would be clean.”
“The delegate suitors know the rules. None of them will chance being discovered.”
“They might if they love Katharine.”
“That is true,” Natalia admits. Boys will do much for a girl they think they love. Unfortunately, Katharine is not well-equipped to inspire such loyalty. She is sweet but far too meek. And Genevieve is right when she says she is too skinny.
“Can you improve her in time?” she asks.
“I can,” he says. “By the time I am finished, she will be such a jewel that they will forget all about politics and alliances. They will think with their hearts.”
Natalia snorts. “It would be just as well if they thought with what is between their legs.”
“They will do that, too.”
Her butler returns with a pot of mandrake tea, but Natalia waves it away. She will have brandy instead, to seal their bargain. Even if the suitors are of no use for poisoning, it will be worth it just for the disgrace being shunned will cause to Mirabella.
“And what do you want in exchange for your aid?” she asks.
“Not so very much,” Pietyr says. “Only to never return to my weakened father and his silly wife. And”—his blue eyes flash—“after Katharine is crowned, I want a seat on the Black Council.”
Katharine stands quietly in a feather-light black robe as Giselle and Louise pull the sheets from her bed. After the night of the Gave and the morning of pain, they are ruined, stained dark with sweat and spatters of blood. Or perhaps they can still be saved. Louise has learned many tricks of laundering since becoming one of her maids. She is used to doing the cleaning after a heavy poisoning.
Katharine tugs her robe closed and winces when the fabric drags across her blisters. Beneath her hand, Sweetheart’s empty cage hangs open. Her poor, lost little snake. She should have paid closer attention when she fell. She should have given her to a servant to look after before the feast began. Sick as she was, she did not even realize Sweetheart had been lost until morning. Far too late. But what truly pains her is that despite how frightened the snake must have been, Sweetheart did not bite.
Katharine startles when Louise screams, and Giselle pinches the other maid hard on the shoulder. Louise has always been flighty. But her look of surprise is warranted. There is a boy standing inside the queen’s bedroom.
“Pietyr,” Katharine says, and he bows.
“Has something happened to your pet?” he asks, and gestures toward her hand on the cage.
“My snake,” she says. “She went missing after . . . after . . .”
“Has Natalia set servants to search the ballroom?”
“I did not want to trouble her.”
“I am sure it would be no trouble,” he says. He nods to Louise, who curtsies and darts off to tell Natalia. After she is gone, Pietyr dismisses Giselle as well.
Katharine tugs the robe tight around herself, despite the blisters. It is hardly what she ought to be wearing to entertain a guest.
“I am sorry for entering unannounced,” says Pietyr. “I am unused to following custom and protocol. Where I am from in the country, we take all sorts of liberties. I hope you will forgive me.”
“Of course,” says Katharine. “But what . . . Why have you come? Everyone from the ball has already gone.”
“Not me,” he says, and raises his eyebrows. “I have just been talking with my aunt, and apparently, I get to stay.”
He steps toward her only to divert at the last moment to inspect the perfume bottles on her dressing table. His smile speaks of mischief, and a shared secret between them, or perhaps of secrets to come.
“Stay? Here?”
“Yes,” he says. “With you. I am to become your very great friend, Queen Katharine.”
Katharine cocks her head. This all must be some elaborate joke of Natalia’s. Katharine has never understood her sense of humor.
“Oh,” she says. “And what sort of things will we do?”
“I suppose we will do all the sorts of things that friends do.” Pietyr slides his arm around her waist. “When you are well enough to do them.”
“I already know how to dance.”
“There is more to it than dancing.”
He leans forward to kiss her, and she jerks back. It was so sudden. She stammers an apology. Though she does not know why she should be the one to apologize, when it was he who was too forward. But in any case, he does not seem angry.
“You see?” he says, and smiles. “You have been too long