shielding her from the truth, and now found herself with the same instinct.
Rood was back, shuffling around slowly, taking small breaths. Darby, on the other hand, flung himself around the offices and up and down the stairs, flung papers and words about, stank like old wine, and finally, one day, collapsed on the floor in front of Bitterblue's desk.
He muttered incomprehensible gibberish while healers attended to him. As they carried him out of the room, Thiel stood frozen, staring out the windows. His eyes seemed fixed on something that wasn't there.
"Thiel," said Bitterblue, not knowing what to say. "Thiel, can I do anything for you?"
It seemed, at first, as if he hadn't heard. Then he turned away from the window. "Darby's Grace prevents him from sleeping the way we do, Lady Queen," he said quietly. "Sometimes, the only way for him to switch his mind off is to make himself blind drunk."
"There must be something I can do to help him," Bitterblue said. "Perhaps he should have less stressful work to do, or even retire."
"Work comforts him, Lady Queen," said Thiel. "Work comforts all of us. The kindest thing you can do is allow us to continue working."
"Yes," she said. "All right," for work kept her own thoughts from spinning out of control too. She understood him.
She sat on her bedroom floor that night with two of her spies
who were cipher breakers. The books lay open before them as they hypothesized, argued, passed weariness and frustration back and forth to each other. Bitterblue was too exhausted to realize how exhausted she was, and how unequal to the task.
At the edge of her vision, a largeness filled the doorway. Turning, trying not to lose her thought, she saw Giddon leaning against the door frame. Behind him, Bann rested his chin on Giddon's shoulder.
"Can we convince you to join us, Lady Queen?" asked Giddon.
"What are you doing?"
"Sitting," Giddon said, "in your sitting room. Talking about Estill. Complaining about Katsa and Po."
"And Raffin," Bann said. "There's a sour cream cake."
The cake was motivation, of course, but mostly, Bitterblue wanted to know what sorts of things Bann said when he was complaining about Raffin. "I'm not getting anywhere with this," she admitted blearily.
"Well, and we need you," Giddon said.
Half stumbling in her slippers, Bitterblue joined them. Together, they walked down the corridor.
"Specifically, we need you to lie supine on the sofa," Bann said as they entered the sitting room.
This struck Bitterblue as suspicious, but she complied, and was deeply gratified when Helda loomed out of nowhere and slapped a plate of cake on her stomach.
"We're having some luck with military defectors in south Estill," began Giddon.
"This raspberry filling is amazing," said Bitterblue fervently, then fell asleep, with cake in her mouth and her fork in her hand.
34
MADLEN AND SAF were away for nearly two weeks. When they returned, they made a path through November snow with upward of five thousand bones, and few answers.
"I have managed to reassemble three or four nearly complete skeletons, Lady Queen," said Madlen. "But mostly I've got fragments, and not enough time or space to work out which goes with which. I've found no evidence of burning, but some of sawing. I believe we're looking at hundreds of people, but I can't be any more specific. What would you say to having that cast off tomorrow?"
"I would say it's the first good news I've had in—" Bitterblue tried to calculate back, then eventually gave up. "Forever," she said grumpily.
Leaving the infirmary, stepping into the great courtyard, she came face-to-face with Saf. "Oh!" she said. "Hello."
"Hello," he said, also taken by surprise.
He was, apparently, about to climb onto the window-caulking platform and haul it, with Fox, to whatever obscene height today's work called for. He looked well—the water didn't seem to have hurt him—and there was something quiet in the way he stood there before her, looking at her. Less antagonism?
"I've something to show you, and a request," Bitterblue said. "Will you come to the library sometime in the next hour?"
Saf gave a small nod. Behind him, Fox tied a rope to her belt, not seeming to notice them.
DEATH STORED ALL the journals Bitterblue wasn't working on in a low cabinet in his desk. When Bitterblue asked to borrow one, he unlocked the cabinet and handed it to her impatiently.
When, shortly thereafter, Saf walked into her library nook with high eyebrows, she passed it to him. Flipping pages, he said, "What is this?"