“Was?” Beatriz echoes, her stomach twisting. “What happened to her?”
At that, Lord Savelle lets out a sigh. “Nearly two years ago, she was brought before the king, just as you were. I believe in the deepest part of my soul that she was as innocent as you are, Beatriz, but she…lacked your charm, I suppose. King Cesare didn’t believe her.”
“Oh,” Beatriz says. “That’s why you came after me, to make sure I was all right.”
Lord Savelle nods. “I thought he would kill me, too,” he admits. “That is usually the way of the king’s trials. But I suppose he didn’t want to risk angering Temarin.”
Beatriz bites her bottom lip, suddenly feeling like the worst sort of fool, showing up in a revealing gown with her coquettish tricks.
“I’m sorry,” she tells him. “I can’t begin to imagine what that must have been like. I’m not sure how you stayed—surely King Leopold would find a replacement for you, if you asked.”
“I’m sure he would,” Lord Savelle says, smiling slightly. “But as difficult as it is to be here sometimes, the idea of living somewhere she never did is…unfathomable to me.”
Beatriz nods. “I suppose I understand that,” she says. “Well, I am honored that you think I’m like her in any way. I will endeavor to earn that comparison, Lord Savelle.”
When he offers her another small smile, Beatriz suddenly realizes how out of her depth she is. She knows how to play the part of the flirt, has been prepared to take that charade as far as necessary to meet her mother’s aims. But this? Lord Savelle sees her the way a father sees a daughter, and that is a relationship she has no idea how to navigate.
* * *
—
Dinner doesn’t last more than an hour, so when Beatriz comes back to the room she shares with Pasquale, she brings him a few pieces of warm bread on a plate. One of the servants offered to take it to him, but Beatriz insisted on doing it herself. Guilt over poisoning him—even if only slightly—still nags at her, and even though she knows the bread is a small thing, it’s as much of an apology as she can muster.
When she steps into the bedroom, though, Pasquale isn’t alone. Ambrose sits on the bottom corner of the bed, a book open in his lap, though he isn’t paying attention to it. Instead, he and Pasquale are both laughing. Beatriz realizes she’s never heard Pasquale laugh, really laugh, before. It’s a nice sound.
“I hope I’m not interrupting,” she says from the doorway.
Ambrose all but jumps off the bed, clutching the book in his hands tightly, while Pasquale sits up straighter, his cheeks turning bright red.
“Triz,” Pasquale says, running a hand through his hair. He looks better, she notes, the green tint gone from his skin. “Sorry, you startled me…startled us…. Have you met Ambrose?”
Ambrose doesn’t look at her as he takes a step in her direction, bowing low. “A pleasure to meet you, Your Highness.”
“Oh, please,” Beatriz says. “Call me Triz. I’ve heard so much about you from Pasquale, I feel I know you already.”
Pasquale fixes her with a glare, but Ambrose only smiles uncertainly. “I came by because the library got a new shipment of books in from Friv and I wanted to bring one to Pas, but when he said he wasn’t feeling well, I offered to read it to him.”
“Oh?” Beatriz asks, crossing toward her vanity and unhooking her earbobs, then her necklace. “What book is it?”
“A volume of ghost stories collected from the highlands,” Ambrose says. “What with the Clan Wars, apparently almost every square inch of Friv is a former battlefield of some kind.”
“Beatriz’s sister is in Friv,” Pasquale adds, looking from one to the other of them with wary eyes. What does he think she’s going to do, Beatriz wonders, tell Ambrose that Pasquale has feelings for him? Even if she did, it’s clear to her after only minutes that those feelings aren’t as unrequited as Pasquale believes. “Daphne, right?”
“Right,” Beatriz says, turning back toward them. “Though, between us, I think Daphne’s an awful lot scarier than any ghost.”
They laugh like she’s joking, though Beatriz isn’t entirely certain she is. The thought sends a pang of longing through her—prickly as Daphne might be, Beatriz misses her terribly.
When his laughter subsides, Ambrose glances down at the book in his hands. “Well, I just wanted to leave this. It’s getting late, so I should be going. Triz, it was a pleasure to meet you, finally. Pas, I hope you feel better.”
“Oh, I will,” Pasquale says. “If only so I can beat you in our chess match tomorrow afternoon.”
Ambrose smiles. “Until then,” he says, and departs.
When the door closes behind him, Beatriz collapses on the bed beside Pasquale, still dressed in her evening gown. “I can see why you like him,” she says, glancing at Pasquale, who groans and throws an arm over his crimson face.
“Stop it,” he tells her.
Beatriz smiles despite herself. For an instant, it almost feels normal—the way she felt with her sisters when they would pile together in one bed at the end of a long night of dancing, drinking, and flirting with boys they knew they could never do more than flirt with. Maybe kiss. Still, they gossiped about them, the ones they liked, the ones they thought liked them.
But it’s not normal, she reminds herself. If it were, she would tell Pasquale that she’s almost positive Ambrose is in love with him, too. But that knowledge won’t do anyone any good—if anything, she tells herself, keeping that secret is the best thing she can do for Pasquale.
She rolls over on her side, propping her head up on her elbow.
“One day,” she tells him, “we’ll live in a better world.”
It’s the truth, she realizes. When her mother seizes Cellaria, the people will be ruled by Bessemian laws. Pasquale will be stripped of his titles, but she can’t imagine he’d be much of a threat to her mother’s reign. He might not even need to be exiled. There will be nothing to stop him from being with whomever he wants then.
“One day, we’ll make one,” Pasquale adds softly.
Beatriz’s chest clenches so hard she thinks her heart actually hurts. She forces a smile before rolling away from him.
Daphne finds King Bartholomew in the library. The vial of stardust is buried deep in the pocket of her wool skirt.
When the guards posted outside open the door and she steps into the library, she’s momentarily stunned by the space. The rest of the castle betrays its newness—many walls are without decoration, some rooms are underfurnished, spaces simply don’t look lived-in the way the centuries-old Bessemian palace does. The library, though, is something else entirely.