Wooing the Witch Queen (Queens of Villainy #1)

Chapter 20

20

When Saskia awoke the next morning, every muscle in her body clamored in protest. Her parched and aching throat tasted utterly foul. Worse yet, her stomach felt as if someone had reached inside with a flaming scalpel to scrape it clean, leaving raw, bleeding wounds behind.

She finally blinked her heavy eyelids open and found Fabian, of all people, sitting directly beside her bed in a comfortable-looking, unfamiliar wing chair, reading a thick, leather-bound book and making studious notes in his commonplace book with his faithful fountain pen.

Saskia’s throat felt as if it had been peeled with a rusty knife as she rasped, “What are you doing here?”

“Your Majesty!” The joyful smile that lit up his face was almost enough to make her forget, for a moment, her own physical misery. Quickly capping his fountain pen, he set everything aside and leaned forward, over her bed with shocking intimacy, to look her up and down.

For once, he wasn’t wearing his familiar, shroud-like cloak. Instead, he was clad in an elegant mourning suit of all black that complemented his lean figure beautifully and looked to be made to a high Imperial design. Small jet buttons lined his black silk waistcoat, and close-fitting wool trousers would—she was almost certain—reveal every single inch of those long legs she’d been dreaming about for weeks… if only she could raise herself high enough to see them.

Really, it was absurd to lie here unmoving while he gazed down at her with such tender care, as if she were some helpless creature. Pressing her hands against the mattress, Saskia began to push herself up—and let out an involuntary grunt at the effort it took, as if she were fighting to raise a heavy castle rather than her own ordinary self.

“Stop!” Fabian’s sweet smile vanished as he put one hand on her closest shoulder, fingers closing gently around its curve. His brown eyes still looked soft with emotion behind the eyeholes of his mask, but his grip was firm. “You mustn’t even try to get up yet. You need to lie still and recover for at least a week.”

“A week ? Don’t be ridiculous.” Scowling, Saskia continued to hold her half-raised position, even as her muscles trembled from the ongoing exertion. “I hate lying still.”

“Imagine my astonishment,” Fabian said wryly. One corner of his lips turned up in a tiny, rueful half-smile.

Oh, that’s just not fair. Saskia loved that secret smile. It wasn’t right for him to use it against her now, when she was weakened.

Still, he continued inexorably, “Take pity on me if nothing else. Mrs. Haglitz will have my head if I let you hurt yourself by getting up when she trusted me to keep you resting.”

“ Ugh. ” Why in the world had Mrs. Haglitz chosen him for that task? He was far too close and too tempting for Saskia’s peace of mind, here in her own private bedchamber with that tiny smile still playing across his lips. It made her think of other things she’d like to do to those lips…

Until she swallowed over her still-parched throat and felt the horror of the taste in her own mouth fill her senses all over again.

No kissing!

Saskia clamped her lips shut and fell back onto her pillow, hoping he hadn’t been able to smell her foul breath from his position.

“Are you thirsty?” Fabian stood, consoling her with—at long last—a proper view of the lower half of his body, clad in those lovely tight black trousers. She wholeheartedly approved of them—and when he turned his back, she didn’t even have to pretend not to be ogling him. “I have a jug of water from the kitchen spring just here,” he said, innocent and unaware of her shameless appraisal. “I’ll ring for more food and drink for you, too.”

Saskia accepted the cup of water that he handed her with a rasp of thanks, and she took her first sip as greedily as she could from her awkwardly prone position. Frowning, he bent over her once more.

“If you’ll allow me…” He reached beneath her to lift her upper half with one arm while he propped more pillows behind her back, then lowered her to rest against them in a perfectly supported position. Every move felt confident and knowledgeable, and the touch of his hands on her aching body felt as gentle as if he thought her made of glass or crystal, something infinitely precious and breakable.

She wasn’t. She was a wicked queen, and she couldn’t let herself—or anyone else—forget it, no matter how dangerously good it might feel to lie back and let him handle her with care. So, as soon as she finished her cup of water, Saskia cleared her throat and said sharply, “Have you done this before?”

“I beg your pardon?” He’d been in the middle of sitting back down in his chair, but he hesitated at her question. “Done what, exactly?”

“Sitting by sickbeds with invalids.” She gestured irritably at the pillows beneath her. “You knew just what to do.”

“Ah.” He sank the rest of the way down into the wing chair, his face tightening and his voice lowering. “I… have had some experience with that, yes.”

She didn’t need to ask what the outcome had been, that last time. The note of grief was unmistakable.

A truly wicked queen would have probed that wound, no doubt, to prove her own careless power. Saskia said quietly, “I’m sure they were glad to have you there.”

“I hope she was,” he replied, every bit as quietly. “There was nowhere else I would rather have been.”

She? A question hesitated on the tip of Saskia’s tongue…

But the door opened before she could ask it. Mrs. Haglitz bustled inside with a large, covered tray in her hands, while one of the goblin footmen, Krakk, capered after her with a toothy grin of delight, waving two fistfuls of cutlery in greeting.

“ Here we go!” Mrs. Haglitz placed the tray on a round side table and carried it all with ease across the room to set the table down between Saskia and Fabian. “I’ve got a good lot of food here to bolster your strength without hurting your stomach—and as for you …” She turned her forceful gaze upon Fabian. “See that she eats every bite, and you do the same with yours. You need to keep up your own strength if you’re to look after Her Majesty properly!”

“Very well,” Fabian said, with apparent meekness—but with another of those slanting, half-hidden smiles. “Thank you.”

Saskia’s eyebrows rose as she watched their exchange of glances. Well, that’s new. Fabian had only been living in this castle for a few months, but he had apparently already found a way into Mrs. Haglitz’s well-guarded heart—which Mirjana, for all of her charm, never had, even back when Saskia herself had been most moon-eyed over her.

“I don’t suppose I have any say in this?” she asked dryly.

Mrs. Haglitz glowered down at her. “Are you insulting my food, young lady?”

Saskia cast up her eyes in dramatic defeat. “As if anyone would ever dare.”

“Hmph.” Mrs. Haglitz lifted the metal cloche off the tray, and mouthwatering scents immediately came drifting out from the newly revealed bowls and plates, making Saskia give an involuntary sigh of yearning. “ That’s better! Now, it’s soup for you, after everything your body’s been through. If your spoon’s too heavy, make this lad hold it for you, and be certain he does it properly.”

Saskia narrowed her eyes at her beloved mentor. “I believe I can hold my own spoon, Mrs. Haglitz.”

“Hmm. No coffee yet—you’ll have to give your stomach time to recover—but I’ve made you healing tea, and you’ll drink all of it.”

“Of course I will.” Saskia sighed. She’d drunk Mrs. Haglitz’s healing tea before and knew its benefits… along with its downsides, beginning with its taste. Still, she wasn’t a complete fool. If she wanted to return to full strength before the week was up, the last thing she needed was to refuse her medicine.

Although, speaking of coffee…

She frowned. “Did someone different make two of the pots of coffee yesterday? It tasted… oh! ” Her weary brain finally put together all of the pieces.

Last night, in that brief, vivid moment when Divine Elva had brought her back from the verge of death…

“Was that what held the poison?”

“We will not talk about that now!” Mrs. Haglitz slammed down the cloche with a clatter that rang through the room and made even cheeky Krakk lean away from her, wide-eyed and wary. Her eyes sparkled with fury—and something more—as she pointed at Saskia with one sturdy, horn-nailed finger. “ You are going to focus all of your strength on getting better and never scaring us like that again, and we are not going to discuss anything else until I’ve forgotten what it felt like to watch you dying in front of me!”

Saskia drew an exasperated breath—but then took in, once more, the sparkle of unfamiliar tears in Mrs. Haglitz’s eyes. She nodded. “Very well,” she said just as meekly as Fabian had earlier.

Still, the mood felt distinctly subdued as Mrs. Haglitz and Krakk left the room, the little goblin waving a sneaky farewell over his shoulder as he followed the housekeeper.

Saskia returned his wave with one of her own and turned to Fabian as soon as the door fell closed behind them. “Now,” she said, “tell me everything.”

He didn’t immediately answer. Instead, his brows furrowed as he studied her face as if searching for something.

Saskia didn’t even try for menace. She only spoke the simple truth. “If you treat me as if I’d lost my wits along with my strength, I will never forgive you.”

His eyebrows rose above his mask. “I understand. But do you think you could eat some of your soup while I tell you?”

Relief cascaded through Saskia as the tension flooded out of her. Whatever this sweet, tenuous connection was that shimmered between them—no matter how dangerous it might be—she suddenly realized that it would have hurt even more to lose that, now, than anything she’d experienced last night. She took a deep, thankful breath through her aching chest. “I think I can just about manage that.”

Accepting the bowl he handed her— and the spoon, with a minatory look—she began to take slow, careful bites of the savory broth while he explained the discovery Mrs. Haglitz had made in Saskia’s laboratory.

“Of course.” Saskia winced, resting her hand with the spoon against the side table. “I should have known that Mrs. Haglitz would never allow any coffee that tasted like that to be served, no matter the circumstances. I would have known, if I’d only stopped to think about it.”

“Indeed,” Fabian said dryly. “How unforgivable of you not to think of absolutely everything, always. It almost makes you seem… human.”

Saskia narrowed her eyes, but she couldn’t stop her lips from twitching. “How dare you.”

“I do beg your pardon.” He glanced down at her hand, which still rested on the table. “Would you like me to hold the spoon for you?”

“Ha. I could strike you down at any moment, you know.” She firmly scooped the spoon back into the broth by herself and took a long, hot swallow…

Exactly as he’d intended her to, no doubt. Fortunately, the taste was so heavenly that she couldn’t bring herself to mind his management, just this once. The broth carried a perfect blend of flavors, including the herbs that he had given her the day before—and at that thought, Saskia suddenly paused, instinctively grasping with her free hand at the back of her gown.

No. She wasn’t even wearing yesterday’s gown anymore, but a colorfully embroidered cotton nightdress. No stalks of herbs itched against her back. Where had her bouquet gone? And—

Curse take it. When her gown had been changed, had Fabian’s poem been left out in the open, where he could see it if he only looked in the wrong direction?

Oh, gods. Suddenly, her whole body felt hot.

“Is something wrong?” In the last few months, his dark brown hair had lengthened until it brushed against the fine black wool of his collar. Now, the long, soft-looking strands slid over his face as he leaned forward, as if they were trying to tempt her into brushing them away.

“I’m fine.” She curled the fingers of her free hand tightly around her faded patchwork quilt. It was not an impressively royal bedcover, the sort that really ought to adorn the terrifying Witch Queen of Kitvaria’s bed, but it had been far too beloved a point of comfort to give up when she’d finally moved back into this castle—the quilt Mrs. Haglitz had sewn and given to her when she’d finally reached safety.

She’d never expected anyone else to see it here.

It was impossible to look properly haughty or regal while half-lying against a stack of pillows, prickling with embarrassment and barely able to lift a spoon, but Saskia forced her gaze to stop darting around the room. If Fabian hadn’t yet glimpsed the embarrassing evidence that she’d kept his poem—no, that she’d cherished it, carrying it with her—she could at least prevent herself from giving away its location now.

“I am fine, ” she repeated sternly, and she lifted the soup spoon once more, refusing to allow her aching arm to visibly tremble with effort.

“As you say, Your Majesty.” Fabian’s voice was gently skeptical, but he sat back without an argument, digging his own spoon into the meaty, spicy-smelling ragout that he’d been given as his meal. “So, the hunt for the poisoner is still ongoing. It was thought that every visitor for Winter’s Turning was long gone—and Morlokk is certain that all of the official visitors are, because he attended them to their carriages—but most of them arrived with large retinues of servants and other attendants. Any one of those could have slipped away during the confusion and found a hiding place until the time felt right.”

“There are so many hiding places in this castle…” Saskia tapped the spoon against her bowl, thinking it through. “They were definitely here yesterday afternoon when they left that pot of coffee outside my door. Was it already snowing hard by then?”

“If they left immediately afterwards, they may have made it out of the castle, but they couldn’t have gone far along the mountain pass. The storm hit in the early evening. No one could travel through that.”

“It would have been sensible for them, regardless, to wait until the sun went down to make their escape. Otherwise, they would have been spotted by my crows on their daily guard-flights around the mountainside. On the other hand… could they have gone underneath the castle, following the goblin tunnels?”

“I’ll ask Morlokk if any of the goblins have been sent to comb those yet. The two I know about were on their way to fetch a physician, so they wouldn’t have stopped to let us know if they saw any signs of passage there.”

“ Physicians. ” Saskia rolled her eyes. “As if I need one of them fussing around me.”

Fabian’s eyes narrowed, and he set down his spoon with a small but distinctive clink, his expression suddenly astonishingly authoritative. “And yet, you will allow the physician to inspect you, to be certain that there’s nothing more we can do to aid in your recovery. Yes?” His voice was harder than she’d ever heard it.

Too baffled to be annoyed, she frowned at him. “You know just as well as I do that the spell I cast removed the poison. Why bother asking someone else—not even a magic-worker!—what we both know already to be true?”

“Because everyone in this castle needs to know the same.” Fabian’s voice didn’t soften. “Mrs. Haglitz was up all night with you. I’ve never seen Morlokk so shaken. They both need that reassurance, even if you don’t.”

Saskia held and matched his gaze… and then sighed. “Oh, very well,” she muttered.

Even the most wicked and unfeeling of queens wouldn’t choose to make Mrs. Haglitz weep again.

“I’ll let him poke and prod me,” she grumbled, “but in exchange, I want you to promise that you’ll keep me updated on everything, no matter how much the others may want to shield me from bad news. And—oh, gods.” She sagged back against the pillows, letting the spoon slip from her hands onto the tray. “I’m going to have to tell Mirjana about all of this, aren’t I?”

“Mm.” His lips twitched as his eyelids lowered. “If you do take a day or two to rest beforehand, you could simply explain that you wished to speak to her before anyone else, but your cruel staff members didn’t allow you to think of any difficult or unpleasant matters in your fragile, invalid state.”

“Most amusing.” She rolled her eyes at him. “No, you can bring me my speaking box in an hour or so, and I’ll deal with her then.” There was no use in putting it off much longer. “However…”

The bowl of soup was nearly finished. Her stomach still hurt, but it felt warm and full, and a great weight was pulling down on her eyelids.

“Just to make Mrs. Haglitz happy,” she said, fighting down a yawn, “I might close my eyes for a little while, first.”

“Very wise, my queen.” Fabian leaned over her to rearrange her pillows, bringing her back to a prone position.

His arm felt warm and firm around her back. His face was calm and intent on his work, but she breathed in his bergamot scent with every moment.

She’d never welcomed anyone like him before into the intimacy of this bedchamber, where all of her deepest weaknesses were laid bare. Somehow, though, it felt utterly right to have him here.

“Fabian,” she murmured as her eyes fell closed, “you don’t have to leave the room while I sleep if you don’t wish to.”

Warm, familiar fingers brushed against her cheek for the most fleeting and precious of moments. “Don’t worry, my queen. I’m not going anywhere.”