“I know.” And for a moment, Carroll found himself longing to tell them about it, all of it . . . how for a single moment Elyssa had been there, with them once more. But once started, he knew he would not stop until he wept.
“Watch out for Thorne,” he told Elston quietly. “Neither he nor the witch are to come anywhere near this room.”
Elston nodded, though his throat convulsed in a nervous swallow that Carroll read easily: if the witch wanted to enter, how were they to stop her?
I don’t know, Carroll thought, glancing involuntarily at the green door at the end of the corridor, behind which the Queen slumbered on and on. They could not even protect Arla; how were they to protect a helpless infant?
But we must, his mind insisted, irrationally but with perfect conviction. We must.
Carroll slipped back through the door and found the doctor perched over Elyssa’s bedside, holding her wrist in one hand and his watch in the other. One of the midwives was rocking the baby, Lazarus close by, while the other tidied up the room. Under the baleful eye of Niya, Father Timpany sat in the corner still reading, his Bible open on his lap.
“Is the Princess Regent all right?” Carroll asked.
“Fine,” the doctor replied. “I am only making the routine check.”
Carroll stared down at Elyssa. She appeared dead to the world, but Carroll could not help hoping that she would awaken, see him, be herself. What would it mean if they could have her back, the Elyssa that was, the True Queen? What could they not do if she opened her eyes?
You’re being as foolish as Niya, his mind chided. You spoke the truth: Elyssa is gone. Grief overwhelmed Carroll then, all the way down to his marrow. You will never see me again, Elyssa had told the baby, and the sorrow in her face had been too great to doubt. Tears welled in Carroll’s eyes, and he blinked, dashing them away. Elyssa was gone, and now they must contend with what lay before them.
He moved to stand beside Lazarus, who was looking down at the new princess. She was swaddled in linen, but as Carroll approached, the midwife folded back the cloth so that he could see the baby’s face: red-cheeked and angry.
“Sir,” the midwife said quietly, “we must take the necklace off. The infant could strangle.”
Carroll knew that she was right. No heir ever wore the jewel this young; typically, the firstborn did not receive it until the eighth birthday, a purely cynical delay to allow for medical problems, mental deficiencies, and other flaws to show. Barty had told him that an enormous ceremony had accompanied Elyssa’s ascension to Heir Designate. A necklace on a newborn was dangerous, but how could Carroll dare take it off? The girl had been dead before their very eyes, until Elyssa had put the jewel around her neck.
Transferring ownership, Carroll thought. There was something in the old legends about that, wasn’t there? The sapphires could not be taken, only given.
“No,” Carroll replied quietly. “The Princess Regent gave her the jewel. It’s not for us to take it off.”
“But, sir—”
“No. Work around it.”
Leaving Lazarus on guard, he collapsed into one of the nearby armchairs. The baby continued to mewl and snuffle, making tiny unsatisfied noises. One of her hands slipped free of the folds of linen, clenching as it waved in the air.
So much trouble for one scrap of girl, Carroll thought wearily. Is she worth it?
There could be no present answer to such a question, but the baby, Kelsea, replied all the same: mewling angrily, batting the midwife away, and shaking her fists.
Chapter 32
THE TRUE QUEEN
It’s always the unbelievers who are easiest to convince. Doubters will always be doubters, but show me a staunch unbeliever and I show you the embryo of a fanatic. Men of science are the most vulnerable to that which appears before their own eyes, and their need for certainty can be directed anywhere . . . even toward God.
—Lectures of His Holiness, Pius XX, from the Arvath Archive
Niya was changing the baby.
She did not know how this had happened. She had been a pickpocket, a thief, a kidnapper, a murderess. Now she was a nurse. Niya had pointed out to Carroll the utter absurdity of these contradictions, but Carroll was adamant. She thought that Elyssa might gainsay him—Niya was still Elyssa’s head maid, after all—but Elyssa was no longer a woman