Chapter Twenty-Eight
Anton’s workshop, it turns out, is not far away.
Like on Anell, the hallway we emerge into sparkles with a glass mosaic, only the fragments are smaller, shimmering like glitter under the skylight above.
There are guards everywhere, Anton tells me—though he knows their stations well, so he pulls me swiftly into a corridor hidden behind a statue at the far end.
At least it isn’t dark like the tunnels on the isle, the light from the other side leaking through in swaths of red and blue.
Minutes later, we reach a grand parlor that is used as a study, he tells me, and is reserved for the residents of the palace.
The room is elongated with high, arching windows, the space divvied into multiple seating areas.
It isn’t empty. A gathering of women curl onto a sofa, some sitting on the floor beneath in a crescent before the grand hearth.
If they are residents, I wonder if they are members of his Glory Court. Women he rescued under the guise of a harem, now in the comfort of his palace until they can be safely reintegrated into society.
They have yet to notice us. Past a shelf, Anton grabs a tome and hands one to me, and we use them to hide our faces until we can make for the exit near the back.
Another hidden hallway—tunnel feels too shabby a word, considering the sky-high glass ceiling above—and finally Anton halts before two tall, narrow double doors.
The inside of the workshop is long, with rows of Palladian windows ornamented by painted ironwork on the right.
To the left, the wall is wrought with shelves that hold tomes, journals, stacks of papers.
Tools of every variety. Small statues, glass trinkets.
At the far end is a great, unlit furnace behind a workstation with small metal tables, blowpipes, and large shears stacked along each one.
The real marvel, however, is the elongated worktable stretching its length.
Or several, I’m realizing, each holding different projects.
Cut glass, sheaves of it, lay scattered next to more iron tools I don’t recognize.
Tubes rimmed in gold with legs, similar to the looking glass Anton showed me on Anell but much larger.
Magnifying glasses the size of a dinner plate.
Jewelry. Halberds and other weaponry, most half finished, chunks of cut metal scattered alongside them.
“Is it everything you thought it would be and more?” Anton quips with a lazy sort of sarcasm, shoving his hands into his pockets. Then he mumbles, “At least the sot didn’t throw out all my belongings.”
I assume he means Gustav.
“Show me your favorite project,” I say, making a show of casually perusing his shelves.
“How about least favorite?” But then, as his gaze crawls over the space, he perks up. Goes rigid. “Where in the blasted souls—”
He marches past the table, scans the rest of the room. “That bastard. That absolute rat.”
“What is it?”
“It’s missing. He took it. Destroyed it, probably.
I wouldn’t be surprised to learn it’s at the bottom of the river.
Or maybe he gave it to Sadira so she might parade around Razam in the damned thing and make a mockery of me.
” Before I can demand clarification, he bends and snatches something off the floor—then tosses it so that it clanks and rolls and lands at my feet.
I stoop to pick it up, my vision a cluster of spiraling stars. My breath hitches, though, as it sharpens into focus.
It’s a small hellebore formed with shards of glass.
It matches the dress he brought to Anell. The gown I wore when I became the Fate of Morta. But I can’t tell him that, can’t tell him that he gave me the dress—had it altered, even—so that I might wear it for the final performance.
So that he might slight Illian in doing so.
“There goes the last remnant of a gown I spent years crafting in such painstaking detail it nearly drove me mad.” At that, he plops into a chair. Folds his arms like a child denied his treats and blows a gust to shoot a lock of hair from his eyes.
Once again, I have to suppress a laugh. I think that now, I have truly seen him at his worst. I’ve seen so many versions of him, it’s as if he’s a figurine in my hands, and I’ve examined him from every angle beneath a glaring, unflattering light.
The drunkard. The philanderer. The petulant, spoiled boy.
And still he’s so beautiful. Even here, with that painted scowl, his legs kicked out, his head tossed back underneath a bar of sunlight piping through the window from between a stretch of cloud.
“The gown,” I say, teasing. “Had you planned on wearing it yourself, Majesty?”
He doesn’t rise to my bait. “Ademi would have worn it on our wedding day. Lucky me to have avoided such a shackling.”
Princess Ademi, the Lord Sovereign of Serai’s niece. I recall what Gustav told me. They wrote letters. She visited often. But the summer they were set to make it official, she called it off, and he’s refused to speak of it since. I think it hurt him more than he wants to admit.
“I dare you to tell me the full truth,” I say. “About her. The engagement. Why it really ended.” I’ve been longing to know. Besides, I’m starting to think his aversion to love is more than just Moranya’s curse. It’s an existing wound she merely ripped open, and one I need to understand.
“What will you give me in return?”
“I don’t have much to give,” I say.
He presses a thumb to his lips. “I disagree. There are a great many things you refuse to give me.”
“Such as?”
“A kiss,” he says. “At a time of my choosing.”
“You vowed not to touch me like that unless I invited it.”
“If I recall, it was you who set your lips to mine.”
“I was feverish!”
“Feverish enough to let your inhibitions down and claim what you wanted. This time, Vasalie, I would ask that you try it knowing full well what you are doing. Do it afraid.”
“Absolutely not.”
“You’re the one prying into my love life,” he says, flippant. “Interesting, that. One can’t help but wonder why.” I don’t miss the slight, sarcastic grin making a crescent of his lips, though still he avoids my gaze. “Decide if you wish to pay the cost for pressing on such a bruise.”
I skirt my gaze toward the shelves, biting my lip against the flush of heat along my neck and cheeks.
A kiss.
“I’m not asking for your virtue, Vasalie. I’m asking for you to let yourself have something you want. Do you think I haven’t noticed the way you long for me in return?”
I gulp a steadying breath, only to feel even more unmoored.
“Decide,” he says, impatient.
“A chaste kiss,” I say. “Closemouthed.” I can’t handle more. Not from him.
Not when he’s right. I long for him so deeply. I long for him like a hibiscus in need of rain, its leaves withering and ready to fall. Yet I know that when rain finally comes, it will be a monsoon. It will uproot and destroy what’s left if I can never make him mine.
“Absolutely not,” he says. “If I wish to kiss you until the moon wakes and wanes, I shall do it. The kiss is at my behest. But I vow it to be a single kiss. Only one, and nothing more.”
My breath seems to vibrate in my chest.
The air grows still and silent.
Still, he does not look at me.
“I want the full story for such a price,” I say. “Leave nothing out.”
To my surprise, he agrees. And he doesn’t hold back.
“Ademi was always my father’s choice for me, ever since we were little,” he begins, his gaze still empty, tilted toward the glass dome above.
“I visited Serai when I was ten, spent several weeks there. I attended courses with her. Toured the land. When I came home, she and I exchanged letters, even at such a young age. It felt natural, our friendship, though we both knew what would come of it in the end.”
I listen intently as he speaks, but so too do I pad my way softly to the shelves.
“No formal arrangement was made, however. The Lord Sovereign was concerned about the state of Miridran—and more so after my father’s announcement to split the country.
But Ademi and I kept in touch through it all.
She traveled to Miridran over the next few summers.
And later, when my father died, she was the only one I made my grief known to.
I found it easier to face my pain with a pen rather than spill it before people who would shower me with their pity, well meaning as it was.
Ademi, however…” A sigh. “She said that the best path through mourning is straight through its heart. To feel it deeply, because only through the rungs of heartache would I climb a ladder out of its pit.”
Silence lingers for a moment, and I give him the space to sort his thoughts. It allows me a moment to sweep across a line of books.
“We spoke about all the ways we would make our kingdoms a better place. I hadn’t been crowned yet, but the time was drawing near.
We started planning, talking policies, debating, all of which we continued through our letters over the following months.
She had so much faith in me. Finally, we saw each other at the next Gathering, when I was about to turn eighteen. It would have been nine years ago now.”
Nine years ago. That would have been the same Gathering where Copelan and Esmee performed together. Where Illian made her an offer.
“What began as a friendship formed across ocean and ink became something more. Ademi saw a side of me I never showed to anyone else. What she didn’t know, however, were the other sides of myself I kept hidden.
It seemed everyone only ever saw one angle of me, when in fact there were many—including the reputation I was curating.
I was careful not to let it show at the Gathering, but she left one week into it, when her mother grew sick.
I sent her even more frequent letters after that. ”