Then I close my eyes, swaying with the carriage as the footman jumps off, and think of three playing cards dancing facedown across a table. It’s time to begin my oldest game, Find the Lady.
There are many tricks to running the game, but the absolutely ironclad one is this: Only one person should know where the Lady is at all times. That person is me.
I run my fingertips over the string of heavy, perfect pearls around my neck. It’s habit more than anything; I would know if they were unclasped. I would know.
The carriage door opens. In my mind, I flip the first card faceup.
The Prinzessin. Silver eyes, pale-golden curls, pristine pearls under glacier-blue velvet and burgundy brocade, a gentle smile with a hint of mystery. Even the name Gisele is an intrigue, shunning sturdy Almanic for the Bourgienne pronunciation, with its honeyed vowels and a butter-soft G. It’s just the sort of pretentious affectation Dame von Falbirg loved to dish out, knowing people like the von Eisendorfs would eat it up.
This is how the game begins, you see. Step one: Show them the card they’re looking for.
The prinzessin descends from the carriage like a vision. Ezbeta and Gustav von Eisendorf are hovering in the entrance hall, faces lighting up when they see me finally gliding toward their open door. It’s not just about arriving on my own schedule, of course. It’s about making sure the other guests see Ezbeta and Gustav waiting for me.
I alone see the surest sign that this night is going to go off without a hitch, for when Fortune is your godmother, you can always see her hand at work. Faint, dull clouds like coal dust are coalescing around the von Eisendorfs as they flutter in the hall. It’s an omen of the ill luck I’m about to bring upon their house.
The Count and Countess von Eisendorf are celebrating their twentieth anniversary tonight—well, commemorating, at least. “Celebrating” may be too strong a term. All I’m saying is that there’s a reason Komtessin Ezbeta is already ruddy-cheeked and stashing a goblet behind an urn on the entrance hall’s credenza.
Something about her always puts me in mind of a stork, though I’ve never put my finger on why. She’s pale-skinned like much of the Blessed Empire, with middling brown hair and angular features—aha. That’s it. Ezbeta has a habit of pointing with her chin, and with her long neck and a tendency to cock her head, it gives the impression that she’s scouring the area for a frog to snap up.
She’s dressed to impress, at least, her wrists and throat gleaming with a small fortune in gold and emeralds. It’s almost certainly the most expensive jewelry she owns. My fingers fairly itch: It’s another opportunity, perhaps.
“Oh, Markgräfin Gisele, how good it is of you to come!” Her voice carries like a trumpet, and I hear a fleeting hush of anticipation dart through the crowd inside as the countess sweeps her forest-green samite gown into a curtsy.
“It was ever so kind of you to invite me,” I reply, extending a hand to Gustav.
He mashes his lips to my doeskin-gloved knuckles. “We’re absolutely delighted.”
Komte Gustav is a withered ghoul of a man in a tunic pricey enough to feed Eisendorf Village through Winterfast, and yet incredibly it does nothing to help the piss-puddle where his personality should be. Nor does the wet smudge he leaves on my glove.
I pull free and bounce a teasing finger against the tip of Ezbeta’s nose. “I’m not the markgräfin yet, you know. Not until my darling Adalbrecht returns and makes me the happiest woman in the Blessed Empire.”
My darling betrothed, Adalbrecht von Reigenbach, margrave of the sprawling march of Bóern, has spent the entirety of our year-long betrothal at his share of the southern and eastern borders of the Blessed Empire of Almandy. He’s been instigating skirmishes like your garden-variety invade-a-kingdom-because-Papi-didn’t-love-me-best nobleman, all while I wait in his castle. And for all I care, he can stay there.
“Well, you’re already the most generous,” Komtessin Ezbeta simpers as a servant takes my cloak and gloves. “The cushions you sent are positively divine!”
“I could hardly let such an occasion go by without gifts. I’m just glad they arrived safely.” It isn’t even a lie, I am glad. Just not for the reason they expect. “Was the spiced mead also to your liking?”
Gustav clears his throat. “Indeed,” he says with a faintly strained air. “I thought to serve it tonight, but my wife took a . . . significant liking to it, in fact.”
“I can’t help it if Princess Gisele has impeccable taste.” Ezbeta winks. Saints and martyrs, if she’s already soused enough to be winking at me, she might just hand me that absurd necklace herself before the party’s over. “Come, come! Everyone’s waiting for you!”
I let her lead me into the manor’s main parlor, which is overflowing with minor nobility. Much of the crowd are knights and landed gentry who serve the counts, but the von Eisendorfs have also managed to attract a handful of Adalbrecht’s vassals equal to their own rank. I see Komte Erhard von Kirchstadtler and his husband, and Lady Anna von Morz in a plum satin atrocity that could charitably be called a gown. Even Minister Philippa Holbein has traveled into Boérn from the nearby Free Imperial State of Okzberg.
I scan for one particular face and find it thankfully missing. Godmother Fortune may have tilted the odds in my favor, or maybe Irmgard von Hirsching thinks she’s too good to get drunk with the von Eisendorfs. Either way, that’s one less problem to deal with tonight.
“I hope the guards didn’t give you too much trouble, Prinzessin,” Lady von Morz cackles, sauntering up to me with a goblet of glohwein in each hand. She tries to pass one off to me and fumbles a bit until I steady her grip. “Really, Gustav, even the margrave doesn’t post this many soldiers at his front door.”
Gustav gives a disgruntled wheeze. “No such thing as too cautious these days. They say the von Holtzburgs lost nearly fifty gilden to the Penny Phantom.”
We all gasp. That’s no trifling sum; a skilled tradesman would be lucky to amass fifty gilden over one season. “I’d no idea the Pfennigeist struck them too,” I say, wide-eyed.
Ezbeta nods, leaning in closer. “Oh, yes. Holtzburg Manor was robbed back in January, but they didn’t know what the red penny meant until Dowager von Folkenstein said they’d found one after their burglary. We think the von Holtzburgs may have been the first
victims.”
“How dreadful,” I murmur. “And their bailiff never found anything?”
“No. He swears only a ghost or a grimling could have broken in without a trace.” The delight-tinged pity on the countess’s face congeals into syrupy comfort. “But never fear, Princess Gisele. We’ve taken every precaution, just as we promised you. The Pfennigeist won’t get so much as a button off your gown.”
Lady von Morz snorts into her glohwein. No one has ever caught the Penny Phantom. No one has even seen the Penny Phantom. Not even my betrothed could keep the devil from Castle Reigenbach, where Marthe the maid found my jewelry box cleaned out, with a single red penny left behind as a calling card.
And if even the margrave’s walls can be breached, what chance do the von Eisendorfs have against such a creature?
I make my rounds through the crowd, clasping hands and admiring outfits, discreetly emptying my goblet into a vase when the coast is clear, only to make sure everyone sees me flagging down servants for many, many refills. Komte von Kirchstadtler wants to know when the wedding will be (not until Adalbrecht returns), newlywed Sieglinde von Folkenstein natters my ear off about how poorly she’s felt in the mornings (I make a note to commission a baby rattle), and Minister Philippa Holbein offers apologies for her husband’s absence.