The Queen's Choice

by Cayla Kluver

  “You’re probably right. I just really don’t like her.”

  “I don’t, either. But we don’t have to like her. We just have to stay away from her.”

  Shea leaned into her pillows, laughing cynically, a sign she wasn’t sure this was possible.

  “Do you still want to take a stroll, Anya?”

  I hesitated, thinking that going for a walk ran directly counter to my goal of avoiding Gwyneth. She knew we had seen her the previous evening, and the last thing I wanted was to hear details about her liaison with Mr. Trenton.

  “No, I think I’ll stay here and try to figure out how best to look for Zabriel once we reach Sheness. We can hardly walk up to any old person on the street and ask for directions to the pirates’ lair.”

  “True enough. But I’m going to stretch my legs. I don’t think I’ve stopped panicking since we were arrested, and now this mess... I need to wear off some energy.”

  Shea opened the door, peering to her right, then left to make sure the young woman we had been discussing was not in sight. With a small wave, she stepped into the corridor, leaving me behind in our little chamber.

  I lay down on my bed, folding my arms beneath my head. How was I to find someone who didn’t want to be found? Someone who had managed to elude detection and capture by the Governor’s Constabularies? Someone with a reputation as big as Sheness itself, and who apparently had as many hiding places? I wasn’t one of the Queen’s Blades—I wasn’t prepared for a task of this magnitude. I didn’t even have a starting point.

  I thought back to my conversation with Luka Ivanova in his office. How had the Governor’s son described William Wolfram Pyrite? Young, handsome, daring, some might say philanthropic—sometimes I think he has more admirers than I do. So my cousin was a person who inspired loyalty. This wasn’t surprising, but it did mean that if I wasn’t careful in my approach, I was likely to get myself killed, Shea along with me.

  My head aching, I closed my eyes, intending to rest for a few minutes. I woke several hours later to fading sunlight filtering through the window. Alarmed, I sat up to discover that Shea had not returned. I scrambled out the door and headed to the captain’s deck, imagining that my troubled friend could be miles behind us, cold in the river’s clutches. If it could have happened to Mr. Trenton, why not to her?

  The scene that greeted me when I burst into the dining room would have been comical were my topsy-turvy emotions not dominated by relief. Shea was sitting at a small round table with four gentlemen, talking, laughing and sipping rich amber liquid from a shot glass. A pyramid of gold pieces lay in the table’s center, and Shea rubbed a pair of dice in her hands. Glancing puckishly at the men, she blew on them and gave them a roll. When the dice settled, she whooped and scooped up the pot amid groans from the other players. I gaped at the gold tower she was piling in front of her. I had played the game with her earlier, and she had won no more often than had I. What had changed her luck?

  Catching my eye, Shea came to her feet, knocking some of her coins to the floor, where they gleamed as they rolled and spun. With a giggle, she gathered them again, fashioning her tunic into a pouch to hold her winnings. When she had captured the strays, she brushed her stacks of gold into her makeshift pouch to mingle with the others.

  “Thank you, gentlemen, for a lovely afternoon,” she sassed, one arm protectively cradling her winnings like a pregnant woman might cradle her unborn child. “And thank you for your donations to my travel fund.”

  “You can’t leave now,” the solicitor griped. “You’ve got half our money!”

  “You should be glad I’m leaving now—if I stayed any longer, I’d have all your money.”

  The men laughed uproariously, an indication their insides were well warmed with liquor, and fell into easy conversation. Blushing like a schoolgirl, Shea came to my side.

  “Are you a hustler or a cheat?” I muttered, offering my money pouch to take part of her load, which was stretching the fabric of her shirt to its limit.

  “Shhh. Let’s step away first.”

  We moved to a corner table across the room from the gamblers, watching the kitchen crew set up the buffet table, for the evening meal would soon be served. Finishing off their drinks, the gentlemen gathered their effects, the fortunes they had lost to my friend seemingly having been forgotten the moment the gold had left their sight.

  “I did pretty well, don’t you think?” Shea asked, sinking into a chair, her speech much smoother than I was expecting. Unlike the other participants in the dice game, she was nowhere near inebriated.

  “I think you’re lucky.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  She transferred the remaining gold pieces from her tunic to the pouch at her hip. Then she opened one hand below the height of the table, toward the wall where only she and I could see it. A pair of dice rested in her palm.

  I frowned. “You stole the dice?”

  “Not exactly. These are my dice. They’re loaded.”

  I stared stupidly at her, then comprehension dawned. “You really are a swindler?”

  “More of an opportunist,” she laughed, enjoying my reaction. “The opportunity was there, and I took advantage of it. I wasn’t given these big, round eyes for nothing.” She fingered the dice before tucking them into her money pouch. “My father taught me to play the game, and he used these once as a joke. He let me keep them, and I’ve carried them around ever since. Sort of a good luck charm, I suppose. If you only switch the dice a few times, you’re not likely to get caught. Besides, these folks can afford to lose...and they’d never accuse a young lady of cheating.”

  At the playful waggle of her eyebrows, mirth bubbled up from my belly. I tried to muffle its sound, only to end up snorting like a hog, which set Shea off, our laughter enough to make us both appear drunk. The Fae were the ones stereotyped as charlatans, tricky with our words and deeds, because our inability to lie was hard for humans to comprehend. While it did force us to cleverer tactics if we wanted to conceal something, human distrust was, for the most part, misplaced. Shea was the one for whom they had to watch out.

  I clutched at my aching stomach, fighting to regain control, for there was a serious issue underlying her actions that I needed to address.

  “You can’t do that sort of thing anymore, okay? If you’d been caught, we might both be arrested. Again.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m not about to push my luck. But think about what you just said. We’re probably the only ones among this boatload of bourgeois passengers who’ve ever been arrested, and yet we’re indubitably the most innocent of the lot. There’s something not right about that.” A smile flitted across her features, then she winked. “But you know what? The risk was half the fun.”

  I rolled my eyes, though I secretly wondered what it would feel like to take such a risk. A strong sense of propriety had been instilled in me from birth, and it kept me from considering such behavior. Traveling, seeing new places, and never knowing what might come next gave me a rush that I supposed might be similar, yet the stakes were higher for Shea, the thrill more immediate, concentrated into a crucial hour or two. I cast a sideways glance at her, thinking a rush that intense was liable to be addicting. Still, seeing the light in Shea’s eyes made me want to take that same sort of chance someday. As long as no articulated lies were involved, there was nothing to stop me. Besides, I didn’t even know if my speech was restricted by magical law anymore. Maybe I was just relying on habit. And if habit was my only obstacle, a whole new world lay before me, one that was truly human.

  Gold pieces safely stored away, Shea was smugly watching the servants carry stacks of plates and trays of silverware in preparation for dinner. Judging from her expression, she hadn’t taken my warning seriously. I already had enough things on my mind, and didn’t want the added worry of what else Shea might consider an opportunity.

 
“Shea, I meant what I said before. We really can’t afford to take chances like that.”

  “It wasn’t that risky, Anya, but I know what you mean.”

  “Do you? Remember that boy in Strong? And when you left the Fae-mily Home by yourself in Tairmor? I told you to be careful after both of those incidents, and you didn’t listen then.” Under any other circumstances, I would have felt out of place reprimanding her, but Nature ice over and boil if I was going to hazard losing my freedom again on her account.

  “I said I’ve got it, Anya.” There was irritation in Shea’s voice, and her eyes held an almost disdainful glint. “Maybe you should try having fun sometime. And you’re not always so sensible, you know. Remember how you almost died in the Fere because you were too stubborn to see a doctor? And I wasn’t the one chasing after Spex and Hastings in Oaray. Don’t go about pretending you’re better than me.”

  I sighed heavily, restraining my rising temper. “That’s not what I’m doing. We’ve both made misjudgments. All I’m saying is we have to be more cautious from now on. Sooner or later we’re just going to run out of luck.”

  She gave a quick nod, then resumed watching the servants, who were pushing in carts that clanked and groaned under their burdens of steaming food.

  Like ants swarming a picnic, the remaining passengers scuttled into the dining room, eager to raid the platters. Catching sight of Gwyneth’s father, I felt a surge of gratitude that he had not been involved in the dice game. I doubted he was as gullible as the rest; he wasn’t the type to suffer the company of fools.

  The announcement that we had lost Mr. Trenton was made at the conclusion of the evening’s meal, although most of the passengers were already aware of the situation. Safety protocol was reviewed, and we were told that access to the sundeck would be closed off for the remainder of the voyage. With all eyes on the captain while he issued this last decree, I took the opportunity to find Gwyneth in the crowd of concerned faces. Feeling my gaze, she turned to me, her expression devoid of interest or worry, and it felt like spiders ran down my arms. From her tiny smile, I gleaned an awful truth: Gwyneth knew exactly what had become of Mr. Trenton. The question that begged to be answered was whether or not she had played a part in his disappearance.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  ENEMY AID

  “She’s crazy,” Shea insisted, not even waiting until the door to our quarters had closed to launch her accusations. “Worse, she’s evil.”

  She spun around, eyes wild, then yanked on the storage drawers that were housed under our beds, viciously rattling them several times, but she could not remove them. Finally, she gave one of them a frustrated kick.

  “What are we going to use to barricade the door?”

  I would have laughed if my mind hadn’t been leaping to similar conclusions. I couldn’t say for certain whether Gwyneth had done anything wrong, but the circumstances of Mr. Trenton’s disappearance were undeniably odd. And her attitude had been much too cavalier. But surely the smile she gave me could have been meant to be reassuring—it could have been intended to convey hope. There were a million ways to interpret a single expression, weren’t there? Gwyneth could even have been in shock and reacted inappropriately. Such lapses happened and could be forgiven. After all, people handled distressing news in different ways.

  I’d almost calmed myself down when the door swung open, setting my heart to racing all over again. It didn’t help that Gwyneth barged across the threshold, not waiting for an invitation. In our cramped quarters, the heavy floral scent that clung to her was almost sickening, and the midnight blue dress that hugged her curvaceous form was a blatant reminder of how easily she could have manipulated Mr. Trenton.

  Shea shouted and jumped back, drawing her pistol and pointing it at our unexpected guest. Not knowing whose behavior shocked me more, I stepped between the two of them, for I doubted Gwyneth had come to kill us. Shea’s eyes narrowed, then she tucked her pistol back into her belt, though her hand continued to rest on its handle. With a lift of her eyebrows, Gwyneth gave the door a shove, its slam signifying the abandonment of her girlish, innocent guise.

  “I’d hoped you wouldn’t be quite so astute,” she said, and my hand dropped to the long-knife at my hip. “Yes, I sent that drunkard Trenton over the side of the boat, with a life vest and a flare gun, I’ll have you know.”

  “Why the hell would you do that?” Shea all but screeched. “You’re insane! I told you, Anya—she’s insane!”

  “Oh, I certainly am not. You should be thanking me, not shouting at me. You see, Trenton let it slip that he was following you two on Luka Ivanova’s orders. Having spent a good deal of my life trailed by people I neither desire nor require, I thought I’d spare you the same annoyance. So the truth is I saved you.”

  We stared at her, trying to grasp what she was telling us. Shea and I had discussed the possibility that we were being followed, but hadn’t seen any evidence to substantiate it. But if Gwyneth was telling the truth, then she had done us a favor—in her own way.

  “We could tell the captain, you know,” Shea warned, her fingers twitching where they lay against her gun.

  “You could,” our confounding travel companion agreed, smoothing the skirt of her dress. “But I’m afraid he wouldn’t believe you. I travel often with my father on this river, and the captain knows me well, or at least as well as I want him to know me. He would find your claims that a sheltered, well-bred noblewoman could commit such an act ludicrous. Besides, how could I possibly have overpowered David Trenton? The notion is just silly.”

  “Apparently not,” Shea grumbled. She plopped on her bed in defeat, though her expression remained bitter and distrustful.

  “Now that we’ve cleared up that little matter,” Gwyneth went on, ignoring Shea, “let me get to the real point of my visit. I’ve come here to extend an invitation. I’ve already told my father the three of us have become friends, and he’s agreed to let you ride with us from the bay to Sheness, and then on to our home for dinner. You are headed to Sheness, aren’t you?”

  Shea seemed inclined to deny this on principle, but I nodded.

  “Yes, we’re going to the port city. And I would happily take you up on your offer if you could give me a believable reason for extending it. What’s your interest in us? Why get involved in our affair with Trenton?”

  White teeth flashed at me from behind bloodred lips. “Like I said before, the women on this boat ought to stick together. Besides, dinner with just me and my father at the table can be boring. I suspect you two will enliven things considerably. Now then, we should be docking late tomorrow morning. Why don’t we just meet on deck?”

  She paused, but our lack of response did not faze her. “Grand. I’ll be off then. Good night!”

  Gwyneth pivoted and departed as abruptly as she had arrived, leaving Shea and me completely baffled. We readied ourselves for bed in silence and crawled under our covers, but neither of us could sleep. The restlessness in the room built until we spontaneously broke into conversation, our voices low, indicative of a fear that someone might overhear.

  “She was on Luka Ivanova’s arm at the execution,” I said into the darkness.

  “And from what you overheard, her father is connected to the Governor.” Shea’s voice was troubled, and the waves thudding against the riverboat’s hull were an unrelenting reminder that we were trapped on the vessel. “Plus he’s connected to Zabriel, though in a far less friendly sense.”

  I rolled over and hugged my pillow to my chest. “So what’s her angle? Is this related to Luka? I mean, he’s shrewd, and whether I want to think it or not, so is Tom Matlock. Maybe this is an elaborate ruse so that Gwyneth can set herself up to keep an eye on us. Or maybe she’s going to turn us over to the Constabularies when we arrive in Sheness.”

  “I don’t think she’s working for Luka. Wouldn’t Luka have
had to make arrangements with Gwyneth’s father to get her involved? And her father hasn’t shown any interest in us. I’d wager he doesn’t even know our names. Besides, in my experience, wealthy businessmen don’t make willing lackeys, nor do they put their pampered daughters in danger.”

  “There seems to be a lot he doesn’t know about his daughter, though,” I mused, still unconvinced. “She and Luka looked pretty friendly with one another at the execution. Maybe she helps him just for the thrill of it.”

  “But she wouldn’t have gotten rid of Mr. Trenton if she were working with Luka.”

  I rubbed my forehead in frustration, my temples seeming to push outward against my skull. “Then maybe she’s helping us just for the thrill of it? She has to suspect we’re involved in something illegal if the Lieutenant Governor had someone following us.”

  “So is Gwyneth a friend or an enemy?” Shea’s voice remained as skeptical as mine, and for good reason—nothing about Gwyneth was simple or straightforward. “And what do we do?”

  “I’m not sure. What I do know is that we need to get to Sheness as quickly as possible. And we don’t have a better, faster option than the one she’s offering us. While I’d love to see the last of her, we may have to trust her for the time being.”

  Shea sighed, and I heard her sit up in the empty blackness. “I don’t think I’ll ever trust her, because I still believe she’s completely insane. But maybe her insanity has some perks. We’ll have to be careful, though. If Gwyneth is working for Luka, it means she’s trying to find my family.”

  “We can always lead her on a merry chase through Sheness,” I snorted, though the other risk of being tracked by Luka Ivanova flitted through my head. I didn’t want to put him on Zabriel’s trail, or the trail of William Wolfram Pyrite, as the case may be.

  “Then we’ll go with her tomorrow,” Shea declared, and I made a noise of affirmation. Perhaps Gwyneth represented our first real break on this journey. And if not, Shea and I were sharp enough to elude her. How dangerous could one mollycoddled young woman be? Still, I had to wonder what answer Mr. Trenton would have given to that question.