Luca cleared her throat, and when the women turned, their faces paled. Luca wanted to hurt them, to punish them, but what, realistically, could she do besides harbor a grudge against them and call the debt later? She lingered on the notion of having Lanquette shatter their legs slowly. With a blacksmith’s hammer. Actually, she’d rather do it herself. Ah, but for diplomacy.
“Hello, mesdemoiselles.”
The women bobbed into curtsies, but Luca pushed past them to see what had caught their attention. The single sheet of a broadside had been pasted to the clay wall. A picture took up most of the space on the page, a crude woodcut rendering of two women on puppet strings—one with a dark tricorne, a sagging, lined face, and hands dripping dark ink; the other with a tight bun, lips pursed sourly, hunching over a cane on impossibly crooked legs. The strings linked their hands to wooden handles held by sausage fingers. A large belly filled the background of the picture. She wondered if it was meant to be Duke Regent Nicolas Ancier, who was known for his belly, as Luca was known for her leg. “Puppets of the Empire’s Hunger” was printed in large block letters across the top. She scowled.
It came too close to her own feelings for comfort. Her uncle had sent her here as if she were nothing more than an errand child to clean up his messes or chase his coin. The humiliation of it made her eyes sting. She ripped the broadside off the wall. Her fist convulsed around the page.
She turned to the women. She didn’t recognize either of their faces, but only one woman in Balladaire—besides herself—had enough money and land to maintain a menagerie with giraffes. Lady Bel-Jadot. She could turn this to her advantage one day.
“Mademoiselle Bel-Jadot, yes?” Luca said to the dark-haired one. Lady Bel-Jadot had similar coloring.
“Yes, Your Highness.” The young Bel-Jadot curtsied again, her face blushing red beneath olive-toned skin.
Lanquette had hardened into something handsome and formidable, someone who could increase the women’s embarrassment. Luca was grateful. Surely it wouldn’t do for so eligible a bachelor to think so ill of the two women before her. It wouldn’t do for their princess to want them hanged, either, but there they were. She exhaled sharply through her nose. You need them.
“We apologize, Your High—”
“You may leave.”
“Thank you, Your Highness.” They bobbed again and vanished up the street.
Lanquette glared after them. “I’m sorry you had to see that, Your Highness. Shall I look for any more?”
“Not yet.” Luca could tell he was trying to be kind and reassuring, but it irked her that her pain was so evident.
She stepped back inside the bookshop and called for the proprietor, who had been shelving his latest acquisitions in the back. He huffed his way back to his counter, mopping sweat from his face even though it stained the front of his shirt and under his arms. She wrinkled her nose at the odor.
“I’m at your service, Your Highness. All that you like is yours, of course, as I said.”
“What I like is this sterling piece of art.” Luca waved the broadside she clutched in her fist. “What I would like is to never see its like on this shop ever again. Especially not if you’d like me to remain a patron. Where did it come from?”
The shopkeeper flushed and stammered as he set his page to running up and down the streets to look for more of the broadsides to tear from the walls and doors of the neighborhood.
“I’m so sorry, Your Highness. I never saw it! Forgive—”
The poor man had a point. Luca hadn’t seen it when she arrived, either, which meant it was probably recent.
“Do you have The Last Emperor by Yeshuf bn Zahel?” Luca cut in.
The man pursed his lips. “No, Your Highness. Only Balladairan books here, or approved Shālan authors. I’m afraid I don’t know Yeshuf Benizel.”
“Bn Zahel,” Luca muttered. She cleared her throat. “Nothing else, then.”
“You might try down in the Old Medina,” the man said quickly, mopping his face again. “I’ve… heard—that is, there are some Balladairans who collect Shālan books as decorations, and I’ve… heard them… speaking of a place in the Puddle District. Better to send someone, though. Like him.” The shopkeeper nodded to her guard and then to the sword on his belt.
Ah. That kind of quarter. If Cantic didn’t even want Luca in the New Medina, she would be thrilled about this. Inwardly, she snickered to herself, the spark of curiosity catching in her. Outwardly, she nodded once in thanks.
“If someone ever plasters broadsides of this nature on your wall, or any other door in sight, what will you do?” Luca asked the shopkeeper.
The man paled and bobbed up and down in a bow again. His throat bobbed, as well. “I’ll tear it down, of course, Your Highness. And notify you immediately.”
“Wonderful. Your loyalty is commendable.”
Outside the bookshop, Luca sat in her carriage with her second guard, Guérin, and wouldn’t meet the woman’s eyes. She realized she still clutched the broadside in her fist. She smoothed the large paper out over her thigh. The creases and smeared ink made the angles of her drawn legs look even more disfigured.
“Your Highness? What is it?” Guérin leaned closer, perhaps to comfort, perhaps to see the object of distress. Luca shook her head and tucked herself against the wall. It had felt good to intimidate the poor bookseller, but he wasn’t the one she should have directed her anger toward. He was helpless against her.
“The problem’s not with me. It never has been.”
And yet Luca still wished after all these years that her life had turned out differently. That she had turned out differently. That her legs were fine, that her parents were alive, that no one tittered behind their hands at her limping arrivals and departures. She had tried to offer them something
