I open my mouth to try to answer, but there is no time for the kind of explanation the situation requires.
“Nothing good,” I tell him instead, taking hold of his hand and squeezing it. “Just don’t move, don’t speak. Listen.”
Erik frowns, and I half expect him to protest, but he nods.
“Let the boy go,” Søren says, lowering the tip of his sword.
“Fritz and I are only playing a game,” Rigga says, tracing one black-tipped finger along the boy’s cheek. He flinches away from her touch, closing his eyes tightly.
“Please, Auntie,” he says, so quietly that I almost don’t hear him. “Please let me go. I’ll be good, I promise.”
“Oh, soon, Fritz,” she coos to him. “Just as soon as everyone does as they’ve been told.”
“And what is that, exactly?” Søren asks through gritted teeth.
“Well, first of all, you’re going to put that sword down before you hurt somebody,” Rigga says, stepping into the dining room and dragging a shaking Fritz with her. “And you,” she adds, turning to her cousin, “are going to summon the servants to bring dinner like nothing is amiss. I’m quite starving. And then we are going to wait here, together, until the Kaiserin arrives.”
With that, she sits down at the foot of the table between Søren and Lady Ovelgan, pulling Fritz into her lap and keeping an arm wrapped around him in what might look like a protective gesture if she weren’t holding him so tightly. One of his hands reaches out to grab his mother’s.
“We intercepted all messages leaving the estate,” Søren says again. “The Kaiserin isn’t coming.”
Rigga laughs, and dread pools in the pit of my stomach as I understand.
“She didn’t need to send a message, not really,” I say. “The Encatrio she was given was made from Cress’s blood—it binds them. Just as I can see Cress in my dreams, just as I saw Dagmær, Rigga can see them as well. Communicate with them. Cress knows we’re here.”
“All it took was a drop of a sleeping draught and a quick nap as soon as we received word that your troops were approaching, though I didn’t know you were alive at the time. That will be a wonderful surprise for her, don’t you think?” Rigga says, barely able to contain her glee. “Imagine—she only sent me here to give my cousin and my nieces the same choice she gave me. I was so disappointed when they refused. Wilhelmina actually had the nerve to throw the potions I’d brought out the window—caused a nasty little fire. I was dreading having to tell my Kaiserin that I’d failed her and wasted the Encatrio. But alas! Here you are, and I can’t imagine she will see me as a failure now. She will be here in roughly two days, so we have quite a wait ahead of us. Call for dinner,” she says, looking to her cousin.
Lady Ovelgan keeps her eyes on her son, wide and frightened, as she clears her throat.
“Dinner,” she calls, her voice ringing out like a bell, without any hint of fear or wavering.
A moment passes in silence, but nothing happens. The door to the kitchen hallway remains closed. There is no sound of footsteps or voices. Only silence.
Søren and I exchange a loaded look.
Lady Ovelgan looks at the door, her brow furrowing.
“Dinner!” she calls out again, louder this time. Still there is no response.
“Well,” Rigga says through clenched teeth. “Go check on them.”
Lady Ovelgan doesn’t move, her eyes locked instead on her son, her hand clutching his back.
“I’ll go,” Lord Ovelgan says, pushing his chair back.
“No,” Rigga says, eyes narrowing. “You’ll stay where you are. Wilhelmina, see what’s keeping them.”
With a pained expression, Lady Ovelgan pries her son’s fingers from her hand and stands up, then walks toward the kitchen hall door with shaking shoulders.
Søren and I exchange another look. We both know what she’ll find in the kitchen, and we can both guess at what will happen when she does.
“So,” I say, an idea taking shape in my mind. “Cress made you powerful, more powerful than you ever could have been on your own.”
Rigga turns to me, a single eyebrow raised. It’s the same way she used to look at me back at the palace, like I was a bug beneath her shoe, hardly worthy of her attention.
“Yes,” she says slowly.
“But not as powerful as she is,” I say. “Isn’t that right?”
The words hit home. The corners of Rigga’s mouth pull down slightly before her expression smooths out.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says coldly. “She put fire in my veins and vengeance in my heart. She made me strong.”
I let myself smile. I give her the same contemptuous, pitying gaze she used to give me when I was only the Princess of Ashes.
“But not strong enough,” I say. “I’ve seen Cress; I’ve seen her power; I’ve seen what she can do with it. She gave you her gift, yes, but she made you a shadow of what she is, nothing more. She doesn’t see you as her equal; she sees you as a servant.”
This time, Rigga flinches, her grip on Fritz tightening until the boy cries out in pain.
“Theo,” Søren says. “Don’t.”
I ignore him and push forward. “I’ll bet she only gave you a few drops of the Encatrio, barely a taste of what she had.”
Rigga’s lips purse. “It’s a poison,” she says calmly. “It has to be dosed out by the drop, or else it could have killed me.”
I lift my eyebrows and laugh. “By the drop?” I ask, shaking my head. “Gods above, I gave Cress an entire vial and she survived that. A drop. She must think so little of you.”
“It was enough,” she says, lifting her free hand and summoning a ball of fire barely the size of her pinky nail.
I laugh louder. “I’m sorry,” I manage to get out. “I shouldn’t laugh; it’s rude. I just…Is that really all she gave you? How much can you really do with that little power? Why, Dagmær had enough power to kill her husband and all of his sons. What can you do? Light a few candles?”
She grits her teeth, bringing the fire in her hand close to Fritz’s face. He tries to squirm away from it, but she holds him tight. “You see?” she asks me. “I can do enough.”
“Theo,” Søren says, more insistent now, but still I ignore him.