Beatriz
The public room of the inn, where meals are served, is deserted apart from and Pasquale—a fact is grateful for. She and Nigellus haven’t spoken since arriving and she isn’t sure who, exactly, she is meant to be here. An exiled princess? An empyrea in training? No one at all? But with only Pasquale, there is no need to pretend to be anyone other than herself.
“I’m almost looking forward to meeting your mother,” Pasquale tells her, taking a bite of his buttered toast. She must give him a horrified look, because he snorts. He pauses while he chews, then swallows. “Don’t misunderstand me—I’m terrified of the prospect, but after everything I’ve heard, it will be interesting to meet her in person.”
laughs before taking a long gulp of her coffee. “Interesting will be one word for it. She won’t have you killed—she still needs you to take Cellaria—but I doubt you’ll feel particularly welcome at the palace.”
Pasquale shakes his head. “Right. Like I ever felt particularly welcome at the Cellarian palace. I only really had you and Ambrose and…” He trails off, and knows he was about to say Nicolo and Gisella. His cousins were some of his only allies at court, until they turned on him.
“Well, you’ll still have me,” she says brightly, finishing her coffee. The innkeeper was frazzled this morning, tending to her myriad of duties, but she left a bell on the table in case and Pasquale required anything. reaches for it now, giving it a ring. She doesn’t want to trouble the woman, but after her time in the Sororia, she feels like she could eat five whole breakfasts and not be sated.
“And you’ll have me,” Pasquale tells her with a lopsided smile. “But what, exactly, is the plan? It feels like walking into the lions’ den.”
“It is a bit,” admits with a sigh. “But I need to know exactly what she’s planning, and even Nigellus doesn’t seem to have those answers. It isn’t only me in danger, but Daphne, too, and even if she doesn’t believe…” trails off. Pasquale’s attention is suddenly focused over her shoulder, his eyes wide and his jaw slack. He looks like he’s seeing a ghost.
whirls around to see what he’s looking at and feels the breath leave her body. There, standing in the doorway with a washrag in one hand and a pot of coffee in the other, is Ambrose—hair a little overgrown, face in need of a shave, but alive and whole and here.
Before can make a move, Pasquale is out of his chair and he and Ambrose collide in the middle of the room. They only hold each other, but feels like she’s intruding on something private and she casts her gaze around the room until they break apart. Ambrose clears his throat, his cheeks flushing red.
“Princess ,” he says, bowing low.
’s gaze returns to him and she smiles. “I’ve asked you to call me Triz, Ambrose,” she chides, getting to her feet and giving him a hug of her own. “It’s good to see you—but where is Lord Savelle?”
“On his way to the Silvan Isles,” Ambrose explains. “Safe, last I saw him, and I have every reason to believe he’ll stay that way. Temarin has fallen—”
“I know,” says, wincing at the thought of Sophronia.
“—But King Leopold is here too,” Ambrose adds, lowering his voice though they’re the only ones in the room. “We ran into each other on the way and—”
“Leopold?” and Pasquale ask at the same time.
“Where?” says.
“The stables,” Ambrose says, frowning. “But—”
doesn’t give him a chance to finish before she hurries out the door and down the hall, not caring when she steps out of the inn and the cold air bites at her skin. King Leopold is here—he’ll know exactly what happened to her sister. And if he’s alive, then surely there’s a chance that…
’s thoughts trail off as she approaches the stables. King Leopold is standing outside, leaning against the doorway with a rake in his hand. He looks so different from the last portrait she saw of him—older, yes, but rougher around the edges as well, in need of a bath and a haircut. But that isn’t what stops short.
He’s deep in conversation with a girl whose back is to , a girl with the same shade of blond hair as Sophronia. She’s the same height, with the same curved figure. For the first time since she thought she felt her sister die, hope lights in ’s heart.
“Sophie!” she shouts, quickening her pace to a run. Her sister is alive, and she’s here, and throws her arms open, ready to hold Sophronia tight and maybe never ever let go again and—
The girl turns toward her and slams to a stop, her arms falling to her sides and her heart plummeting once more. She isn’t Sophronia. There is a resemblance, but it isn’t her. She swallows.
“I’m…I’m sorry,” she manages. “I thought you were…”
She’s dimly aware of Pasquale and Ambrose approaching behind her, of Leopold and the girl looking at her with a dawning understanding.
“Princess ,” the girl says, her accent Bessemian. She looks every bit as surprised to see as was surprised to see her, before she realized her mistake.
“Who are you?” asks her, injecting her voice with steel and drawing herself up another inch to hide the vulnerability she just showed.
“That’s Violie,” Ambrose says behind her. “And, well, I’m assuming you know Leopold, or of him at the very least.”
barely hears the words, barely feels Pasquale brush past her to greet his cousin with a hug and a handshake. Her eyes remain on Violie, who appears to grow more and more uncomfortable with each passing second.
“I’ve seen you before,” says. “You’re from Bessemia?”
Violie looks more uncomfortable, but nods.
Fragments of memory slide into place—it isn’t the first time has thought this girl resembled Sophronia.
“You were at the brothel,” she says, half to herself and half to the other girl. “Just outside the palace—the Scarlet Petal.”
“The Crimson Petal,” Violie corrects quietly. “Yes. My mother was…is…one of the courtesans employed there.”
visited a handful of brothels as part of her training, learning how to flirt and seduce, but even though she only went to the Crimson Petal once, the visit was notable because her mother accompanied her. She didn’t supervise the lesson, and never learned why she’d chosen to come along, or chosen that brothel in particular.
But it can’t be a coincidence—not that visit then, or Violie’s reappearance now. Not even the fact that Violie bears a striking resemblance to her sister.
“Your mother hired me,” Violie blurts out before can form the words herself. “I was placed in the Temarinian palace to spy on Sophronia.”
thinks of her sister’s final letter to her, how Sophronia confessed that she’d gone against their mother, but their mother had been one step ahead of her, sending a declaration of war to Cellaria that had been forged. Someone in Temarin would have needed to forge that document and send it.
takes one step closer to Violie, then another. Then she balls her hand into a fist and slams it as hard as she can into Violie’s face.