* * *
—
In the middle of the night, Bitterblue woke her with a soft “Lovisa?”
“Huh?” she said, coming awake to a pounding headache. She was still in Nev’s bed. The queen stood beside her, wearing Ferla’s furs and holding a glowing lamp. “What?”
“We’re leaving for your house.”
“Now? What time is it?”
“About four o’clock,” Bitterblue said. “You don’t have to come, but we didn’t want to leave without giving you the choice.”
“Can you do the plan without me?”
“We’ll manage,” said Bitterblue diplomatically.
In the dark blankness of her half-awake state, Lovisa’s biggest truths arranged themselves starkly for her consideration. Her mother was dead. Her father was probably already in jail. Her brothers. Who was taking care of her brothers?
“Bitterblue?” she said in a breaking voice. “Is there some hope, do you think, for a better life for my brothers?”
“Oh, of course,” said the queen. “I’m sure of it, Lovisa.”
The queen’s certainty annoyed her, and woke her up.
“There’s hope for you too,” the queen added. “Lovisa—”
“Oh, stop,” said Lovisa. “I don’t need any more inspiring slogans.” The queen saw everything as flowers and sunshine, because she was in love.
“All right,” said Bitterblue quietly. “I have to go, because the others are waiting. Nola and Saiet are staying behind if you need anything today.”
How would her brothers ever be able to understand what was happening to their lives right now? Who could explain it, really, besides her? Who could ever understand what they were going through, besides her? And how could she understand it herself, if she was too afraid to look at the truth?
“Wait,” she said. “It’s my house. I’m coming.”
Chapter Thirty-six
Divide and distract. That was the plan: Get as many of their team onto the Cavenda property as possible, then create distractions. Locate the storehouse. Find out how many people are on the grounds, how many are armed, and where they’re situated. Convey that information, probably via Hava, to the people still waiting outside—Lovisa, Giddon, and the Queen of Monsea, the three of the party unlikely to be able to show up at the gate pretending to be someone else. Then, decide what to do next.
It was a flexible plan, adaptable. Giddon spent his life throwing himself into loose, open plans, then sorting out the details as he went along. This would be no different.
The walking path to the water at four in the morning went past a glacier, but all Giddon saw was a stretch of darkness that blotted out the stars.
The fastest and most discreet route to the Cavenda house was by boat. A friend of Nev’s family, Saba, had a boat with black sails and knew how to navigate the route up the coast in the dark. Remembering that the route eventually led to Kamassar, Giddon tactfully asked no questions about Saba, who he guessed was a smuggler. “You can trust her discretion,” Saiet said, which Giddon believed.
Saba would sail them to a cove with a cavern she knew. From the cavern, they could climb to a forest and walk to a road and head north. When a stone wall appeared on the left, that was the sign they’d reached the Cavenda property.
Hava would go over that wall, because Hava had the Grace to hide herself from anyone on the other side. Then, sometime later, Nev would arrive at the property gate, offering her services as a traveling animal doctor.
“I could poison the animals,” Hava had offered, “so they’re more likely to invite you in.”
“No,” Nev had said firmly.
“All right, well, at least I’ll break some of the furniture,” she’d said, since the next part of the plan involved Davvi appearing at the gate to offer his services as a traveling builder. Davvi had laughed at Hava’s joke, but Giddon had been pretty sure she wasn’t joking.
* * *
—
As they neared the water, Bitterblue turned and touched her hand to Giddon’s chest. In the darkness, she traced a path all the way to his face and touched his beard gently, flushing him with heat, happiness, and that unshakable sense of disbelief that it was happening.
“Do you have the flask?” she said. “I think it’s time.”
“Yes,” he said, then softly called to the group to wait. “Bitterblue’s drinking her tea.” For Bitterblue was going to drink some rauha, carefully brewed and flasked by Saiet, in preparation for a boat trip north that would otherwise make her sick. The right amount, Saiet had said, to help someone of her size just enough, then wear off in time in case she had to play a role in the sleuthing operation. He’d included enough for the trip back as well.
The group waited in darkness while Bitterblue drank. Nearby, a sharp crack, followed by a rumble, broke the silence: the glacier calving an iceberg into the sea.
“Did you hear it?” Giddon whispered, not wanting Bitterblue to miss anything beautiful.
Her hand found him again. “Yes.” Then she turned him around, felt for the pack he was wearing, and slipped the flask back into it.
“Here’s Saba,” Nev called out quietly. “Is everyone ready?”
* * *
—
It was a frigid trip north through a relentless wind, made somewhat warmer by the need to enclose Bitterblue in his arms to keep her from standing up in the boat and making announcements. They were very unpredictable announcements. One was about wanting to split her Ministry of Education into two parts, half for the education of children and half for adults. Another was a general inquiry about whether anyone had brought any pie. One time she just stood up and yelled, “Kittens!”
It wasn’t the announcements that needed to stop, but the standing, because of the very real danger that in her rauha-induced state of silliness, she would fall out. It was intensely comforting, actually, to be in a boat with her, holding her tight in his arms so she wouldn’t fall out. It felt like a redo from the last time. And she seemed to like it too, nestling against him, certainly the warmest person in the boat. He missed the announcements, though.
“Can I eat your nose?” she asked him, which would certainly have given their secret away if she hadn’t already asked Hava, Lovisa, and Davvi if she could eat their noses.
“What’s wrong with my nose?” Nev asked, a joke that sent Bitterblue into a peal of giggles that kept quieting, then resurfacing again.