that she would find it locked, but the handle moved easily under her fingers.
The infirmary was dark, save for a single candle burning at Gareth’s bedside. The flame illuminated the tiny bell that Beale had given him to ring for aid. Beale was gone; as the senior medic, he did not work nights. But his two assistants sat snoring in the corner, not awakening even when Elyssa closed the door loudly behind her.
My God, she thought wildly. She has put them all to sleep! The entire castle! It was like something from a fairy tale, but not the pretty kind that Elyssa had enjoyed as a child. She felt as though she had stumbled into Lady Glynn’s old book of Grimm, where fair faces hid cold intentions and queens were always demanding someone’s cut-out heart. When Elyssa’s mother had banished Lady Glynn from court, Lady Glynn had taken her enormous library of books with her, but Elyssa had already read most of them, and the Grimm had always stuck in her mind. The fairest of face could not be trusted, but did that make a grotesque-looking creature like Brenna any more trustworthy? Elyssa didn’t think so.
“Highness?”
Elyssa jerked with fright. Then, with unutterable relief, she realized that Gareth had spoken. He was awake, sitting up in bed, his now-healed torso barely visible in the candle’s thin glow, his head in shadow. His arm was still encased in plaster.
“I am sorry,” she said feebly. “I didn’t know where to—”
“What are you running from?”
“From her. The witch.” Fear had loosened her tongue. “She knows what I want. She knows everything.”
“What witch?” Gareth asked sharply.
“The white woman. Brenna.”
Gareth was silent for a long moment. Then he said, “I have seen her.”
“She’s been in here?” Elyssa was suddenly outraged, for it seemed, somehow, a direct intrusion on her own life, a shot aimed at her.
“No,” Gareth replied. “But I have seen her, all the same. Don’t be frightened; she will not dare come in here. She knows I see her, as clearly as she sees me.”
Elyssa didn’t know what to make of this statement. In the corner the two medics slept on and on, gentle smiles on their faces, as though they dreamed the pleasantest of dreams.
“I heard about what you did,” Gareth murmured. “In the Circus.”
“What else was I going to do? Sell my soul to the Arvath?” Elyssa kept her tone light, but it was difficult, for the memory of that night still had the power to move her deeply, more than any other single moment in her life. They had carried her away on their shoulders, and it had gone on all night: visits to pubs and restaurants, drinks offered to her on the streets, people leaning in close to touch her hand or the hem of her dress. She had spoken to so many people, heard so many stories . . . shopkeepers, merchants, pros, the idle. But it had finally come to an end, and as she had snuck back into the Keep with her Guard through the tunnels, she felt much as she imagined a young girl of the city would feel after being out all night with a boy: both furtive and proud, terrified of the sound of her mother’s voice. She did not regret what she had done, but she did not deceive herself that the price would not come due in blood.
“Still, you have declared for us,” Gareth told her, his light eyes clear, almost brilliant. “And we do not forget.”
I love him, Elyssa thought. It was when she talked to Gareth that she came closest to seeing the better world, not as a vague dream but a reality, a place that they could reach together . . . and that was love, Elyssa suddenly understood, much more than any of the feelings she had ever had for men before.
“What will you do?” Gareth asked. “When your mother calls you on the carpet?”
“Try to be brave, I suppose.” Elyssa wished it were as easy as she made it sound. “Pray she doesn’t give Thomas the throne.”
“She will not. Don’t worry about Thomas. We will deal with him shortly.”
The statement carried such quiet assurance that Elyssa could only nod. She wondered whether the Blue Horizon meant to kill Thomas, and found that she didn’t care, not in the slightest.
“You will be a good queen, Elyssa,” Gareth told her gently. “I am certain of it.”
Elyssa nodded, smiling . . . but her eyes were full of tears. She