Page 45

The Queen’s Tower

My father comes to me that night, a bottle of wine in hand.

The Chateau has hollowed out, its guests fleeing after the horrors of the almost-wedding, leaving the palace feeling like a belly with its organs scooped out, a rib cage with no heart to protect.

Regnault joins me in the Queen’s tower, the place I have decided to make my new lair.

I have cleared away the tarps, revealing the glossy ebony furniture.

I have called in maids to chase away the dust. I have opened the windows to let wind howl through the room.

As long as I don’t breathe in too deep or look too hard, I can forget this is the place Aimé’s mother died.

Besides, something about the view is comforting—the rooms are in the Chateau’s tallest tower, and I can peer down at the palace grounds and feel felonious, irreverent: a thief crowing over their newly robbed jewel. I can feel like this was all worth it.

My father and I drink to our victory. I still have no taste in wines, but I guess this one is expensive since it comes from Aimé’s private collection.

I try not to think of Marie alone in her rooms, once again locked in a cage, her future uncertain.

I try not to think of Aimé and his strange curse: Aimé, who has yet to be captured—who was last seen fleeing into the forest by the guards trying to chase him down.

I try not to think of my brother, who has not been seen since the prince’s escape.

Part of me hopes he’s clever enough to stay away from the Chateau for good.

I don’t think about them. I drink, and the more I drink, the more I revel in my success.

This is what I wanted, what I have worked for all my life.

I infiltrated the palace; I stole the Couronne; I avenged the sorciers who came before me.

And that is what Regnault reminds me of as he pours himself another glass of wine.

“This palace is ours now,” he says. “If we bide our time, if we play this game until the end, I will eventually sit on the throne, as Bartrand de Roux should have done.”

“And what of me?” I ask, my voice slurring and head spinning. When had I drunk so much?

“You”—Regnault moves on from his glass to mine—“my dear, sweet pet, will be by my side as you have always been. Nothing will change—I will always need you here, my knife in the dark, my shadow. I am certain I will soon find another mission for you.”

I frown. Somehow that sounds wrong. I had thought that stealing the Couronne would put an end to my missions. Have I not proved myself enough already?

But when I try to articulate that, I can’t seem to find the words. My mind feels loose and billowy, a cloud blown away in a breeze. I curl up wearily at Regnault’s side.

“Rest,” Regnault says, standing and picking up the wine bottle. He sways a little himself, his eyes drunken-bright. I notice distantly that he is still wearing the Couronne.

“Tomorrow our reign truly begins.”

He leaves me staring through the window at the scattered stars in the sky, trying in vain to find the shape of a swan’s wings within them.

The last thing I feel before falling asleep is a pang of heartbreak.

Over the next few days Regnault buries his talons in the Chateau, curls them deep into its foundations, and constricts the castle’s very soul.

Through the Regent, he sends away any straggling guests, along with Pierre, the Step-Queen’s young son.

He takes control of the search for Aimé and ensures the right rumors about the wedding’s events are spread: that the poor Dauphin turned out to be cursed by his own stepmother.

He will be sent away to the seaside for recovery from his episode, and the Regent, being next in line, will take his place on the throne.

I spend the next few days attempting to embrace my newfound status: eating from porcelain plates, standing at Regnault’s side protectively, and trying not to think of Marie d’Odette—the latter of which I fail at spectacularly.

The moment my focus wavers she is there, the warmth of her hands and the fullness of her lips like a blemish that refuses to vanish.

Yes, that’s what Marie is, I resolve. A blemish.

And yet I still think about visiting her. Sometimes I imagine strolling into her chambers and gloating. Other times I think of kneeling at her feet and begging for forgiveness. In others still I offer her a place at my side, to be my ally and friend again.

But when a guard approaches me and tells me that Marie has asked for an audience, I turn him away. Because no matter how I might imagine it, I can’t bear the idea of looking Marie in the eye and facing her devastation, her disappointment.

By the next day, half the palace’s guards have deserted.

I am with Regnault and the Regent when the news is broken.

The two are having a meeting—I am standing in the corner, trying not to shuffle restlessly.

I’d spoken up once, to lobby for keeping on all the palace staff, and had received a lukewarm, disinterested nod.

I’ve spent the last half hour simmering at a lovely medium-temperature fury, so when the young guard-in-training comes to tell us of the guards, I almost hope my father will ask me to stab him, if only so I can unload my frustration somewhere.

“What do you mean, ‘deserted’?” the Regent says in a low tone.

“I—I mean that they r-ran away in the night. To the city, I think. At least h-half the garrison is gone. I overheard them yesterday evening. They don’t trust you, monseigneur, because of your alliance with the sorcier. They’ve lost their faith in the crown.”

The Regent opens his mouth to speak, but Regnault cuts in.

“You overheard them discussing this yesterday, boy?”

The lad nods, fumbling with the lapels of his coat.

“And you did not think to warn us earlier?”

“I—I didn’t realize they would go so far; I didn’t know—”

“Very convenient,” Regnault says acidly. “Very convenient. But even if what you say is true…” He traces his finger in the air as he speaks, leaving behind spell-threads. “You should have known better .”

The spell flares to life.

Instantly the guard’s body is swallowed in a golden shell.

Where there was flesh, there is now hard metal, sleek and reflective.

The Regent shouts in alarm, too late. My breath hitches in surprise.

Before us stands a boy-shaped statue, his hands still at his lapels, his eyes wide and frightened and innocent.

Regnault straightens, smoothing out his coat, and I’ve never seen such fury in his eyes, such unfettered madness.

It is almost like an unveiling—as though a restraint has been released, a collar removed.

This has always lain beneath my father’s skin, I realize.

This is merely the first time the mask has slipped.

“Have a servant bring this statue to the barracks,” Regnault commands. “As a warning. Anyone who attempts to desert will end up the same.”

The Regent seems to reel. “You can’t simply—you—that is not how you—” He cuts himself off when he sees Regnault’s hand moving again. But my father is only inspecting his nails.

“These men had no respect for you,” he explains casually. “They will now, when they realize how ruthless you can be. I guarantee, my dear king-to-be, that there will be no more desertions.”

The Regent balls his fists, unclenches them again. The words “king-to-be” work their magic on his ego. He draws himself up with a huff. “Very well,” he says, and calls for servants.

The servants come. The boy—well, former boy, now golden statue—is carried off. The meeting continues.

I wipe sweat from my palms and remind myself that Regnault knows what he is doing. That he would never do the same to me.

And yet once evening arrives, I find myself seeking out my father.

I know he has taken up residence in the King’s apartments, the ones King Honoré had occupied before his death.

The way there is long and dark. Somewhere along the hall, a window has been cracked open; the frostbitten wind pulsing down the corridor tastes of oncoming snowfall.

The flames of the candelabra in my hand flicker.

The doors emerge from the gloom—heavy constructs of obsidian wood, with twin tarasques coiled around them like a frame.

I can hear movement beyond: the quiet footfalls of Regnault moving around the room.

I walk up to knock, but something stops me—it feels almost like a palm on the center of my chest, pushing me back.

A burst of wind gusts down the hall, whipping around me, blowing out my candles, and carrying in a few flecks of soot-black snow.

I could swear there is a voice whispering in the wind, feminine and rasping: Be silent and watch, Daughter of the Blood.

My skin crawls, my breath stutters. In front of me, one of the doors creaks open a crack, as though pushed by wind.

I peer into the room. Within is a restless dark, lit by a scattering of dying candles, the obscure silhouettes of furniture forming odd, crooked angles.

This must be the sitting room—Regnault works at a writing desk, hunched over a heavy book and muttering to himself. The Couronne gleams in his hair.

As I watch, he raises his right hand to his brow to take it off and then freezes, his fingers just inches from the golden circlet.

“No,” he says sharply. “I will not. You are mine, and I will not.” He lowers his hand and barks out a laugh, a frightening, erratic sound.

“Morgane, Morgane, ma chère Morgane. Your madness and mine have always been one, have they not? We’re intertwined.

It will take more than the threat of insanity to part us, I think. Yes. I think so indeed.”

He chuckles brightly to himself, lowering his hand back to the book and turning a page.

“Fret not, my dear. You will not have to suffer much longer. Once I have ended that Augier brat’s life, you will no longer be bound to that lineage.

Your powers will be mine entirely. And then I will bring your sisters to join you.

” He laughs again, as though he has just shared a joke, as though there should be a room laughing along with him.

Suddenly I can’t bear it anymore. I back away from the door, the candelabra in my hand long gone cold.

More snow blows past me, melting into dark puddles on the marble floor.

My mouth is dry, horror throbbing within me.

That Augier brat, my father had said, and I know he’s talking about Aimé, about killing him. But for what?

Morgane… He keeps saying her name as though he is speaking to her. Could it really be? Is it possible that the Good Mother we have been trying to summon never left us at all?

Could it be that she’s been in the palace all along, trapped in a crown?

Back in my rooms, I fumble for Bartrand de Roux’s journal, which I have carefully hidden beneath a loose floorboard.

I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I don’t have anywhere else to go for answers, and something, something about my father’s words rings eerily familiar.

I go back to the passages I had read the first time:…

We long for freedom. Should all go as planned, we will gain the authority we have always deserved, yet never been given.

We will have endless power, endless potential. No more limits. No more fear.

I had assumed Bartrand had been speaking of freeing the sorciers from the Spider King’s restraints. But now the words take on a more sinister turn. No more limits, no more fear. Trap an ancient, powerful spirit and keep her powers only to yourself.

I keep searching the journal. Passages that were previously mundane musings begin to sound like ramblings, begin to sound like plotting.

Another passage catches my eye: Reinforced by ancient bloodlines, the collar should be strong enough to hold even the most powerful of creatures.

The problem is, no one has seen it in centuries, since the tarasque first appeared in the southern provinces.

The collar… Could he be talking about the Golden-Blooded Girl’s collar? The one she initially used to control the tarasque?

I growl under my breath, wishing Marie were here.

I am certain she could solve this enigma faster than I.

I continue searching what remains of the journal, but too many pages are missing, torn out by the wind.

I find no more answers in the text itself.

But there is something here. A certain familiarity I had not noticed before—in the shape of the script, in the turns of phrase.

Endless power, endless potential. That is what Bartrand de Roux wrote in his journal two hundred years ago.

And yesterday after the coup, when I’d asked my father about the crown, isn’t that exactly what he had said?

A horrible, acid dread crawls up from my stomach. My ribs feel as though they are tightening over my lungs, squeezing the air from me until I cannot find breath. I close the journal, turn it over to stare at the bird filigree on the back.

“It can’t be,” I whisper.

But it is. I know it with horrid certainty.

It all makes abrupt, awful sense—the secrecy, the alias, the mask he is never seen without. And how else could he have possibly known so much about the Couronne?

Regnault isn’t merely Bartrand de Roux’s descendant.

He is Bartrand de Roux.