But when the door closed behind him, the prince did the one thing I did not expect. He took his hands off me. His smile, which had been so close to mine a moment ago, fell as he deposited me gently on my feet and pulled farther away.
“What is it, Your Highness?” I asked.
I thought I’d sensed longing as he’d pulled away from me, but I wasn’t certain. The frown on his face confused me.
“I’m sorry, Farrow. I can’t.”
I blinked hard, confused by this turn of events. “The Couterie is supposed to anticipate—I fear I have failed you,” I said.
“It is I who have failed myself. I did not mean to take it that far out there,” he said.
“I don’t understand—”
“Sadie brought your things. I hope everything is to your liking,” he said quickly, and pointed to my cases, including the makeup case, which sat on his dresser. “If there’s anything else that you need . . .”
“I have everything I need,” I said, stepping closer to him again. “I’ll just be a minute.” I picked up the case and quickly strode across the room and into the bathroom.
Opening the case’s false bottom, I was relieved to see that Hecate’s ashes and South’s knife were still there, as well as the little box Tork had given me. I slipped the knife into the hem of my stocking and left the rest inside.
He will be king one day, I reminded myself. He was the Queen’s son.
When I returned and placed the case back on the dresser, the prince was sitting in a large, pillowed chair by the window. “Tell me about yourself. How did you come to be Couterie?”
“It is an honor to be chosen,” I said.
“Based on what? You don’t know me, Farrow. I could be a monster.”
“I do know you.” I ticked off the list of facts I had gathered from the Ana and what Lavendra had heard from the staff.
“You have three eggs prepared every morning. One fried, one boiled, and an omelet. And you eat only one of them. You don’t know what you want until it’s right in front of you. You play three instruments. Speak every language in the Queendoms except Urdish, because you used to skip your lessons and go visit your horses. You love to ride. You hate to fence, but you’re good at it. You’re allergic to crustaceans, but you eat them anyway because you love the taste. You like to stay up late, but you sleep even later . . . You hate the new novels the Queen has commissioned in an attempt to make you seem like a hero and not a curse . . . but you love to read history novels. I think stories are how you make sense of people, since you aren’t able to get close to them . . .”
“The valets talk to the ladies’ maids and the ladies’ maids talk to Madame Linea.” He chuckled. “And I do hate those novels about me . . . The Prince and the Stable Woman . . . it’s just so embarrassing . . .”
And I found myself laughing with him. This was not the way I had planned this. He was not what I’d expected. He was wittier than I’d imagined. He talked more, smelled better, felt better . . . and kissed better.
“That is a collection of facts. A recitation of the Ana. Not who I am.”
Why did the prince want me to think he was different from how he appeared? Different from the Crown? He was a royal and I was a Couterie. He did not need to impress me. This was not part of anything that Madame Linea had taught me. I was supposed to be seducing him. Not the other way around.
“I think a collection of facts is all that we are. Facts and actions,” I countered.
“Then tell me your facts.”
“I’m eighteen. I’m Couterie. I am here to be your companion until the day you are married and until Ever After if you so choose. Isn’t that all you need to know?”
“You don’t like talking about yourself, do you?” he said.
“I’m parched. There. That’s something about me. Why don’t I get us something more to drink?” I offered, moving away from him and his questions. I needed time, and at the exact same moment I didn’t need any more time. South was right: Killing wasn’t a wave of the wand. Without magic, it would be a slice of the knife. And Madame Linea never offered any lessons about how to kill someone after you had kissed them.
I could smell his breath, and I could still taste his mouth and feel his arms around me. This would be so much more intimate than I’d thought.
I poured two glasses. When I returned, I took the seat across from him.
We were sitting too far apart. I couldn’t stab him without giving him too much warning.
I thought of the small packet that Tork had given me. One if you want not to care. Two if you want to forget. Three if you want to sleep through till sunrise.
Maybe if the prince was asleep it would make the stabbing part easier.
“I want to hear about you,” the prince said.
“Me? Ah, you want all the salacious secrets of the Couterie,” I said suggestively.
“No, I want to know about you, Farrow. What is your story? Where did you grow up? Where were your parents? How did you get here? In this palace?”
The prince leaned in. His expression was earnest, as if knowing the answers to these questions about me really mattered to him. As if he truly cared who I was.
I frowned after a beat.
“You think something bad happened to me and that’s why I joined the Couterie?” I assessed, feigning defense. But as my cheeks reddened, I wondered where my training ended and where I began. Tork was perhaps the only person who had asked me about myself in all the years since the Burning. Being the subject of attention instead of the one attending brought warmth to my cheeks and caused my heart to knock against my rib cage.
“No, you misunderstand me. I want to know about your experience because I want to change the Couterie when I take the crown. The Couterie are the brightest and most accomplished people in our Queendom. No one has your education in history or in the arts. I believe that the Couterie definitely deserve a place by the king or Queen’s side. But not their beds.”
I took in his words. I had never expected anyone royal to say them. The Couterie system had been in place for generations, and no one in power ever publicly questioned or considered changing it.
“So what do you think? I want a Couterie’s opinion.”
He leaned back, away from me. He was different from what the Ana had led me to believe. He seemed kind and true and good. I blinked hard at him, studying him.
Except for South, humans weren’t kind. Humans weren’t good. But without my magic, wasn’t I closer to human than Entente?
“I don’t know if it is up to you to change the Couterie,” I said, finally offering up an opinion on what he confessed to me.
“They have a way of life that depends on the Crown, just like the Entente. And I would never do what my mother did.”
My cheeks flushed. What was wrong with me? I needed to remember my Couterie training. I reminded myself that underneath all this paint, I was still Entente. And yet somehow the prince had managed to fluster me. I stuffed my emotions down and reminded myself of the knife that was hidden in my stocking.
“I saw magic once,” the prince said. “Down that very hall. I saw a girl with one of the Fates and they looked just as human as you or me . . .”
The prince got to his feet and walked toward the door. I half expected him to take me to the very spot where Hecate and I had seen him playing hide-and-seek with his guard. The memory of me and Hecate had stuck with him.
What he was saying was practically treason. Why would he share it with me now? Did some part of him know that I had been there that day? I wondered. But that was impossible.
“Are you sure you should be telling me this? Your mother’s feelings on magic are very . . . She wouldn’t like it,” I asked from my seat.
“From my understanding of your code, I am supposed to be able to tell you anything and trust you won’t tell a soul. Not even my mother,” he said, turning back to me.
“That is true. And I would never tell her. But I wonder, how can you trust me so easily?”
“I don’t know if I trust you yet. But I would like to. And there is one thing I do trust.”
“And what’s that?”
“If you tell my mother, then she will kill both of us. Me, for treason, and you, for knowing. So I think I’m safe sharing anything with you.”
It wasn’t some connection between us that unlocked his tongue. It was the knowledge he had of how twisted his mother was. And yet when he looked at me, I could swear he meant every word.
“And it’s more than that—I guess I’m telling you because of what the Entente told me that day.”
“And what was that?” I asked, even though I remembered.
“I was being a bit of a brat. I was so distraught over my grandmother. They reminded me that her death was no excuse to be unkind. They were maybe the first to ever suggest that having the crown didn’t mean that I owned anyone or anything. In essence, they were the first and only to ever tell me to try and be better than my mother. They didn’t deserve what happened to them. They were just trying to protect the Queendom from her. I saw for myself how innocent they were, and I knew what my mother did to them. I will never forget them. I only wish I’d been old enough to stop what she started that day.”
I felt shaken, but I tried to cover it.
“She claims she’s done all this for me. But I don’t want that burden.”
“Do you believe that?”
“I don’t want to. But some think that I am the cause of how my mother is.”
“How?”
“I am the first male heir in the history of the Thirteen Queendoms. They say that my mother’s inability to produce a female heir drove her mad.”
He broke eye contact when he said this and looked down at his hands, which he wrung together. It seemed clear that he was blaming himself for this.
“That’s ridiculous. You don’t believe that, do you?”
Mather was silent for a moment; then he looked up. His eyes were full of sadness.
“My mother feels vulnerable to the other Queendoms because of me. What if that is behind her every decision and not the prophecy of the Entente?”
I rocked back in my seat. As much as I had been surprised by the whole encounter, I was doubly surprised by his guilt.
“You are not to blame. Your mother’s choices are her own,” I said firmly. I patted the seat next to me. And he returned to sit by me.
“But if I . . . Perhaps if I had never drawn breath, then there would be a lot of other people still breathing in Hinter.”
But then there would be no you, I thought selfishly. I kept the thought in.
“Can I tell you something?” he said.
“Anything,” I whispered, and nodded. But I wasn’t sure if I could take any more truth right now.
“I actually thought about running away tonight. This is the first night of my adult life that I am not under her thumb.”
“And what stopped you?”
“The second I saw you, I couldn’t go anywhere.”
“Because my face was made to match your ideal.”
“It’s more than your face, Farrow. It’s you . . .” He drifted off, but his eyes never left mine.
I looked away. I had to remind myself why I was here.
“You don’t know me . . . not really.”
“What I know, I like. And I want to know more.”
I took a few seconds then pushed past the compliment.
“Mather, what happens if you stay? Would you really make things better if she isn’t on the throne forever . . . ?”
I hadn’t intended to say any of that, but the words came in response to his sincerity.
“I would—but she’ll probably live forever,” he said, studying me in the pause that followed.
I had said too much.
“No Queen lives forever. Long live the king,” I covered.
He smiled, but there was sadness in it. I reached out and took his hand. I let it rest there a moment too long before taking it away.
“Farrow . . . ,” he whispered, his voice laced with longing, as if my hand leaving his pained him.
I felt it too. But I knew I had to push it away. I got to my feet.
“We need another drink.”
It was time. No more stalling. I went over to the dresser and picked up the pills that Tork had given me. I slipped them into the prince’s glass as I poured him a drink.
“Here’s to change,” I said, raising my glass to his.
He took a sip, and I finally felt myself exhale. I just had to wait for the drug to take effect. He got up again and walked over to where I’d rested the crown.
“I wish that we had met in the square, like normal people,” he said. He reached for his crown. “That we could be Mather and Farrow. Not prince and Couterie. That’s what I want. And I would trade this piece of metal for that.”
Mather wanted a clean slate. He didn’t long for power or magic. He didn’t long for the crown or a wand. He wanted to meet a girl in the square and fall in love. He was that simple. He was that good.
For the briefest second I imagined myself in the square, bumping into Mather as Mather and me as just Farrow. Not Entente; not Couterie. Me without the burden of vengeance. But that would mean I would not ever have had Hecate or South or even Tork and Lavendra. I don’t know who I would be without them, for better or for worse. And as tempting as it was, a life that simple was not possible. I would lose myself in the bargain. For the briefest of seconds that had seemed tempting to me . . . but I pushed the temptation aside.
“Mather, you aren’t normal. You’re a prince. Some things can’t be,” I said sadly.
“When I saw you in that room tonight, I felt like I knew you already. I felt like you were—like you are—the closest thing to Fate I have ever felt.”
I inhaled sharply. I wasn’t supposed to believe him. I wasn’t supposed to get swept up in this. In him. But the more he spoke, the harder it was going to be to use the knife. I thought of Tork’s warnings and of Linea’s about not falling for the prince. I had thought myself immune. What was wrong with me? I knew him on paper in the pages of the Ana . . .
Behind him I noticed the moon peeking through the heavy silk curtains. It was almost morning. Where had the night gone? What was I doing? He was supposed to be dead, and I was supposed to have moved on to my real target, his mother.
But instead I was watching the sun come up with the prince. I was betraying my own plan and the Entente all at once.
“Kiss me again because you want to,” I said.
I dropped the knife behind the bed. And I kissed him. At first he responded, and the kiss was urgent and sweet and filled with longing. We knew something of each other now and we both wanted so much more.
Suddenly he stopped responding. I pulled back. Mather was fast asleep.
I had learned in the worst way possible that Fate could be both cruel and kind. I wondered for the briefest of seconds if perhaps he had been sent to grant my wishes instead of the other way around.
He had said the exact thing that had stopped me from killing him. But I still had a job to do. I slipped the knife back inside my stocking and retrieved Hecate’s ashes.
It was time to kill the Queen.