Violie
’s head feels like it’s crammed full of smoke and raw wool, but at least she isn’t dead. She remembers enough about what happened in Eugenia’s bedchamber to know that the fact that she is alive is little more than pure luck.
She also isn’t in a dungeon—at least not the kind she might have imagined. It’s a small room, with a door and a window, though the window is too small for a person to climb through and she knows without trying that the door is locked from the outside. But even if it isn’t, it might as well be. can barely move her limbs, let alone stand up. Her entire body feels like it is weighed down with sandbags.
So much for a quick and peaceful death. She wonders if she succeeded in killing Eugenia, or if the dowager queen is somewhere else, just as miserable as .
The door opens and lifts her head off the thin pillow, opening her eyes just wide enough to see one figure slip inside while a second lingers in the doorway. She blinks and they come into focus—Leopold and Bairre.
“The guards change in five minutes, so be quick,” Bairre tells Leopold before closing the door again.
Leopold glances at the closed door before coming toward her.
“, can you hear me?” he asks.
“A little too well,” she says, managing to shift in bed just enough to sit up a little. “I’m not deaf, I can assure you.”
Relief floods his face. “Thank the stars,” he murmurs.
Thinking about the series of calamities that brought here, she doesn’t feel as if she owes the stars much gratitude at all, but Leopold is right—she is alive.
“Daphne…,” she starts.
“She told me everything,” he says. “She shouldn’t have asked this of you.”
laughs, the movement painful. “She didn’t tell you everything, then,” she says. “Daphne didn’t ask anything of me. She suggested it, yes, but it was my decision.”
Leopold frowns. “Why?”
“Daphne pointed out that if Eugenia died while Daphne was nearby, the empress would suspect her loyalties had shifted and it’s better for the time being that she believes Daphne is loyal to her,” says.
“I understand that, but there were plenty of other ways,” he says. “You should have talked to me about it, . She’s my mother.”
“Exactly,” replies. When his frown deepens, she sighs. “You’ve said plenty of times now that you hate her for what she did to Sophie, that you’d kill her yourself.”
“You think I didn’t mean that?” he asks, shaking his head. “That I have any compassion left for her?”
“I do,” says. Leopold opens his mouth, but before he can argue, continues. “I think that if we’d discussed it, you would have insisted on being the one to kill her, that you would have seen it as your responsibility. And you never would have forgiven yourself for it.”
“You think I’m that weak?” he asks, taking a step back. “I know you see me as a sheltered, spoiled boy, , and over the last few weeks, I’ve proven that time and again—”
“I don’t see you as sheltered or spoiled,” interrupts. “Well, maybe sheltered, but in the same way you see me as being some kind of bloodthirsty murderess.”
He pauses. “I don’t see you like that, either,” he says.
bites her lip. “If I’d waited for you, discussed it with you, let you be the one to take her life, you would have done it without question, Leopold. But you aren’t a murderer. And I didn’t want to make you one.”
Leopold doesn’t answer, so continues. “And beyond that, she is your mother. She’s Gideon and Reid’s mother. Would you have been able to look them in the eye and tell them what you’d done?”
He winces.
“Sophronia made me promise to protect you, and I don’t think she was only talking about keeping you alive, Leopold.”
watches as Leopold’s throat works.
“Daphne said that Sophie released you from that promise,” he says finally.
shrugs, even that small movement sending another bolt of pain through her. “She did,” she says. “But maybe I don’t want to see you become a murderer either, Leo.”
For a moment, Leopold falls silent. “Thank you, Vi,” he says quietly.
“Don’t thank me,” she says. “Your mother’s still alive and I’ll hang for attempted murder.” She pauses. “Do they hang murderers in Friv? I know they burn them in Cellaria, but I’m not sure—”
“You aren’t going to hang or burn,” Leopold says. “I promise you that. Do you trust me?”
looks at him, so different from the boy who appeared out of thin air in the cave nearly a month ago, fragile and wounded. Then, she couldn’t even trust him to follow simple directions like stay quiet or don’t go running back to Kavelle, where everyone wants you dead. Now, though?
“I trust you,” she tells him.