into a girl with a hanging head. Bitterblue fought off a rising nausea. The girl was weeping, wiping at her face with a tattered sleeve. She took a step toward Bitterblue, turned into a sculpture again, then wavered back into a girl.
'Hava,' Bitterblue said desperately, trying not to retch. 'Please. Stop it.'
Hava came to Bitterblue and fell to her knees. 'Forgive me, Lady Queen,' she said, choking on her tears. 'When he explained it to me, it made sense, you see? He didn't use the word
'Hava,' said Bitterblue, bending down to her, at a loss for what to say to a compulsive liar who seemed to be in genuine pain. 'Hava!' she cried as the girl grabbed her hand and sobbed over it. 'I forgive you,' she said, not feeling it in her heart, but sensing that forgiveness was necessary to calm Hava's wildness. 'I forgive you,' she said. 'You've saved my life twice since, remember? Take a breath, Hava. Calm down and explain to me how your Grace works. Do you actually change something in yourself, or is it my perception of things that you change?'
When Hava raised her face to Bitterblue, Bitterblue saw that it was quite a pretty face. Open, like Holt's, forlorn and frightened, but with a sweetness it was a shame she felt the need to hide. Her eyes were flatly beautiful—or, at least, the one that caught the light of the lamp was beautiful, glowing copper, as brightly as Po's eyes glowed gold and silver. Bitterblue couldn't tell the color of the other eye in the darkness.
'It's your perception, Lady Queen,' said Hava. 'Your perception of what you're seeing.'
It was what Bitterblue had assumed. The other way made no sense; it was too improbable, even for a Grace. And here, she knew, was one of the many reasons she kept resisting Po's exhortations to trust Hava. Trusting someone who was able to change the way her mind perceived things did not come comfortably to Bitterblue.
'Hava,' she said, 'you're out in the city often, hiding. You're in a position to see things, and you knew Lord Danzhol. I'm trying to find a way to connect the things Runnemood does with the things people like Danzhol once did; I'm trying to sort out who Runnemood might be working with, and what truth he's trying to hide when he kills truthseekers. Do you know anything about it?'
'Lord Danzhol communicated with a lot of people, Lady Queen,' said Hava. 'He seemed to have friends in every kingdom, and a thousand secret letters, and visitors to his estate who would come in a back door at night and never be seen by the rest of us. But he didn't talk to me about it. And I haven't seen anything in the city that would explain anything either. If you ever wanted me to follow anyone, Lady Queen, I would do it in a heartbeat.'
'I'll remember that, Hava,' said Bitterblue doubtfully, not knowing what to believe. 'I'll mention it to Helda.'
'I have heard a strange rumor about your crown, Lady Queen,' said Hava, after a pause.
'The crown!' said Bitterblue. 'How do you know about the crown?'
'From the rumor, Lady Queen,' said Hava, startled. 'Some whispers in a story room. I was hoping they weren't true; they're ridiculous enough to be lies.'
'Perhaps they are lies. What did you hear?'
'I heard of someone called Gray, Lady Queen, who's the grandchild of a famous thief who steals the treasures of Monsean nobility. The family has done so for generations, Lady Queen—it's their mark in trade. They live in a cave somewhere, and Gray is claiming to be in a position to sell your crown. It's priced at a figure so high, only a king could afford it.'
Bitterblue clutched her temples. 'That will not make it easy if I end up having to buy it, and I should probably do it soon, before the word spreads further.'
'Oh,' Hava said, distressed. 'Unfortunately, the other thing I heard is that Gray won't sell to you, Lady Queen.'
'What? Then who does he think will buy it? None of the other kings would part with a fortune just for the sake of what would be a senseless prank. And I won't allow my uncle to buy it back for me!'
'I'm afraid I can't explain it, Lady Queen,' said Hava. 'It's what I heard whispered. But rumors are often untrue, Lady Queen. Perhaps this one is. I hope it is!'
'Tell no one, Hava,' said Bitterblue. 'If you doubt the importance of your silence, ask Prince Po.'
'If you say it's important, Lady Queen,' said Hava, 'then I have no need to ask Prince Po.'
Bitterblue studied this Graceling liar, this odd young woman who seemed to go wherever she wanted and do whatever took her fancy, but did so in fear, and in the most utter solitude. Hava was still kneeling. 'Stand please, Hava,' said Bitterblue.
She was tall. As she stood, her face caught the light, and Bitterblue saw that her other eye was a deep and strange red. 'Why do you hide in my art gallery, Hava?'
'Because there's no one else here, Lady Queen,' said Hava softly. 'And I can be near my uncle, who needs me. And I can be with my mother's work.'
'Do you remember your mother?'
Hava nodded. 'I was eight when she died, Lady Queen. She taught me to hide from King Leck, always.'
'How old are you now?'
'Sixteen, Lady Queen.'
'And—are you not lonely, Hava, hiding all the time?'
Something in Hava's pretty face wavered.
'Hava?' said Bitterblue, struck with a sudden doubt. 'Is this what you really look like?'
The girl hung her head. When she looked up again, her eyes were still copper and red, but they sat in a face that was perhaps too plain to contain their strangeness, with a long, narrow mouth like a gash, and a snub nose.
It took Bitterblue concentrated effort to stop herself from reaching up to touch Hava's face, for she understood this. How she wanted to comfort the unhappiness that shone in those eyes and didn't need to be there. Bitterblue liked Hava's face. 'I very much like how you look,' Bitterblue said. 'Thank you for showing me.'
'I'm sorry, Lady Queen,' she whispered. 'It's hard not to hide. I'm so used to it.'
'Perhaps it was unfair of me to ask.'
'But it's a relief, Lady Queen,' she whispered, 'to let someone see me.'
THE NEXT DAY, Captain Smit gave Bitterblue the news that Runnemood had, indeed, been responsible not just for Saf's framing but for Ivan the engineer's murder.
The day after that, Captain Smit told Bitterblue that now it was clear that Runnemood had also been responsible for the death of Lady Hood, the woman on Teddy's list who'd stolen girls for Leck.
'That was a murder?' Bitterblue said in dismay. 'Runnemood is murdering other guilty parties?'
'I regret that our investigations suggest as much, Lady Queen,' said Captain Smit. He had the appearance lately of a man under a great deal of strain, and Bitterblue made him drink some tea before leaving her office.
Next came the news that Runnemood had been in close correspondence with Lord Danzhol, may even have been responsible for convincing Danzhol to harm the queen. Then, the news that none of the living people on Teddy's list seemed in any way involved in killing, framing, or otherwise hurting truthseekers. The dead ones had all been killed by Runnemood.
On the next day—the nineteenth day since Runnemood's disappearance—Captain Smit marched into Bitterblue's office, set his chin, made his hands into fists, and presented her with a theory that Runnemood had been the single mastermind behind all the truthseeker killings and all related crime, possibly because the drive to be forward-thinking and leave Leck's time behind had triggered a vulnerable switch in his mind and made him insane.
Bitterblue had little to say in response to this. Her spies had not yet managed to confirm or deny any of the things Smit was telling her. But it had all begun to sound a bit ridiculous to her, and a great deal too convenient, that Runnemood and madness should be the entire explanation for something that had caused so much harm. Runnemood wasn't Leck; he wasn't even Graced. And Smit, standing before her desk, was jumping nervously at every slightest sound, though he'd never seemed the nervous type before. His eyes flashed bright with some strange agitation, and when he looked at her, he seemed to be seeing something else.
'Captain Smit,' she said quietly. 'Why don't you tell me what's really going on?'
