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Chapter 25

They walked, the empress moving slowly, her movements awkward when she bent to sniff a bloom here and there. "What about Jean-Paul?" Liane said. "Aristides said he thought you might be our next Duquesse of San Pierre. Before all this fuss. Jean-Paul is a good man. Don't let this nonsense scare you off if he is the one you want."

"It's a big decision to take on something like that," Imogene said slowly. "We still have only known each other a short time."

Liane laughed. "Well, I can understand that. I almost ran away before my wedding. But I'd known Aristides a long time. And I loved him. So I stayed. And became an empress. Which sometimes seems ridiculous, even now. But we adjust. And love is worth the adjustment, my dear." She rubbed her belly again. "And a little discomfort." She paused, pressing her hand into her back. "I swear this boy is kicking my kidneys on purpose."

"It's a boy?"

"So the healers tell me." Liane smiled. "I wouldn't have minded either way." She squeezed Imogene's arm. "I think he's telling me that I’ve walked far enough for now. Come, walk with me back to the rose garden. We can have tea. It's nice to talk to someone new."

"I'm supposed to return to my barracks."

The empress grinned wickedly. "Imogene, I outrank every one of your commanding officers. Tell them to come and see me if they wish to complain about you being late."

Put that way, she couldn't argue. "The empress made me do it" was an excuse no one could argue with. She laughed at the thought of the look she would get from Colonel Ferritine at that one. "Thank you, Your Imperial Highness. Tea would be lovely."

* * *

When they reachedthe rose garden, there was already a small table set for two, a linen half tent set to shade it from the sun. It seemed the sanctii guarding the empress could also relay her desire for tea to the palace servants.

Liane sat with a grateful sigh. "At least the Andalyssians are leaving the day after tomorrow," she said. "That will stop all the tedious dinners we've been holding for them. I don't mind the balls—I can avoid them at the balls—but the Ashmeiser Elannon is not my idea of a sparkling conversationalist at dinner."

"No," Imogene agreed. "He is not."

"You've been to Andalyssia, I understand. What's it like?"

Imogene told her about the court and the country while they waited for tea.

Liane listened and asked intelligent questions in the right places with an ease that made Imogene feel envious. The empress had obviously honed the skill of making people feel at ease and welcome as well as any diplomat. But then the nobles had to work the tools of politics too. Imogene might not have been born to be a duquesse but maybe—if indeed she was still to be one—her training in the corps would give her some small grounding on which to build.

By the time the servants arrived with a tea service and a trolley laden with more food than the two of them could possibly eat, Liane had deployed her charms so well that Imogene was halfway to forgetting Liane was the empress and just enjoying her company.

The servants moved everything to the table with efficient grace, then faded back out of eyeshot.

Imogene reached for the teapot. It was her place to serve the empress. Her hand brushed the silver and her nose filled with the scent of moss-laden smoke. She jerked her hand back instinctively.

"Imogene?" Liane said, "Is something wrong?" She reached toward the teapot, and Imogene knocked her hand away.

One of the servants sprang forward but Liane said. “Wait.” The servant stopped by the empress’s side. Both of them stared at Imogene, who was frozen with horror.

Goddess. She'd laid hands on the empress. She was ruined. But she had gone this far. She had to see it through. Salt ash stung her throat and filled her nose and she fought the urge to call Ikarus, to get him to take the teapot away. "Don't touch that."

"Why not?" Liane’s gaze was sharp.

"You might think I'm crazy," Imogene said. "I may wellbecrazy. But it smells like Andalyssian magic to me. There's something wrong with it."

"My food is tested," Liane said, in a tone that was too calm. She sat farther back in her chair, moving cautiously as though afraid the teapot might explode.

"Their magic is strange. It’s hard to notice for an Illvyan. It can blur things. It's..." She struggled to find the words. "Imagine air and earth magic mixed somehow. It always felt odd to me."

Liane sat back in her chair, looking pale. Then she turned and said to the servant, "Fetch me my husband, Major Perrine, and Healer Terrisse." She paused a moment. "Send someone to find Major du Laq, too. And tell the guard to keep the Andalyssians in their quarters for now. They are not to leave the palace." She smiled at Imogene, the expression sharp and fierce, though she was still pale. "Let us get to the bottom of this once and for all."

It probably took no more than ten minutes before Aristides, the healer, and the major arrived. But it felt like an eternity as Imogen sat and stared at the teapot, wondering if it was about to ruin her entire career. But the healer held a hand over the pot, and her polite interest turned to alarm. "Poison," she said. "An especially deadly one. Brewed from an herb that only grows in cold countries, Your Imperial Highness." She leaned over Liane, studying the empress’s face. "You didn't touch the pot, did you?"

Liane had pushed her chair farther away from the table at the word “poison.” She was nearly as white as the cloth covering the table. "No, Lieutenant Carvelle stopped me. She saved me."

Aristides reached for his wife's hand, held it tight, both of them staring at Imogene.

"Did you touch it?" The healer's worried brown eyes fastened on Imogene, too. "Let me see your hand."

Imogene's mouth dried as she realized why the healer was concerned. "I only brushed it for a moment." But she held out her hand obediently. It shook slightly. "It feels fine." Would she feel it, though?

"It would. The poison doesn't burn. It’s dangerous because it does little until it enters your blood stream. Then you die quickly." The healer bent closer and peered at Imogene's hand. She cocked her head. "How long has it been?"

"Ten minutes, maybe?" Imogene said, heart thumping. Was that too soon to know?

"You're still alive. I think you are in no danger. It acts faster than that on the skin." Terrisse swung back to the emperor and Major Perrine, who both looked grim. "I suggest you send for a Truth Seeker. Start with the servants, though I doubt this is a poison anyone would find easy to obtain in Illvya. So I'd be speaking to the Andalyssians. The lieutenant here just saved the empress's life. And your son's."