It’s as if I’m a disease they can catch. If they get too close to me, they’ll be stripped of their titles and names, and cast down from their towers. Fools.
I count the days.
CHAPTER 8
It’s been a week since I asked the Royal Council and General Belrosa Demure to intercede with Hat, and I’ve finally settled on a proper definition of hell. Hell is sitting in an etiquette class with a prim and proper teacher named Eldritch Weathers, and dear old Eldritch, with his rich aura as smooth as purple velvet, is lecturing me on the difference between posture and poise (apparently they’re not the same thing), and all I can think about is Hat slumped in a cell; and then he’s describing the types of food you shouldn’t eat in public, and I know Hat is probably starving right now; and then he argues for the twentieth time that I should wear proper ladies’ shoes instead of my boots, and all I can think is that Hat won’t be wearing shoes in the prison—the floor at night will be cold.
On and on like this for days. And every day, in between lessons with Eldritch, I meet with new Royals. I learn their names, but the only thing I can vaguely remember is the blur of their auras. Every day, someone wants my response to whatever is happening out in the city. Someone wants to know if I really do have a name and I’m only pretending for some inane sense of drama.
Eldritch isn’t unpleasant, but he isn’t patient. Part of me wants to meet his every challenge, the same way I once met the challenges issued by Marcher. Pickpocket a Royal, rob a dock shipment, dress out of class, spend a week clearing out the attic of a wealthy Legal. I have experience with people like Eldritch, and I have one advantage over him. I’m less pleasant and even more patient.
Plus, I’m his queen, more or less.
Eldritch has seen enough of my snarky behavior and anger to suspect I have no interest in learning, but he’s wrong about that. As a grifter, I make my way conning people, which means I study people and learn to imitate them. They’ve assigned me etiquette lessons as if they’re a punishment or a challenge I won’t meet, when in fact they’re equipping me with the tools I would have acquired anyway by observing Royals at dinners and lunches. I’m a quick learner, but I have no interest in letting Eldritch know that.
“Are you perhaps not capable of sitting up straight?” Eldritch asks as we sit at a formal dinner setting, discussing wine-serving ceremonies and the proper use of cutlery. According to Eldritch, wine is for ceremony and celebration, not everyday consumption. And cutlery is for eating food and definitely never ever for threatening the well-liked daughter of a recently deceased king. If nothing else, I’m glad stories of my resourcefulness have circulated.
After I’ve sat through the first two courses of a pretend formal dinner, he has added to his list of displeasures. “Are you perhaps not capable of holding a knife correctly? Are you perhaps not capable of maintaining eye contact? Are you perhaps not capable of holding a cordial conversation?”
“I am perfectly capable,” I say, sitting with slumped posture. “I am perhaps not patient enough. You know what these lessons are missing?”
“A dedicated student?” Eldritch offers gently, a pencil jutting out from behind his ear as he straightens the pocket square in his formal jacket.
I grit my teeth. Nothing’s worse than someone stealing the punch line of your sarcastic quip.
“In fact, yes,” I say. I grab my thin white shawl from the curving arm of the ornately carved wooden chair, wrap it around my shoulders, and head for the door.
“If you cannot tolerate me,” Eldritch says in a lofty tone, “how do you ever expect to tolerate the Royal class as a whole?”
I pause at the door. I don’t know whether he’s insulting himself, insulting the Royals, or insulting me. I try not to care.
I’m about to leave, when I sense an aura approach on the other side of the door. Angrily, I pull it open, ready to push past the visitor and stalk the corridors. Seven days I’ve been coming to these lessons. I’ve learned a lot from Eldritch in that time, but I’m too angry to be anything but stubborn. When I open the door, Esther is standing there in a sterling blue blouse and long black slacks.
Eldritch rises to his feet. “Ah, good, I heard you’d be joining us today.”
Esther skirts around me. “The Royal Council has been receiving updates from Eldritch, and they thought my presence might spur some improvement in you, since we don’t have months to train you. If you would sit, we can continue the lesson.”
I plop down in my chair with overly exaggerated obedience.
She rolls her eyes. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
“Wait, are you telling me there’s a difference between the letter of the law and the spirit?” I say. “Oh dear, I think I’ve been exploiting laws incorrectly all this time.”
She opens her mouth to retort, but Eldritch cuts in and says, “A thing to learn—which Esther herself is still learning—is that when conflict presents itself, the appropriate and regal thing to do is keep your head, keep your temper, and keep control.”
Part of what he’s saying is correct. If you stay calm and collected during a fight, you have the advantage. But the detail he’s missing is that my version of calm and collected doesn’t match Esther’s. I calmly and collectedly drive everyone to frustration. Or, if tempers rise, I calmly and collectedly punch someone in the face. It’s about context, really.
“I think this will go splendidly,” Eldritch says. For a moment I’m annoyed at his sarcasm, but then I realize he’s being sincere, which is worse.
Eldritch starts guiding us on how to have a conversation during a meal—the biggest tip is to avoid talking while food is still in your mouth.
On the list of things I didn’t want to learn: the seventeen different types of cups arranged on the side table, and the myriad ways you should and shouldn’t hold each one.
At some point we start going through an entire, rehearsed seven-course dinner. First a dry wine coupled with a discussion of how to hold the stem of the wineglass. Then some kind of small, layered bread-and-meat snack, drizzled with oil, coupled with a discussion on how to handle crumbs and coughing. Then, through the next three courses, various vegetables and proteins with countless notes about silverware and hand placement. Despite the delicious food, it’s tiresome.
As we wrap up the sixth course, a lobster bisque, I’m pushing the spoon around the bowl and thinking of Hat. I’ve eaten past the point of hunger, which is something I’m so unaccustomed to doing that I feel sick.
As Eldritch compliments Esther on her excellent posture, I work on balancing a kitchen knife across the rim of my wineglass. When Eldritch departs to see why the dessert course hasn’t been delivered yet, Esther turns to me. She slams her own silverware to the table in frustration when she sees what I’m doing.