by Morgan Rice
Will paid it for both of them, and Kate found herself in the middle of a crowd so tightly packed that she could barely breathe.
“Are you all right?” Will asked.
Kate nodded. “I’ve just never been to a playhouse before. It’s very crowded.”
It wasn’t long before the play began, and Kate found herself lost in the story of a girl from one end of the Curl peninsula who had to travel it in search of a boy whose love she had lost. Kate couldn’t imagine going all that way for a boy, but she found herself engrossed in the spectacle of it. The Old King’s Players had obviously worked out that their audiences wanted action and music, flashes of fireworks and sudden appearances. They played up to it, even if they paused here and there for speeches set to rhyme that seemed to go on longer, as if added as an attempt to make the whole thing more. Kate found herself laughing out loud at some of the comic moments, and looking on eagerly during the stage fights.
She also found her hand keeping hold of William’s throughout it all, not wanting to let go of him or risk losing that contact. She didn’t know about traveling the length of the Curl for him, but she would certainly fight her way through a crowded theater if she lost him.
By the time they spilled out onto the street with the rest of the crowd, Kate felt breathless with the play. She felt alive, and awake.
“We should probably head home,” Will said, although his thoughts didn’t agree with that.
I don’t want to yet.
“In a while,” Kate said, echoing his thoughts. “For now… can we just walk a while?”
Will seemed surprised by that, as if he’d been expecting her to want to go back as quickly as possible, but he nodded enthusiastically. He started to lead the way.
“Definitely. We can go up along the garden row.”
Kate didn’t know what that was, and found herself pleasantly surprised when Will led the way along a couple of streets to a ladder, leading up toward the roofs of the city. For a moment, Kate found herself thinking about the hiding spot that she and her sister had found, tucked in behind the chimney stacks where no one could find them to hurt them.
“You want to go up there?” Kate asked.
“Trust me,” Will said.
To her surprise, Kate did, and ordinarily, she wouldn’t have trusted anyone that easily. She started to climb, and it was only as they reached the top that she saw what was there. A string of trees sat impossibly at roof level, in a garden that seemed to stretch across several different houses.
“This is beautiful,” Kate said. “It’s like a piece of the countryside in the middle of the city.”
It was more than that; it was something hopeful and defiant, standing against the overwhelming pressure of the city in a single act of growth and greenery.
Will nodded. “They say that some nobleman planted it as a place to think, but after he died, people just kept it going.” They started to walk around the small number of trees, where hanging lanterns attracted lunar moths. “You probably didn’t get to see much of the city, growing up in an orphanage.”
Kate froze for a moment, because she knew that she hadn’t told Will about that. Maybe his mother had told him, hoping to persuade him not to do this. She knew that Winifred didn’t hate her exactly. She was just worried about the impact that Kate’s presence might have.
“No. The door was left open, but that was like a taunt. You could leave, but you always knew that there was nowhere for you to go. And if you left and came back…”
Kate didn’t want to think about some of the punishments she’d seen for that. The House of the Unclaimed had been bad at the best of times, but those had been things to leave girls broken and staring.
“It sounds awful,” Will said. Kate didn’t want sympathy, because she didn’t want to be someone who needed it. Even so, it seemed different, coming from Will rather than from someone else.
“It was,” Kate agreed. “They knew that they would be indenturing us, so they spent our lives trying to make us into obedient little things who would have just enough skills to fetch a noble’s wine or work as an apprentice.” Kate paused, putting her hand against a tree. “It doesn’t matter, though. I’m not there now.”
“You’re not,” Will said. “And I’m glad you’re here.”
Kate smiled at that. “What about you?” she asked. “I’m guessing that war isn’t as boring and safe as you want to pretend to your mother.”
In fact, she suspected that it was anything but safe. She wanted to hear the truth of it, the battles and the smaller engagements, the places Will had been. She wanted to hear anything he had to tell her.
“Not really,” Will said with a sigh. “Lord Cranston mostly does keep us out of engagements, but when you do have to fight, it’s terrifying. There’s just violence everywhere. And even when you don’t, there’s the terrible food, the risk of disease…”
“You’re making it sound so heroic,” Kate said with a laugh.
Will shook his head. “It isn’t. If the wars spill over the Knife-Water to here, people will find that out.”
Kate hoped that wouldn’t happen, but at the same time, a part of her longed for it, because it would be a chance to fight. She wanted to fight then. She would fight the whole world if she needed to. The horror of it didn’t matter. There would be glory too.
“Half the time, the battles are just revenge for other battles a lifetime or more ago,” Will said. “Vengeance is pointless.”
Kate wasn’t so sure about that. “There are a few people I’d like revenge on.”
“It doesn’t do any good, Kate,” Will said. “You take revenge, and then they want revenge, until there’s no one left at all.” He paused for a moment, then laughed. “How did this turn so bleak, so quickly? We were supposed to be having a good time.”
Kate reached out to touch his arm, wishing that she had the courage to do more than that. She liked Will.
“I am having a good time,” she said. “And I think you sound very brave, with your regiment. I’d like to see it.”
Will smiled at that. “I don’t think it will be as dashing as you think.”
Kate suspected that it would be everything she hoped and more.
“Even so,” Kate said.
When Will nodded, she couldn’t have been happier. “All right,” he said. “But in the morning. They’ll look more impressive by daylight.”
Kate could barely wait.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Sophia wandered the palace, and as she did so, it was impossible not to think about quite how lucky she’d been. She’d come from nowhere, and now… now it seemed as though this might actually be her life from now on. She had found the place she’d been looking for, and it was everything she could have ever hoped. The palace was beautiful.
Sophia wanted to be able to stay here. More than that, she wanted to be able to stay here with Sebastian. She found herself staring at a painting of some long dead noble while contemplating what she could do to make sure that Sebastian didn’t ask her to leave. It was obvious that he liked her, but how did Sophia know that he was serious? She was happy in that moment, but it felt eggshell fragile. She didn’t want anything to ruin it.
Sophia kept wandering, not knowing quite where to go next. She didn’t want to simply go back to Sebastian’s rooms, because that would feel as though Angelica and her cronies had driven her there to hide, or like she was stuck simply waiting for Sebastian to save her. She didn’t want to go back to the library, because there was too much of a chance that they might be there.
Instead, she wandered up to a gallery where people walked around looking at the paintings, and then she went down toward the servants’ quarters in an attempt to get the layout of the place. She went to a glass-topped solarium, where delicate plants were set to grow in the greater heat, and spent some time sitting in a nook where it seemed that no one was about to pass.
It was at that point that Sophia told herself that she was being stupid. She had at leas
t one friend in the palace, after all.
It took her a little time to find Cora, working her way out from the ballroom until she found the space where the servant plied her trade with makeup and perfumes.
“My lady,” Cora said with a smile as Sophia approached. “Come and sit down. I’ll put some powder on your cheeks.”
“Cora, you don’t need to call me that,” Sophia said.
Cora nodded. “I do, and you need to get used to it. From what I hear of things between you and Prince Sebastian, you’re going to be here awhile. You need to remember who you are.”
“Who I’m pretending to be, you mean?” Sophia said. Sophia of Meinhalt felt like as much of a mask as the one she’d worn to the ball.
Cora pushed her down into the chair. “You can’t ever say that here. You don’t know who might be listening in. From now on, you are Sophia of Meinhalt.”
What would happen to us if the dowager found out her son had been tricked, I don’t know.
Sophia caught that thought clearly. She supposed that she could understand the idea that there might be spies, or just servants in a position to hear more than they should. After all, she spent her life overhearing more than she should of people’s thoughts. She could understand the danger, too. No one liked being made a fool of, and the dowager would act to protect her son, wouldn’t she?
“All right,” Sophia said. “But I can still come and see you, can’t I? Even a noble lady needs her makeup done.”
“She does,” Cora agreed, and started to dust Sophia’s features with a powder that turned her naturally pale complexion into something luminous and blemish free. “And while she’s doing it, she can tell me how things were with a certain prince.”
“Wonderful,” Sophia said, unable to help herself. “He’s… perfect, Cora.”
Cora brushed her lips with just a hint of rouge. “He’s not the man I suggested.”
Was she angry about that? No, Sophia realized, with a glance through her new friend’s thoughts, she was worried. Worried about all the things that might go wrong now that Sophia had picked a prince rather than some dull minor noble.
“It wasn’t something I planned,” Sophia said. She wanted Cora to understand that. She didn’t want her thinking that she had simply decided to ignore her advice.
“It’s just… it makes things more dangerous if this goes wrong,” Cora said. “You know that there are rumors flying around the palace about you now?”
Sophia had guessed that there might be, simply from how much Angelica had heard about her. “What kind of rumors?”
“That you managed to brush aside Milady d’Angelica to take the prince’s heart. That you’re astonishingly beautiful and appeared from nowhere. That you’ve fled the wars across the water, and you have dangerous enemies there. I swear, half the servants are gossiping about how beautiful you are, or how wonderfully you dance.”
Sophia shook her head at that. “I barely made it through the dancing without tripping over my feet.”
That got a laugh out of the servant. “Do you think that matters? People see what they want to see.”
Which was, of course, why Sophia had been able to succeed at this in the first place. The whole reason she had been able to find a place at court was because people wanted to see the mysterious girl fleeing a conflict, rather than the reality.
“It’s just…” Cora began. “Be careful. There are already people trying to find out exactly who you are. I hear that Milady d’Angelica is asking questions, and she isn’t the only one. The nobles hate it when they don’t know everything there is to know.”
Sophia could understand that. “I’ll try to be careful.”
She left, and she suspected that she looked even better than she had done for the ball. It was hard to believe that she was getting to walk around the palace with nobody challenging her. Perhaps it due to her amazement at that fact that she wasn’t paying as much attention to the thoughts around her as she should have been, or perhaps she’d just gotten used to the idea that no one would bother her as she walked past them.
Either way, she turned a corner and froze as she found herself face to face with Rupert, the kingdom’s heir and Sebastian’s older brother.
He wasn’t dressed quite as brightly as he had been for the party, but it was close. There was a lot of gold brocade on an outfit of red velvet, shot through with flashes of creamy silk. Like Sebastian, he was a handsome young man, although there was a confidence, even arrogance, to his demeanor that said Prince Rupert was completely aware of it. Sophia watched his eyes rove over her in a combination of surprise, amusement, and… admiration.
“Your Highness,” Sophia said, with a hurried curtsey. She had to remember the etiquette, even though she could see exactly what Rupert was.
“And you are Sophia, aren’t you?” He didn’t bother using the lie that was her surname. With anyone else, Sophia might have taken it for friendliness. With him, she could see it was simply that he didn’t feel the need to afford anyone even that much respect. She was just one more girl among a host of them, even if she was with his brother.
“Yes, Your Highness,” Sophia said. “Sophia of Meinhalt.”
He took her hand, drawing her up out of her curtsey with all the grace Sophia might have expected from a crown prince. He didn’t let go of her hand, though, holding onto it in a way that must have seemed courtly and romantic to anyone watching, but which actually felt to Sophia as though he was holding her in place, laying claim to her as surely as a man grabbing the arm of a thief.
“I saw you at the ball last night,” he said. “Dancing with my brother. You should have come over to me. We could have danced.”
One glance at his thoughts told Sophia that dancing wasn’t anywhere on his mind.
“You seemed busy with other partners,” Sophia said with a delicate laugh.
Rupert looked her straight in the eye. “I’m not busy now, and I’d like to find out exactly what captivated Sebastian so much. Perhaps we could go somewhere.”
Sophia didn’t have to ask what he intended once they got there. She could see it in his mind as clearly as if someone had painted it. She found herself grateful for the powder Cora had applied to her features, because it hid the depth of her blush.
“Your Highness, I couldn’t possibly. Your brother—”
“Isn’t here,” Rupert pointed out.
She’s just a whore. Why should it matter to her?
“Your Highness,” Sophia began, trying to think of a way to get out of there without having to slap the heir to the throne. She could see the way Prince Rupert saw her: as something to use because his brother had. As a prize to be claimed simply because he was the eldest. He found her beautiful, but Sophia doubted that he even saw her as a real person.
“I’m sure you found my brother sweet and gentle,” Rupert said. Again, Sophia caught images that made her want to pull away. “And boring. I think you and I will not be boring when we are—”
“Sophia?”
Sophia had never been as grateful for anything as she was for the sound of Sebastian’s voice right then. She managed to pull free of Rupert’s grip as he came around the corner, and hurried to him.
“Sebastian,” she said with all the happiness that came from not being in Rupert’s grip any longer added to the normal happiness of seeing Sebastian. “You’re back! I hope the day was a good one?”
“If I know my brother,” Rupert said, as though nothing had just happened, “he’ll have been bored out of his mind by it all. Sebastian, Mother wants us to dine with her in an hour or so. Bring Sophia. I’m sure Mother will love her. She seems delightful.”
Sophia got one last flash of the things he was thinking about her before he left. It was enough to make her cling to Sebastian’s arm and wish that she could wipe the things she’d seen from her mind.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Sophia said, leaning against him.
“I hope Rupert wasn’t too overwhelming,” Sebastian replied.
Sophia caught the worry there. There had been girls before Sophia whom Rupert had pulled away from Sebastian when they’d realized that he was the one willing to be more extravagant. That they weren’t here now only said how quickly he’d cast them aside.
“No, it’s fine.”
A part of her wanted to tell Sebastian exactly what had happened, but what could she say? That she’d read Rupert’s mind and knew what he wanted?
“We still have some time before dinner,” Sebastian said. “Would you like to take a walk around the maze for a while?”
Sophia nodded. Anything, so long as it was out of there, and with Sebastian. She walked with him out into the gardens, where lamps were starting to light up flowers that had opened in the dark, pale and silvery.
“They’re midnight orchids,” Sebastian said, obviously noting Sophia’s gaze. “They open to attract the moths that aren’t out in the daylight, so that they don’t have to fight for butterflies’ attention with the other flowers.”
“They feel that they can’t attract the butterflies?” Sophia asked. “But they’re beautiful.”
Sebastian touched her arm, and the contact was enough to send a shiver along Sophia’s skin. “Sometimes, the most beautiful things can come along at unexpected times.”
They kept going into the maze. Sophia got the feeling that Sebastian knew his way around it, because he took the turnings with confidence even though she couldn’t make sense of them.
“It seems like a good place to get lost for a while,” Sophia said. “Is that why you like to come here?”
“It’s part of it,” Sebastian said. “Although it also means we have some privacy.”
Sophia made the most of it, leaning in to kiss him. She couldn’t believe that she was free to do that with someone like Sebastian. That, and almost anything else she wanted. More than that, she couldn’t believe that she’d found someone like him at all.
She had, though, and Sophia held close to him as they kept going through the maze.
“There’s a sundial at the center,” Sebastian said. “And a pergola with a chaise inside.”
