Page 3 of A King’s Trust (Heart-Mage Trilogy #1)

3

RUFFLING FEATHERS

B eau staggered under the weight of yet another folio of notes stacked in his arms. “Was Char really responsible for all of this?”

His father raised an eyebrow at Beau before licking his finger and shuffling through the stack of papers in his hand. “No,” he said absently, “some of those are the things you were managing by correspondence and haven’t touched since Char died. The mourning period is over; take care of your business.”

Beau scowled down at the stack. He didn’t recall managing anything by correspondence. He’d sent exactly one letter from the isles, a short explanation to his brother of why he’d left and wouldn’t be coming back, to which Char hadn’t replied; Beau had hoped to be entirely forgotten. Dreading the lecture he’d receive from his father if he asked, Beau elected to investigate the stack for himself. Hefting it higher in his arms, he carried it to the long table in his parents’ sunroom. Elias trailed behind and caught the papers that spilled across the table.

With a heavy sigh, Beau settled into a chair and pulled sheaves of notes into heaps he could sift through. He threw a pleading look up at his guard. After a quick glance toward the king’s desk, out of sight, El sat next to him, wordlessly lifting a few to read.

Petitions for marriage licenses from minor nobles, commissions for statuary in the capital, inventory lists of dinnerware or horse tack, detailed reports from ambassadors or spies in foreign courts—the papers were wildly varied and invariably dull. And there were so, so many.

Beau sorted as best as he could, but Elias had to recall him multiple times from staring blankly at the far wall instead of reading. He scrawled a signature at the bottom of each as he finished reviewing it and gradually built a teetering stack. None of it was remotely familiar, and an anxious stomachache grew by the minute as he wondered whether he’d been supposed to manage these things for years, and they’d piled up somewhere, waiting to be discovered.

In desperation, he ducked his head back into his father’s office. “Why isn’t this being done by your army of scribes and secretaries? Couldn’t Dormont or Ferrial have reviewed these?” They were the seneschal and the pursekeeper, respectively—surely better eyes on these papers than Beau’s. And if there was a shameful backlog somewhere, they could handle it.

King Fortin set his pen down with a sharp snap, sighing noisily. “Playing the idiot will not get you out of a crown prince’s responsibility, Beauregard.”

Beau bit the inside of his cheek, his questions sticking immovably in his throat, but when his father looked up and saw Beau looked genuinely confused, his anger sharpened. “Are you incapable of intelligent thought? These are the compiled reports of those people. They manage the day-to-day. All that’s asked of you is to occasionally review their reports to keep people honest and hold them to the royal standard. Can you be trusted with one godsdamned responsibility , Beau?”

Beau shrank. “Yes, I’ll handle it.”

When he fled back to the table, he could only stare incredulously down at the documents spread before him. Reviewing everything happening in the capital city alone would employ his every waking hour if the reports were always this robust. How would he ever hope to look beyond the palace and know anything of what happened in his nobles’ holdings, or in their neighboring kingdoms? More urgently, how could he avoid dying of pure tedium?

Elias gently shook his elbow to bring him out of his maudlin, spiraling thoughts, a faint smirk on his handsome face. “It won’t always be this much. I’m sure it’s piled up in your brother’s absence.”

Swallowing hard, Beau nodded. “I’m going to put out my own eyes if I have to read this many lines of numbers every day for the rest of my life.”

The guard exhaled an almost-laugh through his nose. Beau wished they weren’t in the royal apartments. Normally, El would’ve been cracking jokes, maybe doing a dramatic reading of a report to shake Beau out of boredom and refocus him. Here, though, he was on his best behavior, keeping a proper stoic distance like the First of the king’s flight, who’d been standing still as furniture against the wall since Beau entered the room. He could’ve been a corpse.

“Beau,” the king said as he stood and lifted his crown from its velvet-lined shelf, “it’s time to hold court. I’ll have the rest of the papers delivered to your study.”

“ Wonderful ,” Beau said dryly. “I wouldn’t want to miss a moment of this.”

The prince and king swept out ahead of their Firsts, each picking up a second guard from outside the door as they walked. It was Oria who accompanied Beau today. He knew from the aura of her disapproval, so heavy the air smelled of it. He wasn’t sure if it truly got stronger each day or if that was his imagination.

Many lords and ladies were already arrayed in pairs and chattering knots throughout the half-moon of the petitioner’s chamber when the king and prince entered. A few more straggled in, taking pains not to seem to rush, as the clock tower began to ring its mid-afternoon chime.

Six weeks of this so far, six court sessions, and Beau was still running through the portrait cards in his head to match names to faces. He tried to find the most powerful people.

There, Lord Courdur, Duke of Suteneir, speaking sternly with his eldest son in the corner while his wife and Lady Macabrie swanned through the center of the room like this was their hall, their palace. Lord Macabrie, Duke of Arbrefront, laughed with two marquesses from his holding and a man who hovered obsequiously like a poor relation. Lord Lamont, Duke of Estforet, had cornered Lady Andremiere, who was technically not the Duchess of Untillia since she was widowed, but everyone called her that while she served as regent for her grandson until he was out of leading strings.

And of course, Lady Penamour, who was giving a man Beau couldn’t name the most charming smile, touching his arm lightly with her fingertips as she leaned in to speak. She wore a purple gown today with an iridescence that caught the light with every movement, and Beau stared for much longer than he could justify before his father waved for those gathered to take their seats and eased himself onto his carved wooden throne.

Beau hesitated between taking the seat on his father’s right, where custom indicated he ought to sit, and the one on the left where he’d have a decent view of one of the gardens through a narrow window. Every now and then, a gardener would walk through and prune flowers, and on occasion, birds or butterflies would be visible through that window.

Elias moved to stand behind the chair on the right, ending Beau’s wistful longing for anything other than this room to pay attention to. The slight roll of the guard’s eyes as Beau passed him to sit said Elias knew perfectly well what was going through his head.

With a simple raise of his hand, King Fortin began the audience, and arguments rose. In theory, there were rules to formal court hearings. Nobles were to submit their requests to be queued by the bailiff and present their claims one by one, holding the floor until the king delivered judgment or requested opinions from others.

In practice, it was rare for any lord or lady to speak more than two sentences together without another noble standing and saying, “If I may intercede, Your Majesty,” and launching into a speech on whatever need of their own was most related.

His father let them verbally trample over one another until Beau could hardly understand a word. The hum of their nonsense was soporific, and the prince fought hard not to yawn.

“—up to our ears in Paibons along the entire border. They’ve destroyed my grape harvest. What am I to do without my vineyards?” This came from Lord Courdur, whose intensity made his square-jawed face and sharp, dark eyes seem to burn from the inside. He spoke in a way that suggested he couldn’t be interrupted and couldn’t be disobeyed, much like Beau’s father.

Nevertheless, Beau raised his hand to interrupt and was pleasantly surprised when the room fell silent.

“Lord Courdur,” he said, shifting in his seat to avoid the sharp glances from his father, “are you speaking literally when you say these raids are happening along your entire stretch of the border with Paibona? Your lands cover nearly seventy leagues of it, if I recall.” If I recall from last week, when I learned that , Beau thought, faintly amused that they were letting an imposter like himself speak in this room at all.

Courdur’s chin rose, whether from pride at the size of his duchy or offense at being questioned, his blank face gave no hint. “Yes, Your Highness. Just over half the border, and every inch of it under constant, needling attack.”

“How are you protecting your people?”

The silence in the room deepened, broken by the rustle of silks as nobles shifted uncomfortably. Beau caught Lady Penamour’s eyes in the audience and his stomach jolted at how intently she was staring at him. No one attempted to interrupt Lord Courdur as he frowned and said, “I’m not quite sure what you mean.”

“You’ve come seeking recompense from the crown for your grapes?” Beau said. “I assume that means you’ve already called your liegemen to arms and found a way for your outlying farms and villages to signal need for aid. You’ve already emptied your coffers to ensure their crops and livestock are replaced or that they have alternative ways to acquire food? If all you need from the crown is help with your vineyards, you’ve done incredible work protecting the rest of your holding. Not many could do so well. Please, share it with us, so other peers can follow your example.”

The question had begun in earnest—Beau was truly curious how he could protect such a large stretch of border, even with the usually peaceful Paibons on the other side—but as the man’s face grew colder and stonier, Beau’s voice hardened. Lady Roben, Marchioness of Monteilais, the march in Courdur’s duchy that would’ve taken the brunt of these attacks, shifted in her seat, mouth falling slightly open as she stared Beau down, but she said nothing.

Lord Courdur’s eyes swept over the rest of the petitioners as though looking to see who found this as ridiculous as he did, and he did meet quite a few concerned and sympathetic faces.

“Your Highness,” he said, infusing the title with gritted-teeth patience, as though Beau were a rude child on the edge of a tantrum, “I can hardly be expected to pay for every stray chicken and bad harvest in my lands. I’d be a pauper in a week.”

Beau took a deep breath, preparing to say something scathing, but the faint pressure of Elias’s fingers against his shoulder reminded him to rein himself in. “It’s clear we need to speak to Queen Almeida about how seriously we’re taking her people’s aggression at the border. In the meantime, if direct aid is too onerous, you’ll at the very least refrain from collecting taxes this season.”

Murmurs susurrated through the room, and Lord Courdur’s eyes went wide, then narrowed again dangerously. Behind him, Lady Roben and Lady Penamour exchanged surprised, silent glances. The king pressed his steepled fingers to his face to hide his mouth as he said, “ Beauregard ,” in a low, warning hiss.

Incensed, Beau scowled at his father, then at Courdur. How could anyone think he was the unreasonable one? This man was charged with the care of the people on his land, the largest duchy in Granvallée. If he was going to stand aside and let their livelihoods be wrecked without lifting so much as a silver penny, the least he could do was not add to their misery.

He studied Courdur for a moment, wondering whether it was wise to voice his thoughts and ratchet up the tension in the room further. Perhaps if I keep this up, Father will ban me from these gods-awful court sessions altogether.

A thought occurred to him, and he tried to relax his face out of its scowl. “What would the loss be, Your Grace, if you forewent tax collection in the affected areas for this season?”

“Nearly ten thousand dorin,” Courdur growled.

Rushing so his father couldn’t interject and redirect the conversation, Beau asked, “My brother would typically hold summer court at your castle, wouldn’t he?”

Courdur blinked, his commanding confidence shaken by the change of the wind. “Yes? For the last eight years.”

“Were you planning to host the court this summer as well?”

Pursing his lips in thought, Courdur spoke slowly, verbally edging a foot forward in search of traps. “Yes, even with His Highness’s tragic demise, I thought it prudent to ensure we were prepared in case you wanted to continue the tradition.”

“Quite an honor, hosting the court. And no small cost, I imagine. How much do those few weeks set you back?”

Courdur’s face was hard as flint as he sensed the snare pulling tight around his ankles. He looked to Beau’s father to speak, but Fortin was watching Beau, eyes narrowed, not looking out at the crowd of nobles. “I don’t have those figures in front of me, Your Highness,” Courdur said dismissively. “I couldn’t say for certain, and it’s not relevant to the matter I brought—”

Beau ignored him, sitting tall enough to see Ferrial, the pursekeeper, at the back. The man lifted his long, narrow nose from his dutiful note-taking and met the prince’s eyes. “Master Ferrial, what would you estimate the cost of hosting the summer court to be?”

The man scratched idly at his brow with a dexterous finger before saying in his dry, matter-of-fact tone, “It couldn’t be less than fifteen thousand dorin, Your Highness. I’d wager closer to twenty.”

Beau struggled to keep the smugness off his face. “Well, I have the perfect solution, Lord Courdur. The court will suffer the minor loss of a change of scenery and spend the summer right here. The cost I’ve just saved you should more than make up for the taxes you’re not going to levy.” When the man started to protest, Beauregard rolled right over him, saying, “Ah, yes, of course, you’ll already have spent some of it to stockpile supplies ahead of our arrival. Perfect for distributing to those tenants who’ve borne a loss as a result of these skirmishes.”

Courdur opened his mouth, closed it again, and turned the full force of his glare on King Fortin. Beau swallowed as the king cleared his throat before he spoke, brow creased in thought. The burning anger in his eyes when they cut over to Beau said he was prepared to undo everything his wayward son had done.

“A very neat solution, Lord Courdur,” Lady Penamour said, and Lady Roben nodded intently beside her. “Should you need any help with the distribution, my sister was already planning a trip to Suteneir in the next few weeks. I can send hands with her.”

The king’s eyes flashed, then softened. To Courdur, he said, “Give the pursekeeper a good account of your vineyards’ losses, and we’ll address that as well.”

Beau exhaled in relief, and Elias’s fingers nudged him again, this time in congratulations. The session continued without issue. In fact, many of the nobles ceded the floor when their turn came, perhaps fearing Prince Beauregard’s attention would turn to them.

Fortin called an early end, stepping down to chat with dukes, marquesses, and counts, smoothing feathers. Beauregard made his escape before anyone could capture him in conversation.

“I see you kept your mind with you today, Highness,” Elias said as Oria joined them. “I’ve been wondering if something about the air of the petitioners’ chamber caused it to wander off.”

Beau laughed, then chuckled even harder at Oria’s scandalized expression. “I’m sure Courdur would prefer it had taken its usual stroll in the gardens.”

“He did not seem best pleased,” Elias agreed, exchanging a glance with Oria, who nodded and tapped her sword in response to his silent question. “Back to your study for paperwork?”

The prince’s sigh started in his toes. “Ugh, Watchers take me.”

Elias’s gait stuttered slightly as he missed a step. “What?”

“Oh, something Char and I used to say when we wanted to be elsewhere.” Beau waved a dismissive hand. “He made up this secret society when we were kids, ‘the Watchers,’ to scare me. Said if I wasn’t good, the Watchers would take me away.” He chuckled.

He hadn’t thought about that in a very long time. Being in the palace brought peculiar things back.

“Hmm,” Elias said in response, picking up his pace again. “Kids are funny.”

A flash of shimmering violet silk turned the corner ahead of them, and Beau jogged to catch up, calling, “Lady Penamour? A moment, please?”

She stood stiffly in the hall when he turned the corner, as if she’d frozen exactly where she was when he called. “Can I help you, Your Highness?” she asked, the cords in her neck tight.

“I wanted to thank you for speaking up in the hall.” Beau stopped a few paces from her, since his proximity drew her even tighter. “Your offer of aid softened the edges of my proposal. I doubt we’d have landed on something so beneficial without your help.”

“I didn’t do it to help you.” Her scowl was scathing. “My mother was a Courdur. She would want her people protected.”

“Oh,” Beau said. She’d worn a different nose ring today, this one lined with amethysts to match her dress. It sparkled when she turned away from him to look up the hall. “Well, regardless, thank you. If there’s anything I can—”

“There is,” she said too abruptly, then cleared her throat. “There is something I need from you. I went to Master Dormont first, but he told me that since you’re back in the palace, these requests have to go through you.”

“I’m intrigued.”

Penamour opened a dark leather folio and pulled out a sheet of paper, which she handed over reluctantly. Beau read aloud, “‘Formal request for the loan of one Maurilel relic’—how could I possibly give you a Maurilel relic?”

Everyone in the capital knew, of course, about the palace clock tower, powered by ancient magic that kept it steadily chiming with no maintenance, no winding. Very few other artifacts remained from the Maurilel civilization built on the now-lost secrets of magic. The only ones Beau knew of were the unadorned rings his mother and father wore: twin items of power that allowed them to sense each other’s emotions. Magic was a mystery that had fascinated him as a kid, but even a prince didn’t have opportunity to play with it.

The duchess bristled and snatched the paper back, cheeks reddening. “You might’ve at least read the request to the bottom before rejecting it. I’m sorry to have taken—”

“Wait, wait . I’m not rejecting the request, Your Grace.” He tried to take the paper back from her without grabbing her arm to hold it still. “I just don’t know what you’re asking for. Does Dormont think I have some secret stash of magic artifacts?”

She went still, eyes dark with suspicion, and he was able to pluck the request letter from her fingers. “From the vault,” she said, as though it were painfully obvious. “Don’t play the fool with me, Your Highness. I don’t have the time or patience for it. I need that relic urgently.”

Beau scanned the entirety of the page and pulled at his lower lip in thought. “Of course, the vault,” he said vaguely. “I’ll do what I can for you, Lady Penamour.”

She opened her mouth to say more, then snapped it shut audibly and gave a cursory curtsy. “Good day, Your Highness.” She swept away before he could respond at all, and Beau stood bewildered in the corridor with his guards.

Her letter requested a Bounty Flask, which meant nothing to him. But the idea of hunting down a piece of magic in a vault full of magic somewhere in his palace was infinitely preferable to more paperwork. He changed course, heading toward Dormont’s office.

“We have a great deal to do today, Highness.” Elias’s voice was strained. “Perhaps detours to visit magical relics could wait?”

“You heard her. She needs this artifact urgently . And you never know; maybe there’s something in the vault that can do paperwork for me?” His steps grew lighter the further from his rooms and the waiting stacks he walked.

Dormont was easy enough to find, though he seemed surprised to have an office visit from the crown prince. Looking harried, he unlocked several nested drawers and produced a very large key ring, which he hastily shoved in his pocket before gesturing for the prince to precede him into the hall.

Despite his clear vexation at the interruption, he was cordial enough in leading Beau, Elias, and Oria to the vault. In the center of the palace, two floors below ground, an unassuming door was set into a recess in the wall. Patting his glistening brow with a handkerchief, the seneschal gestured for the prince and his retinue to stop a few feet from the door.

“When we pass through, we will have to leave some of the vault’s security magics open, awaiting our return,” Dormont said in a crisp, patient voice. “I would recommend your flight remain here to guard against any followers.”

“Oria, stay here and watch our backs, please.” When she flicked her gaze to the other guard, Beau said, “Will you need Elias’s assistance with that?”

She narrowed her eyes slightly. “No, Your Highness, I can manage alone.”

With a single nod, the seneschal lifted the ring of three keys.

The first was heavy brass like many others in the palace, but the other two were strange: one, all rose-colored filigree, put off more light than it could possibly catch and reflect in this subterranean hall, and the other was made of something like sea glass.

Dormont put the brass key in the brass lock and turned it with a thunk, swinging the heavy door in. When Elias stepped past the seneschal, alert, Dormont said, “We do not make a habit, master guardsman, of locking people into our vaults.”

Elias didn’t turn away from his perusal of the small room beyond the door as he said, “I will do my job, and you will do yours.”

“Just so,” Dormont acquiesced, letting Beau past him and shutting the door behind. He glided past to lead again, pulled the rose-gold key off the ring, and hesitated. “Your Highness, I will next show you how to take down the Rose Ward. Anyone who knows the pattern and has access to the key may do this, so I must ask—do you trust your guardsman to learn it as well?”

Beau almost laughed. “Of course.”

Dormont pursed his lips, but gave his efficient single nod again and began tracing a pattern onto the wood door before them, carved with a simple grid of squares about the size of Beau’s palm. Each one he touched with the key glowed and smoldered like coals. When the last one lit, a keyhole burned itself into the center of the door, flames licking bright up the wood.

The seneschal seemed quite unbothered by the fire, sticking the key—and his fingers—in to turn the lock. As soon as the door swung open, the flames guttered out, though the surface remained charred. Dormont left the key in the lock, and as he waited for Elias to do his usual checks, Beau recounted the steps of the pattern in his head, muttering under his breath and tracing the line in the air with his fingers to solidify it in his memory.

“Clear, Highness,” Elias called, and Beau followed them into the next chamber, where Dormont stood before a beautiful, twelve-foot-tall entrance made of semi-translucent, multicolored crystal. Its opalescent surface flowed as he looked at it, more curtain than door.

He breathed out a, “wow,” and reached to touch it. It begged to be touched. He wondered if it felt as smooth and cool as it looked. The seneschal laid a light restraining hand on the prince’s arm. “This door demands a price of blood, Your Highness. I do not recommend giving it more than it requires by touching the door itself.”

Beau withdrew his fingers, though the call to stroke the everchanging face of the door didn’t die away. “A price of blood?” He was unable to tear his eyes from the gentle prismatic shifts.

“Each who passes must pay a small ransom of blood—very little, but enough for the door to recognize and remember.” The seneschal rolled one sleeve of his jacket to the elbow with careful, precise folds. Then he lifted the pale green, glass-like key and pressed the teeth, sharpened to a razor’s edge, to his forearm. He made a tiny cut, barely enough to bleed, and then lifted the key again.

For a moment, blood smeared the sharp edge, and then, like rainwater drunk down by thirsty earth, the blood sank into the pale glass. Dormont tilted the key, and the blood moved within it as if it were hollow, a dark bead rolling back and forth.

Then the seneschal handed Beau the key.

Immediately, Beau’s chest tightened with anxiety. The key was not a razor or a knife, but it nevertheless felt familiar in his hands as he shoved his sleeve back and held the key over his skin, already traced with faint, practically invisible lines of scars. He bit his lip; he was past this. He didn’t hurt himself anymore, but as illogical as it was, he was terribly afraid this key would make him pick up the habit again. The possibility yawned in front of him like a chasm.

Frowning, Elias plucked the key from Beau’s fingers. He took Beau’s arm in one warm hand and made the tiniest cut, hardly a nick. Again, the key swallowed the drop of blood whole, and Elias swiped it along his own arm less carefully. He returned the key to the seneschal and ran his eyes over Beau, who smiled gratefully.

Dormont accepted the key without comment. Then he nodded once more and held the key at full extension from his body, the bow pinched between forefinger and thumb, inching it forward until it brushed against the surface of the door.

Suddenly fluid, the opalescent barrier lapped over the key, drawing it in and rippling with vivid, violent color before calming again. It didn’t open. Instead, it dropped from the ceiling like a torrent of water, splashing to the floor. All three of them leapt back to avoid being touched by it before it pooled and seeped into the stones beneath their feet. All that was left was the key, resting innocently on the floor.

“Touching that again will cause the gate to reseal,” the seneschal said, waving a hand toward the now-open walkway. “I will wait here for your return.”

“Thank you, Master Dormont,” Beau said, fascinated by the magic on display in this vault entrance, more wonders than he’d ever seen. Finding Maurilel magic intact was a rare thing; kingdoms scraped and gathered whatever artifacts existed, hoarding them. So many people in Granvallée traveled to the capital just to lay eyes on the clock tower so they could tell their children and grandchildren they’d seen it. To have touched magic sent a thrill of excitement through Beau that buoyed him as they left the key behind and delved further into the vault.

Preceded as always by Elias, Beau marveled at the tiny glass globes set into the walls as they lit before them: more Maurilel sorcery. His heart pounded in anticipation of what more would be found down here. How many miracles could this vault hold?

There was a faint hum in the air as they walked, and it buzzed in his chest, throwing off the rhythm of his breath. He felt heat gather in his torso, in his arms, in his hands, a strange warmth like he was absorbing the ambient magic. When the hallway opened into a large room, low-ceilinged and lined with shelves around all four walls, Beau lurched in excitedly.

He stopped, frowning. The shelves were empty.

“What?” he said aloud, turning on his heel. Though there were three, four, or sometimes five shelves running the full length of each wall—enough to store hundreds of artifacts—nothing sat on most of them but dust and scraps of paper.

Elias frowned intently at the walls with a concern that bordered anger more than confusion. “Seems a bit large for five items, doesn’t it?”

Blinking, Beau followed Elias’s gaze to the small cache of objects. On a shoulder-height shelf set into the same wall as the doorway sat a small butterfly pin, a clear glass orb wrapped in gold wire, a beaten tin cup, a gaudy green-stone pendant shaped like a bird in flight on a thick chain, and a single, large feather which, while it looked to be natural, proved on closer inspection to be made of unbelievably finely carved stone.

Any one of them could’ve fit neatly into Beau’s hand, and the five together formed an unimpressive line in the too-large space.

The prince picked up the small piece of paper next to the butterfly pin. “The Deceptive Brooch,” he read, “with which the wearer can alter their appearance at will.” That was interesting. He picked up the next card. “The Orb of Tethering: sustains life alongside a committed partner.” The other cards all read “Designation he wouldn’t mention the missing items.

The duchess studied him and then his guards for a moment before nodding and stepping aside to allow him in. Elias entered first, as always. The receiving area was not large or ostentatious, but the decor was luxurious and feminine and distinctly different from what Beau had seen in any part of the palace. Plush rugs in rich colors made him want to take his boots off and dig his toes in; when Lady Penamour turned to lead them into her parlor, he saw a flash of bare foot and realized she’d done exactly that.

“I went to the vault,” he said. “But—”

“What, already?” she interrupted. Why did that cloud of suspicion always darken her face? Now you’ve gotten Charmant out of the way…

“You said you needed it urgently, didn’t you?” He tried to keep his voice light. Nilah and Penamour watched him as though he were going to leap at them with a knife, and it made him hyperconscious of every move. “The artifacts were not as well labeled as I might’ve hoped. I wasn’t able to find anything called a Bounty Flask.”

Her frown deepened. “Then where is it? The inventory records in the archives listed it in the vault as recently as twenty years ago. So few artifacts are moved, and the Bounty Flask isn’t one I would’ve expected to be used in that time.”

Beau shrugged, debating how much of his ignorance to show. “I don’t know. I’m still trying to get a handle on everything I’m responsible for now. Ir all changed so suddenly when Char died.”

Char’s death was absolutely the wrong thing to mention; Penamour shut down, so cold the air between them chilled. He scrambled for something to ward off the winter. “I wasn’t sure what you needed it for, so I brought you…something. It was unlabeled. I wonder if it might help with whatever it is you’re trying to do?”

He held the tin cup out to Lady Penamour. After a pause, she lifted it out of his hand and tapped it gently with a fingernail. It rang with a sound so unlike tin that Beau’s head cocked to the side like a baffled dog’s. She held it between her palms, putting pressure on top and bottom to still the sound, and squeezed until her hands went white between red knuckles. Then she blew across it, hummed, whistled. She set her mouth to the lip of it and pretended to drink. Her face lost its detachment, lit with curiosity, and that gave Beau enough encouragement to speak.

“What are you doing?”

“Shh,” she whispered, eyes intent on something unseen in the middle distance as she bent an ear to the cup. “Listen, can you hear it? The echoes, like it goes on and on.”

Beau strained to hear and realized the crystalline ringing from her first strike thrummed on, though deeper now and faded, like it had been reflected from cliff wall to cliff wall for miles. “What does that mean?”

“It means this is not a tin cup,” she said dryly. “And certainly not the Bounty Flask.” Penamour lifted the cup in the palm of one flat hand and said, “Could you be a whistle, please?”

The thing that lay in her palm was a whistle. There was no transition from tin cup to tiny metal instrument, no in-between phase, no stretching or theatrics. It had been a cup. It was now a whistle. Beau snatched it from her palm.

Cool hard metal, notched in the appropriate places to make a small, four-note tune. He put it to his lips and blew; it whistled.

“What?” he said, holding it back out to her.

Pinching the whistle between thumb and forefinger, she twirled it so it caught the light. “This is one of the more common artifacts the Maurilel made. They called them ‘Useful Things.’ They’ll become whatever practical object you need, to a limit.” Her face lit so stunningly as she spoke of magic, a warm inner glow that broke through the ice. “Some can only be a thing made of the same material as the original, or within the same dimensions. Some can only become things worth a certain monetary value or below. You have to figure out the rules of each one in particular.”

Beau marveled at the perfectly mundane-looking object. Useful indeed. “So, can it be the Bounty Flask?”

“No. It can’t take on any magical effects beyond the one that makes it change its nature.” She glanced at him, hardened again, and sighed. Stiffly, she said, “Thank you for looking. I’ll have to figure something else out.”

“Sorry I couldn’t help more,” he said, suddenly wishing he could hand her more artifacts, just to see the way she lit up when she started explaining them. Studying magic must be a hobby of hers; she spoke with the confidence of expertise. He accepted the whistle and stuck it back in his pocket.

He ached to ask her what she’d meant at the ball, but three pairs of eyes from the guards watched him so intently he could feel their gazes like pinpricks of fire. “You said there was an inventory in the library?”

The duchess made a noncommittal sound in the back of her throat. “Nothing as current as what the royal family’s kept, I’m sure. Have a good evening, Your Highness.”

He took the hint and left. On the walk to his rooms, he pressed his hand to the whistle in his pocket, feeling its shape. Did he need to speak to change it? As clearly as he could, he shaped the words in his mind: Be a spoon, please .

He reached in and ran a finger along the smooth curve of a metal spoon. Wonder drew an almost silent laugh out of him.

Back in his rooms, the papers had multiplied in his absence, though whoever had brought them to his desk had taken great care to stack them neatly in the semi-order he’d imposed on them. Beau’s small bubble of elation popped.

“I think I’ll go to the library and see if I can find that inventory,” he said. If he had to sit at that desk, he’d light it on fire.

Elias stepped into his path. “Highness. That inventory is twenty years old and won’t tell you a damn thing about where those artifacts went. I understand it’s a much more interesting problem to solve, but if you go another day with this much paperwork unfinished, things with your father are going to get ugly.”

“I’ll do it tomorrow.”

Elias blocked him from the door again, setting a hand on each of his shoulders. “Tomorrow you have to play nice with the Macabries. Your mother said Lady Macabrie is the best candidate besides Lady Penamour for queen.”

Beau squeezed his eyes shut, smacked his fist against his forehead a few times. “All right. Fine. I can do that. I can…focus.”

“I’ll make you some strong tea,” El said.

The prince sat, picking up the first thing on the stack and staring blankly at it. He reread the top line at least a dozen times without taking anything in. He slammed it back down on the desk. “Come on, you lazy fucker,” he muttered to himself. “Quit being an idiot and focus .”

El’s hand closed on the back of Beau’s neck as he sat, steaming tea in his other hand. He squeezed, only hard enough to warn, not hurt. “You’re not lazy or an idiot; you’re simply not designed for paperwork. Hand me one; I’ll read it out loud.”

Beau sipped his tea and answered Elias’s questions and thanked all twelve gods for the one person he could always trust.