Glenquartz outlines a day of tours through the palace, and he promises to have news of Hat’s release within a week. I half suspect it’s a ploy to put me in front of more Royals. Mostly, we pass undisturbed. Occasionally, someone wants to shake my hand, and I have to take a moment to brace myself for whatever images or imaginings are coursing through their mind. Two people dodge me entirely, ducking into rooms to avoid me, their auras sharp and clear with fear and disdain. As much as I want to be frustrated that there are people literally running away from me, I have as little interest in interacting with them as they do with me.
It’s as if I’m a disease they can catch. If they get too close to me, they’ll be stripped of their titles and names, and cast down from their towers. Fools.
I count the days.
CHAPTER 8
It’s been a week since I asked the Royal Council and General Belrosa Demure to intercede with Hat, and I’ve finally settled on a proper definition of hell. Hell is sitting in an etiquette class with a prim and proper teacher named Eldritch Weathers, and dear old Eldritch, with his rich aura as smooth as purple velvet, is lecturing me on the difference between posture and poise (apparently they’re not the same thing), and all I can think about is Hat slumped in a cell; and then he’s describing the types of food you shouldn’t eat in public, and I know Hat is probably starving right now; and then he argues for the twentieth time that I should wear proper ladies’ shoes instead of my boots, and all I can think is that Hat won’t be wearing shoes in the prison—the floor at night will be cold.
On and on like this for days. And every day, in between lessons with Eldritch, I meet with new Royals. I learn their names, but the only thing I can vaguely remember is the blur of their auras. Every day, someone wants my response to whatever is happening out in the city. Someone wants to know if I really do have a name and I’m only pretending for some inane sense of drama.
Eldritch isn’t unpleasant, but he isn’t patient. Part of me wants to meet his every challenge, the same way I once met the challenges issued by Marcher. Pickpocket a Royal, rob a dock shipment, dress out of class, spend a week clearing out the attic of a wealthy Legal. I have experience with people like Eldritch, and I have one advantage over him. I’m less pleasant and even more patient.
Plus, I’m his queen, more or less.
Eldritch has seen enough of my snarky behavior and anger to suspect I have no interest in learning, but he’s wrong about that. As a grifter, I make my way conning people, which means I study people and learn to imitate them. They’ve assigned me etiquette lessons as if they’re a punishment or a challenge I won’t meet, when in fact they’re equipping me with the tools I would have acquired anyway by observing Royals at dinners and lunches. I’m a quick learner, but I have no interest in letting Eldritch know that.
“Are you perhaps not capable of sitting up straight?” Eldritch asks as we sit at a formal dinner setting, discussing wine-serving ceremonies and the proper use of cutlery. According to Eldritch, wine is for ceremony and celebration, not everyday consumption. And cutlery is for eating food and definitely never ever for threatening the well-liked daughter of a recently deceased king. If nothing else, I’m glad stories of my resourcefulness have circulated.
After I’ve sat through the first two courses of a pretend formal dinner, he has added to his list of displeasures. “Are you perhaps not capable of holding a knife correctly? Are you perhaps not capable of maintaining eye contact? Are you perhaps not capable of holding a cordial conversation?”
“I am perfectly capable,” I say, sitting with slumped posture. “I am perhaps not patient enough. You know what these lessons are missing?”
“A dedicated student?” Eldritch offers gently, a pencil jutting out from behind his ear as he straightens the pocket square in his formal jacket.
I grit my teeth. Nothing’s worse than someone stealing the punch line of your sarcastic quip.
“In fact, yes,” I say. I grab my thin white shawl from the curving arm of the ornately carved wooden chair, wrap it around my shoulders, and head for the door.
“If you cannot tolerate me,” Eldritch says in a lofty tone, “how do you ever expect to tolerate the Royal class as a whole?”
I pause at the door. I don’t know whether he’s insulting himself, insulting the Royals, or insulting me. I try not to care.
I’m about to leave, when I sense an aura approach on the other side of the door. Angrily, I pull it open, ready to push past the visitor and stalk the corridors. Seven days I’ve been coming to these lessons. I’ve learned a lot from Eldritch in that time, but I’m too angry to be anything but stubborn. When I open the door, Esther is standing there in a sterling blue blouse and long black slacks.
Eldritch rises to his feet. “Ah, good, I heard you’d be joining us today.”
Esther skirts around me. “The Royal Council has been receiving updates from Eldritch, and they thought my presence might spur some improvement in you, since we don’t have months to train you. If you would sit, we can continue the lesson.”
I plop down in my chair with overly exaggerated obedience.
She rolls her eyes. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
“Wait, are you telling me there’s a difference between the letter of the law and the spirit?” I say. “Oh dear, I think I’ve been exploiting laws incorrectly all this time.”
She opens her mouth to retort, but Eldritch cuts in and says, “A thing to learn—which Esther herself is still learning—is that when conflict presents itself, the appropriate and regal thing to do is keep your head, keep your temper, and keep control.”
Part of what he’s saying is correct. If you stay calm and collected during a fight, you have the advantage. But the detail he’s missing is that my version of calm and collected doesn’t match Esther’s. I calmly and collectedly drive everyone to frustration. Or, if tempers rise, I calmly and collectedly punch someone in the face. It’s about context, really.
“I think this will go splendidly,” Eldritch says. For a moment I’m annoyed at his sarcasm, but then I realize he’s being sincere, which is worse.
Eldritch starts guiding us on how to have a conversation during a meal—the biggest tip is to avoid talking while food is still in your mouth.
On the list of things I didn’t want to learn: the seventeen different types of cups arranged on the side table, and the myriad ways you should and shouldn’t hold each one.
At some point we start going through an entire, rehearsed seven-course dinner. First a dry wine coupled with a discussion of how to hold the stem of the wineglass. Then some kind of small, layered bread-and-meat snack, drizzled with oil, coupled with a discussion on how to handle crumbs and coughing. Then, through the next three courses, various vegetables and proteins with countless notes about silverware and hand placement. Despite the delicious food, it’s tiresome.
As we wrap up the sixth course, a lobster bisque, I’m pushing the spoon around the bowl and thinking of Hat. I’ve eaten past the point of hunger, which is something I’m so unaccustomed to doing that I feel sick.
As Eldritch compliments Esther on her excellent posture, I work on balancing a kitchen knife across the rim of my wineglass. When Eldritch departs to see why the dessert course hasn’t been delivered yet, Esther turns to me. She slams her own silverware to the table in frustration when she sees what I’m doing.
“I don’t know how you expect to learn when you treat everything like a mockery,” Esther says, pointing at my wineglass. “Not because you can’t do it, but because you don’t care enough to try.” She shakes her head. “I’d love to be an advocate for you, because you’re alone here and could use the help. And the way we treat the Nameless population is one of the longest-standing shames shared across all the cities. But you? As a representative of all of Seriden’s Nameless, you’re not making it easy.”
I stare her d
own for a moment before straightening in my chair and picking up the flute of sweet wine. I hold it delicately.
“If you don’t mind, Ambassador,” I say coyly, “I know we’ve barely started the ground-spice meringue, but we really must talk about the import tax your city has levied against the predefined trade goods. And might I suggest a white sapling-shade wine to pair with the meringue? It’s absolutely perfect for soothing the heat of the Lindragore ground-spice.”
Esther is slack-jawed for a moment.
“I think the napkin has fallen off your lap, dear,” I say. “You should pick it up off the floor, along with your jaw.”
“How did…You’ve been paying attention this whole time.” Esther frowns. “Then why do you act so crass? Why not allow Eldritch to pass on good news of your etiquette training? It’s like you have no appreciation for the opportunity you’ve been given!”
I feel my face grow hot and—annoyingly—I hear Eldritch’s voice in my head. Be calm and collected. Yet the smile on my face disappears.
“The opportunity I’ve been given?” I repeat slowly, my anger building. I set the flute down. “What do you think this is to me?” I point to the crown tattoo on my arm.
“That is the highest privilege of Seriden!” she says. “It is power, and you treat it like it’s gaudy jewelry to be stolen and sold!”
I let out a slow breath. Calm and collected. Calm. Collected. “You think this is a privilege for me? Maybe for you it would be. Gaiza, if you had this crown, your life would be perfect now. You think this is a chance to save Seriden. You think it’s a gift! That I should be proud. My only friend is in prison right now. She was nearly executed, and to save her, I gave myself up and got locked in your dungeon for three days. This tattoo is going to get me killed. It’s not power—not for someone like me. It’s not jewelry. It’s a shackle. You want me to take this seriously? You want me to act like the queen you think I’m allowed to be? I’ll start doing that the moment you tell me how having this tattoo on my arm is going to do anything but get me and my friend killed.” I hunch over the table angrily. To her credit, she doesn’t say anything.
She reclines in her chair and stares pensively at the wall. I know I’ve given her something to think about, but I don’t know what she actually thinks. I reach out to sense her aura, but it’s constantly shifting and unsettled. Eldritch finally returns with a silver tray in his arms, but neither of us makes a move to correct our posture.
When Eldritch sees my knife still balanced on the wineglass, he sighs. “Are you perhaps incapable of—”
“I am more than capable!” I shout, slamming my hand on the table. The knife falls from the rim of the glass and clatters onto my plate. As it settles, I say more politely, “But that’s not what this is all about, is it? These etiquette lessons. The Assassins’ Festival. It’s not about proving I’m capable of being queen. It’s about proving who I am and who I’m not. I am Nameless. I am not a Royal. And that makes everyone nervous.”
Eldritch doesn’t seem the least bit offended by my outburst. I imagine he’s seen his fair share of outbursts over the years. He sets the silver tray down, and I let out a long, slow breath.
Esther asks pleasantly, “What is it that you’ve been so kind to grace us with, dear Eldritch?”
He gives us a knowing look. “If not manners, then dessert.”
Underneath the tray is a toasted, braided pastry. Scents of cinnamon and sugar waft upward. Delight fills Esther’s face and she seems to forget or forgive our dispute now that there’s a sugary dessert involved.
Eldritch places a pastry on Esther’s plate and one on mine. I couldn’t possibly eat anything else, but it does smell fantastic.
Eldritch gestures to the remaining pastry before him. “This dessert is called the weaver’s basket, so named because of the braided dough. Often it is served inverted and filled with fruit. Looks like the kitchen sprinkled some extra sugar on top. Perfection!”
I think about my visits to the dining hall over the past week. There was a tray of these, presented in a similar fashion, but the sugar was sprinkled on in a spiral.
Esther selects a puny fork and knife and starts carefully cutting off one of the woven strands of bread. I lean down and carefully smell the pastry.
Eldritch nods as if I’m appreciating the cinnamon scent. I lick the tip of my finger and touch it to the sugar. When I touch the white powder to my tongue, an overwhelmingly sweet taste strikes me. I immediately spit it out onto the floor. For good measure, I rinse my mouth with the sweet white wine.
Eldritch gasps as though I’ve insulted his firstborn child.
“My lady!” Eldritch shouts.
“Put that down immediately,” I say, pointing at Esther’s fork. “It’s poison.”
“It’s what?” Esther says with an incredulous laugh.
Annoyed, I focus on the fork in her hand and the one in Eldritch’s. I imagine their forks turning into snakes.
Esther shouts in fear, dropping her fork like it has bitten her, and Eldritch throws his to the floor.
“It’s salite poison,” I clarify, letting the illusion of reptilian cutlery disappear. “It comes in two forms, and one of them is a very sweet white powder that’s deadly if you ingest it.” I point at what we all thought was powdered sugar on the dessert.
Eldritch jumps up, aghast, and Esther pushes back from the table with a screech of her chair. I check their desserts as well, confirming the presence of the overly smooth salite powder.
“Congratulations,” I say. “You just survived an assassination attempt.”
They gape in horror at me.
“What?” I say. “You should be happy. You don’t seem happy. I did say survived, didn’t I?”
They exchange glances, and Eldritch sits down.
I continue, “The poison is a bummer, though, because I really wanted to try this dessert. Well…I mean…since the poison is on the top, I could come at it from the bottom.” I tilt the dessert.
Esther’s lids drop to half-mast, and she glares at me.
“No, you’re right. You’re right. Bad idea. Definitely not worth it.” I set the weaver’s basket onto its plate.
Esther points at the dessert. “I should speak with the Royal Council immediately. They need to know.”
“Know what?” I scoff. “That someone isn’t patient enough to wait until the Assassins’ Festival? Remember, it’s not illegal for anyone to kill me.”
“They can’t just do that, though,” she says. “They can’t just kill you. It would upset the balance of everything in our city, and magic is too fragile after what we’ve done to it.”
I cock my head to the side. “What you do mean, ‘after what we’ve done to it’?” I know I’ve caught her off guard, but she adjusts her features to a professional calm.
“The tattoos were used to bind magic to the fourteen sovereigns all those years ago….Magic was free once, and now it’s controlled. The tenets we’ve put in place to protect and control it are delicate. If you are killed before the festival, we don’t know what will happen to magic.” Esther rises from her chair, but she rests her hands on the edge of the table and leans forward. “When I said that tattoo is power—power that you aren’t prepared for—you said that being able to have power is a privilege. You say it’s dangerous for you. Power always, always goes hand in hand with danger. Even if power isn’t a privilege given to you, Coin, it’s still something you can possess.” Esther pushes off the table and strides to the door. “I’m going to let the Royal Council know there has been an attempt on your life. I presume you can have this disposed of properly, Eldritch.”
“Shouldn’t I be the one giving orders?” I say.
She squints at me. “Would you like to?”
I purse my lips, knowing it would be foolish for me to repeat what she’s said.
“It won
’t dissolve,” I tell Eldritch as Esther heads for the door, and I can tell she’s listening. “The poison. It doesn’t dissolve. Not in water. Tell the kitchen to use oil.”
For a moment, Eldritch’s aura flickers with indecision, but he agrees.
Esther departs, but I’m quick on her heels.
“Something has been nagging at me,” I say as I chase her down the corridor.
Esther’s aura twists as she bites back a retort.
“The list of challengers posted outside the dining hall,” I say. “Your name wasn’t on it. The general had her name written there in a heartbeat, but not you. Why?”
Esther quickens her pace but then stops short. I move around to face her.
“I am not careless with my words or my actions,” Esther says. “When I write my name on that paper, that is when you will know with absolute certainty that you will never be queen.” With that, she picks up her quick pace, and this time, I don’t follow.
I check on Eldritch to make sure the poison is disposed of safely, and then I pace the corridors. It’s not every day that someone tries to kill me, but I wager it will be commonplace soon enough.
What Esther said during the lesson sits with me as I move through the palace. I don’t know how to dream big. I don’t know how to help everyone. I can barely keep myself afloat.
I take a moment to assess myself. I’ve been at the palace for ten days. My abilities, according to the Royal Council, will continue to grow stronger until six weeks have passed. Am I stronger? After sensing the auras of strangers and avoiding skin contact since I arrived here, I’m not sure.
I wonder if I’m strong enough to break Hat out of prison myself. I can sense auras, see memories, and cause hallucinations. But I have barely practiced the latter since settling into the routine of meals and etiquette lessons.
As I take a sharp turn and head down a short corridor, I feel a prickle on my neck. For a moment I can’t tell if it’s my usual paranoia or if it’s someone’s aura. Out of instinct or intuition, I glance behind me. There’s a flash of bright orange cloth, and a Royal ducks into a room behind me.
Nameless Queen Page 9
