Page 20 of Grave Flowers

Safe in the hallway, I tried to collect myself.

I abandoned the sheets and tucked the rectangular object into the pocket of my nightdress.

If Aeric was still asleep, I merely needed to leave and return to my own chambers, where I might inspect whatever the grave flower had dropped.

I crossed the hall and reached for the door. My hand shook, pain radiating from the scar and the terrors I’d just endured. I gripped the knob tightly, forcing away the tremors.

I stepped out and softly closed the door behind me.

For a moment, I was disoriented.

When I’d first brought Aeric to his chambers, it’d been just after dawn.

The sky had been blushing the night away, but it’d still been a dusty pink. Now the pink had been replaced by yellow as daylight descended; it was much brighter than when I’d left. Due to the dimness from the hall and Inessa’s rooms, I felt as though I’d been tossed roughly through time. My mind stumbled about, and I struggled to focus.

Then I saw it.

Aeric’s bed, minus one Aeric.

The blankets twisted across it like rivulets of red blood against the snow-white fitted sheet, and the pillow bore the indentation of his head, but he was nowhere to be seen.

He must have awakened and left, I rationalized.

Then I heard running water sloshing against porcelain.

The sound drew chills across my skin, reminding me of Inessa nearly drowning me. He hadn’t left at all. He was taking a bath in the adjoining room. By the Family, how might I escape now? Carefully, I walked to the door to the next suite, angling my body so I might not be directly seen.

My betrothed sat up to his waist in foaming water, the faucet gurgling its contents into the tub.

His head tipped far back on the rim, and his eyes were closed.

His skin and hair glistened as though he’d dunked himself before settling against the side, wine stains washed away.

My heart lurched and terror spiked through me. The only way out was through the main entry. However, the water was loud, Aeric’s eyes were closed, and should I move swiftly and on tiptoe, I might be quiet. Perhaps I could skirt by him. Any guards who saw me wouldn’t dare mention my presence to him, as it would be improper for them to comment on what they’d think of as a romantic liaison.

I ran my hands across my nightdress, the rectangle of wood heavy in my pocket.

The shaking had stopped, but my hands were weak, and my scar throbbed.

I couldn’t linger.

Holding my breath, I sashayed soundlessly into the bathing chamber. Rigby had insisted I learned to move in silence no matter the magnitude or rigor of my dance postures, and my feet remembered how to be swift and void of sound. Only my nightdress whispered against my legs, but the burbling water covered it.

I went as fast as I dared, my eyes fixed on the opposite door, the one leading to the next chamber and ultimately to safety.

The faucet turned off.

The water reduced to nothing but drips.

“I thought I dreamed you were here.”

The hoarseness in Aeric’s voice roughened it to a deadly rasp.

I drew back, seeking a place to hide, even though I knew I’d been caught.

There was nowhere to go.

I turned to Aeric.

He leaned against the tub, his arms spanning its sides just as they had the railing the night we’d first kissed, his body forming itself to the palace surrounding it. The curve of the tub made his arms angle toward me, as though he reached for me even now, and the sight harrowed me to my bones. Inessa had pulled me down into the belly of my bathtub. Might he do it now? Had I escaped one drowning only to know the horror of the experience before I was fully drowned by my betrothed, here and now? Still, he didn’t lurch toward me. He simply stayed where he was, considering me with a cold and removed gaze.

“Do you mind?”

he asked, motioning toward a towel folded on a stool.

“My attendants have been mysteriously absent this morning.”

Wordlessly, I picked up the towel and draped it over the edge of the tub.

Then I turned and fled back into the bedchamber.

I heard him rise from the water and go to the armoire, his bare feet muffled on the floorboards.

Fright filled me as I tried to think of what I might say. When Aeric had woken up, I hadn’t been here, yet now I was. The only place I could’ve been was Inessa’s chambers, unless I’d been ludicrously hiding behind the drapes or beneath the bed. He must know of the grave flower within it—and had chosen to hide it from me, from Father.

“Madalina.”

I turned.

He stood framed in the doorway, wearing a pair of trousers.

Whenever we encountered each other, he somehow always had fewer clothes than me and never seemed to mind it.

Whether he was shirtless or even fully naked in the bath, he was confident, as though his flesh was all he needed to wear—continuously flustering me.

“Forgive me if I seem confused, but the events of the past night are muddled in my head.

Perhaps you might enlighten me.”

“You forget my predilections,”

I said, heart pounding.

“Light and enlightening and all its other variants belong to you and Acus.”

“Do try.”

The two words were as hard as newly fired brick.

They snarled through the air.

Unexpectedly, his shoulders slumped, and his head lowered.

Water dripped from his hair in translucent drops, while his damp skin shone.

“It’s foggy, but I know I went somewhere last night.”

He sounded so disheartened that some of my fear abated, fading enough so other emotions might prevail.

I thought about seeing him on the fountain’s rim as the starvelings keened for his blood.

I’d been afraid of him even then, but I couldn’t deny it—I’d been afraid for him as well.

“You went for a walk in the garden,”

I said.

“And I aided you to bed.”

“Might there have been a ledge involved? And behavior on my part that might best be described as … absurd?”

“Perhaps,”

I said, wondering in agony about when our conversation would turn from him to me, which I knew it inevitably would.

“Thankfully, your balance is surprisingly good, so no harm was done.

Rigby, my old dance instructor, would be impressed.”

“If I recall, I think he’d be more impressed with yours.

I have a foggy notion that you came up somewhere perilous—for me.”

There were cracks in his voice, and raw emotion poured through them, as though recent events had shattered him, making him unable to keep everything in.

“And that you looked … like the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen.”

“No,”

I said quickly, sharply.

“You’re mistaken.”

“Ah.”

We stood staring at each other from across the room.

I didn’t understand.

I knew who he was, yet, despite everything, I longed for his murderous hands and his deceitful lips upon me.

It mattered not and would change nothing—I knew what mattered: Inessa. Radix. Getting home.

But knowing couldn’t erase the feeling, not entirely.

Aeric swallowed.

He took a shallow breath and frowned slightly against the light.

I realized, suddenly, that he must be very wine ill—just as he’d been at the betrothal service, if not more so.

Yet the only hints were subtle. There was a slight grayish pallor to his face and a determined clenching of his jaw against nausea. During the one-cup ritual, he’d played up his wine illness to lower my guard and prevent me from thinking it odd he wasn’t drinking.

Now he hid it almost perfectly.

I thought about his play, the way he handled his court, and the king-in-council meeting.

The thought that he was a drunken, directionless boy was no longer convincing.

He was, I feared, a very formidable enemy, and I was trapped with him in his chambers.

“Well”—he shuffled in place, still in the doorway, blocking any exit—“you helped me to bed, which I appreciate, but the chronology continues to be a mystery.”

My fear returned in full force.

He was going to ask where I went, and there was only one reasonable explanation.

My thoughts skittered apart, but I struggled to gather them.

I’d need every one of my wits.

“I woke and you were not here.

I thought perhaps my mind had been addled by the wine and that I’d imagined your presence.

Upon entering the bath, you materialized.

Do tell, Princess, do you possess powers of appearing at will? If not, do tell where you were during the interim.”

My hand was by my side, but I felt my poison ring upon it, the silver band growing heavier with my attention upon it.

If he attacked me, it would be my only defense.

“I wished to stay until you woke so I could make certain you were all right.

Sleep, however, didn’t come for me,”

I said.

“I decided to pick the lock and visit the queen’s quarters for myself.

I do beg your pardon.

I would’ve asked for permission, but I know they’ve been cordoned off for investigation, and, well, I was bored.”

“Bored?”

He did not seem prepared for my excuse.

Startlement eased his expression, tempering it slightly with an amusement he could not fully hide.

“Of course,”

I said carelessly.

“Did you wish me to simply stare upon you while you slumbered? I didn’t think anything of it.

Though I was quite startled by what I found there.”

Abruptly, I stopped, trying to gauge his reaction.

There was no point in pretending I hadn’t encountered the massive grave flower, but I’d wait for him to comment on it first.

“Are they not to your liking?”

Aeric asked.

“Excuse me?”

“You stated you were startled by what you found there.

Are the queen’s quarters not as grand as you wish? Keep in mind, after our wedding, you may select any furnishings you wish from our collection, or you may commission some to make the quarters your own.

Of course, our sewists will be at your disposal for any tapestries, bedding, upholstering, or draperies you may desire.”

“I …”

My thoughts, which had been scattered, now swam.

Aeric wasn’t alarmed in the least that I’d been in Inessa’s rooms and didn’t mention the grave flower on the ceiling.

What in the name of the Family was going on? I resisted the urge to press my fingers to my throbbing temples, fear and stress physically collecting there to torment me from the inside out.

Was the grave flower … new? Had it bloomed there only recently, after the chambers had already been sealed? How might that be and why.

“I shall.

Thank you.”

I struggled, flailing inwardly and trying not to show it.

“I found my hairpin on your table.”

Just as he slipped beneath my defenses time after time, I had to do the same.

It worked.

His gaze dashed to the table in a panic, landing on the silvery hairpin with its winking ruby.

“Why do you have it?”

“To remind me of you.”

He spoke resolutely through his embarrassment—yet he kept his tone grim, as though expecting to be mocked.

“I think I was holding it last night as I was drinking.

Would you like it back?”

“No.

I have several.

Would you care to sit?”

He wavered and then brusquely crossed into the bedroom.

I thought he might go to the desk or motion me to one of the other areas with chairs.

Instead, he went to the bed and settled onto it, propping himself against the pillows, one knee lackadaisically raised.

I was the one to waver then.

He said nothing and didn’t ask me to join him.

Even so, I went.

I’d been in bed with him only an hour earlier, but this was different.

Chairs put people in the same posture across from each other, making backs straight and bodies upright.

The bed was an uneven sea of softness, making our limbs sink into the blankets and creating a frightening closeness.

Aeric used every setting to his advantage without fail. It was as infuriatingly impressive as it was terrifying. When I was queen of Radix, I’d remember to do the same.

“You keep very sparse accommodations,”

I said, trying to control the conversation.

“For a prince who loves parties and wine, it’s unexpected.”

“Old habits.”

“Old habits?”

“In the monasterium, order, cleanliness, and dearth of possessions is akin to holiness.

I’m still used to it.

When I walk into a room here and there isn’t a spare inch of space that isn’t covered in a tapestry or a porcelain figurine, I feel crazed, as though all the air has been sucked up by the fanciness and I can’t breathe.”

He fell silent, eyes lifting to stare out the large window across from the bed, seeking the bright, clean, morning in the way I naturally sought gloomy, obscuring fog.

Palaces were supposed to be extensions of their monarchs, a sort of second body to aid them.

In fact, should courts travel or take up summer residences elsewhere, many of the same furnishings were brought, a facsimile of the royal palace popping up around the monarch wherever they might be.

The Radixan royal palace was thus for Father, Inessa, and me. But Aeric hadn’t been raised in his palace. It wasn’t his, not in the way it had been his parents’.

“I also keep things secured lest there be snooping servants.

I suppose I hadn’t considered a snooping princess or the fact she might be able to pick locks.”

“Truly, it’s a rudimentary skill.

I was taught to pick a lock at the same time I was taught my letters,”

I said, attempting to be dismissive so he might not dwell on it. I paused.

“I realize I never gave you my condolences for your mother’s passing.”

“Thank you.”

Aeric’s voice became clipped, formal.

“Did they—”

I hesitated.

“What?”

“Did they determine how she died?”

“No.”

A deep sigh escaped his lips.

“There was no sign of forced entry.

She bore no pricks from a poisoned needle, no inflammation in her lungs from any inhalants, no blows, scratches, or even the smallest of bruises aside from her fingernails.

They were … broken.

Yet from her own force, as she clawed against the wall. Given the scratch marks and her condition, the physician can only surmise she died of …”

“Fear,”

I finished.

“Apoplexy of the heart.”

Queen Gertrude’s face flashed in my mind.

How strange that such a heartless woman should die in such a way.

What had she seen? I stared at Aeric, trying to think of how he might’ve scared her to death.

He was the most likely culprit, though it was difficult to think how he executed his plan.

“My condolences,”

I said again.

This time he wasn’t dismissive.

He nodded, slowly and heavily.

His gaze fell to the blankets.

“I know she must have been proud of you.”

It was a tremendous lie, but we were hedged in by lies on all sides.

I certainly couldn’t make Aeric suspicious that I knew his mother had planned to have him killed or that I thought he might be responsible.

“I was surprised you didn’t go to the service.”

Aeric’s eyes raised to lock with mine.

All vulnerability was gone, replaced by a penetrating severity.

“If my mother knew I didn’t attend, I don’t think she’d mind.”

“Oh?”

I pretended to be surprised.

“Were you not close to her?”

“No, how could I be? I was at the monasterium for most of my life.

I wasn’t close to anyone but the Primeval Family there.”

His mouth twisted in a mirthless smile.

“Only I don’t think they were too fond of me either.”

“I imagine she missed you,”

I said softly, almost pitifully.

I thought about Queen Gertrude’s clear eyes and how they glided right over everything without settling, like two restless bluebirds.

“Perhaps.”

Aeric didn’t sound convinced.

He picked at a thread.

It was a thin strand of gold, and it stood straight up from the blanket, a stalk of wheat sprouting from a red sea.

“You are quite fascinated by my parents and me.

No matter what improbable location you and I may find ourselves or what odd circumstances beset us, you always guide the conversation to my house.”

“I’m marrying into your family, Aeric,”

I said, struggling to sound unruffled.

Perhaps I should inch to the edge of the bed so I might flee if necessary.

Aeric’s eyes were empty, cold.

I feared what dark thoughts they hid. However, I remained where I was, refusing to give up any ground to him and, impossibly, desiring to stay right where I was, so close to Aeric that I could see the rise and fall of his chest with each breath.

“I simply desire to know its dynamics and those are often found in its history.”

“Oh?”

Aeric’s tone was as empty as his eyes, even as he tore at the thread.

“What tawdry family history do you wish for me to lay bare? Perhaps you’d like to hear that after my father executed the Montarios, the babies born to him and my mother began to die and he feared she might’ve smothered them? And that he feared she might strive to kill me as well? Only he had no way of knowing for certain.

So I might’ve been sent away for nothing, or I might’ve been sent away because my own mother longed to smother me too.

Yet you might already know this, methinks.

I saw the look you gave my mother at the king-in-council. It was not a look between strangers. No, far from it.”

“I—I only wanted—”

“Whatever your reasons may be, there you have it.”

Without looking at it, Aeric tore the gold thread violently from the blanket.

The embroidery unraveled, the beautiful image dissembling with the tug.

He cast aside the thread.

“The House of Capelian is as rotten as ever an oak was sound.”

He rose to his feet.

I’d pushed him too far.

I’d shown too much interest, asked too many questions.

He stalked around to where I lay on his bed. My finger jumped to my poison ring once again. It hovered, ready to flick the crest back and reveal the deadly stinger. He was above me, leaning over me, anger burning unrestrained in his eyes.

“Now you know,”

he whispered lethally, huskily.

“and best beware.

Sunlight fills this place, and while it sometimes blinds, it mostly illuminates.”

Tension riddled him, riddled me.

Terror blazed within me but so did something else, something similarly fiery and fierce, as strong as the terror yet distinct from it.

I saw it in him as well, coursing with the quickness of blood through veins or the rush of air through lungs.

With an abrupt wordless sound of frustration, Aeric turned away.

He strode to the entrance and stopped, framed in the doorway once again. Without looking at me, he said.

“I’ll be back soon.

Be gone by then.”

I didn’t need to be warned twice.

After I was certain he was gone, I leaped from the bed and hurried out.

Once his chambers were far behind me, I doubled over in one of the halls, gasping for breath.

I’d learned there was a grave flower in Inessa’s chambers, one that may have only recently blossomed or been transplanted there and I’d … well, I’d saved Aeric from the starvelings, lain next to him while he slept, found myself face-to-face with him as I tried to leave his rooms. I thought of him hovering over me, rage in his eyes—yet rage that couldn’t mask the hurt behind them. My breath quickened again despite my efforts to calm it and the fact I was safe. At least for now.

“There you are, Your Highness.”

I almost didn’t recognize Sindony’s voice.

Usually, she sounded as chirpy as a songbird.

Today, her tone was flat, void of its customary enthusiasm.

I straightened as she approached. Another girl was at her side. Decima, whom I’d fired.

“Prince Lambert wishes to speak with you.”

I frowned.

As my remaining ally, Prince Lambert would have to speak with me at some point.

But Sindony’s demeanor and Decima’s presence worried me.

“I’m happy to speak with Prince Lambert,”

I said.

I caught my reflection in the window across the way.

My nightdress and robe were crumpled.

Ragged holes and dirt marred it from last night’s events in the garden. The skirt had burn marks from where the grave flower’s acid had eaten through the fabric. Most importantly, the wood rectangle sat heavily in my pocket.

“But first, I need to change and freshen up.”

“He says it’s most urgent, Your Highness,”

Decima interjected.

Her eyes flashed beneath her brows.

This was not good.

If she dared to speak to me thus, it was because she felt permitted to do so. Sindony’s expression was a twin of Decima’s. Was Prince Lambert displeased with me and sent them to fetch me? I glanced around. I certainly wasn’t about to meet with Prince Lambert in my nightclothes. The door to the theater was near. If I went there, I could find a change of clothing among the costumes, quickly inspect whatever object the grave flower had spat out, and perhaps hide it backstage. If I made Prince Lambert wait, it’d also serve to indicate to him, Sindony, and Decima that I wouldn’t simply be ordered about.

“One of you tell Prince Lambert I’ll be there shortly.”

I didn’t wait for their agreement or to see if one of them obeyed, choosing to avoid an outright confrontation that might shatter any remaining illusions of my power over them.

Pushing past Sindony and Decima, I entered the theater.

Despite my anxieties, the theater welcomed me with its hushed, magical atmosphere, the stage spreading before me like its own little world.

It was a place dedicated to pretending, and I could almost join in, playacting that I wasn’t in a tightening net that might eventually dump me in a grave.

I noticed the set had been changed since the last time I was here.

There was a bench and a semicircle of plaques cut from cheap wood composite and painted gray to look real.

The backdrop was painted with red Acusan flowers, arranged in their beds.

It was the place King Claudius had gone to sit, I realized. The memory garden for the deceased babies. A clamorous cold ran up my spine. It caught on my heart, where it spread. If the play was about the Primeval Family, why was it set in the royal garden?

“Yorick?”

I called, hurrying backstage and wondering if he was near and might help me.

“Here, Your Highness.”

Yorick emerged from his room.

The sight of him comforted me.

I wanted to throw my arms around him and cling tight.

Amid the web of mysteries entrapping me, he was a place of reassurance, a friend amid everything. He took in my torn dress, disheveled hair, and cuts. The color drained from his face. Instantly, his thin slouchy form became as stiff as a suit of armor.

“Who did this to you?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Someone has hurt you.”

His voice was panicked, and he stared at me, but his eyes were glossy and unfocused.

I realized, suddenly, who he must be seeing.

His mother.

I took a deep breath and gently took his hand.

“No one.

I’m just a bit worse for wear.

I’m all right, Yorick.”

“You’re all right,”

he echoed dully.

“Yes.”

I spoke firmly.

“I’m all right.”

Slowly, he nodded and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms.

He blinked, focusing on me.

“What I meant to say is that you look lovely, as always.”

A quiver in his voice betrayed him.

“As do you,”

I said.

“Only … you truly do.”

It was true.

Despite his pallor, he wore another perfectly tailored black outfit.

Black lace cut in teardrops to mimic the ones around his eyes formed patchworks on the chest.

“I need to clean up a bit.

Perhaps you can help me find something to wear?”

Yorick was still frozen, so much so that he didn’t seem to breathe.

I hesitated, wondering if I’d said something wrong or if the reminder of his mother was too much to bear.

“Be as you were.

I interrupted your reading.”

“No.

No, I’ll help.”

“You’re certain?”

“I fear what you may come up with on your own,”

he joked in a tremorous voice.

I nodded, and he motioned for me to sit at one of the cluttered vanities.

I was relieved he was helping me.

Backstage was even more disordered than last time.

More costumes had been brought in, and I most certainly would’ve ended up in something ridiculous because most of them were outrageous—the maid costumes were revealing to the point of nonexistence, the ball gowns had ten-foot trains, and the sheep costumes bore tutus covered in pink and blue wool.

As Yorick navigated it, I took the item from Inessa’s chambers out of my pocket.

Immediately, I recognized it, so much so that I nearly dropped it.

It was the plaque I’d taken from Mother’s altar and left atop the palace roof all those years ago.

I clutched it, more confused than ever.

I’d thought the wind had blown it off the roof, yet here it was.

Slowly, I lowered it into my lap, staring fixedly at it as though my attention alone might make it reveal how it had come to be inside the grave flower and why.

I was relieved when Yorick bustled over to me.

Setting the plaque down on the vanity let me at least divest it from my touch, even if I couldn’t divest it from my mind.

“Here you are, Your Highness.”

Yorick had a slip dress in one hand and a corset in another.

Gratefully, I took off my tattered, wrinkled nightdress and robe.

They fell to the ground, and I stared at them, thinking of everything I’d done in them, from standing on the ledge to stop Aeric from plunging to his death to investigating Inessa’s chambers.

I stepped into the slip dress, wishing I could switch sentiments as easily as clothing.

Yorick helped me with the corset, which went over the dress.

I held it in place as he laced it up with practiced hands, making it snug but not too tight, unlike Sindony, who either turned corsets into an instrument of torture due to how tightly she closed them or a wardrobe malfunction waiting to happen due to how loose she left them.

I thought of her waiting outside with Decima.

My stomach clenched, and the nervousness made me look at the plaque once again, one cause for anxiousness making me dwell upon the other.

“There you go.”

Yorick tied off the corset.

I pulled my attention to the mirror.

My reflection shocked me.

“I would wear this even if it weren’t for a show,”

I said admiringly.

The dress was an auburn silk streaked with burgundy, and the corset was black velvet.

Two thin black velvet straps, with no greater purpose beyond visual appeal, hung off my shoulders.

A long slit cut all the way to my hip bone, revealing a single scandalous line of skin. I didn’t mind. Acusan fashion and its scandalous nature seemed to be growing on me.

“I did well, didn’t I?”

Yorick asked.

“Dress like this, and you’ll rule in more ways than one after you become queen.”

“I’ve never felt so powerful,”

I admitted.

I ran my hands over the skirt and paused, realizing Yorick might assist me further.

“By the way, I noticed the set for the play is the royal garden.

I’m confused.

I thought the play was about the Primeval Family.”

“Oh, it’s Prince Aeric’s interpretation.

Quite silly if you ask me and likely blasphemous if you ask a monasticte.”

“What do you mean?”

“The script follows the traditional story, but the settings are modern.

In fact, they are the current-day Acusan palace.”

“Where is the script?”

Suspicion cut through me.

Was Aeric using the play to send a message? I’d long worried the performance was more than it seemed, yet I hadn’t figured out how.

Yorick pointed to a cue script attached to wooden dowels and paused in his ministrations for me to pick it up.

It was a shared script used by all the actors, due to the expensive nature of parchment. I scanned it quickly.

It was just as Yorick said.

A Primeval Family myth recounted in bloated prose, nothing more and nothing less.

How might it be a message? I set the cue script down.

Yorick reached for a cloth.

Gently, he wiped away the dirt smudges on my skin and got to work on my hair.

I was used to being attended to but not by someone who cared about me.

There was intention to his every move, as though he wished to make me beautiful simply because he could.

Once, Mother had done my hair.

She’d come to my chambers without warning and dismissed my servants.

I stood uncertainly, stiff to her unfamiliar touch and unsure about what she wanted.

It turned out she hadn’t wanted anything other than to mother me.

She brushed and styled my hair, working with its Fely texture instead of against it.

With deft hands, she wound it up and then spread it out into two winglike folds.

Carefully, she tucked two beaded brooches on either side.

Once she was done, she faced me to the mirror, then said.

“Beautiful.”

Her voice was quiet and her eyes shifty, as though she feared someone overhearing or seeing.

Then she’d undone it and left.

Inessa always said Mother stole Father’s attention before they were married, even though Father had sought her out.

It made me think of Inessa telling me Mother had stolen Father’s attention. Father, though, had sought her out.

Maybe she hadn’t stolen his attention.

Maybe what she’d stolen was that simple morning with me.

I leaned my head back into Yorick’s hand.

It was cool aside from his palm, where the heat of his hand bled into the leather glove and created a pool of warmth, like sitting water in the sun.

He let me put his other hand on my shoulder, where he gently stroked it.

“I used to help my mother get ready,”

he said, staring at me in the mirror.

The vacant expression returned.

It varnished his eyes, clouding them with memories probably best forgotten.

“And then I’d help her when she came back.

When she had bruises and—and—”

The sentence broke apart, and I thought his composure might too.

“I am sorry, Yorick,”

I said, and meant it.

“Oh, don’t worry about me.

I have plans.”

“Plans?”

I lifted my head.

I appreciated him helping me with my plots, but I didn’t wish for him to have any of his own.

“You needn’t worry,”

he said, sensing my alarm.

“My plans involve only me.”

“Care to share?”

I kept my tone light, but I turned so I could see him directly and not just in the mirror.

If necessary, I could command him to tell me, but I paused.

The black makeup around his eyes was thicker today.

It threatened to swallow them entirely. And his face was thinner than usual. The teardrops in the corners of his eyes were stark against his pale skin. Had he been eating? I let out a breath.

“If you ever need my help, Yorick, you will have it.”

At that, his shoulders sagged again but in a comfortable way, like he was settling back into himself.

I was glad to see it.

Whatever his plans were, I trusted that they would not interfere with mine.

Maybe that was friendship—trusting each other.

“Thank you,”

he said simply.

“And you know you have my help too.

There are not many people I’d assist in hiding a body.”

I laughed.

“Hopefully that’s the last one.

Now, will you please keep this for me? I fear I’m needed elsewhere now, but I’ll come fetch it later today.”

I handed him the plaque I’d set atop the vanity.

He glanced at it, turning it over in his hands.

“Alifair.”

He read the name on the back and flipped it over to examine the image.

“Quite a mystical and rustic-looking piece.”

“I think it’s beautiful,”

I said.

I’d visited the plaque often until I’d thought it been blown off the place roof.

It was familiar to me, so much so that sometimes I felt like it’d belonged to me all along.

“Will you keep it safe for me?”

“Of course, Your Highness,”

Yorick said.

“I’ll keep it my room, next to my books.”

“Thank you.”

I rose.

I didn’t dare keep Prince Lambert any longer.

“I must go.

Someone is waiting for me.”

SERPENTINES

Grave Flower Experiment Eight

Appearance

Green and scaly, just like serpents.

Their buds turn into pointed diamond-shaped heads with petals forming fangs in several layers.

They are discontented and rattle and often bite! And, oh, does it hurt.

In addition, they love constricting things to death: birds, mice, squirrels. Sometimes it seems as though they have an alliance with the starvelings because they’ll set snares for animals by coiling on the ground, and the starvelings will click their thorns and distract the prey. Then the serpentines constrict them to death. It brings them great pleasure, and they give their kills to the starvelings to devour.

Invocation

O Brother,

our hearts tighten with hate,

so much so they die from our own constriction.

But if we eat our own tails—

perhaps dragons we might become.

Results

With the speed of vipers, the serpentines shot forward and lashed around the neck, wrists, chest, and ankles of a prisoner.

Then they tightened, tightened, tightened until the victim stopped wiggling.

They didn’t devour it, but they played with the body, constricting it over and over.

Quickly, though, they became bored and began diving forward to lash around the foundational pillars of the palace and tightening. The stones shifted and the room shook. It would’ve certainly collapsed if the invocation hadn’t worn off.

Complications

I thought that this might be wonderful! I could have them secretly planted beneath the Crus palace, and, once the invocation is said, they would demolish it.

I tried to replicate it to see if this might be a reliable weapon.

To my frustration, the serpentines this time slithered up through the cracks of the walls and into the halls.

They darted down them, dragging their roots behind them, giving everyone a fright and leaving dirty marks down the carpets. I can’t risk it. If they did that instead of bringing down the palace, they would enrage King Ky, and he would march against us. If that were to happen, I’d have no choice but to say all the invocations at once and set the grave flowers free to do their worst—but I imagine we might be destroyed in the process.

Applications

Demolition, with the possibility of setting snakelike flowers loose and making things very dirty and making their king look like a fool.