23. The Happy Feeling #2
“I’ll hold onto them, for now.” Meg smiles, thin-lipped. Taps a satchel at her side. “See, Riss? It’s all in hand. Go and practice The Accords with Drake, or something, until dinner. I’ll take Ara to bed. And we’ll see you tomorrow. Or not.”
Riss stares at me, then Meg, her mouth slightly parted.
Her face. It’s sort of funny.
“But, you’re not… Ara is my…”
What’s she going to say?
I’m her charge?
Her friend?
She doesn’t finish her sentence, so I’ll never know.
Meg cuts in. “Want to join Cosmer in the brig, Riss? Since you seem to be causing an OTI.”
Her face crumples. “Fine. Take her. I don’t care. I’m just trying to do my job and get my family fed, like ninety percent of us.” She rounds on Drake. “You. Come with me.”
I’m aware Drake is looking back at me.
But he’s so blurry I can’t focus on him. I look at the lights in the walls instead. How bright they are. How unnatural. They’re wonderful.
When Riss and Drake are out of sight and earshot, Meg slams into me, pushing me against the wall. She places the cool end of a gun at my neck.
And I suddenly feel very sober.
“You ever try to use blood magic on me again, and I’ll kill you. Do you understand me?”
I swallow, my eyes on the weapon. There seem to be two of it.
“Why didn’t it work on you?” I risk asking.
“No one’s going to magic me,” she says, confident, releasing me and holstering the gun. “Dezeeves knew full well what happened in there, and he saved your skin. Any ideas why?”
I shake my head.
“I’m going to find out.” She motions with her head, which makes her long hair sway. “You can stay in my cabin. There’s no way I’m going down to yours, if you and Cosmer have been having sex in there.”
“We haven’t…” And then I trail off, because I suppose, in a way, we did.
The thought makes me blush. Giggle.
And then I cry.
“Good,” Meg says, grabbing me by the hair to steer me away. “Keep crying. That means it’s wearing off.”
Meg’s cabin, on the protected Deck 7, is beautiful. She has a large porthole, and a four-poster bed large enough to sleep two, maybe even three people. A proper dresser and small wardrobe, a full-length mirror, and her own washbowl. The room smells like her – faintly floral. Violets, maybe.
“I’ll bring up your uniform from your cabin later. Do you want to borrow a nightdress, for tonight?”
“Yes, please,” I say.
She goes over to the wardrobe and opens it. It’s brimming with dresses in different colours and textures. I recognise the sheer fabric of the midnight blue dress I’d worn at the Captain’s Dinner.
The dress came from Meg.
That makes a lot of sense.
She pushes the dress aside. Pulls out a beautiful Rhavnan-made nightdress of cotton, with a fitted bodice, deep neck, lace trim and – as is the Rhavnan fashion – trumpet-like sleeves.
I used to have many similar nightdresses when I lived in the Palace.
Now, to wear something like this, just to sleep in, would feel completely frivolous. Embarrassing even.
But, as she passes it to me, I find myself taking it, longingly. It’s like being presented with something from home. In fact –
Of course.
“Did you live in the Palace, Meg?” I ask.
She nods, closing the wardrobe.
“When?”
“For about two years. Until the war.”
I frown, raking my memories. I don’t recall Meg at all, who, I’m guessing, is only a couple of years or so older than me, and so would have been taught with the other palace children.
“That would mean you were there at the same time I was. But I don’t remember you.”
“You wouldn’t. My role was to be unseen.”
“Your role?”
She speaks boredly. “When I was fifteen, I was sold by my parents to the Queen. My blood magic made me valuable, and of interest to her. I was put to work under the Master of Spies, but I was more his slave for sex than I was his assistant. As you can imagine, I hated every minute, and joined a ship as soon as the war broke out.” She puts her tanned hands together. “End of story. No repeats.”
Sold by her parents?
I’m shocked, at first. Until I remind myself it’s not all that different from me, being sent away by mine, to Hevalla. Maybe we have more in common than we think.
I’d never been raped, though.
“Sisters. I’m so sorry.”
“Do not feel sorry for me. I certainly don’t. I made exceptionally good use of my time in the Palace.”
She’s like Old Mother’s balls of yarn. Every time I lift her, more unravels.
“Do you remember me?”
Her gaze glides down me like fabric scissors.
“The Queen had an odd interest in you. I thought it was because your mother was a prominent figure in her court. But, now–”
In a sudden rush of trust, I lift the sleeve of my blouse.
“Maybe you can help me. I have these, and I don’t remember getting them. Riss thinks they’re track marks.”
Meg steps closer, stretching her neck over my arm like a swan. “A doctor from Lartos was living in the Palace and was responsible for your care. So, yes. They could be.”
“Why would they be injecting me?” I ask her. “And with what?”
“I don’t know. But I do know why you can’t remember being injected.
” She speaks slowly, enunciating every word in her oddly drawling voice.
“The Queen’s talent is that she can make anyone forget anything.
It’s a way she protects her secrets. Prevents her court from knowing what the Rhavna outside the dome is really like. ”
She smirks to herself. It’s the happiest I think she’s ever looked.
“She thought she’d used her magic to make me forget things – like the cruelty of my master. Of course, I was smarter than to let her know it never worked on me.”
Completely sober now, I’m wary of her. Frightened, even, to be in the same room as her.
I manage to choke, “To be immune to talents like that – even the Queen’s, you were—”
“Probably one of the most dangerous people in Rhavna? Oh, I know it.” Her smile widens as she gestures to her bed. “Let’s find out what the Queen didn’t want you to remember. Shall we?”