Violie
and Leopold avoid leaving their cabin as much as possible for the next day and a half, Leopold sneaking down to the galley only twice for their food rations. The second time, he tells he overheard the cook warning a deckhand not to drink too heavily before his shift, lest he go overboard like Aylan.
While it’s a relief that the man’s death is assumed to be an accident, wishes Leopold hadn’t heard the man’s name. His voice cracks when he says it and she knows those two syllables will haunt his sleep.
never knew the name of the first person she killed; she’d barely even seen his face. She’d been walking home from her lessons at the palace in Bessemia one night, a few months after the empress had recruited her, and a man had leapt from the shadows and attacked her. She’d stabbed him with the penknife she kept in her boot, reaching around to embed the blade in the back of his neck, severing his spinal cord and reducing him to a motionless heap at her feet in a matter of seconds. Her hand had shaken the entire time, but she’d succeeded in killing him. She remembers the man’s dead eyes and the blood that pooled beneath his fallen body.
She suspected then that the empress had arranged it, a way to test ’s skills as well as her stomach for violence. Now she is sure of it.
When the ship docks in Glenacre port, on Friv’s southeastern shore, Leopold and disembark, paying the captain the rest of what they owe him. manages small talk, spinning her story about the fictional sister she’s staying with and promising to try the raspberry jam tarts from a bakery in town the captain recommends. Leopold, however, hangs back silent, though supposes that’s for the best, given his accent.
They find an inn to stay the night in, on the outskirts of Glenacre, though they only book a single room in an effort to save money. At dinner, they go over their plans for the next day.
“I found a mail cart leaving for Eldevale at dawn. The driver said he wasn’t supposed to accept passengers but would make an exception if we could pay fifteen asters each. I tried bargaining, but he wouldn’t go lower.”
’s stomach sinks. After the inn in Temarin, passage on the ship, and their room and dinner at the inn tonight, they only have twenty asters left. It’s also a full day’s journey from Glenacre to Eldevale in a carriage, and assumes food isn’t provided by the mail cart.
“Is there another way to get there?” she asks.
Leopold shakes his head. “A private carriage will cost more. There’s a passenger carriage that would be eight asters a person, but it doesn’t leave for another five days.”
“During which time, we would run through all of our asters on room and board anyway,” says with a sigh.
Leopold nods. “We’re out of Temarin now,” he says. “I can sell my ring or my cloak.”
“Your ring is still too recognizable,” she says. “Especially in a port town where Temarin’s news reaches more easily. I’m not sure you’ll find any interest in your cloak here, either.”
“Why not?” Leopold asks, frowning. “It’s a perfectly good cloak.”
“ Too good a cloak,” she says. “An impractical cloak. There isn’t much heft to it, and the ruby buckle adds nothing in the way of warmth. Frivians are practical sorts. You’re better off keeping it for now.”
She doesn’t add that flimsy as the cloak may be, he’ll certainly be grateful for the warmth once they’re tucked away in the mail cart.
“What, then?” Leopold asks as scans the inn’s public room, darting over a group of sailors drinking, a young man and woman sitting close together and speaking softly, a group of four playing dice. “You can try to bargain with the driver, but he seemed stubborn—”
“No need for that,” says, her gaze lingering on the group playing dice. They were there when she and Leopold sat down, and if the collection of empty ale glasses and the red tinge to their cheeks are anything to go by, they’ve been there for quite a while now. One of the men is a sailor, judging by his suntanned skin and weather-beaten face. The other man is older, with gray hair and a long beard. The two women are courtesans— has no tangible way of knowing this, but she spent enough time around courtesans growing up to recognize that they’re at work.
“How are you at dice?” she asks, not taking her eyes from the table. One of the women leans close to the older man, whispering something in his ear that must distract him thoroughly, since he fails to notice the other woman swapping a die for an identical one from her pocket.
“Good,” Leopold says, following her gaze. “I win all the time.”
resists the urge to laugh at the confidence in his voice. If there’s one thing she knows about dice, it’s that there is no being good at them, and if Leopold did, indeed, win all the time, it had more to do with not wanting to best a spoiled king than any talent on his part.
“Let’s put those skills to work, then,” she says, passing him the bag of asters.
Leopold falters. “But if I lose…,” he starts.
“You won’t,” she says with a smile, starting over toward the table and letting Leopold follow in her wake. “Any chance my husband can join your game?” she asks, and though she directs the question at the men, her eyes linger on the women, who exchange a wary look. “We’ll even buy a round of drinks,” she adds. “Will one of you help me carry them?”
The men agree easily enough, welcoming Leopold to the table with boisterous shouts and slurred words. The younger woman follows toward the bar, her forehead creased in a frown. She introduces herself as Ephelia.
“We want no trouble,” tells her as they wait at the bar for six pints of ale. “You have a good game going. How many weighted dice do you have?”
The woman glares at her. “Four,” she admits.
“Of course,” says with a smile. “You have to switch them out to avoid suspicion. Even drunks have a stroke of sense from time to time.”
“What do you want, if not trouble?” Ephelia asks.
“I want in,” says with a shrug. “Not for much, fifteen asters—let’s make it twenty, since I’m buying this round of drinks.”
“I don’t suppose we have much of a choice,” Ephelia says. “If I say no, you’ll give us up, I assume.”
Part of wants to deny it, but she can’t. She leans her hip against the bar and fixes the woman with a long look. “Yes,” she tells her. “But I can offer a little extra, too, for the trouble. A ruby, this big.” She holds her hand up to demonstrate. She’s not sure why she does it—blackmail is more than enough to get her the asters she needs—but the idea of taking coins from women who need them, women like her mother, leaves her feeling ill. Leopold’s conscience might be rubbing off on her, she thinks, which is unfortunate, since a conscience is something neither of them can afford any longer.
“And I’m supposed to take your word for it? For all I know it’s nothing but paste, if it exists at all,” Ephelia says.
“Might be,” says with a shrug. “But it’s plenty more than you’ll have if I walk over to that table and tell those men you’ve been fleecing them.”
“Fine,” the woman bites out.
The barkeep sets a tray laden with six flagons of ale in front of them and passes him an aster and moves to pick up the tray.
“Wait,” the woman says, reaching into a pouch strung around her waist and withdrawing a small vial of pale green powder. It would take a more thorough inspection for to know for certain what it contains, but she has a hunch.
“Adettel root powder?” she asks. While adettel leaves are edible and commonly used across the continent in soups and stews, the roots of the plant can be toxic if ingested in large quantities. A small pinch of powder, though, is enough to render a person ill for the next few hours. Though learned most of what she knows of poisons from the empress’s lessons, adettel root powder was her mother’s preferred method for dealing with troublesome customers without losing any pay.
Ephelia shrugs, holding ’s gaze and daring her to say something about it. holds her tongue, though, and watches as Ephelia pours the powder into two of the flagons.
“Be sure you and your husband don’t drink from those,” Ephelia tells him. “Or you’ll be in for a rough evening. It’ll take hold in half an hour—hopefully that’s enough time to win you your asters.”
Not keen to take any chances, picks up two of the untainted flagons and makes her way back to Leopold, passing one to him.
He glances up at her, cheeks red. “I might not be as good at dice as I thought,” he whispers. “I never lost before, but—”
“They let you win before,” she whispers back. “How much did you lose?”
“Five asters,” he tells her.
nods, taking a sip of the ale and nearly retching. It’s warm and bitter. “Don’t worry, your luck is about to change.”
—
By the time the first man makes a mad dash out the door for the outhouse, Leopold has managed to win twenty-three asters. He manages an extra two before the other man makes his escape too.
“You’d best leave now,” Ephelia tells them, her and her companion—Gertel, has learned—counting their own coin. “If they suspect they’ve been had, they’ll likely blame two foreigners before a pair of strumpets.”
suspects she’s right, but she hesitates a moment. “Will you be all right?” she asks. Again, she’s unsure why she does. The woman seems surprised as well, exchanging a look with her friend.
“Mind your business,” Gertel says, her voice hard-edged. “Let us mind ours.”
opens her mouth to protest but quickly closes it again, considering her words. “Frivian girls are a rarity in Bessemian brothels,” she says after a moment. “If you can make your way there, you might find yourselves with more customers to choose from. The Crimson Petal offers security and the madam is a good woman who takes care of her girls. Tell her referred you.”
“Mind your business,” Gertel says again, her voice sharpening, but Ephelia meets ’s gaze, curious. isn’t sure that curiosity will be enough to convince the woman to leave her home, but it’s out of ’s hands now.
“Give me the cloak,” she says to Leopold, who’s been watching the exchange with a furrowed brow. She wonders how much of it, exactly, has pierced the bubble of ignorance he’s been enclosed in since birth. He hands the cloak over without a word and uses her dagger to cut off the ruby buckle, passing it to Ephelia. “It is real,” she tells the girl. “But wait as long as possible before trying to sell it.”
The woman has no reason to trust her, just as has no reason to trust that Ephelia won’t try to sell the jewel within the hour—though it is late enough that suspects most shops are closed—but when Ephelia nods, decides she does trust her, just this much at least.
She and Leopold make their way upstairs to their room—a small space set up with a narrow cot, a washbasin, and a threadbare rug. Leopold has already said he would sleep on the floor, and knows there is nothing to be gained by arguing with his chivalry.
“They poisoned them,” he says slowly.
nods, sitting down on the bed to remove her shoes. “Just a little,” she says. “They’ll be fine in a few hours’ time.”
“Why?” he asks.
considers how best to explain it. “There were courtesans aplenty in the Temarinian court,” she says. “Did you ever…”
“No!” he says, face flushing red. “No, I’d never.”
“There’s no shame in it,” she says, shrugging. “My mother is one, you know. Most of the men are decent sorts, she’s even liked a few of them. But some…well, addettel root powder helps. Take payment for the night, serve a nightcap, add a little powder to the man’s cup…next thing you know, he’s too sick to continue, but he can’t very well request a refund.”
Leopold stares at her like she’s just begun spouting nonsense and he can’t wrap his brain around it. She knows he doesn’t understand—how can he, given the life he’s led?—but she doesn’t like the idea of him casting judgment on Ephelia and Gertel, on her mother, on her, in some respect.
“It’s survival,” she tells him, her voice low. “It isn’t pretty or moral or just. Sometimes, all you can do is get through in one piece, however you can.”
—
The sun is barely cresting over the horizon when and Leopold leave the inn the next morning, Leopold leading the way through Glenacre’s twisting, narrow streets to where the mail cart is parked beside a small white building with a wooden sign hanging on its front that reads General Post Office . A tall wooden box with a slot for letters to be dropped into stands beside the door.
Leopold pays the driver thirty asters and he and climb into the carriage, stacks of letters and boxes all around them so that there is barely any room to move. sets a basket between them, full of stale bread and dried meats and a hunk of cheese she used the last of their money to buy from the inn’s cook.
The driver warns that he’ll be making few stops on the way to Eldevale, but neither nor Leopold complains. By this evening, will be face to face with Princess Daphne.