“That’s ridiculous.”
“And yet, it is what the court believes.”
“How do they explain the Darkness, then?”
“The natural result of a sudden illness, or a blow to the head. Or”—he shrugs—“a purportedly magical bogeyman to complement the snatchers. If one doesn’t frighten you, the other will.”
“Someone has to do something,” I say, desperation warring with disbelief. How can the nobles discount this reality so completely? “We lost another girl in Sheltershorn. She didn’t run away. She was stolen and couldn’t be traced—her father tried a mage in one of the cities he rode to. Niya tried within an hour of the girl’s disappearance. The snatchers aren’t some collective delusion. They’re real.”
“We know,” Melly says quietly.
I turn to her, trying to tamp down my emotions, but that fierce anger at Seri’s loss, that grief is still there, its claws buried beneath my skin along with the memory of Ani’s pain. “Then why does no one believe you? At least enough to look into it? If they investigate, they can’t help but find the truth of it.”
Filadon weaves his fingers together and rests his chin upon them. “Melly can’t,” he says conversationally. “The court only listens to what they want to hear from whom they want to hear it. If she brings it up, it’s her common background speaking, not her intelligence or knowledge or ability.”
Melly nods, her expression hard. I wonder how often her perspective is discounted because of her background. I haven’t even met the court and I’m already livid with them.
Filadon sighs. “And I . . . don’t have quite as much power as you might think.”
“You’re a lord,” I say, but it’s almost a question.
Filadon smiles briefly. “I am, and I have a friendship with the prince many are jealous of, but in return I gain very little. He does not shower me with gifts and rewards, nor do I expect them. Which means, in the court, that my worth is improved only so much. I am still just a lord with a small holding of little interest to anyone but myself.”
“The prince won’t listen to you?”
“He might,” Filadon concedes. “But until now, he’s been far too wrapped up in greater concerns—dangers he dared not turn his back on.”
It’s probably too soon to ask if the true princess has any thoughts on the subject, given her time living in the city. She’s only been at court for a week or two now.
“I’ll think about this,” Filadon says, turning back to his meal. “Perhaps we can discuss it again in a few days.”
“I’d appreciate that,” I say, aware that I am asking a lot of him. Melly shoots me a grateful smile and turns the conversation to Filadon’s day, spent in company with the prince and his betrothed.
After dinner, I retire to my room only to be called back a few minutes later by Melly, who gently reminds me of the cobbler’s impending visit, coming to measure me for slippers to match all my outfits.
“Oh,” I manage, and force a smile.
I commission shoes once a year and I hate it. Baba and I ride two days east to the nearest large town on the Kharite Road. There, a cobbler measures my feet, taking into account the turn of my left ankle and heel such that I walk on the outside of my foot rather than the sole. This affects the way the sole of the shoe itself must be shaped, as well as the overall shoe. After much muttering and grumbling, the cobbler provides us with a pair of riding boots, a pair of daily use slippers, and one set of fancy embroidered slippers, all at a relatively outrageous price. He’s the only cobbler who has been able to make shoes that don’t hurt me.
“Does this cobbler—has he worked with any other customers like me?” I ask as I follow Melly to the outer sitting room.
Her eyes darken with understanding. “I can’t say, but I’m sure he’ll do a good job. He serves a number of noble families. His reputation will be on the line if he doesn’t do well by you.”
I wish I could rest as comfortably in this knowledge as Melly does.
She reaches out to pat my shoulder. “It will be fine,” she says, as if she can see the future.
The cobbler is a middle-aged man with a too-wide smile and well-manicured hands. He wears a pair of simple leather slippers, embroidered in dark colors—understated and elegant, meant to show off his skill without being pretentious.
“I understand,” he says as he waves me to the sofa, “that you will require special shoes. I am quite looking forward to the challenge.”
My smile, stiff before, feels like it is carved upon my face. I seat myself silently.
“Now then, let’s have a look—”
“These are the slippers I have been wearing at home,” I say in an effort to prepare him so that he won’t say something I’ll hate him for. “They fit me perfectly, so you should be able to use them as a template for my new shoes.”
“Do they?” he asks, taking them from me. He sets the right slipper down and focuses on the left, turning it this way and that. “Very interesting construction. I don’t see why such a turn of the sole is necessary.”
Because I would rather not have seams beneath the side of my foot?
“As I mentioned,” Melly says, “the construction must suit my cousin’s needs.”
“Quite, quite, veria. If I can take a look at her foot, we’ll see what I can do to make an even better slipper.”
I bow to the inevitable with what grace I can muster and extend my foot.
“Hardly what I am used to,” he tells Melly as if I were not attached to the foot he is inspecting. As if I had chosen to be born with a deformed foot merely to aggravate him. “But of course I can work with it.”
He sits back without having made a single tracing,
