Bitterblue

inevitability of this news. You must mean Sapphire. Yes. Sapphire stole my crown.

Fire paused, considering Bitterblue as she stood, small and quiet, in the window. Why did he steal your crown?

Because, Bitterblue whispered. He loved me and I hurt him.

After a moment, Fire said gently, He is welcome to join us.

Take care of him.

We will, of course.

He can give you good dreams, Bitterblue said.

Good dreams? The sleeping kind?

Yes, the sleeping kind. It's his Grace. He can make you dream the most marvelous, comforting things.

Well, Fire said. It's possible I've been waiting to meet your thief all my life.

44

ON A JANUARY morning, the day before the Dellians' departure, Bitterblue was reading Death's latest report on the journal translation. Lady Queen, she read, I believe this journal I've been translating all along is from Leck's final year and is the last journal he ever wrote. In the section I just translated, he finally does kill Bellamew, as he has been threatening to do for some time.

Froggatt ushered someone into her office and Bitterblue didn't even look up, because in her peripheral vision, the visitor looked like Po. Then he chuckled.

Her eyes shot to him. 'Skye!'

'You thought I was Po,' said Po's gray-eyed brother, grinning.

Bitterblue jumped up and went to him. 'I'm so happy to see you! Why didn't anyone tell me you'd landed? Where's your father?'

Skye wrapped her in a hug. 'I decided to be the courier myself,' he said. 'You look wonderful, Cousin. Father's in Monport, with half the Lienid Navy.'

'Oh, right,' Bitterblue said. 'I forgot.'

One of Skye's eyebrows jumped up and his grin widened. 'You forgot that you asked my father to bring his navy?'

'No, no. There's just been—a lot going on. You've arrived in time to meet the Dellians before they go.'

'The what?'

'The Dellians. They live in a kingdom to the east, under the mountains.'

'Bitterblue,' said Skye hesitantly, 'are you in your right mind?'

Bitterblue took Skye's arm. 'Let's go find Po, and I'll tell you about it.'

IT WAS A pleasure to watch Po and Skye come together. Bitterblue couldn't explain why her heart swelled to see brothers kiss and hug each other, but it made her feel as if the world wasn't hopeless. The meeting took place in Katsa's rooms, where Katsa, Po, and Giddon were doing some brainstorming about Estill. After the appropriate round of greetings and explanations, Po put an arm around Skye and took him into the adjacent room. Shut the door.

Katsa watched them go. Then, crossing her arms tight, she kicked an armchair.

After a bit more kicking of furniture, walls, and floor had transpired, Giddon said to her, 'Skye loves Po. This won't make him stop loving Po.'

Katsa turned to Giddon with tears in her eyes. 'He'll be so angry.'

'He won't stay angry forever.'

'Won't he?' she said. 'People do sometimes.'

'Do they?' he said. 'Reasonable people? I hope that's not true.'

Katsa gave him a funny look, but didn't answer. Resumed hugging herself and kicking things.

Bitterblue didn't want to go, but she had to; she had a meeting with Teddy in her tower. She was going to ask him if he mightn't like to work in her newly formed Ministry of Education, as an official representative adviser from the city. Part-time, of course. She wouldn't want to deprive him of the work he already loved.

* * * * *

THE MONSEAN GUARD was in too much disarray at the moment to press Bitterblue on the matter of whether her crown was missing. And so Saf had been allowed to go home, although Bitterblue was still nervous about it. The crown was missing, it was at the bottom of the river, and there had been witnesses. It did not seem the time in the High Court just now, while they were trying to restore a kind of honesty, for Bitterblue to lie or try to falsify evidence of a crown she could not produce.

She had not seen Saf since the night on the bridge. He was leaving with the Dellians in the morning. And so, just after sunset, Bitterblue ran through the snowy city to the shop.

Teddy answered her knock, grinned, bowed, and went away to rustle up Saf. She waited in the shop, shivering. The front wall and part of the ceiling, which had burned, were covered over with roughhewn planks that were not airtight. The room was very cold and smelled of burning; much of the furniture was gone.

Saf came in quietly, then stood there with his hands in his pockets, not saying anything. Glancing at her with a kind of shyness.

'You're leaving tomorrow,' she said.

'Yes,' he said.

'Saf,' she said. 'I have a question I need to ask you.'

'Yes?'

She made herself watch his soft eyes. 'If you weren't in trouble about the crown thing,' she said, 'would you still go away?'

The question made his eyes softer. 'Yes.'

She had known the answer before she'd asked. But hearing it still hurt.

'My turn,' he said. 'Would you stop being the queen for me?'

'Of course not.'

'There, now,' he said. 'We've both asked each other the same question.'

'We haven't.'

'Have too,' he said. 'You asked me to stay, and I asked you to come with me.'

Thinking about that, she came closer and reached for his hand. He gave it, and for a moment, she played with his rings, feeling the warmth of his skin in this cold room. Then, obeying her body, she kissed him, just to see what would happen. What happened was that he began to kiss her back. Tears slid down her face.

'It's one of the first things you told me about yourself,' she whispered. 'That you would go.'

'I meant to do it sooner,' he whispered back. 'I meant to do it when things started to get tricky with the crown, to save myself. But then I couldn't. Not while we were still fighting.'

'I'm glad you didn't.'

'Did your dream work?'

'I walk on top of the world, and I'm not afraid,' she said. 'It's a beautiful dream, Saf.'

'Tell me what other dream you want.'

She wanted a thousand dreams. 'Let me dream that we leave each other friends.'

He said, 'That's a true thing.'

IT WAS LATE when Bitterblue returned to the castle. In her rooms, she held the fake crown in her hands, considering. Then she found Katsa and said, 'Will you team up with Po on a certain matter for me? I have a special request.'

Even later, Giddon came to fetch her.

'Did it work?' asked Bitterblue as they walked to Katsa's rooms together.

'It did.'