Bitterblue looked into Helda's eyes, sharing with Helda the question of why Fox would have had Leck's keys in her pocket. And why, having them, she would have made a show of using the lock picks. 'I'm certain there's a satisfactory explanation, Lady Queen,' said Helda.
'So am I,' said Bitterblue. 'Let's wait to see if she volunteers it to me when she discovers Saf took them.'
'I trust her, Lady Queen.'
'I don't,' said Saf from the other side of the room. 'She has holes in her earlobes.'
'Well,' Helda said, 'that's because she spent her childhood in Lienid, just like you did, young man. Where do you suppose she got a name to match her hair?'
'Then why doesn't she talk to me about Lienid?' Saf said. 'If her family was alert enough to send her away, why doesn't she talk to me about the resistance? Why tell me nothing of her family, her home? And where is her Lienid accent? She's trying to make herself into nothing, and I don't trust it. Her conversation is too selective. She told me the location of Leck's rooms but didn't say a word about there being a maze. Was she hoping I would get caught?'
'Did she instruct you to go snooping?' retorted Bitterblue. 'You're complaining about the mistrustful behavior of someone you stole from, Saf. Maybe she doesn't talk to you because she doesn't like you. Maybe she didn't like Lienid. Anyway, the list of people you trust is shorter than the number of keys on this ring. What do we have to do to make you stop behaving like a child? We won't always go into contortions to protect you, you know. Has Prince Po told you that the day he saved your life in my courtroom and you rewarded him by stealing my crown, he spent hours running through the rain in pursuit of it, then fell gravely ill?'
No, Po hadn't told him. Saf's sudden, silent chagrin was evidence. 'Why were you in my father's maze?' Bitterblue asked again.
'I was curious,' Saf said in a defeated voice.
'About what?'
'Fox mentioned Leck's rooms,' Saf said. 'Then I picked her pocket and came up with the keys, and thought I could guess what they were for. I was curious to see the rooms for myself. Do you think that Teddy or Tilda or Bren would forgive me if I didn't use the opportunity of my time in the castle to uncover some truths?'
'I think that Teddy would tell you to stop wasting my time, and the Council's time too,' said Bitterblue. 'And I think you know I'd be happy to describe Leck's rooms to Teddy myself. Balls, Saf. If he asked, I'd take him to see them with his own eyes.'
The outer doors creaked open again.
'I think we're done here,' Bitterblue said, nervous now for Saf's sake, in case the person coming in was anyone other than Po or Madlen. Or Death. Or Holt. Or Hava.
'Has Prince Po recovered?' Saf put in.
Katsa burst into the room.
'Recovered from what?' she demanded. 'What happened?'
'Katsa!' said Bitterblue, limp with a sweet relief that brought tears pricking behind her eyes. 'Nothing happened. He's fine.'
'Has he—' Katsa registered that there was a stranger in the room. 'Did he—' she began, confused.
'Calm down, Katsa,' said Giddon. 'Calm down,' he repeated, offering his hand, which she grasped, after a moment's hesitation. 'He was ill for a while, and now he's better. Everything's fine. What took you so long?'
'Wait till I tell you,' Katsa said, 'because you're not going to believe it.' And then she went to Bitterblue and drew her into a one-sided hug.
'Who did this to you?' she demanded, running her fingers lightly along Bitterblue's bound arm. Bitterblue was so happy that she felt no pain. She buried her face in the coldness of Katsa's oddsmelling, furry jacket and didn't answer.
'It's a long story, Kat,' came Raffin's voice beside them. 'A lot has happened.'
Katsa stood on her toes to kiss Raffin. And then she peered more closely over Bitterblue's head at Saf, narrowing her eyes on him, then on Bitterblue, then on him again. Beginning to grin while Saf stood with his mouth slightly open and the world's largest Graceling eyes. His gold flashed in his ears and on his fingers.
'Hello, sailor,' Katsa said. Then to Bitterblue, 'Does he remind you of anyone?'
'Yes,' said Bitterblue, knowing that Katsa meant Po, but that she meant Katsa. Not caring. 'Did you find the tunnel?' she asked, still burrowing against Katsa.
'Yes,' said Katsa, 'and followed it all the way to Estill. And I found something else too, through a crack. There were cracks everywhere, Bitterblue, and the air through them sounded funny to me somehow. It smelled different. So I moved a few rocks aside. It took me ages, and I started a small avalanche at one point, but I managed to make an opening to a whole new series of passages. Then I followed the widest one, as far as I could justify taking the time for. It killed me that I had to turn back. But there were openings aboveground now and then, and I'm telling you, Bitterblue, we've got to go back there. It was a passage east, under the mountains. Look at the rat that attacked me.'
Once more, the doors opened. This time, Bitterblue knew who was coming. 'Out,' she said to Saf, extending her finger, because this was going to be a private and unpredictable thing, not for Saf's too-adoring eyes. 'Out,' she said more forcefully, motioning to Giddon to deal with it as Po appeared in the doorway, chest heaving, bracing a hand against the door frame.
'I'm sorry,' Po said. 'Katsa, I'm sorry.'
'I am too,' Katsa said, running at him. Giddon dragged Saf out. Katsa and Po held on to each other with tears running down their faces, making as big a scene as anyone could have expected, but Bitterblue had ceased to notice, her entire attention fixated on a thing Katsa had thrown onto the breakfast table as she'd run to Po. It was a small, strange something-or-other that was furry. Bitterblue reached out a hand.
Then she snatched her hand back, as if something had shocked her, or bitten.
It was a rat pelt, but there was something about it that was wrong.
It was almost a normal color, but not. Instead of gray, it was a sort of silver, with a sheen of gold at certain angles, and even beyond the oddness of the color, there was something peculiar about it that she couldn't quantify. She couldn't stop looking at it. This silverish rat pelt was the most beautiful thing Bitterblue had ever seen.
She made herself touch it. It was real, the fur of a real, once-living rat Katsa had killed.
Carefully, Bitterblue backed away from the table. Tears trickled down her face as she stood there, stuck in her own private avalanche.
31
WHAT IT SEEMED to mean was that while Leck's real world had been made up of lies, his imaginary world was true.
She sent for Thiel to join them, because she needed him, so immediately that it didn't even occur to her until later that she'd invited him straight into the room where a cloth covered a fake crown. When he appeared at her doors, surprised, but his face full of hope, Bitterblue found herself reaching for his hand. He was gaunt; he'd lost weight. But his clothing was neat, face shaved, expression attentive.
'It might upset you, Thiel,' she told him. 'I'm sorry, but I need you.'
'I'm too happy to be needed for anything else to matter, Lady Queen,' he said.
The silver pelt overwhelmed Thiel with numbness and confusion. He would have landed on the floor if Katsa and Po together hadn't managed to push a chair beneath him. 'I don't understand,' he said.
'You know the stories Leck told?' Bitterblue asked him.
'Yes, Lady Queen,' said Thiel in bewilderment. 'He was always telling stories about strangely colored creatures. And you've seen the art. The hangings,' he said, flapping his hands at the blue horse across the room. 'The bright flowers twined all around the sculp tures. The shrubberies.' Thiel shook his head back and forth as if he were ringing it like a bell. 'But I don't understand. Surely it's only a pelt from a particularly unique rat. Or—could it be something Leck made, Lady Queen?'
