were moments that had transpired in Leck's presence, which meant that Bitterblue had not even been in her right mind. When they'd been without Leck, they'd spent much of that time fighting Leck's brain fog away. Leck hadn't just stolen Ashen from Bitterblue by killing her. He'd stolen her before that, as well. Bitterblue could not imagine the person Ashen would be today, were she alive. It was not fair that she should find herself doubting, at times, how well she'd ever known her mother.
Even Helda's rooms, the simple, small bedroom in green and the bathing room in turquoise, disconcerted Bitterblue, for they had been her own bedroom and bathing room while Ashen was alive. Bitterblue's current bedroom had been Ashen's. Ashen had bathed her in what was now Helda's turquoise tub, locking the door against Leck, talking with her about all kinds of things. Ror City, where she'd lived in the king's castle, the most massive building in the world, its domes and turrets high in the sky above the Lienid Sea. Ashen's father, her brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews. Her oldest brother, Ror, the king. The people she missed who'd never met Bitterblue but would someday. Her rings, flashing in the water.
She remembered a rough spot on one of the tiles of the tub that had scraped her arm from time to time. She remembered pointing it out to Ashen. Marching now to the tub, she was able to find the sharp little spot immediately. 'There,' she said, fingering it with a furious sort of triumph.
It was the minutes spent in Helda's room, remembering the feeling of a different time, that caused Bitterblue to become curious about another missing piece, and wonder if it might answer any of her questions. She wanted, finally, to see the rooms that had been Leck's.
THE HORSE IN the sitting room hanging that covered Leck's door had sad green eyes that stared into Bitterblue's. Its forelock hung into those eyes, a more violet blue than the dark, deep blue of its fur, making her think of Saf. Helda helped her push the hanging aside.
The investigation of the door behind did not take long. It was solid, immovable wood, tight in its frame, and it seemed to be locked. There was a keyhole, and Bitterblue remembered Leck using a key. 'Who do we know who can pick locks?' she asked. 'I've never seen Saf do it, but I wouldn't put it past him. Or, I wonder if Po could find us the key?'
'Lady Queen,' said a voice behind them, making Bitterblue jump. She turned to find Fox in the doorway.
'I didn't hear the doors open,' said Bitterblue.
'Forgive me, Lady Queen,' said Fox, stepping into the room. 'I didn't mean to take you by surprise. If it's any use to you, Lady Queen, I have lock picks that I've been learning how to use. I thought it might be a practical skill for a spy,' she said, a bit defensively, when Helda gazed at her with eyebrows raised. 'It was Ornik's idea.'
'You seem to be developing a friendship with the handsome young smith,' said Helda evenly. 'Just remember that while he is a Council ally, Fox, and though he helped us with the matter of the crown, he is not a spy. He has no right to your information.'
'Of course not, Helda,' said Fox, sounding mildly offended.
'Well,' Bitterblue said. 'Do you have the lock picks with you?'
Fox produced from her pocket a cord on which hung an assortment of files, picks, and hooks, tied together so they wouldn't jingle. When she pulled away the tie, Bitterblue saw that the metal was scratched and rough in places, rust smoothed away.
It took Fox several minutes of fiddling, which she performed carefully, on her knees, her ear to the door. Finally, a heavy click sounded. 'That's it,' she said, standing, grasping a handle, then pushing. The door didn't move. She tried pulling.
'I remember that it opened in,' said Bitterblue. 'And I never saw him struggling with it.'
'Well then, something is blocking it, Lady Queen,' said Fox, pushing harder on the wood with her shoulder. 'I'm quite sure I've unlocked it.'
'Ah,' said Helda. 'Look.' She pointed to a place in the middle of the door where the sharp tip of a nail peeked through the surface of the wood. 'Perhaps it's boarded up from the inside, Lady Queen.'
'Boarded and locked,' said Bitterblue, sighing. 'Is either of you any good at mazes?'
AS FOX AND Bitterblue descended the stairway that had dropped Bitterblue into Leck's maze once before, Fox explained her theory about mazes: once inside, one should choose one hand, the left or the right, put it to the wall, then follow the maze all the way through, keeping that same hand to the wall. Eventually, one would reach the heart of the maze.
'A guard did something like that with me last time,' said Bitterblue. 'But it won't work if we happen to start against a wall that's an island, detached from the rest of the maze,' she added, thinking it through. 'We'll put our hands on the right-hand wall. If we end up where we started, then we'll know it's an island. We'll take the next possible left turn, then return to putting our hands on the right-hand wall. That'll work. Oh,' she said in dismay. 'Unless we come up against another island. Then we'll have to do it all over again, plus, keep remembering what we've already done. Balls. We should've brought markers to put down in the passageway.'
'Why don't we just try it, Lady Queen,' Fox said, 'and see how it goes?'
IT WAS QUITE disorienting. Mazes were made for Katsa, with her unreal sense of direction, or Po, who could see through walls. Luckily, Fox had had the foresight to bring a lamp. After exactly forty-three turns with their hands on the right wall, they came upon a door in the middle of a corridor.
The door, of course, was locked.
'Well,' said Bitterblue as Fox knelt again and began her patient poking, 'at least we know this one can't be boarded up from the inside. Unless the person boarded up both doors, then stayed inside to die, and we're about to find his rotted corpse,' she said, chuckling at her own morbid joke. 'Or unless, of course,' she added, groaning, 'there's a third way to exit Leck's rooms. A secret passage we don't know about yet.'
'Secret passage, Lady Queen?' said Fox absently, her ear to the door.
'The castle seems to be full of them, Fox,' said Bitterblue.
'I had no idea, Lady Queen,' said Fox. A quiet click sounded. When Fox grasped the door handle and pushed, the door swung open.
Holding her breath, not certain what to steel herself against, but steeling herself nonetheless, Bitterblue stepped into a dark room full of tall shadows. The shadows were so human in form that she let out a gasp.
'Sculptures, Lady Queen,' said Fox calmly, behind her. 'I believe they're sculptures.'
The room smelled of dust and had no windows. It was cavernous and square with no furniture, except for a single, massive, empty bed frame in the center of the room. The sculptures, on pedestals, filled the rest of the space; there must have been forty of them. Walking among them with Fox and the lantern was a bit like walking among the shrubberies of the great courtyard at night, for they loomed in just the same way, all seeming as if they were about to come alive and start striding around.
She could see that they were the work of Bellamew. Animals turning into each other, people turning into animals, people turning into mountains or trees, all with a vitality, a sense of movement and feeling. Then the lamp caught a strange blotch of color and Bitterblue realized something was peculiar about these sculptures. Not just peculiar, but wrong: They were slapped over with gaudy, bright paint of every color, paint that made spatters all across the rug.
She had expected weapons of torture in this room, perhaps. A collection of knives, stains of blood. But not ruined art arranged on a ruined rug, surrounding the skeleton of a bed.
The walls all around were covered with continuous hangings. A field of grass, turning to wildflowers, then into a thick forest of trees that gave way to wildflowers again, then to the field of grass it had started with. Bitterblue touched the forest on the wall, just to assure herself that it wasn't real, only a hanging. Dust rose; she sneezed. She saw a tiny owl, turquoise and silver, sleeping in the limbs of one of the trees.
Built into the back wall of the room was a door. It led to nothing more than a bathing room, functional, cold, ordinary. Another door opened to a closet space, empty and choked with dust. She could not stop sneezing.
A third doorway in the back wall, this one a simple opening with no door, led to a spiral staircase climbing up. At the top of the stairs was a door so thoroughly nailed over with boards that it was difficult to catch a glimpse of the door itself. Bitterblue pounded and called Helda's name. When Helda responded, her question was answered:
