Beatriz
doesn’t doubt that her mother intended that banishing her to her childhood rooms would serve as a punishment. It is that, though not, perhaps, in the way the empress intended. In some ways, prefers the comfort and familiarity of the cream walls and pink accents and dainty furnishings—especially compared to the inns she’s stayed at during the journey or her cell at the Sororia. She might even prefer it to her rooms at the Cellarian palace, which never truly felt like home.
It’s Sophronia’s presence, and her absence, that threaten to drive mad. It started with the stain on the carpet in the sitting room—barely noticeable, unless you know to look for it. And knows. She remembers Daphne opening a bottle of champagne, the night of their sixteenth birthday, spilling it on the rug, and how Sophronia hastened to clean it up.
If she closes her eyes, she almost feels like she’s back there, on that night. She can smell Daphne’s freesia perfume. She can hear Sophronia’s soft voice— Sixteen is when we have to say goodbye. By seventeen, we’ll be back here again. Together. Whenever she sits down on the sofa, she can feel her sisters on either side of her, as if they could press close enough together to prevent their ever being separated.
But they are separated, and if sees seventeen at all, it won’t be with Sophronia. She has a difficult time imagining she’ll see it with Daphne, either, and the thought of that sends another pang through her heart.
She hasn’t spoken to Daphne since they felt Sophronia die. doesn’t even know what she could possibly have to say to Daphne. Anytime she tries to imagine it, her words come out full of anger and spite and blame. If Daphne had helped them, if she’d grown a backbone and stood against their mother for once in her life…
Deep down, though, knows that even if Daphne had done those things, Sophronia still wouldn’t be here.
When she wakes up in her childhood bedroom her second day in Bessemia, she knows what needs to be done—what Sophronia would tell her to do, if she were here. She puts it off for as long as she can, eating breakfast in her room before meeting up with Pasquale to show him around the palace. It’s only after lunch that she returns to her haunted chambers.
She crosses the room to the desk that now seems too small and writes a letter to the only sister she has left.
Daphne—
I’m safe—or as safe as I can be—in Bessemia, at the palace. I know we don’t see eye to eye on many things, and you may not believe me, but you need to be careful. You’ll likely say I’m being dramatic, but I’ve every reason to believe Sophie’s death was orchestrated by an outside force, and the person responsible will come for us next. Contrary to what you like to think, you aren’t invulnerable, and our opponent isn’t to be underestimated.
Sophie told us she had friends coming to find us. They found me, but I can’t keep them safe so I am sending them on to you. Please protect them—if not for me, then for Sophie.
Being back in this palace, in our old rooms, I miss you and Sophie so much it makes my heart ache. It still seems impossible to believe that I’ll never see her face again. I’ll never forgive you if you meet the same fate.
—
It’s a sentimental letter—Daphne will surely roll her eyes at that—but doesn’t change it. Let Daphne mock her for it if she wants to. There are many things wishes she could say to Sophronia that she’ll never be able to, and that isn’t a mistake she’ll make twice.
Perhaps, though, she should be more explicit about the threat Daphne faces. She considers naming the empress as the person responsible for Sophronia’s death, but she stops herself short. Daphne won’t believe her, not without proof, and maybe even then she wouldn’t be able to see the truth. No, if points the finger at their mother, Daphne will disregard the letter entirely. Better to keep her on guard against an unknown threat, if nothing else.
She folds the letter into an envelope and seals it with wax, letting it harden before she slips the envelope into her pocket. Her mother will never let the letter out of the palace if she reads it, and there isn’t a code she could put it into that her mother would be unable to break, but she can give it to Pasquale to pass on to Ambrose, who will be able to post it in the city with fewer eyes watching.
She walks into the sitting room and her eyes fall on the mantel with its gilt-inlay constellations. The Thorned Rose, the Hungry Hawk, the Lonely Heart, the Crown of Flames, and, finally, the Sisters Three. Crossing toward it, she lifts her hand to brush the tips of her fingers over the Sisters Three, the stars arranged to form the figures of three dancing ladies. While has always seen the constellations as far more abstract than their names imply, the Sisters Three is one she’s always seen clearly. She’s always seen herself there, with Daphne and Sophronia.
She shakes her head and drops her hand, looking toward the clock hanging on the wall above the mantel.
Nearly sundown, now. In a few hours it will be time for another lesson with Nigellus.
—
The sun has just left the sky when steps into Nigellus’s laboratory in the palace’s highest tower. She pushes the hood of the cloak she borrowed from Pasquale back from her face and looks around the room—one of the few places in the palace that she’s never set foot in. There’s a telescope beside the largest window, and the ceiling is made of glass to allow a full view of the stars. The table that dominates the room is laden with equipment. Some, like microscopes and scales, recognizes, but there are other things she cannot fathom the purpose of: shining silver disks of various sizes, stacked on top of one another, rings of gold and bronze that interlink, dozens of beakers and vials containing an opalescent liquid she’s never seen before.
“Princess ,” a voice behind her says, and whirls to find Nigellus standing in the doorway she just stepped through, watching her. “You’re late.”
“Only by a few minutes,” she says, shrugging. “My mother is having me watched, unsurprisingly, and it took longer than expected to get past her spies unnoticed.”
“I take it that’s the reason you’re dressed that way?” hesays.
glances down at the cloak, breeches, and shirt she borrowed from Pasquale in order to better avoid notice. “It seemed prudent,” she says.
While her rooms have been outfitted with a full wardrobe, a well-stocked jewelry box, and every luxury could want, one thing is conspicuously missing—a vanity case. There hasn’t been much need for cosmetics, since has mostly kept to her room and there are no balls or other social events on her schedule, but she is sure the omission is intentional on her mother’s part. has always excelled at the art of disguise, after all, and the empress wouldn’t want to risk that talent being wielded against her.
It’s a compliment, in a way, to know her mother fears her enough to try to hobble her, but it’s annoying all the same.
“What is all this?” she asks Nigellus, nodding toward the table of gadgets and equipment. When she imagined Nigellus’s laboratory before, she imagined a simpler place where he could commune with the stars, pull them down if absolutely necessary, and perhaps make a few of the wish items he is known for—like the bracelets the empress gave and her sisters when they left Bessemia.
’s bracelet is gone now, its wish used to help Lord Savelle escape Cellaria. Sophronia used hers, too, before she was killed. Daphne likely still has hers, thinks. She’s always been the most prudent of the three of them—she’ll probably save it until she is, quite literally, at death’s door. Maybe not even then, if she’s feeling particularly stubborn.
Nigellus glances at the table gestures to and his brow furrows. “My practices might differ from other empyreas, but I believe the key to harmony with the stars is understanding them,” he says.
“That hardly seems controversial,” comments.
“It depends on the methods, I suppose,” he says, brushing past her to cross to the table and pick up one of the beakers of opalescent liquid. “Study of the stars is often seen as a spiritual endeavor.”
“Isn’t it that?” frowns.
Nigellus shrugs. “I believe so, yes, but I also believe it is a science.” He glances at her. “Science, I’m sure, wasn’t one of the things you studied under your mother’s tutelage.”
bristles. “As a matter of fact, we studied chemistry.”
“Only as far as the mechanics of various poisons, though,” he says, and can’t deny that, even if she detests admitting to a weakness.
“Not much point in providing a more thorough education to a sacrificial lamb, I suppose,” she says instead, keeping her voice light. It’s nothing to joke about, but doing so makes her feel better for a moment.
Nigellus doesn’t so much as smile, though. Instead, he holds the beaker out to her, and she takes it.
“What is it?” she asks him, examining the liquid inside as it sloshes around.
“To explain that, I need to go back a few steps,” he says. “You know what stardust is, of course.”
“Fallen stars,” she echoes automatically.
“Yes,” Nigellus says before pausing. “And no. At least not in the way we think of stars. These fall from the sky, it’s true, but there are never fewer stars in the sky after a star shower, not the way there are when an empyrea pulls a star down. But having examined stardust and a piece of a star I pulled down myself, I’ve confirmed they are made up of the same matter, more or less.”
“I’m assuming there is significantly less, considering how much more powerful magic is that comes from a star that’s been pulled down.”
Nigellus inclines his head in agreement, turning to make his way toward the telescope by the window. Unsure of what else to do, follows.
“I’ve spent the last decade and a half trying to bridge that gap,” he says. “I believe it’s imperative that we find a way to harness the raw magic of the stars in a renewable way. I’ve made strides, like with your wish bracelet, but even that was weaker than a star itself.”
“You never said what stardust is,” reminds him. Nigellus doesn’t seem accustomed to talking with other people, constantly dropping the thread of conversation and getting lost in his own mind.
Nigellus blinks and turns to look at her, as if he’d forgotten she was there. “We lose hair,” he says.
frowns. If she could have placed a bet on what he would have said next, she wouldn’t have guessed that in a million years. “We do?” she asks.
“A few strands a day, surely you’ve noticed that. When you brush your hair, if nothing else. We shed skin cells as well. Nail clippings, eyelashes, tears, spit—”
“And?” interrupts, sure he could go on for days if she let him.
“And,” he says, looking mildly annoyed at her interruption, “all of those things contain part of us, no? I have a theory that stardust is to stars what shed hair and skin cells and whatnot are to us.”
considers this for a moment. “So, stardust,” she says slowly, “is actually star spit?”
“In a manner of speaking. It explains why it’s so much weaker, even though it contains the same properties.”
It does explain that, but even though Nigellus’s explanation makes sense, something about it underwhelms . The world seems a little less magical all of a sudden.
“I’m sure I don’t have to tell you to keep my theories to yourself,” he says, and though his voice is conversational, it takes on a hard edge. “Your mother knows about them, but there are plenty of others who would see me burned alive for even saying these things.”
“I spent two months in Cellaria with silver eyes and unpredictable magic,” she points out. “I know how to be discreet.”
Nigellus merely raises an eyebrow. “You were arrested for treason—and accused of witchcraft even before that, I believe.”
rolls her eyes. “Lessons were learned both times,” she says tightly. This time, for instance, she knows better than to trust a handsome face and charming words.
“Let’s hope so,” Nigellus says. “We’ll start with stargazing tonight. Tell me what you see in the telescope.”
crosses toward the telescope, trying to squash her annoyance at the thought of Nicolo’s betrayal, and the embarrassment that followed. Next time they cross paths, she’ll make him pay for that.
She bends to press her eye to the telescope, blinking as the stars come into focus. It takes her a moment to adjust the dials on the side in order to see a full constellation.
“The Glittering Diamond,” she tells Nigellus. “The signal of strength and prosperity—I’m sure my mother will be pleased to hear of its presence.”
“As will the rest of Bessemia,” Nigellus points out. “What else is near it?”
“The Slithering Snake,” she tells him, moving the telescope. “Hardly surprising, given my mother’s and my being under the same roof. Either of us could be considered a snake to the other, and the betrayal it promises seems imminent in one way or another.”
“Not everything is about you, Princess,” Nigellus says. “Betrayal seems to be in the air for everyone. Look closer, near the snake’s tongue. Do you notice anything amiss?”
frowns, spinning the dials to get a closer look, but all she sees are stars in the rough shape of a snake’s forked tongue.
“I don’t think I’m familiar enough to notice a change in the constellation,” she admits. “I’ve never paid much attention to it before.”
Nigellus picks up a book from the shelf and flips through it, bringing it toward . “Here, this is what the Slithering Snake usually looks like.”
pulls back from the telescope to look at the illustration. She frowns, then looks through the telescope again.
“There are extra stars around the tongue,” she says. “Three. Where did they come from?”
“The more accurate question is Who do they belong to? ” Nigellus replies.
’s frown deepens and she fiddles with the dials again. “It’s a branch of the Twisted Trees,” she says. The Twisted Trees are a constellation of two trees with their branches entwined together—a sign of friendship. “So, the two are connected? Friendship and betrayal?” Despite herself, she thinks of Pasquale and Ambrose, the only friends she has left in the world. If they betray her, she isn’t sure how she’ll stomach it.
“That is what the stars say,” he says. “I’ll make a note of it. Keep on looking.”
bends her head to the telescope once again and searches for more constellations as they slowly arc across the sky. Her heart seizes in her chest when she catches sight of the Lonely Heart—Sophronia’s sign, Nigellus told her. The one he pulled a star down from to create her. It’s the shape of a romantic heart rather than an anatomical one, a shape so simple can make it out with no difficulty.
But.
She frowns, looking closer. It isn’t right. The Slithering Snake she never paid much mind to, but the Lonely Heart has been emblazoned on the mantel of her fireplace throughout her childhood. She knows the stars that form it as surely as she knows the lines of her hand. One is there that shouldn’t be. She fiddles with the dials again, trying to see what other constellation is linked with it, but none come close.
“There’s an extra star in the Lonely Heart,” she says, straightening.
“What other constellation is nearby?” Nigellus asks, not looking up from where he’s scribbling in his notebook.
“None,” says. “It’s just one star, where the heart dips. Look.”
Nigellus furrows his brow, but he motions for to step aside so he can peer through the telescope himself.
watches as his spine goes rigid. When he steps back from the telescope, his face is pale.
“That isn’t possible,” he says. For the first time in her life, he sounds unnerved.
“What isn’t?” she asks, feeling unsettled herself. Nigellus looks at her and hesitates. “Oh, just tell me,” she says. “I’m already keeping plenty of your secrets.”
Nevertheless, Nigellus is quiet. He glances up at the sky, where the Lonely Heart can still be seen. Without the telescope, though, the extra star is hardly visible at all.
“I told you I pulled a star from the Lonely Heart to create Sophronia,” he says, his voice hoarse. “That is the star I chose. It fell from the sky more than sixteen years ago, I held its dying embers in my hands.”
feels her own skin go cold, and she looks back up at the sky, at Sophronia’s constellation. Stars cannot reappear in the sky—everyone knows that. Once they are pulled down, they are gone forever. It is why empyreas are only supposed to do so in grave emergencies. What does it mean that one has suddenly reappeared? And that star, too?
The question is on ’s lips, but looking at Nigellus, she knows he can’t give her an answer. Nigellus, who seems to know everything about the stars, is, for the first time in ’s life, at a loss, and that is a terrifying realization.