their minds. Sometimes even that wasn’t enough; even now, Fie could feel hums of assent from Niemi’s spark.
But what good was all this, the finery and gliding and mummery to make her into a Peacock lady, if she wasn’t going to do aught with it but lure a false prince?
Don’t you dare, Niemi warned too late.
“A band of Crows, one sword among them, overpowered a village headman and all the Hawks in his command?” Fie asked them loudly, trying to mimic the stodgy highborn affect. “Nonsense. This folly puts all Sabor in danger.”
The Oleander lord was staring at her with a peculiar kind of cool calculation, not because he cared for her thoughts but because he was running the numbers on the cost of vexing her. “Forgive us, young lady, but these matters do not concern you.”
Lord Urasa’s right, Niemi hissed frantically. You’re making a scene!
Good. Fie set her jaw. “Am I to wait until the plague spreads from his lands to ours, then?”
“If your family wants to keep letting bone thieves extort them for a service any peasant can provide, that’s your business,” the other lord huffed. “The queen proved they’ve been swindling us for, what, centuries now? And doubtless spreading the Sinner’s Plague themselves the whole time.”
Every throat Fie had ever cut flooded her head until every thought bled with rage. All she could think of were the children of Karostei. “And when the Covenant marks you for—”
“What’s all this now?” Tavin’s voice cut through the pavilion. Fie found him striding from the walkway, sun bouncing almost too bright off a sash of cloth-of-gold over his ivory silk tunic. The circlet he’d claimed to despise sat in his hair, and more gold flashed in rings cluttering his fingers, bracelets and armbands clasped round his wrists, even hoops through his ears. His features, though, belonged to Jasimir.
He took the steps up two at a time, a small act so familiar it made Fie’s teeth hurt. He nodded to the man Niemi had called Lord Urasa, the one wearing oleanders on his sleeves. “Don’t stop on my account. What could possibly have Lady Sakar so aggrieved?”
“Your Highness.” Lord Urasa bowed, as did the lord beside him. “This is all a misunderstanding. I believe the young lady places more faith in the Crows than either I or Lord Dengor.”
“You find their work distasteful?” Tavin asked, frowning.
“Unnecessary,” Lord Dengor answered. “We’ve seen adequate proof that anyone can burn plague-dead. I believe the only reason to persist in humoring the Crows is…” He shot a sideways look at Fie, and said with great meaning, “… sentiment.”
It was a tone she’d heard before, when Geramir had fretted that summoning Crows could be seen as favoritism. That simply treating them like any other caste had become, in their eyes, an act of unmerited generosity.
Be silent, Niemi half ordered, half begged. Leave it be.
But when fine lords left it be, it just meant Crows like her would have to deal mercy to children.
“How many deaths are you willing to answer for when the Covenant calls you to the next life?” Fie said instead.
Lord Urasa glanced at something over Fie’s shoulder and smiled. “Surely,” he said loud enough to ring across the pavilion, “the young lady is not calling the queen a liar.”
“Surely not,” a sharp voice echoed behind Fie.
Urasa bowed. So did Lord Dengor and everyone else in the area.
Fie’s stomach sank as she turned. Queen Rhusana was behind her, ice-pale eyes narrowed on her. Today her chimes were gone, replaced by a fine headdress of white gold shaped like a phoenix, its twin wings forming a diamond-studded fan in her silvery hair.
She was also wearing the same white tiger pelt Fie had first seen her in moons ago, the one Surimir had given her. But that was not enough for the queen: at her side paced a living, breathing white tiger, with pearls in its collar and a chain linked to a cuff on Rhusana’s wrist. Even that chain was wrought in the shape of oleanders.
This time, Fie was all too happy to let Niemi pull her into a graceful bow.
“Prince Jasimir.” Rhusana twitched a finger, and Tavin stepped forward, a furrow in his brow. “It seems our guest would benefit from expanding her perspective. Will you show Lady Sakar around the gardens?”
That sounded too much like an honor to be anything less than deadly. Fie’s stomach jolted as Tavin said, “Certainly, Your Majesty.”
“I think a visit to the western end may, perhaps, provide some