Matthias grimaced.
At the sound of an approaching patrol, the Queen gestured at him and stepped back into the room. He pulled me inside before I could protest. The Queen shut the doors. The guards’ footsteps faded around a corner.
‘Release her,’ the Queen said, and nodded towards the chairs at her desk.
I sat, keeping my head down. Mama had drilled etiquette into me for years as my most effective shield.
The Queen placed my dagger on the windowsill behind her. I waited for her to speak first. Only the ticking clock broke the silence, until Matthias took an incensed breath through his nose.
‘I’m aware this isn’t the meeting you intended, but here we are,’ the Queen snapped. ‘So instead of acting like a spoiled child, Baron Farhallow, I suggest you salvage it.’
Meeting?
I looked up. ‘I... I beg your pardon, Your Majesty...’
‘It’s a bit late for politeness now.’
Matthias snorted.
‘Would you prefer I leave you both alone with the dagger?’
‘No, Your Majesty,’ he said. ‘I would not.’
‘Good. Start explaining.’
‘May I rise?’
She flicked her fingers. Matthias surged to his feet and paced. He finally took a deep breath and locked his hands behind his back. ‘Your Majesty, this is Miss Xania Bayonn, daughter of Baron Bayonn and Lady Harynne, step-daughter of Lord Martain of Kierth.’
It felt ludicrous, but I stood to curtsey. At least my skirts hid my shaking knees.
‘Her father died four years ago,’ Matthias said. ‘Her mother remarried a year and a half later. We believe her father didn’t die of natural illness.’
‘I know we need proof.’ I flinched at my loud tone, but added, ‘I’ve been trying to find it for years.’
The Queen broke a Farezi sugar biscuit in half and studied it with more care than it deserved. ‘You’re Fifth Step, Third Step-born, with limited prospects. You don’t have the social mobility nor means for revenge.’
‘Blackmail isn’t always secrets and gossip,’ I said. ‘I know the Sixth and Seventh Step families who’ve been living beyond their means for years –’
‘Unsurprising.’
‘– but don’t have the credit trail they should. I know whose dowries are comprised of loans. I know who ruined their spouses’ fortunes. Money talks, even when people try to hide it.’
‘You work in the Treasury.’
‘And I know exactly how empty it is.’
The Queen stiffened. ‘That is classified information known only to the Master of Coin.’
‘Don’t worry, he’s trustworthy,’ I said. ‘But I’m good at numbers. And figuring things out.’
‘Apparently.’ Her face hardened. ‘While Matthias may have granted you access to the passages’ – he squirmed – ‘he wouldn’t dare give you the codes to the royal wing. And the guards would never let you through without my permission. Yet here you are.’
‘It took a long time to break the codes,’ I said. ‘If it helps.’
‘Not really.’ The Queen dropped the biscuit pieces onto the plate. ‘This is your choice for my Whispers?’ she asked Matthias. ‘A woman driven by vengeance who goes where she pleases?’
My stomach dropped.
Whispers?
I was nearly eighteen, only a year younger than the Queen; if I’d been born into a higher Step, I might have been one of her ladies. But her Whispers?
‘I– I– no.’ I surged to my feet.
The Queen lunged forward and slapped her hands over my wrists. Her grip was surprisingly strong. It didn’t matter that I knew Matthias, or we both thought Papa had been murdered, or that Matthias had kept his connection to the Queen from me. If I didn’t do what the Queen wished, there would be no mercy for me.
If I was in her position, wielding her power, I’d do the same.
I sat back down, her hands still on my wrists. ‘I can’t be your Whispers.’
‘Who do you believe murdered your father?’
If I said his name, I couldn’t take it back. But Papa deserved justice, and this was only way I could do it. ‘Lord Vigrante.’
My gut twisted even at the sound of his name. In public, he was always polite, respectful. Everything about him indicated an unflappable, upstanding man. He’d probably already tried to insert himself into the Queen’s confidence.
But he wasn’t trustworthy.
He’d killed Papa.
Only Matthias believed me. No one else would even consider going up against one of the most powerful people at Court.
Papa had been a good man. Court had no use for good men.
‘Why do you believe this?’ the Queen asked.
‘My father died from illness. Six months after his death, the physician who attended him was trampled by a horse in the city. But his family were rewarded with promotions, and his children suddenly married well.’
It was a reasonable suspicion, but difficult to prove. Matthias agreed it fitted Vigrante’s pattern of indirectly rewarding those who did his dirty work.
The Queen frowned. ‘Then it’s in our interests to work together.’
‘I’m Fifth Step through my mother’s remarriage –’
She released my wrists. ‘Don’t repeat what I already know. It doesn’t make you better qualified to bring Vigrante down instead of being my Whispers.’
My cheeks burned, though she was right. I could get all the blackmail, all the evidence possible, and it would still be my word against Vigrante’s.
‘But,’ the Queen said, ‘with royal power backing you…’
‘I serve you in exchange for…?’
‘You already have merchant contacts through your family’s business affairs. I’ll give you the funds and contacts to gather informants from the Steps and rebuild Edar’s spy network.’
‘I still won’t have the social mobility you need for a Whispers.’ Historically, domestic threats had usually involved the Sixth and Seventh Steps, and Parliament – all areas I would be unwelcome.
‘I’ll handle that,’ the Queen said. ‘You work in the Treasury. It won’t be difficult to involve you in certain affairs.’
I had a vision of all the bankruptcy files in my future.
But Coin would be suspicious if the Queen suddenly insisted on my promotion. He’d keep an eye on me. But her uncle had surely demanded more outrageous things.
‘And if I refuse your offer?’ The Court didn’t publicly acknowledge Whispers, but everyone knew the position didn’t come with a long lifespan.
‘If you had proof of Vigrante’s involvement in your father’s death before now,’ the Queen said, ‘and could have killed him without implicating yourself, would you have done it?’
At this point, I gained nothing by lying. ‘Yes.’
Silence.
I broke it. ‘So it’s blackmail, then? I become your Whispers, and you conveniently forget I want to murder Vigrante?’
Matthias sucked in a breath. Bluntness probably wasn’t done in the higher Steps.
People died all the time. Step nobles usually paid others to poison on their behalf, so murder never led back to them. If the Queen wanted to make an example, she could reveal me to Vigrante. He’d have me before an executioner in days. And she would have him in her debt.