On days like this I was forced to pass the ghost on the stairs or use the only other route to the banquet hall. As I took my first step inside the kitchen doors and the buzzing energy of the staff stuttered to a halt, I wondered if I might have been better off risking the stairs.
I lifted my chin and made my way past the plates of steaming meat pies and platters of roasted duck that were waiting for their florid entrance. I didn’t flinch even as the servants stared. They could think me strange, but I’d never let them think I was apologetic about it.
When I came into the hall, the dinner guests were all steeped in conversation and so did not seem to notice my entrance from the service door. Kellan was nearby, though, waiting without comment. He never asked me about my peculiar habits anymore. He’d decided long ago that I was the product of my circumstances, that if it weren’t for my betrothal to the prince of Achleva, no one would have thought twice about my strange habits and weird eyes and I’d have never developed these evasive routines. If I told him about the broken-necked man on the banquet hall stairs—or the purple-faced girl beneath the surface of the lily pond, or the bleak-eyed woman who paced the west wing parapet—he’d probably think me mad.
Kellan guided me to my place at the head table. He looked polished and powerful in his gold-and-ivory uniform and cobalt-colored cloak, the ceremonial costume of the ranking guard. I chewed on the inside of my cheek and made an effort not to notice how one of his corkscrew curls had escaped the rest and was now dangling fetchingly against his brow.
“You’re not wearing black,” he observed. “I didn’t know you owned dresses of other colors.”
“I don’t always wear black.”
“I suppose you’re right. I think I saw you in gray once.”
I wasn’t sure if I should smile or glower at him, but I didn’t have to choose. He took his place behind my chair, back to being a guard now that we were in full view of the waiting guests. Formality was something he could take on and off like a mask: one moment he was the heart-strong boy who’d laughingly taught me to ride when I was fourteen and friendless; the next he was the stern and practical knight, in whom I could entrust my safety but never my secrets. I loved the first one—in a discreet and delicate way, known only to myself—but I was thankful for the second. Seeing him so distant, so rigidly severe, made it feel like maybe I wouldn’t be losing as much.
“All rise for Queen Genevieve and Prince Conrad.” A ripple went across the room as everyone scrambled from their chairs to pay respect to the entering queen and crown prince. Conrad had his arm linked with Mother’s, leading her with a dignified tip of his chin, though he was only half her height. He’d never enjoyed the spotlight, preferring books to banquets and arithmetic problems to people, but his posture was proper and steady—he’d been practicing, I could tell. He was even smiling a little. Now only months away from his seventh birthday, he looked like a small copy of our father with his golden hair and blue, blue eyes. At least, he did until he saw me and his smile wavered and disappeared. He gave me a polite nod.
We used to have a game in which I’d tie a colored ribbon someplace he would see it—on a door handle, or the branch of a tree, or a staircase spindle—which meant that somewhere nearby I’d hidden a prize or a treat. The color of the ribbon told him where to look: yellow for up, blue for down, red for north, green for south, purple for east, orange for west. Black meant it was within ten paces and hidden from view, white meant it was within twenty paces and in plain sight. When he found his prize, he’d hide one for me using the same rules. It was an excuse for me to spoil him, really. I showered him with candies and riddle books and little toys I had to sneak out to the marketplace to purchase. When his hands were busy, he found it easier to focus during lessons and lengthy state functions, so I got him puzzle boxes, tiny gyro spinners, a ring that concealed a small compass, and—my favorite—a walnut-size figurine made of metal and magnets, with parts that could be twisted and rearranged into the shape of a half dozen different animals.
It was our own secret pastime, and I reveled in it. While it lasted.
But it was inevitable that Conrad would eventually cross paths with the whispers about me. It was clear that somewhere in the last months he had heard the rumors, understood them, and begun to believe them. He didn’t trust me anymore, and I knew it was only a matter of time before that distrust soured into something worse. I could hardly bear it, and so I coped the only way I knew how: I avoided him.
After my mother and brother were seated, the rest of us followed, and soon servants were scurrying around us, filling goblets and lighting candles. The seat to my left was unoccupied; it was my father’s chair, and would remain empty until Conrad ascended the throne. The seat to my right was where the toothless, doddering marchioness of Hallet usually sat, too senile to speak to me (or complain about me). But the marchioness was not in attendance; her seat was instead occupied by a man in an austere black Tribunal coat.
“You look lovely, Princess,” Toris said. “That color suits you.”
“Thank you, Toris,” I said through a tight smile.
He absently straightened the place setting, his rings—of which there were five on each hand, one for each finger—glinting. Mother said he’d been an academic once, a man with an unquenchable curiosity for history, who’d traveled far and wide collecting myths and artifacts, who had won her cousin Camilla’s love with his humor and wit. Losing his wife changed him, Mother said. But I remembered Camilla well; she was sweet and kind and lovely as a summer’s day. The Toris of my memory was exactly as detestable as the one currently straightening the silverware into precise and even parallels. If ever there had been a different version of this man, it was gone before I was old enough to recall it, long before Camilla died.
When the seafood fork was exactly one inch from the soup spoon, he said offhandedly, “I saw you this morning, dear Princess, somewhere you shouldn’t have been.” He leaned forward on his arms and turned a stare on me. “You’re getting rather reckless, don’t you think? You’d do well to be more careful.”
“I already heard this lecture from my mother.”
“You should listen to her. A great woman, your mother.”
I felt my lip curl. In the eight months between Camilla’s and my father’s deaths and my brother’s birth, Toris insinuated himself into my mother’s circle. Weren’t they both grieving spouses? But everyone knew there was more to it than that; because Renalt’s crown could only be passed to a male inheritor, our position would have become instantly precarious if the baby was a girl. To remain in power, Mother would be forced to marry, and marry quickly. Toris was the logical choice. Everyone said so.
I was thankful every day that Conrad turned out to be a boy. With a son to inherit, there was no need for Mother to marry; indeed, doing so might weaken Conrad’s royal claim. Conrad’s birth saved me from a lifetime with Toris as stepfather. Or king. I didn’t know which one would have been worse.
Toris was looking at me with his most concerned, paternal expression. “Because of my position inside the Tribunal, I have been able, at your mother’s behest, to steer them away from you on more than one occasion. Now that these last two cases, Mabel Doyle and the other—Harriet, I think it was?—have been resolved, I’ve little doubt I’ll have to concert my efforts on your behalf once more.”