Bitterblue

'And is everyone all right?'

'Don't be alarmed when you see Po. His black eye is from Skye, not from this.'

'Oh, no. Where is Skye? Should I talk to him?'

Giddon rubbed his beard. 'Skye has decided to join the party going to the Dells,' he said. 'As Lienid's ambassador.'

'What? He's leaving? He just got here!'

'I think he has a broken heart,' said Giddon, 'to match Po's black eye.'

'I wish people would stop hitting Po,' whispered Bitterblue.

'Well,' Giddon said. 'Yes. I'm hoping Skye is following my model. Punch Po; go on a long trip; feel better; come back and make up.'

'Well,' said Bitterblue, 'at least we have the crown.'

Inside Katsa's room, Po sat on the bed, soaked through, huddled in blankets, something like the world's most miserable clump of seaweed. Katsa stood in the middle of the room, shaking water from her hair and wringing her clothing out onto the fine rug, looking like she'd just won a swimming competition. Bann's voice came from the bathing room, where he was running a bath. Raffin sat at the dining table, trying to wipe muck off of Bitterblue's crown by applying a mysterious solution from a vial, then rubbing the crown with what looked like one of Katsa's socks.

'Where did you leave the fake crown?' asked Bitterblue.

'A good bit closer to shore,' said Katsa. 'We'll go make a big, noisy production of fishing it out in the morning.'

And Saf could leave Monsea with his name cleared. For Bitterblue wasn't certain whether giving a fake crown to black-market lords, stealing it back, then throwing it into the river was a crime or not, but it didn't seem like much of one. And at least it wasn't treason. Saf could come back someday, and he would never hang.

THE DAY HAD started with Skye walking into her office, though it seemed ages ago. Every day was like that, so full that she stumbled into bed once it was over.

She'd been reading a report from Death when Skye had arrived. She was in her bed that night when she finally picked it up again.

He does kill Bellamew, as he has been threatening to do for some time. He kills her because he sees her, in an unguarded moment, with a child that she has claimed has been dead for years. The child disappears from the room once he has apprehended her, Lady Queen, not surprisingly, as we can only assume that the child is Hava. Bellamew refuses to produce her. Leck takes Bellamew away to his hospital, furious with her for lying about the child, has her killed with much more expediency than usual, then goes to his bedroom and tries to destroy her work with paint. Over days and weeks, he searches for the child but cannot find her, and simultaneously, his desire to be alone with you begins to grow. He begins to write of molding you into a perfect queen, and of both you and Ashen becoming increasingly unaccommodating. He writes of the anticipatory pleasure he feels in being patient.

This is the sort of intimate and painful information I would not normally burden you with, Lady Queen, except that the implications, when one considers everything together, seem significant, and I thought you would like to know them. If you will remember, Lady Queen, Bellamew and Queen Ashen were two victims Leck claimed to have 'kept for himself.' And his preoccupation with this child is striking, is it not?

It was striking. But it wasn't surprising. It was a thing Bitterblue had begun to wonder about on her own. It was even a thing she'd asked Hava once, but they'd gotten interrupted.

Bitterblue climbed out of bed again and found a robe.

IN THE ART gallery, she sat on the floor with Hava, trying to stop Hava from being so frightened.

'I haven't wanted you to know, Lady Queen,' Hava whispered. 'I've never told a soul. I intended never to.'

'You mustn't call me by my title anymore,' whispered Bitterblue.

'Please let me. I'm terrified of other people knowing. I'm terrified of you, or other people, or anybody, starting to think of me as your heir. I would die before I became the queen!'

'We'll make some sort of provision, Hava, I promise, so that you'll never be queen.'

'I couldn't, Lady Queen,' Hava said, her voice breaking in panic. 'I swear to you, I couldn't!'

'Hava,' Bitterblue said, taking Hava's hand and holding it tight. 'I swear to you that you won't.'

'I don't want to be treated like a princess, Lady Queen. I could not bear people fussing. I want to live in the art gallery, where no one sees me. I—' Tears were streaming down Hava's face. 'Lady Queen, I hope you understand that I mean none of this personally. I would do just about anything for you. It's just that . . .'

'It's too big, and everything is moving too fast,' said Bitterblue.

'Yes, Lady Queen,' said Hava, sobbing. She flickered, once, into a sculpture. Then came back as a sobbing girl. 'I would have to leave,' she cried. 'I would have to hide forever.'

'Then we won't tell anyone,' Bitterblue said. 'All right? We'll swear Death to secrecy. We'll sort out what it means slowly, all right? I won't push it on you, and you'll decide what you want, and maybe we'll never tell anyone. Do you see that nothing needs to change, except what we know? Hava?' Bitterblue took a breath to prevent herself from wrapping both arms around the girl. 'Hava, please,' she said, 'please. Don't go away.'

Hava spent another moment crying against Bitterblue's hand. Then she said, 'I don't actually want to leave you, Lady Queen. I'll stay.'

In her bed again, Bitterblue tried to wrap sleep around herself. She had an early morning, with Dellians and Pikkians to say goodbye to. She had Skye to find and reason with, and another big day of meetings and decisions. But Bitterblue couldn't sleep. She held a word inside herself that she was too shy to say aloud.

Finally, she dared, once, to whisper it.

Sister.

'DO YOU SUPPOSE it tells Dellian time?' said Po two days later, lazing lengthwise across one of Bitterblue's armchairs, dangling Saf's fifteen-hour watch on his finger and occasionally trying to balance it on his nose. 'I love this thing. Its inner workings calm me.'

Saf had given Po the watch as a parting gift, and as thanks for saving his neck. 'It'd be a funny way to keep time, wouldn't it?' said Bitterblue. 'Quarter past would be twelve and a half minutes past the hour. And by the way, that's stolen property.'

'But doesn't it seem that that's why Leck did everything?' said Po. 'To imitate the Dells?'

'Perhaps it's another one of his botched imitations,' said Giddon.

'Giddon,' said Bitterblue, 'what will you do after Estill?'

'Well,' he said, a quiet shadow touching his face. She knew where Giddon wanted to go after Estill. She wondered if the Council would make a project of it. She also wondered if going to see something that was no longer there was a good idea—and if that mattered, when it came to a person's heart. 'I suppose it depends on where I'm needed,' he said.

'If there's no place you're urgently needed, or if you're undecided, or if, perhaps, you're thinking of visiting the Dells—would you consider coming back here for a little while first?'

'Yes,' he said without hesitation. 'If I'm not needed elsewhere, I'll come back here for a while.'

'That is a comfort,' said Bitterblue quietly. 'Thank you.'

Her friends were leaving, finally. In a matter of days, they were leaving for Estill, and it was the real thing this time; the revolutionaries and a few select Estillan nobles had agreed to come together, take their king by surprise, and change the lives of all Estillan people. Bitterblue was happy about her uncle's navy to the south and her strange new friends to the east. She knew she was going to have to be patient, to wait and see what would happen. And she also knew that she'd have to have faith in her friends, not dwell on thoughts of them in a war. Bann, her old sparring partner. Po, who pushed himself too hard and was hurting now from the loss of a brother. Katsa, who would come apart if something happened to Po. Giddon. It startled her, how quickly tears came to her eyes when she thought of Giddon leaving.

Raffin was staying behind in Monsea as liaison, which was a balm to Bitterblue's heart, even though he was inclined to long silences and staring moodily into potted plants. She'd found him in the back garden that morning, on his knees in the snow, taking clippings from some dead perennials.

'Did you know,' he said, peering up at her, 'that in Nander, they've decided they don't want a king?'

'What?' she said. 'No king at all?'