Bitterblue

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.'