Chapter Fifteen #2
affected seem to . . . it drives them to . . .” His throat worked. “. . . want to end that pain, in the most immediate and
final way.”
Nausea rose in me, swift and brutal. I chose my words with equal care to his. “And it was the same . . . for your mother?”
After a moment, he nodded. “I believe so.”
“Why would Glenmoor do such a thing?” I asked. “My God, how do people not know about this? The scandal sheets and newspapers
treat him as if he hung the moon.”
“Building orphanages named for the beloved late heir and ingratiating yourself with Parliament by paying off debts will do
wonders as a character reference,” Foxcourt said.
“And now he’s home secretary . . .” I stood and began pacing, only to whirl back to him. “You think he murdered your uncle
in order to take the position for himself.”
Surprise flickered on Foxcourt’s face. “Yes.”
I couldn’t stop my gasp any more than I could escape the realization braiding itself together with vicious clarity. “You think Glenmoor poisoned the King. That’s who was at the palace, wasn’t it? And he . . .”
The blood drained from my face. She’ll be his prisoner.
“You’re nearly there,” Foxcourt said softly. When I couldn’t bring myself to say it, he glanced at me expectantly, waiting
for my guess. Or . . . hoping for it?
“He was named regent in the event of the King’s death, by Parliament’s vote and the King’s wishes,” I said. “If the King dies
now, before Eleanor is eighteen, he’ll have power over her.”
“He’ll have power over the entire kingdom,” Foxcourt said. “He will be the one to make the most important decisions, including
trade agreements with Gallia.”
I began pacing again. “You think he’s in line with Gallia?”
“I think they supported him financially,” Foxcourt said, “with the hope of him serving as their own puppet. A great deal of
damage can be done in two years, including asking Parliament to extend the regency until Eleanor is twenty-five or until she’s
married—all the while refusing every marriage offer to her, as he must be the one to approve it.”
I pressed a hand to my stomach, feeling as if I might actually vomit. All women were prisoners of our society, whether they
recognized it or not. Even Eleanor, the heir to the throne of Albion, had been reduced to a game piece in the hands of men.
“Eleanor is young,” Foxcourt said, “but she has a vision for the future of our kingdom, one in which the fairyborn aren’t
punished for their existence and women aren’t constrained at every turn. But under Glenmoor’s thumb, subject to his cruel
whims—it would be unsurvivable.”
His eyes were imploring, all but burning with the unspoken. Do you understand?
Because this—this was the root of it all, of every decision he made, of why he had imprisoned me, of why I’d been drawn into this conspiracy.
This was what drove him.
Protecting Eleanor from the very man he believed had taken both his mother and his great-uncle from him.
Foxcourt nurtured his secrets and guarded them jealously. It had cost him something to reveal all of this to me, including
his dangerous suspicions about Glenmoor. Whether he had come to trust me or not, I could recognize this for what it was: a
peace offering. The act of a partner, not a jailer.
Amends.
I turned back to him. “You say that, but regardless of Eleanor’s wishes, it’s Parliament who writes the laws.”
“But the monarch who gives assent to them,” Foxcourt countered. “And approves appointments. And dictates the very pulse of
society. The queens of our country have always been legendary, and her reign will be no different—when it is time for it. She will change things for the better.”
I was ashamed to realize I’d never thought about it that way. As archaic as the institution of monarchy was, as much as it
reinforced the rigidity of societal inequality, Albion had yet to see someone attempt to wield it as a force for change rather
than the status quo.
“You care about her greatly,” I noted.
“She is like a sister to me,” Foxcourt said. “Reddy and I have known her since she was a child, and we have seen her lose
everything. I won’t let Glenmoor take her freedom, too, nor will I stand idly by as the traitor ascends to the height of power.
I’ll die before I allow it to happen.”
One only had to look at him to know that every steel-edged word was true. His fury radiated from him, a streak of ice in the
warm study.
There were so many questions I had, but only one I lacked the courage to ask. There had been an unusual momentum to our conversation,
an almost exhilarating sense of unraveling. I couldn’t risk touching the jagged piece of his soul that would send him retreating
back through an opaque veil of secrets.
But the question was there all the same, and it burned in me. Why would Glenmoor kill your mother?
And why had he never found justice for her?
“If Glenmoor is truly a monster,” I asked instead, “if he’s responsible for your mother’s and great-uncle’s deaths . . . why
would the King ask Parliament to make him regent? Surely there are others in the line of succession ahead of him.”
“There are,” Foxcourt said. “But none who have become like a son to the King. But I’ve sensed a shift in the last few months—the
King is less effusive about Glenmoor and more timid in his decisions. I suspect Glenmoor may be manipulating him through blackmail
or some other lever.”
“Could it be a perfume?” I asked. Mama had told me of one, that it was the sole perfume from the Treasury’s pages even her
father had refused to blend.
“I don’t know,” Foxcourt said, retrieving the quill he had set down onto his unfinished letter. “But I am working to find out.”
I nodded as I turned to the table where the Treasury waited. “Then I’d better get to work as well.”
But as the hours passed and the pages turned, I was no closer to finding Immortal Rose in the Treasury. I only sank deeper
into a bleak mire of helpless anger and despair.
“Have you found it?”
I looked up at Foxcourt’s question. “No. Not in the five minutes since you last asked.”
“It’s been ten,” he said, folding his finished letter. “And I’m only wondering about the murderous expression on your face.”
I turned that very expression on him, unamused, but for the first time, my ire wasn’t directed at him.
“Well?” he pressed. “What is it?”
“I haven’t found Immortal Rose yet, no,” I said. “But I’ve come across what appears to be the King’s Blend perfume, or rather Breath of the Gods, for the revitalization of the body and mind. This is quite the scent: mint, bergamot, and a few other surprising notes.”
“Such as?” Foxcourt prompted.
“The fairy flower sweetfeather,” I said.
His brow creased. “From the old ballad?”
Cinnamon, sweetfeather, and thyme, to make the fairy wings shine . . .
“Yes,” I said, picking up one of the reference books on fairy lore I’d been consulting—a journal of a half-mad man who claimed
to have once visited the fairy realm. “Sweetfeather has healing and invigorating properties, though it’s generally accepted
to be extinct in our world.”
Naturally, if anyone were to have access to it, it would be the King and the King alone.
“Then how in God’s name was Rosebourne making it for him?” Foxcourt asked.
“There were a number of rare oils in the archive.” My bitterness was sour on my tongue. “And because sweetfeather contains
magic, there is no bargain required of the perfumer or the intended recipient. A bargain could substitute for it, I expect,
but there’s none listed here—unlike many other entries.”
All the bargains had been written in an entirely different hand from the one that had transcribed the formulations.
Given the darker ink, it had been years, if not centuries, later.
Meaning . . . what, precisely? That they had been devised only after the fairies had left Albion and their floras had withered to dust and memory?
It felt like a strange, cruel corruption of the art, blending pain and loss into the formulation as surely as the distilled
oils.
The flare of anger lit in my chest again. After so many years of lessons from Mama, after reading her journal countless times,
there had never been any indication there was another way to create the perfumes outside of that sacrificial exchange.
“And that is a problem how?” Foxcourt pressed, unable, ever, to leave something alone.
“Because until I read the entries in this book, I had no idea that these fairy plants were the original source of magic for
the perfumes,” I said, my throat tight, “nor did I know that the bargain could be made with the customer rather than myself.”
That I needn’t have carved off pieces of myself for people who did not deserve them.
Foxcourt rose from the desk and drew closer. “I don’t understand—bargain? You referenced a cost to the King, but I thought
you were speaking of the materials needed.”
I let out a bitter laugh, the pages of the Treasury blurring before me. “Magic is not an infinite well to be drawn from. It
is a transaction—alchemy. A perfumer might distill these fairy plants, and if I’m understanding this correctly, the resulting
oil would infuse the perfume with the plants’ inherent magic.”
“All right, I’m following,” he said.
“But I was raised to believe the perfumer must offer the source of this magic something of equal value to draw upon it, to shape the magic. For example, if I was asked to create
a perfume to attract the love of someone, I would need to offer the magic my own love or attraction for someone, or someone
else’s love or attraction to me.”
Foxcourt absorbed this silently for a moment. “Or the customer would.”
“Yes,” I said, tasting that bitterness again. “Though I suppose they’d pay to avoid that.”
“Or if you wanted to create a perfume that enhanced the wearer’s beauty . . .” Foxcourt continued, his presence lingering behind me. A ghost of sensation brushed one of the loose curls at the nape of my neck. “. . . a perfumer might offer something of their own beauty to their magic.”
I took a steadying breath, tucking one of the loose white curls behind my ear.