Violie
doesn’t have Sophronia’s skill or practice in baking, but she manages a perfectly respectable imitation of the cake she and Sophronia made back in Temarin, which Sophronia then served to Eugenia: a light and fluffy cinnamon-spiced cake. In Temarin, Sophronia had studded it with fresh blueberries, but those aren’t available in Friv this time of year so substitutes a cup of red currants.
It’s the early hours of the morning when the cake is baked and cooled and finds a piece of parchment and a quill among Nellie’s kitchen supplies, for when she makes shopping lists for the errand boys. memorized Sophronia’s handwriting long before she’d ever met the girl face to face, though she never had cause to use it, and as soon as she sets the quill’s nib to the parchment, it comes flowing out.
Dear Genia,
I’d ask if you missed me but I know the answer to that. I suspect there are two people you do miss quite terribly right about now and I will give them your regards. Perhaps if you properly atone for your misdeeds against me, you will see them again. Rest assured that in the meantime, they will be quite safe with me.
S
reads the words twice through, a crease in her brow. The content of the letter doesn’t sound like Sophronia at all— can’t imagine her threatening anyone, let alone children, but that is the Sophronia that knew. Eugenia, on the other hand, saw Sophronia as a threat virtually since the first time they met. To her, Sophronia is the villain.
Ignoring the content of the message, can hear the message read in Sophronia’s voice. She isn’t sure whether or not the other girl would approve of ’s using her memory in this way, but the more thinks about it the more she believes Sophronia would approve of this charade. It might be a morally gray area, but by the standard of things has done even in the last week it is surely on the lighter end of the spectrum.
manages to sneak into Eugenia’s rooms again, this time an hour before dawn, when the castle is fast asleep. She picks the lock to enter the sitting room and tiptoes in on light feet, leaving the cake and the note on the dining table before hurrying toward the door again. She has her hand on the doorknob when a voice cuts through the silence.
“Genevieve?” Eugenia calls out. “Ring for my coffee, would you?”
Panic seizes , but she forces herself to stay calm. “Yes, ma’am,” she replies, in her best imitation of Genevieve’s stuffy Temarinian accent.
She slips out the door and closes it firmly behind her.
—
It isn’t twenty minutes later that Genevieve storms into the kitchen, eyes wide. is quick to busy herself with stirring the vat of porridge that will be served for breakfast, though her heart is beating rapidly. In truth, she’s surprised and impressed that Eugenia sent Genevieve to investigate the kitchens after finding the cake, though she shouldn’t be. Still, her timing is unfortunate—just two minutes later and Nellie would be doing her daily check of the pantry’s stock and would have been alone to assure Genevieve that no, no one in the kitchen made a cake last night at all, and how odd it was that one appeared in Lady Eunice’s room, but did she know that the castle was haunted?
Instead, it is Nellie who goes to speak with Genevieve in hushed tones, and braces herself for an accusation, which will surely lead to her being discovered. Perhaps if she makes a run for it now, she can reach the forest before…
The door closes behind Genevieve as she leaves the kitchen, and silence stretches between and Nellie for a long moment before the woman crosses the kitchen to stand beside .
“I don’t know what game you’re playing, but I’d advise you to play it more carefully, and preferably outside my kitchen,” she says softly.
’s heart slows, if only slightly. “You didn’t tell her it was me?” she asks.
Nellie pauses. “I told you I was desperate for workers after the disaster of a wedding,” she says. “I’m not about to toss the only one I’ve found to the wolves so quickly. You aren’t Frivian, are you?”
“What makes you say that?” counters.
“You know Queen Eugenia for who she is, and I’d wager she would know you as well. You’re Temarinian?”
hesitates, trying to decide whether to embrace the half-truth or confess the whole truth.
“I worked in the Temarinian palace,” she manages after a moment. “The queen hurt a friend of mine, so I decided to give the notorious Frivian ghosts a hand in haunting her for it.”
Nellie pauses again and wonders if she hears the gaps in her story, the things doesn’t say, or if she just senses it’s the truth and accepts it at that.
“You know she’s a dowager queen, not a dowager lady,” says, hoping to deflect before Nellie can question her further.
“I know enough,” Nellie says. “For what it’s worth, she was apparently quite distressed upon seeing the cake and a note left with it.”
“Good,” says.
Nellie looks at her for a long moment and gets the feeling that Nellie is very good at reading most people, but isn’t most people and she knows it. She meets Nellie’s gaze with a carefully erected edifice of blankness. Nellie’s lips purse.
“Only a fool believes they’re the smartest person in the room,” she says. “And you would be a fool to bring that trouble into my kitchens again. Understood?”
can only nod, managing to suppress her eye roll until Nellie turns her back.
—
When ’s shift in the kitchen is over, she doesn’t follow the other servants back to their quarters. Instead, she hangs back from the crowd, pretending to adjust the laces on her boots before slipping down another hallway and up the stairs, grabbing a pile of folded white bedsheets from the laundry room and meandering through the narrow, dimly lit halls. She makes her way to the royal wing. The guards standing at the entrance stop her, but when she tells them she’s been sent to refresh the linens in Princess Daphne’s room, they exchange a look.
“Don’t you people ever speak to one another?” one guard asks with a scoff. “Someone did that this morning.”
“Someone attempted that this morning,” corrects with a charming laugh. “The silly thing accidentally replaced the dirty linens with other dirty linens. I’ve been sent to correct the error.”
The guards exchange another look before one of them nods. “Be quick about it, then,” he says, stepping aside so can pass.
She makes her way to Daphne’s chambers and steps inside, bumping the door closed with her hip before setting the pile of linens on top of the small sofa by the dead fireplace. The evening light coming through the window is barely enough to see by, but can make do. She quickly gets to work searching the room for anything that Beatriz might find interesting.
knows that Daphne will have burned any letters the empress sent her, but she sifts through the ashes in the fireplace anyway, looking for any scrap that might have survived the flames. There is nothing but ash. She combs through the sitting room and bedroom, searching all of the places the empress instructed her to hide things—beneath the mattress and the slats of the bed, between loose bricks in the fireplace, under the plush rugs. She also searches the places the empress told that Sophronia was likely to hide things, like the false bottoms of her jewelry and cosmetic cases, in the linings of the gowns and coats hanging in her wardrobe, in the hollow heels of her shoes.
But finds little that will interest Beatriz—little that interests her, either. She does find a vial of stardust in the lining of Daphne’s winter cloak that she pockets, but other than that there is nothing.
has all but given up when she decides to give Daphne’s desk another look, rifling through the drawers. When she closes the one on the right side, she hears a strange, soft sound. Frowning, she opens the drawer again, and again she hears the sound. One of the quills, she realizes, is catching against something at the top of the drawer—paper, by the sound of it.
Heart leaping into her throat, reaches into the drawer and feels around. Her fingers glance over a folded-up piece of paper attached to the roof of the drawer, and a zing of triumph bolts through her as she pulls it out and unfolds it.
She can barely read in the low light, so she crosses to the window, letting the glow from the stars illuminate the page.
The letter is in the empress’s handwriting, but the excitement over that discovery dulls as soon as reads the words.
“Stars above,” she mutters under her breath before shoving the letter into her pocket and hurrying out, her mind so scattered that she barely remembers to take the pile of linens with her.
She needs to catch up with Leopold and Daphne. Now.