can. You must ensure, by whatever means necessary, that he doesn't use it to ruin you. And then you must let him be as angry as he'll be. That's what I do."

And so I must throw myself into my own guilt, and into the hatred of a person I've grown fond of.

Bitterblue contemplated her ruined cuticles. She was beginning to better understand, starkly, Po's crisis. Leaning into him, she touched her head to his shoulder. He put a wet arm around her and held on.

"Helda," Bitterblue said, "how long do you think we can keep everyone from noticing that the crown is missing?"

Helda pursed her lips. "A good long time," she decided with a staunch nod. "I don't anticipate anyone caring about the crown until your uncle's visit, do you, Lady Queen? It's only your spies, your servants, your Council friends, and I in these rooms, and of those, it's only one or two of the servants I'd rather not trust. I'll construct something and throw a cloth over the cushion so it looks like nothing's amiss."

"Don't forget that it depends on Saf as well," Po said. "He's perfectly capable of making it known citywide in any number of ways that your crown is not where it should be, Bitterblue, and plenty of people saw him and me walking to your rooms together after the trial."

Bitterblue sighed. She supposed it was the sort of thing he would do, if he were angry enough. "We've got to find out who framed him for the murder," she said.

"Yes," Po said. "That's an important question. Let me go confront him about the crown, won't you? Please? I'll see if I can learn anything about the framing as well. I also think I should talk to that false witness, don't you agree?"

"Yes. All right." Bitterblue let go of him, sighing. "I'll stay here. I've some things I need to think through. Helda, will you continue to chase my advisers away?"

IN HER BEDROOM, she paced.

Could Saf really, truly, honestly think I'm behind the silencing of the truthseekers? Behind all of it? When I ran with him over the roofs? When I brought Madlen to them! Could he honestly—

Numbly, she sat on the chest, pulling hairpins out. Could he honestly think I would want misfortune to befall him?

Massaging her scalp, working her newly freed hair into a rat's nest, she found herself at a panicky dead end with that question. She had no control over what Saf thought.

He said that I don't see what I've done or how high I am in the world. That I marooned him. He said we've never been friends, never been equals.

Crossing to the vanity where she sat when Helda did her hair, Bitterblue threw her hairpins into a silver bowl and glared into the mirror. Sunken circles stood like bruises under her eyes, and her forehead, still raw from the attack last night, was purple and grisly. Behind her was reflected the enormity of the room, the bed high and big enough to be a dining table for all her friends, the silver, gold, scarlet walls. The dark ceiling dotted with stars. Fox, or someone, must clean away my cobwebs, she thought. Someone must care for this beautiful rug.

Bitterblue thought of the printing shop, messy and bright. She thought of the apartments behind, small enough to fit into this room, tidy, walls and floors made of rough-hewn wood. She looked in the mirror at her own gown of pale gray silk, perfectly fitted, beautifully tailored, and thought of Saf's rougher clothing, the places where his sleeve-ends frayed. She remembered how fond he was of Leck's gold pocket watch. She remembered the choker she had pawned without a second thought, barely caring how much money it made her.

She did not think that they were poor. They had work, they had food, they threw sparkling parties. But she supposed that she didn't really know what poor would look like, if she saw it. Would she recognize it? And if they weren't poor, what were they? How did it work, to live in the city? Did they pay someone rent? Who decided how much things cost? Did they pay taxes to the crown that were a strain on them?

Somewhat uncomfortable now, Bitterblue returned to her mother's chest, sat down, and forced herself to touch the edges of the question of just how, exactly, she had marooned Saf. What if the situation were reversed? What if she were the commoner and it had turned out that Saf was the king? Would she have been left marooned?

It was nearly impossible for her to conceive of such a situation. In fact, it was flatly absurd. But then she began to wonder if her inability even to imagine it had to do with her being too high to see that low, as Saf had said.

For some reason, her mind kept returning to the night Saf and she had taken a route along the silver docks. They'd talked of pirates and treasure hunting, and they'd run past the looming ships of the queen. The ships had been lined with the queen's fine soldiers who guarded the silver destined for her treasury, her very own fortress of gold.

WHEN PO ENTERED the bedroom sometime later, even wetter than before and with mud-streaked clothing, he found Bitterblue sitting on the floor, head in hands.

"Po," she whispered, looking up at him. "I'm very wealthy, aren't I?"

Po came and crouched before her, dripping. "Giddon is wealthy," he said. "I'm exceedingly wealthy, and Raffin is more. There's no word for what you are, Bitterblue. And the money at your disposal is only a fraction of your power."

Swallowing, she said, "I don't believe I quite appreciated it before."

"Yes," Po said. "Well. Money does that. It's one of the privileges of wealth never to have to think about it, and one of the dangers too." He shifted, sat. "What's wrong?"

"I'm not sure," Bitterblue whispered.

He sat quietly, accepting that.

"You don't seem to have the crown with you," she added.

"The crown is not in the shop," he said. "Saf has passed it on to the subordinates of a black market underlord who calls himself Spook and is said to live hidden away in a cave, if I was reading him right."

"My crown is already on the black market?" cried Bitterblue. "But how will we ever exonerate him?"

"I get the impression that Spook is only involved for safekeeping, Beetle. We may still be able to get it back. Don't despair yet. I'll work on Saf, I'll flatter him with an invitation to a Council meeting or something. When I left, you know, he knelt, kissed my hand, and wished me good dreams. This, after I'd accused him of royal theft."

"How gratifying for you that it's only the Monsean nobility he hates," she said bitterly.

"He would hate me well enough if I broke his heart," said Po quietly.

Bitterblue raised her face to him. "Have I broken his heart, then, Po? Is that what I'm to believe?"

"That's a question for you to ask him, sweetheart."

She noticed, then, that Po was shivering. More than that: She saw, as she studied him more closely, something wild and pained flashing in his eyes. Reaching out, she touched his face. "Po!" she said. "You're burning! Do you feel all right?"

"I feel like my insides are made of lead, actually," he said. "Do you think I have a fever? That would explain why I fell."

"You fell?"

"My Grace sort of starts warping things when I have a fever, you know? Without eyesight, it's disorienting." He grabbed his head vaguely. "I think I fell more than once."

"You're ill," she said, upset, standing up, "and I've sent you twice into the rain, and made you fall. Come, I'm taking you to your rooms."

"Helda is trying to find some way whereby the fact of my being blind explains what she believes to be the perversity of Katsa and me not having children," he said at random.

"What? What are you talking about? That makes no sense whatsoever. Get up."

"I really can't stand it sometimes," he said a bit erratically, still sitting on the floor, "hearing other people's thoughts. People are ridiculous. By the way, Saf is not lying about his Grace; he doesn't know what it is."

He told me so many times that he never lies to me. I suppose I didn't want to believe it. "Po." Taking Po's hands and pulling, leaning back, yanking, Bitterblue persuaded him to stand. "I'm going to walk you to your rooms and bring you a healer. You need to sleep."

"Did you know that Tilda and Bren live as a couple and they want Teddy to give them a baby?" he asked, swaying, wincing at the room as if he couldn't remember how he got there.

This was too astonishing for words. "I'm bringing you to Madlen," Bitterblue said sternly. "Now, come along."

BY THE TIME Bitterblue returned to her rooms, the light was fading. The sky was purple like Saf's eyes, and her sitting room glimmered with lamps Helda had taken care to light. In her bedroom, she lit candles for herself, sat on the floor by her mother's chest, and ran her fingers over the carvings on its top.

How lonely she felt, trying to understand all that had happened today on her own. Mama? Would you be ashamed of me?

Wiping a tear that had fallen onto the lid of the chest, she found herself peering more closely at the carved designs. She'd noticed before that Ashen had used some of the carvings as models for her embroidery, of course, but she'd never made a study of it. They were arranged in neat rows atop the lid—none repeated—star, moon, candle, sun, for example. Boat, shell, castle, tree, flower, prince, princess, baby, and so on. She knew, from years of staring at the edges of her own sheets, exactly which ones Ashen had borrowed.

The realization crept into her and all through her. Even before she'd bothered to count, she knew. She counted anyway, just to make sure.

The carvings on the chest numbered a hundred. The carvings her mother had borrowed for her embroidery numbered twenty-six.

Bitterblue was looking at a cipher alphabet.