She sat on the edge of the fountain and pulled a peach from her pocket. Fruit was in short supply in the North, so she’d been sure to take some with her before leaving.
“Where did you get that?”
Mina tensed. A man walked toward her, his arms crossed. He was dressed finely, so he wasn’t a servant, but he didn’t match the image of older, pompous noblemen she had in her head. This man was likely not yet thirty, with a dark beard lining his square jaw and curling black hair. Despite his relative youth, he seemed to be dragging the full weight of his body as he walked.
“It’s mine,” Mina said, trying not to sound too defensive. “I brought it with me.”
“Don’t let me interrupt you, then.” He gestured to the fruit. “Eat.”
She took a bite of her peach. In the silence of the courtyard, the squelching sound of the fruit was embarrassingly loud. “Do you want a bite?” she said, holding the peach up to him. “I’m sorry I don’t have another to offer you.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t intend to disturb you. I only came here to…” He fell silent, and Mina thought maybe he was finished speaking to her, but then he said, “This was the queen’s favorite place to sit.”
Mina glanced up at the gloomy statues on the balconies. She didn’t understand how this courtyard could be anyone’s favorite anything, but she didn’t want to insult the late queen in front of a stranger. “Did you know her?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said, his expression softening as he looked down at Mina. “She was the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Her daughter will take after her.”
“But she’s a baby. She doesn’t look like anyone yet.”
“She looks like her mother,” the man insisted. “She is the late queen returned to us. She will grow up to be as beautiful and as gentle as her mother once was.”
Mina shrugged. “I haven’t seen her. I don’t even know her name.”
“Lynet,” the man said, smiling for the first time. “That was what the queen had always wanted to name a daughter. Princess Lynet. Like the bird.”
“That’s a pretty name,” Mina said—or tried to say. She’d taken another bite of the peach before speaking, and she coughed as a piece of fruit caught in her throat.
“Didn’t your mother teach you not to speak when you eat?” he said, with a hint of amusement in his voice.
She swallowed and said, “No, she didn’t. My mother is dead.” He inhaled sharply at her words and seemed so mortified by his error that she took pity on him. “It was a long time ago. I only remember her a little.”
“Is it terrible as a girl to grow up without a mother?”
Mina wasn’t sure how to reply. She had never known any alternative. “Sometimes.”
He nodded and sat on the ledge of the fountain beside her. Mina’s first instinct was to move away from him, but she stopped herself—he didn’t know anything about her, after all; he had no reason to be afraid of her, nor she of him. Without even Hana for company, Mina had spent most of her time alone since leaving home, and so she had forgotten that there could be comfort in another person’s presence. Perhaps she had never known it at all. She studied his profile, wondering how she could make him smile again.
Abruptly, he shook his head and turned to her. “Will you be attending the banquet in the princess’s honor tonight?”
She nodded. Her father had given her no other option than to attend. She had to be beautiful tonight, in order to be memorable.
“I’m glad,” he said.
“Then why do you seem sad?” Mina said before she could stop herself.
He answered at once, unperturbed by her question. “Grief,” he said. “Grief at the passing of our queen. You would be sad too, if you had known her.…”
He turned his face away from her, and Mina regretted her thoughtless question. She inched a little closer to him, until her skirt was brushing his leg. If she put her hand on his, would he smile for her? Would it be a comfort or a violation?
Just as she’d started to inch her hand toward his, he turned back to her and said, “I never asked your name.”
“It’s Mina.”
His mouth turned downward. “I know a man with a daughter of that name.”
If he’d met Gregory already, there was a good chance this man would want nothing more to do with her. Even if he didn’t know about her father’s peculiar talents, Gregory made people ill at ease. She might have lied and given a false name, but if she wanted this acquaintance to continue, he’d learn the truth soon enough.
“My father’s name is Gregory,” she said, resigned.
He nodded. “That’s what I thought.” He rose from the fountain, and though his face had shown no disgust or fear, she knew instinctively that she had lost him.
“I’m not my father,” she blurted out.
“I’ve stayed too long.” He spoke quickly, and before Mina could respond, he was walking away, leaving her with her half-eaten peach, which now tasted bitter in her mouth.
He hadn’t even told her his name.
* * *
That night Mina readied herself for the banquet, but in her mind, she was still in the courtyard, not quite daring to touch the hand of a man she barely knew.
But why bother thinking of him? a voice in her mind asked. You can’t love him, and he could never love you.
That was true, but she kept thinking about the softness of his voice, the kindness of his eyes when she was just a stranger to him. No one had ever spoken to her with such gentleness before. If she’d had less faith in her beauty, she might have decided to forget him, but perhaps if he saw her tonight, not bundled in furs, but gowned and bejeweled …
The only piece of fur Mina wore over her dress as she walked into the Hall was a shawl that served to warm the crooks of her elbows and little else. If Mina wanted to be accepted at court—and catch the eye of her kind stranger again—she would have to look like she belonged. In her brief time at Whitespring, she’d already learned that the people here were more accustomed to the cold, and so they didn’t dress as heavily as Mina would have. If she had dressed for warmth tonight, she would have been the only one.
The Hall wasn’t as cold as it could have been, packed with people as it was, but Mina’s teeth still chattered. “Clever girl,” her father said softly. He had sensibly dressed for the cold, and though he had mocked her at first for her thin dress, his eyes now shone with understanding. His clothing marked him as an outsider.
Gregory led her by the elbow to one of the long tables at the back of the Hall. “Most of these people are only visiting the castle for the banquet tonight,” he whispered, “so this may be your one chance to make an impression. Try to be charming.”
Mina put on her most dazzling smile as she took her seat, but it was difficult to be charming when she was a stranger among friends. Even here at the back of the Hall, among the lesser nobility and friends of the castle, Mina wasn’t important enough to warrant any attention. People talked over both her and Gregory, craning their necks to continue conversations from the last time they’d seen one another. Gregory ignored them in turn—it was Mina who needed to please them, not him. But Mina’s smile was beginning to falter.