Bitterblue

'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