When Daphne opens her eyes again, the throbbing in her head has faded to a dull ache and she can sit up in bed without pain spasming through her body. Bairre is sitting in the chair by her bed again, alone now, with a book open in his lap. When she stirs, his eyes jerk up to meet hers and he closes the book.
“All right?” he asks her.
Daphne does a quick inventory. Her throat is dry and rough, her muscles a bit sore. She desperately wants a bath and some food, though nothing seems appetizing at the moment.
“More or less,” she tells Bairre. The words are hoarse but intelligible. “How long did I sleep this time?” she asks, afraid of the answer.
“You had a normal night’s sleep,” Bairre assures her with a small smile.
She leans her head back against the pillow and casts her gaze toward the ceiling. “Are there any updates?”
“Zenia’s nanny along with her husband and brother,” Bairre says. “All executed now.”
She feels him watching her for a reaction and she wonders which one she should give him. Horror at the thought of their deaths? Sadness? Guilt? She’s too exhausted to pretend any of those things.
“They tried to kill me,” she tells him. “I’m not sorry they’re dead.”
He nods, glancing away. “They were interrogated thoroughly beforehand, but they didn’t say who they were working with,” he says.
He says interrogated, but Daphne hears tortured. She wonders if he knows it himself.
“But it wasn’t the rebels,” she says.
“No,” Bairre says. “It wasn’t the rebels.”
Even though one of those rebels was holding a knife to her throat a week ago, she believes that. “I need to speak with Cliona,” she says.
Bairre frowns slightly at the change of subject. “She’s checked in on you a few times,” he says. “But you should really rest some more.”
“I’m fine,” she tells him. “Actually, I’d like some fresh air. Can you ask Cliona to meet me for a walk through the garden?”
“You almost died, Daphne,” he says, as if she is unaware of this.
“But I didn’t,” Daphne says, trying to sound surer than she feels. “We’ll be careful, it’s only the garden.”
“Careful isn’t enough. Careful won’t stop an arrow or a bullet or a poisonous gas or—”
“Perhaps the assassins should consult you—it seems you’ve put a lot of thought into how best to murder me,” she says.
Bairre fixes her with a dark look, one that reminds her of other things that were said while she was sick. I’m here because I want to be, he told her.
“This is serious, Daphne,” he says.
It’s different, she thinks, than the way he said her name before, when she had her hand against his cheek.
“So am I,” she says, pushing the thought aside. “I know the risks; I’m the one they tried to kill. But I’ve been stuck in bed for a day and a half and I refuse to let fear keep me sequestered in this room any longer.”
He holds her gaze for a long moment, his jaw tight. “Fine,” he says eventually, getting to his feet. “But you’ll take guards with you.”
Daphne opens her mouth to argue, then closes it again. This is why she didn’t tell anyone about the first attempt—she knew it would mean losing her freedom. But now that they’ve passed that point, there is no going back.
“Fine,” she replies. “But I want Mattlock and Haskin,” she says, remembering the guards who accompanied her and Cliona to the dressmaker, two of the ones Cliona said were with the rebels. Ones who will keep quiet about anything they might overhear.
He nods once. “Done,” he says, starting toward the door. “I think I’ll join you as well—a little fresh air sounds nice.”
Daphne opens her mouth to protest, but he’s already gone, the door closing firmly behind him. She flops back down against the pillows and lets out a groan. She can’t very well speak freely with Cliona if Bairre is there as well.
If only she hadn’t gotten poisoned, she would already have been able to talk with Cliona. The thought of it still rankles—of the three sisters, she’s always been the most adept at creating and identifying poisons. The fact that one almost felled her is embarrassing.
Daphne frowns, a memory filtering back through her mind. Beatriz. The vial she sent. The poison she thought Daphne could identify. After failing so miserably with one poison, she’s determined to redeem herself. She crosses toward the jewelry box on her vanity and sifts through it, finding the false bottom and pulling out the glass vial Beatriz sent, full of the dark red liquid.
Daphne unstoppers the vial and smells it. Wine. She puts the stopper back in the vial and holds it up to the sunlight streaming through her window, turning it this way and that. She squints, looking at the liquid, at the fine, siltlike flecks that sink to the bottom.
Someone is adding something to King Cesare’s wine. Daphne frowns and digs through the hidden compartment of her jewelry box again. It’s full of other vials of liquids and powders, funnels, and other necessities her mother’s apothecary put together for her. Daphne finds a strip of white cloth and a magnifying glass and takes a seat at her vanity.
After shaking the vial, she spills a splash of the wine onto the cloth and watches as the liquid is absorbed, leaving a few grains of grit on the surface. She takes the magnifying glass and holds it up to the cloth, her heart beating so loudly in her chest that she wonders if the entire castle can hear it. The grains are rough and all different sizes, as if they’ve been ground up from something with a mortar and pestle, though she’s quite certain by the uniform color that they come from the same source.
She pinches them off the cloth and brings them to her tongue—even if they are poisonous, such a small amount won’t hurt her. That taste. She knows that taste.
Her hands begin to shake as she rifles through her miniature laboratory, searching for a vial. When she finds it, she opens it and spills some of the seeds inside onto her palm, comparing the color to the remaining grains. They are the same shade of brown—so dark it’s nearly black. She pops one of the seeds into her mouth and bites down, crunching it between her back teeth. It tastes the same, too.
Daphne’s mind is a blur as she closes everything up again. She rings for her maid and lets the girl change her into a fresh day dress and braid her hair, one thought echoing all the while in her mind.
She needs to talk to Beatriz. Now.
When Daphne finally makes it down to the garden, swaddled in so many layers of wool and fur she’s actually sweating, she finds Cliona, Bairre, and Haimish already waiting, Mattlock and Haskin standing just a few feet away. Perhaps she should be surprised that Haimish is there, but she isn’t. She can’t think of much beyond Beatriz, though she knows that Haimish’s presence is a lot less worrisome than Bairre’s. She’ll need to find a way to be rid of Bairre if she’s going to get the stardust Cliona promised.
When Cliona sees her, she smiles, and even though Daphne knows better, she could almost swear the other girl looks genuinely relieved to see her.
“Look at you,” Cliona drawls, taking her hands and kissing her on each cheek. “No one would know you almost died just a day ago.”
“Aren’t you kind,” Daphne replies, and Haimish has to hide his snort of laughter with a cough. Cliona glares at him anyway.
“If you aren’t feeling up to this—” Bairre begins, his brow furrowed.
“I think a bit of fresh air is just what I need,” Daphne interrupts, even though the cold is already getting to her. It doesn’t matter, she reminds herself. Beatriz matters. If Daphne has to feel a little cold to help her, so be it. “Shall we walk?”
Bairre still doesn’t look convinced, but he offers her his arm and she takes it, letting one of her gloves drop as she does. No one notices. Cliona takes Haimish’s arm, and for a moment, they walk in silence. When they’ve gotten far enough away from the palace, Daphne releases Bairre’s arm and makes a show of searching for her glove.
“Oh no!” she exclaims. “My glove! I must have dropped it.”
Bairre looks at the ground around them. “Do you know where?”
Daphne bites her lip and shakes her head. “I know I had it when I came outside. Do you mind doubling back?” she asks him. “I’m sorry, I hate to ask, but it’s so cold out and I don’t want to catch a chill.”
It’s a cheap card, using her recent illness, and when his face goes a shade paler, a pang of guilt goes through her.
“Of course,” he says. “You three stay here with the guards, I’ll be right back.”
As soon as he’s out of earshot, Daphne turns to Haimish and Cliona. “Lord Cadringal’s lands are troubled; he’s overwhelmed by his new duties. If the rebellion approached him, he could be convinced to join, despite his friendship with Bairre,” she tells them. “I did what you asked. Now I need that stardust.”
They exchange a look she can’t read. “We’ll have to see if your reading of Rufus pans out—”
“I need it now,” Daphne interrupts. She pauses, pressing her lips together into a thin line. She hates how desperate she is, how at their mercy, but she can’t deny that she is. “Please,” she says, softening her voice. “I need to use it to speak with my sister. It’s urgent.”
Haimish and Cliona exchange another look. “A wish like that will require a lot of power,” Cliona points out. “Stardust might not be enough—”
“I know,” Daphne says. “But I have to try.”
Cliona looks like she wants to ask questions, but after a moment, she shakes her head.
“It’ll be beneath your pillow after lunch,” she says.
Daphne gives a nod. “Thank you.”
“You can save your thanks—you owe us,” Cliona says.
Daphne opens her mouth to argue, but she sees Bairre approaching at a jog, her glove clutched in his hand. She swallows down her protest and nods. “Fine,” she answers through clenched teeth before greeting Bairre again with a smile.
Daphne makes excuses about not feeling well halfway through lunch. After the last few days, no one questions her. Two guards escort her back to her room and inspect every corner, the wardrobe, and under the bed before leaving her alone. She supposes their attention should make her feel safer, but instead it chafes. They’re trying to keep her alive, she knows this, but she has too many secrets of her own to hide.
As soon as she’s alone, she crosses to her bed and reaches under the pillows. It takes a moment, but she finds the vial of stardust from Cliona, along with a set of directions on how to use it to call on someone.
Daphne wastes no time unstoppering the vial. She reads the instructions and pours the shimmering black dust over the back of her hand.
“I wish to speak with Princess Beatriz,” she says.
As soon as the words are out of her mouth, everything around her goes muffled: the wind whistling outside, the guards’ voices on the other side of the door, even the sound of her own heartbeat.
“Triz?” she says.
She hears a sharp inhale, followed by a mad laugh that can only be Beatriz’s. “Daphne?” her sister asks.
“It’s me,” Daphne says. “I don’t have long—Frivians have a way of using stardust to communicate, but I don’t know how long it will last.”
“What—”
“No questions right now,” Daphne says. “I looked at the wine you sent me. You were right, there was something off about it. Ground apple seeds.” Daphne is speaking so quickly she wonders if she’s making any sense at all. For a moment, Beatriz doesn’t respond.
“Apple seeds?” she asks finally. “But…”
“They’re a source of cyanide,” Daphne says. “Surely you remember that from our lessons.”
“I never paid nearly as much attention as you did,” Beatriz says. “But I do remember that cyanide is lethal. King Cesare is very much alive, though I’m told his servants dilute his wine.”
Daphne shakes her head, even though she knows Beatriz can’t see her. “The wine you sent me wasn’t diluted, but the dosage is small—it will be killing him slowly, though if they used any more than they have been, the addition would be noticeable. It may also be affecting his mind, depending on how much he ingests every day.”
Beatriz goes quiet again. “He ingests quite a lot,” she says. “And he’s become more and more erratic. Pasquale says it’s been going on for months.”
“It will kill him,” Daphne says. “Maybe not right away, but soon.”
Beatriz lets out a long breath. “I wish you’d told me this days ago,” she says, sounding annoyed.
Daphne rolls her eyes. “Apologies, I was only recovering from being poisoned myself. Perhaps if you’d paid better attention—”
“You were poisoned?” Beatriz asks.
“I’m fine,” Daphne says emphatically, thoroughly tired of being fussed over. “How are you?”
That gives Beatriz pause. “Oh, under house arrest, currently. For treason.”
“Are…you joking?” Daphne asks.
“Afraid not.”
“But you have your wish to get you out of trouble,” Daphne says.
“I had a wish,” Beatriz says. “It’s possible, though, that you just gave me what I need to get out of this mess.”
Daphne bites her lip. “Beatriz,” she says slowly. “How much trouble are you in?”
For a long moment, Beatriz doesn’t answer. “It’s only trouble of my own making, Daph. You know I’ve always been good at that, just as I’ve always been good at getting myself out of it.”
She says the words lightly, and Daphne knows the truth of them, but it does little to unknot her stomach.
“Have you heard from Sophie?” Beatriz asks, changing the subject.
Sophie. Daphne’s memories of the day she was poisoned are fuzzy, but at the mention of Sophronia, the letter comes filtering back. She closes her eyes. “She sent a letter,” she admits. “Please tell me you managed to talk sense into her?”
For a moment, Beatriz doesn’t speak, and Daphne worries that they’ve lost the connection.
“You and I both know I’m not the sensible sort, Daph,” Beatriz says finally. “Besides, I happened to agree with her.”
Frustration wells up inside Daphne, and she snatches a pillow from her bed and throws it across the room. It lands with a delicate thud, causing no harm and making Daphne feel no better. Appropriate, she supposes, given how helpless she feels at the moment.
“No wonder you got yourself into so much trouble, Triz,” she snaps. “If you both could just have done as you were told—”
“Do you think it’s the right thing, Daphne?” Beatriz interrupts. “Tell me honestly now: Do you think Mama’s taking control of Vesteria is in everyone’s best interests? Or only hers?”
The next time Daphne sees Beatriz, she’s going to strangle her.
“It isn’t the right thing, or the wrong thing,” Daphne tells her. “It’s the only thing. You’re under house arrest, Triz, so clearly your way of doing things isn’t working out so well for you. Here’s what you’re going to do—write to Mama, apologize, beg for her help, and fix the damage you have done.”
Beatriz is silent again, but this time Daphne knows she’s still there. Hundreds of miles away and Daphne can still feel her sister’s fury.
“I didn’t get you into this mess,” Daphne continues, because she knows that fury is directed at her. “And you know I’m right—Mama is your only hope now.”
Another long pause.
“Of course,” Beatriz says, again with that faux lightness that makes Daphne want to tear her hair out. “I’ll get myself out of this. Try to avoid getting poisoned again, will you?”
She is gone before Daphne can respond.