Sophronia doesn’t say anything for a moment, instead leaning back in her chair and casting her gaze toward the ceiling. She can’t tell Violie what she suspects of Eugenia, but there is another problem.
“My mother thought it was important to understand finances,” she tells Violie. “Ever since my sisters and I turned ten, we managed our own accounts, paid our own bills. There were a few times when one of us overspent our allowance and she would refuse to give us more until the next month. Once, my sister Beatriz ran out of funds a week before the end of the month and had to eat off Daphne’s and my plates, sneak her gowns off to the palace cleaners with ours, even do her own hair before parties.” She shakes her head. “It must sound so frivolous.”
Violie smiles. “It sounds like a lot of responsibility for children.”
Sophronia bites her lip. “My sisters hated it, but truth be told, it was one of the only lessons from my mother that I enjoyed. It’s a bit like a puzzle, and I’ve always enjoyed puzzles. Stars, if Leopold knew how to manage his own accounts, perhaps…” She trails off, remembering herself and remembering Violie, who is still more stranger than not. “Sorry,” she says.
“Is it really so bad?” Violie asks, looking between the piles of papers now taking up the entirety of the table.
Sophronia makes a noncommittal noise in the back of her throat. “On its own? No. As much money as it is, if it were spread out from taxes across Temarin, it wouldn’t cost too much. There’s certainly plenty that I can cut—that I will cut going forward—but what concerns me is that I know this is just the start of it. If we were to look at more accounts, at Leopold’s, at the dowager queen’s and the princes’, at those of every aristocrat who takes their living by taxing people who live in their territory…I’m worried that it will be more of the same and, put all together…”
“Worse, even, in some cases,” Violie murmurs. When Sophronia raises an eyebrow, Violie shrugs. “When I worked for Duchess Bruna, it seemed she was always caught up in an effort to one-up her friends. If Lady Kester had a new gown embellished with a hundred diamonds, Duchess Bruna had to have one with two hundred. It was the same with parties, summer homes, carriages. And the men are even worse. Most of them lose thousands of asters in a single night gambling, and horse and hound trading is its own very expensive hobby. It’s something I’ve noticed since I arrived—I’d always heard that war was an integral part of Temarin culture, but I suppose since they’ve had no war in decades, it’s been replaced by sheer decadence.”
“But it isn’t their money,” Sophronia says softly. “I can’t request tax documents without stoking animosity from the court,” she adds. “They’d think I was a foreigner meddling.”
“Technically, you are a foreigner meddling,” Violie says before catching herself and turning a shade paler. “Sorry, Your Majesty.”
Sophronia laughs. “Why? You’re right. But I’d rather not have my people think of me as their enemy.” She pauses for a moment, but she knows what she has to do—she just doesn’t like it. “Will you coordinate with Leopold’s valet and see if we can find a time in our schedules for a picnic?”
Violie gets to her feet, smoothing out her gown. “I’ll do that now,” she says.
When she’s gone, Sophronia casts another gaze at the piles of bills and picks up the next one.
* * *
—
It takes several days before Sophronia’s and Leopold’s schedules allow them time for a picnic, but the stars at least seem to be on her side, because the weather is perfect—sunny and bright, but crisp enough that she isn’t sweltering in her heavy satin gown, this one a brilliant sapphire blue.
Leopold looks handsome, Sophronia can admit that. His sage-green jacket brings out the color of his eyes, and in the sunlight, his bronze hair looks gilded.
“You’re angry with me,” he says, jerking her out of her thoughts. He says the words softly, though their guards keep even the nosiest courtiers far away.
Sophronia looks at him, ready to deny it and tell him that everything is just fine, but the second her eyes meet his she knows it will be fruitless. She is angry at him, and perhaps she should tell him as much.
“Yes,” she says, holding his gaze. “I suppose I am.”
He shakes his head. “If I could do it all over again, I would do everything differently,” he tells her.
Some foolish corner of her heart lights. “You would?” she asks.
He nods. “I would have taken you another route that day. Around the north side of the palace, maybe.”
That corner of her heart goes dark once more. “Oh,” she says, turning away from him and looking instead at the silhouette of the palace. “I suppose I wouldn’t be angry with you then, though only because I’d be too stupid to know that I should be. Would you rather I be stupid?”
Leopold lets out a long sigh. “That isn’t what I meant, Sophie,” he says.
“No?” she asks. “Those boys would still be dead, wouldn’t they? And so would stars know how many others. Only my knowledge of it would be gone. Perhaps it’s not too late—speak with your empyrea if you like, see if you can wish for a stupider wife.”
“You’re being ridiculous,” he tells her. “That isn’t even how wishes work.”
“I know that,” Sophronia snaps. “Because I’m not stupid, Leopold. I’m not angry with you because I saw the hangings. I’m angry that they happened at all.”
For a long moment, he doesn’t respond. “What would you have done?” he asks.
Sophronia hesitates. It doesn’t matter what she would have done. She isn’t meant to be a true queen, just a temporary one. Soon enough, Temarin will be under Bessemian rule—her mother’s rule—and Leopold, his brothers, and his mother will be shipped off into exile in some distant place. None of this will have mattered.
Except it will. It will be another few weeks at least before Temarin and Cellaria go to war, months more before that war hobbles Temarin enough that her mother can claim it as her own. And that’s not even counting whatever Eugenia may be up to. How many people will die—of starvation, of execution, of the cold itself once winter comes? It is important. And there is no reason Sophronia can’t carry out her mother’s orders and help the Temarinian people.
“You said Temarin’s crime rate is at a high,” she says. “Has it decreased at all since you imposed your stricter punishments?”
“They aren’t my stricter punishments,” he says. “My council decided—”
“The decree has your name on it,” she interrupts. “Those executions happened on your orders. Not your mother’s, not your council’s, yours.”