13
I DARED NOT let my eyes widen in horror or the guards would be on to me; to buy myself some time, I curtsied deeply, to a slow count of three.
The prince, when I finally dared to look at him again, seemed amused. He gestured broadly. “You are finished here, one hopes?”
“Yes, thank you,” I said, managing to keep any tremor out of my voice. “If you wish to question the knights yourself, perhaps I can meet you tomorrow morning—”
“Oh no,” he said lightly, his smile hardening. “I rather think you’re meeting with me now. Wait for me upstairs, if you would be so kind.”
I had no option but to climb the stairs. Behind me, the prince said, “Who remembers what my token looks like? Right. And did Maid Dombegh bear my token?”
“But, sir, we weren’t to start that protocol until Comonot arrives!”
“We’re starting it tonight. Only someone with my token speaks in my name.”
“Were we wrong to let her down here, Captain?” said John.
Lucian Kiggs paused before answering: “No. You followed your instincts about her, and they did not lead you astray. But it’s time to tighten things up, hm? The palace will be full of strangers soon.”
He started up the stairs; I hurried to reach the top before he did. The look he gave me when he reached the top was less amused. He acknowledged Mikey the Fish’s salute, grabbed me by the right elbow, and marched me up the corridor.
“Who are you working for?” he asked when we were out of earshot.
Was this a trick question? “Viridius.”
He stopped and faced me, his brows pulled together darkly. “This is your chance to tell the truth. I dislike games of cat and mouse. You’re caught; don’t toy with me.”
Sweet Heavenly Home, he thought I was some sort of agent for a foreign government, perhaps—or for some individual. A dragon, say. Maybe he wasn’t wrong. “Could we talk somewhere besides the hallway, please?”
He glanced up and down the passage, frowning. The east wing was full of servants and storage, kitchens and workshops. He led me up a short hallway and unlocked the heavy door at the end with a key. He lit a lantern at the hall sconce, ushered me through the door, and closed it behind us. We were at the bottom of a spiral stair leading up into blackness. Instead of climbing the stairs, however, he seated himself about five steps up and set the lantern beside him.
“What is this place?” I said, craning my neck to peer upward.
“My ‘beastly tower,’ Glisselda calls it.” He seemed disinclined to discuss it further. The lantern lit him eerily from below, making it difficult to interpret his expression; he wasn’t smiling, in any case. “It would have been easy enough to interview the knights with my blessing. You had only to ask. I dislike your invoking my name under false pretenses.”
“I—I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry,” I stammered. Why had it seemed like a good idea? Why was I more prepared to bluff complete strangers than to speak plainly to this prince? I opened my purse cautiously, blocking any glimpse of the quig figurine, and passed the gold coin to the prince. “My teacher, Orma, also has a concern regarding a possible rogue dragon. I promised him I’d speak to you.”
Lucian Kiggs silently examined the coin in the lantern light. He’d been so chatty before; his silence unnerved me. But of course he was doubtful when I claimed to speak on someone else’s behalf. How could he not be? Saints’ dogs, I’d miscalculated in bluffing his guards.
“A messenger gave him that coin after your uncle’s funeral,” I pressed on. “Orma claims it belonged to his father.”
“Then it probably did,” he said, studying the back. “Dragons know their coins.”
“His father is General Imlann, disgraced and banished for hoarding.”
“Hoarding doesn’t usually merit banishment,” said the prince, his mouth set in a line. Even his looming shadow seemed skeptical.
“Imlann committed other crimes too, I believe. Orma didn’t lay it all out in detail.” Here I was, already lying. It never ended. “He believes Imlann is here, in Goredd, and may be planning some harm to the Ardmagar or mischief to the celebrations or . . . he doesn’t know what. It’s all vague supposition, alas.”
Lucian Kiggs glanced from me to the coin and back. “You’re uncertain whether he’s right to be worried.”
“Yes. My hope in speaking to the knights was that they could give me some identifying details, enabling me to confirm with Orma that their rogue dragon is Imlann. I didn’t want to waste your time with guesses.”
He leaned forward intently. “Might Imlann have wished to harm my uncle?”
He was interested now; that was an immeasurable relief. “I don’t know. Did the council conclude that the rogue had something to do with Prince Rufus’s death?”
“The council concluded very little. Half the people there suspected the knights of fabricating the whole thing to stir up trouble and prevent Comonot’s visit.”
“What do you think?” I pressed.
“I think I was on my way to speak with the knights myself when I learned that someone was already speaking to them in my name.” He wagged a finger at me, but it was only a mock scolding. “What’s your impression? Did they truly see a dragon?”
“Yes.”
He raised an eyebrow. “What makes you so sure?”
“I—I suppose it had to do with the kinds of detail they were and weren’t able to give me. I wish I could say it was more than just an intuition.” I also wished I could say that being a liar myself gave me some insight into these things.
“Don’t shrug off intuition so blithely! I advise my men to notice gut reactions. Of course, they were wrong about you.” He flashed me an irritated look, then seemed to think better of it. “No, let me amend that. They were wrong to believe I’d given you permission to speak with the prisoners, but they were not wrong about you.”
How could he still think well of me after I’d been so awful to him? A warm wash of guilt rolled over me. “I—I’m sorry—”
“No harm done.” He waved off my confusion. “In fact, this has turned out very well. You and I appear to be working toward a common purpose. Now that we know, we can help each other.”
He thought I was apologizing for the lie; I’d already done that. “I’m, uh, also sorry for what I said to you. Yesterday.”
“Ah!” He smiled at long last, and a knot of anxiety in my chest released. “There’s the other half of your hesitation. Forget it. I already have.”
“I was rude!”
“And I was offended. It was all very by-the-book. But let us set that aside, Seraphina. We’re pulling in the same team.” I wasn’t buying such easy forgiveness; he noticed my doubt and added: “Selda and I had a long talk about you. She spoke quite eloquently in your defense.”
“She didn’t say I was prickly?”
“Oh, she absolutely did. And you are.” He looked vaguely amused by whatever expression sprawled across my face. “Stop glowering. There’s nothing wrong with letting people know when they’ve stepped on your tail. The thing to ask ourselves when you bite is, why?”
Bite. Tail. I crossed my arms over my chest.
“Selda has observed that you dislike personal questions, and certainly I was getting a bit personal. So. My apologies.”
I looked at my feet, embarrassed.
He continued: “In this particular case, I think there was more to it than that. You honestly answered my question.” He sat back smugly, as if he’d solved a difficult riddle. “I asked what it’s like to be so talented, and you gave me a straightforward comparison: like being a bastard! And with a little extra thought, I get it. Everyone gawps at you for something you can’t help and did nothing to deserve. Your very presence makes other people feel awkward. You stand out when in fact you’d rather not.”
For the merest moment I couldn’t breathe. Something inside me quivered, some oud string plucked by his words, and if I breathed it would stop.
He did not know the truth of me, yet he had perceived something true about me that no one else had ever noticed. And in spite of that—or perhaps because of it—he believed me good, believed me worth taking seriously, and his belief, for one vertiginous moment, made me want to be better than I was.
I was a fool to let myself feel that. I was a monster; that could never change.
I almost snapped at him, almost played the monster in earnest as only I could play it, but something stopped me. He wasn’t some dragon, coldly observing me. He was offering me something true about himself in return. It shone like a diamond. That wasn’t trivial; that was generous. If I knocked this gift out of his hand, I wasn’t getting another. I inhaled shakily and said, “Thank you, but . . .” No, no buts. “Thank you.”
He smiled. “There’s more to you than meets the eye. I’ve observed that more than once. Which of the Porphyrian philosophers do you favor?”
It was such a non sequitur that I nearly laughed, but he kept talking, finally at ease with me again. “You recognized that quote the other evening, and I thought, ‘At long last, someone else who’s read Pontheus!’”
“I’m afraid I haven’t, much. Papa had his Analects—”
“But you’ve read other philosophers. Confess!” He leaned forward eagerly, elbows on his knees. “I’d guess you like . . . Archiboros. He was so keen on the life of the mind that he never bothered to determine whether his theories worked in the real world.”
“Archiboros was a pompous ass,” I said. “I preferred Necans.”
“That morose old twig!” cried Kiggs, slapping his leg. “He takes it too far. If he had his way, we’d all be nothing but disembodied minds, floating and ephemeral, completely disconnected from the matter of this world.”
“Would that be so awful?” I said, my voice catching. He’d hit upon something personal again, or else I was so raw I could be hurt by anything, no matter how innocuous.
“I’d have thought you preferred Pontheus, is all,” he said, examining an invisible speck on the sleeve of his doublet, giving me a little space to collect myself.
“A jurisprudence philosopher?”
“Clearly you’ve only read his early work. All his genius is in his later writings.”
“Didn’t he go mad?” I was aiming for supercilious, but the look on his face told me I’d missed and landed squarely on amusing.
“If it was madness, Phina, it was such a madness as you or I could only dream of! I will find you his last book.” He looked at me again and his eyes shone in the lamplight, or with the inner light of delighted anticipation.
His enthusiasm made him beautiful. I was staring; I looked at my hands.
He coughed and rose, tucking the coin into his doublet. “Right. Well. I’ll take Orma’s coin to Eskar tomorrow morning and see what she says. With my luck, she’ll conclude we’re harboring criminals; I don’t think she’s forgiven me for letting that newskin get hurt—or for dancing with her, for that matter. Ask your teacher about the details the knights gave you; I’d appreciate that. If we could identify this rogue, that might impress upon the embassy that we are making a good-faith effort to . . . I was going to say ‘maintain order,’ but it’s a bit late for that, isn’t it?”
I said, “Until tomorrow, then.” Of course, it was up to him to dismiss me, not the other way around. I cringed at myself.
He seemed not to register the breach in manners. I curtsied to make up for it. He smiled and opened the tower door for me. My mind was racing, scrambling to think up one more thing to say to him before I left, but it came up empty. “Good evening, Seraphina,” he said, and closed the door.
I heard his footfall grow faint as he climbed the tower steps. What did he do up there? It was none of my business, to be sure, but I stood for a long moment with my hand upon the oaken door.
I stood so still, for so long, that I nearly jumped out of my skin when a voice said, “Music Mistress? Are you ill?”
I looked behind me; there stood one of my musicians, the scrawny sackbutist whose name I never remembered, who had apparently been passing by and spotted me looking catatonic. He stepped toward me hesitantly. “Is there anything you need?”
“No,” I croaked, my voice as rough as if I were breaking a years-long vow of silence. “Thank you,” I added. I bent my head, skirted him meekly, and headed back up the hallway toward my rooms.