49

I WOKE TO LIGHT STREAMING THROUGH CURTAINED WINDOWS and Theodor sitting on the floor beside the crude cot I was sleeping on.

“Where … what time … did they … how long?” I murmured through a sleep-tied mouth.

Theodor laughed. “Slow down. You’re in the Lord of Keys’ room in the Stone Castle. It’s nine o’clock in the morning. And it’s over outside. It seems a large number of Red Caps abandoned the fight midway through.”

“Kristos managed to convince them,” I said. “Kristos! Is he—did they find—”

“No word.”

I closed my eyes. That was not the worst news I could have received.

Theodor wrapped his hand around mine. “My father arrived from the palace along with the Lord of Keys half an hour ago. There were two small detachments of Kvys hired cavalry stopped at outposts outside the city. They didn’t put up much of a fight. It’s possible Pyord had more hired than were due to arrive in the first wave, but they’ve dispersed if so.”

“They aren’t still on the way here?” I asked.

“No, not how they would operate. Pyord hired them, probably a limited contract reporting to him alone. They most certainly aren’t under order from the Kvys government—tacitly permitted mercenaries hired through lesser oligarchs, likely. When it benefits Kvyset, they claim their victories, and when it doesn’t, they pretend to know nothing about them. I have a feeling they’ll dissipate quickly, now that their contract is void.”

“Void?”

“They found Pyord last night, trying to escape the city. When it became clear he couldn’t win, he ran.”

“Coward.”

“My thoughts exactly. He was killed trying to scale a wall—rather inglorious.”

“It feels like there should be more,” I said. “Like that can’t be the end, somehow.”

“I’m sure it’s not,” Theodor said, sounding weary. “Likely what my father wishes to discuss, before anything else—the possibility that they might mount another attempt.”

“Your father is here,” I said, then sat bolt upright. “Your father! And the Lord of Keys! Do they know that I—what did you tell him?”

“Well, my father had noticed that I brought a strange young woman to the Midwinter Ball. In fact, he asked me who the lovely young duchess or countess was.” He choked back a laugh.

“And?”

“And my father thoroughly chastised me for trying to be a knight-errant last night, leaving the palace when we were supposed to stay under guard, but he was so wrapped up that he forgot to ask who you actually were.” He shrugged. “I’ll straighten him out later. But you should be safe remaining here.”

“It feels as though—as though it can’t be over.” I picked at a loose thread in the blanket.

“You’re probably right. We stemmed the tide last night, but there are still scores of unhappy people and a very real revolution in thought. The leadership of this particular attempt fell to bits, but it doesn’t mean that the motivation of the participants in last night’s attempt at a revolt wasn’t real. They found ways to arm themselves once, secured funding once—they can certainly do so again.” He hesitated. “And the king is not well.”

I sat up straighter. “What are you saying?”

“He was badly injured last night. It’s too soon to know much, but I’m rather forced for the first time to truly consider my role as an heir.”

I swallowed and stared at my hands. An heir—and the words he didn’t say: to the throne. The great chasm between us, between our stations, widened just a little more as he spoke.

“I suppose I’d never really thought I’d be in line for the throne,” he said. “First I figured that the king would have a son, then that Annette would have a son before the king died. Now—maybe not. The line could pass to my house.”

“And greenhouses and studying flowers have to be put on hold if you’re the heir apparent.” And affairs with seamstresses, too, I thought.

“It’s not a bad thing, really,” he said, toying with the fringe at the edge of a throw pillow. “I want to put botany aside if I can do more good in taking on my role as a noble. I mean, truly take it on. Your damn brother,” he added with a rueful laugh.

“What?”

He tossed a pamphlet on the bed between us. “Before that movement went off the rails, before it turned to regicide and Pyord’s dark schemes, this was all there was to it.”

“Talk,” I said. “Words and talk and idle hours in cafés.”

“No, not idle,” Theodor said. “Talk about making things better. And your brother, for all his faults, had some good ideas. He took the theory and the economics and the philosophy and he applied it in such ingenious ways—some of this is actually possible, Sophie. Not only possible but plausible.”

I remembered how he’d looked the night before, handing my charmed flowers as talismans to the soldiers. How he’d seemed to carry hope with him. How he didn’t shy away from shaking the hand of a scarred man splattered with blood.

How he looked, in that moment, that he’d been made to lead men.

A knock on the door, and Viola’s face appeared in the crack she opened. “Hate to interrupt,” she said, “but my father wanted to speak to Sophie.”

I started, my head feeling very heavy. Perhaps I wasn’t so safe after all. Perhaps one of Pyord’s men had given me away. To add more insult to the prospect of being arrested, I was still wearing the scraps of Madame Pliny’s court gown.

Viola scanned the rags with a neutral expression. “Stay there.”

She returned with spare clothes, plain linen petticoats and a loose bedgown with tattered ribbon ties. “Wear these. You look ridiculous.”

“Are you all right?” I asked as I unlaced the bodice of the ruined gown.

“I’m fine. Plenty of others aren’t—I’m sure in noble homes and common ones this morning. Now put on those clothes. I went to a lot of trouble to fish them out of the bin of goods confiscated from prostitutes and thieves.” Her tone was even but her hands shook slightly, and there was a haunted look behind her eyes.

I threw the clothes on and followed Viola to her father’s office. She opened the door and shoved me through with a gentle push, but waited outside. My head still throbbed faintly, and I felt as weak as a kitten. But there was a vague relief that it was truly over now. No more hiding. No running.

The Lord of Keys waited in a sparse sitting room, his dark uniform and leather helmet blending in with the dark wood and stone of the castle. I sank onto the nearest chair, winded by the trip downstairs.

“It’s over?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said simply. Theodor and his father slipped quietly into the room. “For now,” he amended. “We’ve been questioning participants all morning.” My heart sank—he knew. I gathered what little courage I had left to face the charges I was sure were about to be read against me.

But the Lord of Keys continued. “There’s some indication of a shift in leadership—a committee that crumbled, or a single leader and his sergeants who disagreed. We can’t be sure.” I was sure—Kristos wouldn’t stand for a dictator after being fed on democracy, and it turned out that many of the Red Caps were loyal either to his ideals or simply to Kristos himself. Pyord, in his final calculation, had made an error. “But many of them say one of the members of the leadership is hiding in the city, biding his time until he can mount a second attempt. It’s come to my attention that this man may be your brother.”

I clamped my mouth shut. Even after everything we had been through, I couldn’t betray Kristos. I wouldn’t.

“I don’t know where my brother is,” I answered honestly. “I saw him last night, briefly. But I don’t know where he went. I—” I hesitated, but continued. “I told him he should escape while there was still time.”

To my surprise, the Prince of Westland smiled wanly. “I would have probably done the same for my brother. And he for me.” Theodor’s father looked very much like him, I thought as he spoke.

“I appreciate your honesty, Miss Balstrade,” the Lord of Keys said. “The picture we have established from those held prisoner is fairly clear—this revolt failed and they’re not able to produce another in short order. I have to investigate all potential elements.”

I considered this. “The rebels offered all this information willingly?”

“They believe they’re going to be killed. They were taunting me.”

“Are they going to be killed?”

“I’d advise against it,” Theodor said. He looked older, somehow, his face poised with the same concentration it wore when he played violin or discussed the finer points of botany. “Find and execute the leadership, yes, what remains of it.” I thought not only of my brother, but of Niko, still unaccounted for. Of those just under them, their sergeants, who might be considered highly ranked enough to hang. “But let the common folk go.”

“I agree,” the Prince of Westland added. “Making martyrs will only further this divide and harden their resolve.”

“What would you have me do?” The Lord of Keys paced toward the fireplace. “It’s the king’s decision, regardless.”

“Indeed. Hold those arrested until the king recovers. Or until”—the prince’s face constricted and his voice cracked—“until he does not recover.” The possibility of the king’s death spread through the room like the cold when a door swings open in a strong wind.

“How did they do it?” I asked after a long silence. “How did they get into the dome?”

“The masonry around the windows and the stones above the entryway was replaced with a weaker compound,” the Lord of Keys said. “There was work done on the exterior just a week ago. I failed, I suppose, to thoroughly vet the masons who did the job because I am sure now that they must have been in alliance with the rebels. Slight pressure deteriorated the compound around the windows, allowing access to the dome itself.”

“And the blocked stairs? The weakened compound was that precise?” Theodor asked.

“It was.” He rubbed his temples. “It is, admittedly, an incredible plan.”

I wondered—was the plan with the weakened masonry Pyord’s work? Or simply an enterprising mason bent on destruction of the monarchy instead of building and repairing? The promises of the people the Lord of Keys had interrogated chilled me—they were capable, I knew, more than even the Lord of Keys did, to ply their trades and skills for a cause they believed in. Like my brother, they were willing to use or to spend their lives.

Viola burst into the room. “He’s—the king—he’s—”

“Oh, heaven,” I murmured as I watched the tears stream from her face. The Prince and Duke of Westland followed, somber and shocked.

“The government buildings are secure. All appointed magistrates are in their place, and guarded by soldiers. It is a tragedy to lose the king, but not the chaos it could have been.” The Lord of Keys stood straight and official. “All appointed magistrates except you, Your Highness.” He inclined his head to the prince.

“I must get to the palace,” he agreed. “I—I should have been there. I should have been with my brother.” We all stood, dumb and rooted to the ground, until I saw a single tear course down Theodor’s father’s face.

I rose and crossed the room, taking the new king’s hand in mine. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” I whispered. Then I ran from the room.