“Triz,” Pasquale says softly from the bed.
She winces. “How much of that did you hear?”
“Enough to know you just made a mistake. You should have taken his offer.”
Beatriz shakes her head, sitting down on the bed beside him. “No,” she says. “We are in this together, Pas, and we will find our way out of it together.”
Pasquale falls quiet for a moment. “You didn’t tell him you knew about the poison,” he says.
“No, that would have been foolish,” she says. “Just now we’re inconvenient, but if he knows we hold that secret, we go from inconvenient to dangerous.”
Pasquale nods slowly, his brow furrowed. “Cosella,” he says after a moment.
Beatriz frowns, and it takes her a minute to remember the winery she asked him about.
“What about it?”
“When Gigi and Nico were children, neither of them ever spent a moment without the other—Cosella was their collective nickname. Nicolo and Gisella combined. I’d forgotten all about that, but it’s why it sounded familiar when you asked.”
Beatriz closes her eyes, trying to make sense of this new information. It’s remarkably easy—of course King Cesare was never conspiring with his sister; Beatriz had already suspected he didn’t have the mental capacity for it. But Sophronia’s information was valid after all. Nicolo must have used his position as cupbearer to intercept the letters. She’s unsure whether Queen Eugenia knew who she was really corresponding with, but she supposes it doesn’t matter now. It’s more information that won’t save her and Pasquale, and she doubts she’ll be able to get a letter to Sophronia.
Pasquale looks at her again and attempts a smile. “Part of me is glad you didn’t take Nico’s offer, selfish as that might make me.”
Beatriz bites her lip. “Well, part of me was glad you didn’t sail off with Ambrose, so it seems we’re both selfish.”
* * *
—
When the sleeping powder drags Pas back to sleep, she tiptoes out of the bedroom and into the adjoining parlor, sitting down at her desk. She takes a sheet of parchment from the drawer and dips her quill into the inkpot before beginning to write.
Dear Mama,
I would rather die than ask for your assistance
She crumples up the letter and throws it into the fire.
Dear Mama,
I find myself in terrible trouble because of you
With a groan, Beatriz crumples and burns that letter as well. She takes a steadying breath and tries again.
Dear Mama,
I know that we have had our differences in the past and that I have not always been the most dutiful of daughters. I find myself now in a horrible mess of my own making, accused of treason along with Prince Pasquale. I fear for our lives and I beg your help.
Beatriz stares at the words, her stomach turning until she thinks she might be sick. It’s too over-the-top, she thinks, her mother won’t believe it. As she crumples that letter and adds it to the fire as well, she realizes what the problem is—her mother will not be moved by emotion or begging. She picks up her quill.
Dear Mama,
Our plans have gone awry and everything you’ve worked for is in danger. If you help us now, I will be forever in your debt.
Writing those words makes her sick too, but she knows that if anything will sway her mother, it will be that. She sets the letter aside and brings up a new sheet of paper, staring at it for a long moment and tapping the feather of the quill against her cheek.
She carefully transcribes the letter, using her mother’s favorite code, the Delonghier Shuffle, to hide it within a simpering letter in which she begs her mother to maintain the treaty with Cellaria even in the face of her arrest.
When she’s done, she seals the letter and burns the original before sitting back in her chair and letting out a long sigh.
The empress will come, she tells herself. She repeats the thought over and over again until she almost believes it.
In the hours after her conversation with Beatriz, Daphne can’t stop thinking about her sisters.
What they are doing is dangerous, Daphne has always known this—it’s why they were taught to always carry a dagger holstered around their thighs, why she’s smuggled a second one in her boot ever since her brush with the poison. But the danger to her seems inconsequential. It’s her sisters she’s worried about, and with every hour that passes with no news from abroad, that worry grows, along with the mounting frustration that they’ve gotten themselves into this position in the first place.
It helps that Cliona’s decided to spend the next day with her. She arrives just after breakfast and helps Daphne go over the letters that have piled up while she’s been recovering. At first, Daphne suspects Cliona has some ulterior motive, but as the day drags on, she can’t figure out what that is. It’s unnerving, which is why Daphne decides to confront her while they sip their morning coffee.
“We aren’t friends,” she tells Cliona. “You must know I won’t tell anyone about the rebels. I can’t without incriminating myself.”
Cliona glances up at her over the top of one of Daphne’s letters—this one from an acquaintance in Bessemia, fishing for gossip. “Are you sure we aren’t friends?” she asks, setting the letter aside.
“Yes,” Daphne says, frowning. “Friends like each other. They don’t threaten and blackmail and bribe.”
“Hmm,” Cliona says, pursing her lips like the thought had never occurred to her. “I guess I wouldn’t know. I don’t have many friends, and neither do you, come to think of it.”
“I have friends,” Daphne snaps, though as soon as the words are out of her mouth, she realizes they’re a half-truth. She doesn’t have friends; she has sisters. And that’s the same in some ways, but not in others. A sharp thorn of regret pricks her when she thinks about her last conversation with Beatriz, but it goes away quickly. It’s simply how they speak to each other; no doubt Beatriz has already forgotten it.
“You’re interesting to spend time with,” Cliona tells her, shrugging. “And whether or not I like you, I certainly respect you. Maybe that’s enough for friendship.”
Daphne looks down at the letter she’s holding, frowning so deeply that she can hear her mother’s voice in her mind, warning her about getting wrinkles.
“Besides,” Cliona says, “if I didn’t think we were friends, I wouldn’t have given you that wish to speak with your sister.”
At that, Daphne scoffs. “It wasn’t a gift, remember? You said I’d have to pay you back. Ergo, not friendship.”