Curling up around her still-growling stomach, Bitterblue wished for a drink to quench her rising thirst.
* * *
—
She stayed by the door for a while, curled in a ball, caught up in a realization. That last time Giddon had gone to Estill, to smuggle people through the tunnels. He’d been away for weeks, then come home, fallen into bed. She’d woken him, read him Skye’s letter, gone off to check her records of trade. Come back in a fury about her lost zilfium.
He’d comforted her, planned this trip with her, changed his entire Council schedule to come to Winterkeep with her. And it was a silly thing to realize suddenly, here in this room, ridiculous that it should mean everything suddenly, but—while Giddon was in those tunnels, his birthday had passed. He had an August birthday. It was now October. She’d forgotten all about it. She hadn’t even wished him well.
Giddon, she thought. I’ve been so self-centered. And you never are, ever. You’re unhappy somewhere right now, and I can’t help you.
She forced herself to sit up.
I’m going to get out of this room, and wish you a happy birthday, she thought.
She pushed herself back to the bed.
* * *
—
It was strange, wasn’t it, the way she kept falling asleep? Bitterblue began to wonder if she’d been drugged.
She woke yet again, to hunger, thirst, and another peculiar, fox-related thought: that she really, really, really shouldn’t tell anyone about all the foxes she’d seen before.
A fuzzy, odd, not-quite-dreamlike feeling accompanied the thought. Saf had the Grace of giving people dreams. The dreams he’d given Bitterblue, back when they’d loved each other, had had a sort of edge, a border, that felt like him somehow, like his enclosing arms, rather than like something that sprang from inside herself. She’d learned to recognize the difference between dreams that were his gifts and dreams of her own.
This thought about the foxes felt like a gift dream. It also reminded Bitterblue of the thought she’d woken to previously, about how she shouldn’t tell anyone about that first fox.
Bitterblue looked around, unsurprised when she saw a single pair of golden eyes glimmering at her from the corner. Blinking, staring, blinking.
Are you talking to me? she thought at the fox. I thought you didn’t do that, unless we were bonded. Are we bonded?
When the fox gave no indication of having heard or understood her, she tried speaking the same message out loud, in Keepish, but that garnered no response either.
Oh well, Bitterblue thought. You probably don’t hear me. But I won’t tell anyone about you, or your friends. If there’s a hole in the wall under the bed, or something, that my captors don’t know about, I don’t want them to know.
And then she became paranoid, wondering if the whole thing was a test; if her captors were filling her room with foxes, then pretending not to know about the foxes, to see if she reported them. To tell if she was trustworthy. To catch her on the day she tried to crawl out of her prison through a hole under the bed, and laugh, and tell her they knew it all along, and punish her, by depriving her of food or water.
This is what they want, she suddenly realized, remembering the drawing, the rule, the lack of information, the humiliation. They want me anxious.
When the gray dimness of morning began to turn pink, the fox scampered under the bed and disappeared.
Thinking, Bitterblue waited.
* * *
—
When the light came, Bitterblue crawled back to the door and peeked through the keyhole. She saw nothing but more light and decided she was looking into a room with large windows.
Once more, she crawled back to the bed, but this time she examined the space under it. She could make nothing out in the shadows; no visible escape hatch. She grabbed one of the bedposts and tried to shift the bed, but the pain left her gasping. She tried moving it with her shoulder too, but it wouldn’t budge. She felt her weakness, her exhaustion.
I will do it, she told Giddon, knowing that he could have moved the bed with one hand, but refusing to be ashamed. I will, as soon as I can. My hands will heal.
Next she stood on the bed, forcing her aching feet to bear the weight of her body. I’m good at this, she said stubbornly, because I’m small, so the weight on my feet is less. But all she could see through the window was sky, and the tips of one tree whose leaves had turned gold. The wind was ferocious. Sometimes it slammed against the walls.
This was her inventory: her bed; its sheets, blankets, and pillows; the pajamas she wore, which were dark and soft; the bandages on her toes; the chamber pot; one piece of paper with a drawing on it; her thoughts; and her own body.
Her body ached with frostbite and thirst. Her body coursed with anxiety too, but she met it, battled it back, with long, steady breaths and determination. Irrationally, she wished more than ever for her mother’s ring to hold on to, something hard and real.
The conversation with Giddon on the ship, under the moon, had also been real. I’m not stronger than my captors, she thought, trying to lick moisture into her dry mouth. Dreaming of a drink, and a peppermint, and a toothbrush. They’re stronger than me. But I’m stronger than the way they’re trying to make me feel.
Okay, she thought, sitting down again. Let’s think.
Chapter Fifteen
On the Sunday following Lovisa’s adventure with the house guard, she wasn’t sure whether to expect her father’s arrival for their weekly walk home to Sunday dinner. It was a bit of a tradition, one Lovisa treasured: half an hour spent alone with her kinder parent, talking about whatever they liked. But if her mother thought she was a dirty slut who kissed the guards, would she still be invited to Sunday dinner?
Then a knock came, as always. Sitting at her desk surrounded by papers and books, she called for her father to enter, then waited, a bit nervous, as nothing happened.
“Come in!” she called again impatiently, then crossed to the door and pulled it open.
Her father was talking with Mari Devret in the corridor, asking after his studies, his family. “Would you like to join us for dinner?” she heard Benni ask Mari, whose eyes brightened with quiet acknowledgment of Lovisa when he saw her. Mari was a tall boy with a fine-boned face, a thin gold scarf around his neck. Gold had always been Mari’s favorite color; it suited his warm brown skin. Lovisa could remember him at four or five, asking his mother to knit him a soft gold hat. When she did, he wore it every day for two winters.
Lovisa mouthed Yes, please to him behind her father’s back.
Mari twitched a smile at her. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said. “I wish I could, but I have too much work to do.”