sound like my mother. "When will I truly wake up?"
"Lady Queen?"
"How much more is there that I'm not seeing, Helda?"
Bitterblue was in Helda's rooms because she wanted to take a look at all of the scarves Helda kept producing from the back of her wardrobe to hide Bitterblue's bruises. "I don't understand," Bitterblue went on as Helda pushed the doors open further, revealing shelves full of fabrics that slung little arrows of memory into Bitterblue's heart. "I didn't know you had them. Why do you have them?"
"When I came to serve you, Lady Queen," said Helda, pulling
scarves out and handing them to Bitterblue to touch, to wonder at, "I found that the servants assigned to the task had done rather an over-zealous cleaning of your mother's cabinets. King Ror had saved a few things he'd recognized as Lienid, like the scarves, and anything very valuable, Lady Queen. But the rest, her gowns, her coats, her shoes, were all gone. I took what was left. I put the jewelry in your chest, as you know, and decided to keep the scarves for you until you were older. I'm sorry it was the need to hide the marks of an attack that brought them to mind again, Lady Queen," she added.
"But that's how memory works," Bitterblue said quietly. "Things disappear without your permission, then come back again without your permission." And sometimes they came back incomplete and warped.
There was an aspect of memory that Bitterblue had been trying to come to terms with lately, one so hurtful that she had not managed yet to face it full on. Her memories of Ashen were a series of snippets. Many of them were moments that had transpired in Leck's presence, which meant that Bitterblue had not even been in her right mind. When they'd been without Leck, they'd spent much of that time fighting Leck's brain fog away. Leck hadn't just stolen Ashen from Bitterblue by killing her. He'd stolen her before that, as well. Bitterblue could not imagine the person Ashen would be today, were she alive. It was not fair that she should find herself doubting, at times, how well she'd ever known her mother.
Even Helda's rooms, the simple, small bedroom in green and the bathing room in turquoise, disconcerted Bitterblue, for they had been her own bedroom and bathing room while Ashen was alive. Bitterblue's current bedroom had been Ashen's. Ashen had bathed her in what was now Helda's turquoise tub, locking the door against Leck, talking with her about all kinds of things. Ror City, where she'd lived in the king's castle, the most massive building in the world, its domes and turrets high in the sky above the Lienid Sea. Ashen's father, her brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews. Her oldest brother, Ror, the king. The people she missed who'd never met Bitterblue but would someday. Her rings, flashing in the water.
All of that was real, thought Bitterblue stubbornly.
She remembered a rough spot on one of the tiles of the tub that had scraped her arm from time to time. She remembered pointing it out to Ashen. Marching now to the tub, she was able to find the sharp little spot immediately. "There," she said, fingering it with a furious sort of triumph.
It was the minutes spent in Helda's room, remembering the feeling of a different time, that caused Bitterblue to become curious about another missing piece, and wonder if it might answer any of her questions. She wanted, finally, to see the rooms that had been Leck's.
THE HORSE IN the sitting room hanging that covered Leck's door had sad green eyes that stared into Bitterblue's. Its forelock hung into those eyes, a more violet blue than the dark, deep blue of its fur, making her think of Saf. Helda helped her push the hanging aside.
The investigation of the door behind did not take long. It was solid, immovable wood, tight in its frame, and it seemed to be locked. There was a keyhole, and Bitterblue remembered Leck using a key. "Who do we know who can pick locks?" she asked. "I've never seen Saf do it, but I wouldn't put it past him. Or, I wonder if Po could find us the key?"
"Lady Queen," said a voice behind them, making Bitterblue jump. She turned to find Fox in the doorway.
"I didn't hear the doors open," said Bitterblue.
"Forgive me, Lady Queen," said Fox, stepping into the room. "I didn't mean to take you by surprise. If it's any use