Chapter Seven #2
“But then, who would have switched out the real perfume for the poisoned one?” I asked.
“My court is full of vipers and spiders, girl,” the King said. “All of them would, and gladly.”
“That’s not true,” Eleanor said, smoothing his knotted strings of hair from his face. “You are beloved and well respected.”
Foxcourt sent me a sharp look of warning. I bit my tongue so hard I tasted blood.
“I will find the conspirator and root them out,” Foxcourt said. The cold force of his words sent an involuntary shudder through
me.
The King roughly cleared his throat, the sound painful. “Glenmoor and his police will see to any further questioning of the
staff. You, my boy, have always been better suited for unscrupulous tasks.”
If I hadn’t glanced at Foxcourt, I would have missed the nearly imperceptible tightening of his lips, the tensing of his arms
that made me think he’d curled his hands into fists behind his back.
The Duke of Glenmoor. Foxcourt’s half brother. I carefully stowed the observation away to examine again later, returning to the true matter at hand.
“If this is not the poisoned perfume in question,” I began, setting the flacon down on the bedside table, “what is it?”
The King peered up at me the way one would regard a small, muttonheaded child. “Immortal Rose.”
I let out a shocked laugh—but I was the only one. The faces around me were deathly, irrevocably serious.
“As in the old fairy story?” I clarified. “About Queen Titania?”
“The very same,” Foxcourt drawled. “There is a thread of truth in every legend that keeps it alive.”
“What about that story could possibly be true?” I challenged. “That King Augustine’s wife was a fairy after all? That she
was saved from an adder’s bite by breathing in the scent of a golden rose that had been born from a drop of Venia’s blood?”
As I said the words, that strange dream came over me again, of the golden figure in the garden. The flower was said to have
been the goddess’s final gift before the ancient fairy gods had receded with the coming of the new faith.
“While Queen Titania was not a fairy, she was restored by a perfume your ancestor created, named after one of Venia’s many
epithets, the Immortal Rose,” Eleanor said. “I believe that’s where your family name was derived from, was it not? The myth
of Venia being born amid the roses in the garden of the gods.”
My mind took in the information layer by layer, the way I would unravel the scent trail of a perfume.
Eleanor gestured toward the flacon again. “The bottle has been kept in the Rosebourne archive for centuries, and in that time,
the last of the perfume has dried out—”
“And become fucking useless!” the King interjected, sending a spray of dark blood and spittle over his blankets.
“I’m sure you understand,” Eleanor said, ignoring the outburst, “that if the poison is magic in nature, the cure can only
be the same. William Rosebourne believed it was within his power to re-create Immortal Rose, and given—”
“The man was blown to high heaven with hellfire,” the King groused.
“—his untimely demise,” Eleanor continued, “the task now falls upon you. I believe Foxcourt has outlined the terms of our
proposed arrangement?”
Arrangement. I fought the urge to glare at the monument to arrogance beside me. What a way to debone the reality to ensure it went down
smoothly.
“Yes,” I said. “I am to create this perfume and will receive a full pardon for my efforts. Should I refuse, I will be returned
to Fairgate.”
Would I, though? Having seen the King in this state, knowing a dark truth being kept from all but those closest to him, would
I be allowed to live to tell of it?
Yes, I realized. I would be allowed to live because I would not be allowed to refuse them. There was not a single doubt in
my mind that Foxcourt would do whatever necessary to apply the correct amount of pressure needed to break me. However strong
my will was, he’d already shown his to be an equal match.
I could not say no, but every coin had another side, and when I flipped this one, a second truth was revealed: for all the
King’s power, his stores of treasure, his great many palaces, I had the one thing he could not simply take or demand, as his forefathers had taken everything else.
Refusing him would amount to treason, and there was only one end for traitors. But how had Foxcourt so eloquently put it at
Fairgate? Neither of us will get what we desire.
I had nurtured my hatred of William Rosebourne over the years, all but luxuriating in it. It fed itself on every memory of
Mama’s gray face the morning of her death. Each time the old scars on my back pulled uncomfortably. On those days I had been
hungry and cold, and watched innocent neighbors waste away and die of fever, never knowing there might be perfumes to restore
their health.
I had gone to sleep at night imagining how I would take my time carving the heart from Rosebourne’s chest, how his blood would
no doubt smell of rotted roses. How I would make a cut for each year he’d denied Mama what was rightfully hers and for what
he had made me—a baseborn child who was the only remnant of an ancient family with a unique gift.
The man was already dead, but there was another way to take back what was owed. A way that would give me everything I had
ever desired: independence, justice for Mama, security.
But I would pay for it, perhaps more than I’d ever willingly give otherwise. A perfume that could heal a body of festering, poison, and venom would take its toll on me, in health or in years of my life. It was a devil’s bargain to be sure, but everything had a cost.
Everything.
“Well?” Foxcourt prompted. “Rosebourne said the perfume could be made again. Is that not the case?”
“If he believed he could re-create it, then yes, I should be able to as well,” I said. The formulation would be a well-guarded
secret, but I knew where to look for it. The only place for it. “But the creation of such a perfume will take a great deal
from me, and so I must increase its price.”
Eleanor straightened at that, casting a nervous glance at Foxcourt, whose own expression had carefully shuttered. Oh, I would
enjoy this. Every moment of it.
“Ah, and so the blood will out!” the King said with a humorless laugh, a wet, grotesque sound from deep in his chest. “I knew
there’d be more Rosebourne in you than that infernal hair. Go on, tell me what it is you want.”
“Being freed from prison and granted a pardon isn’t enough?” Foxcourt cut in icily.
I took a deep breath. My courage had never failed me before, and it wouldn’t now.
“Your Majesty, if I create this perfume for you, I would like my pardon, yes,” I began. “But I would also like you to legitimize
me as Rosebourne’s rightful heir and ensure that I am able to inherit the whole of the Rosebourne fortune and company holdings.”
The intensity of their combined shock turned the air leathery. In that moment, I was certain I could have knocked the earl
over with a single tap on his shoulder.
Foxcourt was the first to recover. His voice was low, grinding. “I beg your pardon . . .”
The words faded beneath the King’s tortured laugh.
“Impertinent chit!” he said, his brown teeth bared in a loathsome smile. But he knew what I did. His life was in my hands,
and whether he lived or died rested solely in a fateful swirl of oils and magic.
“That is, of course, within your vast influence and power,” Eleanor said, coming to stand beside me.
Her face betrayed none of it, but her essence was salted with desperation now.
“It would be a simple matter of signing documents and would be the best way to ensure you also continue to receive the King’s Blend perfume.
How clever of you to hold out for such a beneficial agreement, Uncle. ”
“Yes, well,” King Alfred muttered, “my wisdom has always been remarked upon.”
“Quite” was Foxcourt’s dry reply.
I looked upon Eleanor with a new appreciation, meeting her tentative smile and nod with one of my own. The broadsheets had
remarked upon what an accomplished horsewoman the princess was. At the tender age of sixteen, she was already proving to be
a deft hand at maneuvering ill-tempered creatures.
It would be her hands I’d place my trust in, and I had to hope that, beneath the fine silk gloves and her soft skin, there
was steel hidden there.
“Then yes,” I said, folding my hands together in front of me. “We have a bargain.”