"I was testing the impact of a bean upon water," Bann said.
"That's not even a thing."
"Perhaps I'll test the impact of a bean upon your beautiful white shirtfront," said Bann, with a threatening wave of a bean. Then both of them noticed that Bitterblue was watching. They turned their grins upon her, which was like a bath of silliness for her, a bath to clean away the dirty, crawling, panicky feeling she'd gotten from Leck's words.
"How bad was it?" asked Giddon.
"I don't want to ruin your good moods," said Bitterblue.
This earned her a look of mild reproach from Giddon. And so she did what she most wanted to do: Held it out for him to take. Coming to sit beside her on the sofa, he read it through. Bann and Helda, coming to sit in armchairs, read it next. No one seemed inclined to speak.
Finally, Bitterblue said, "Well, at any rate, it doesn't tell me why people in my city are killing truthseekers."
"No," said Helda grimly.
"This book begins at the new year," Bitterblue said, "which supports Saf's theory that each book chronicles a year of his reign."
"Is Death deciphering them out of order, Lady Queen?" asked Bann. "If Bellamew is making sculptures of you and Queen Ashen, then Leck's married, you've been born, and this is a book from late in his reign."
"I don't know that they're labeled in any way that would make it easy to put them in order," Bitterblue said.
"Maybe it'll be less upsetting to read them without having to mark the particular progression of his abuses," Giddon said quietly. "What was Bellamew's secret, do you suppose?"
"I don't know," Bitterblue said. "The location of Hava? It seems like he had a particular interest in Gracelings, and girls."
"I fear this will be just as horrible for you as the embroidery, Lady Queen," said Helda.
Bitterblue had no response to that either. Beside her, Giddon sat with his head thrown back, eyes closed. "When's the last time you left the castle grounds, Lady Queen?" he asked without moving.
Bitterblue sent her mind back. "The night that wretched woman broke my arm."
"That's almost two months ago, isn't it?"
Yes, it was. Two months, and Bitterblue was a bit depressed thinking about it.
"There's sledding on the hill that leads up to the ramparts of the castle's western wall," Giddon said. "Did you know that?"
"Sledding? What are you talking about?"
"The snow is dry and fine, Lady Queen," said Giddon, sitting up, "and people have been sledding. No one'll be there now. I expect it's well-enough lit. Does your fear of heights extend to sledding?"
"How should I know? I've never been sledding!"
"Get up, Bann," said Giddon, whacking Bann's arm.
"I'm not going sledding at eleven o'clock at night," said Bann with finality.
"Oh, yes you are," said Helda significantly.
"Helda," said Giddon, "it's not that I don't want Bann's involuntary company, but if, as you seem to be implying, it's not decent for the queen to go sledding with one unmarried man in the middle of the night, then how is it decent for her to go sledding with two?"
"It will be decent because I'm going," Helda said. "And if I must subject myself to late-night larks in freezing climes all for the sake of decency, then Bann will suffer beside me."
This was how Bitterblue came to discover that sledding, in a nighttime snowfall, with bewildered guards standing above and the earth's most complete silence, was magical, and breathless, and conducive to a great deal of laughter.
THE NEXT NIGHT, while Bitterblue was again eating with her friends, Hava came scurrying in. "Excuse me, Lady Queen," she said, trying to catch her breath. "That Fox person just came into the art gallery through the secret passage behind the hanging. I hid, Lady Queen, and followed her to the sculpture room. She tried to lift one of my mother's sculptures with her bare hands, Lady Queen. She failed, of course, and when she left the gallery, I followed her. She came nearly to your rooms, Lady Queen, then dropped down the staircase into the maze. I ran straight here."
Bitterblue jumped up from the table. "You mean that she's in the maze now?"
"Yes, Lady Queen."
Bitterblue ran for the keys. "Hava," she said, coming back and
going to the hidden door, "slip down there, will you? Quickly. Hide. See if she comes in. Don't interfere—just watch her, understand? Try to figure out what she's up to. And we'll eat," Bitterblue instructed her friends, "and talk about nothing that matters. We'll discuss the weather and