Chapter 33

22 days left

F ollowing Henry's banishment, Eliza kept her door locked tight for three days. Jenny brought her meals; Aria spoke to silence through the door. The two of them fretted together.

"I wish I knew the right words," Aria whispered, sitting with Jenny, both of their backs pressed against the door connecting the two rooms.

Sighing, Aria pulled the tiara from her hair, tossing it to the floor. She dropped her head in her hands, fingers buried in her black hair. Exhaustion dragged on every bone, trying to suck her down to meld with the floor, urging her to stop trying to do hard things when she could just let go and sink.

"I care," said Jenny softly. When Aria looked up, the girl wet her lips, then repeated, "I care. I'm right here. I'll stay—I think those are the words that matter during grief."

"No one said them to you." Shame rose within Aria, coloring her face. "After your mother's death. I wouldn't even visit the grave when you asked."

Looking away, Jenny said, "I know it's ... uncomfortable. She's my mother. For you, she's ..."

"It doesn't matter what she is." Aria groaned inwardly at the sound of that, but she pushed forward. "I mean what matters is you . I care about you. I don't know if I've ever said that. I know I've been awkward and distant and ... Eliza is much better at treating you like a sister. Like you deserve."

Jenny blushed. She pulled her knees up beneath her chin.

Haltingly, she said, "When Father ... the king ... wanted me to go ... you gave me a place."

Aria winced. "As a servant."

Aria had never seen her father as terrified as he'd been the morning Jenny came to the castle, like he was staring at his own ghost come to greet him rather than at a starving, helpless girl. It had been the first time Aria had ever defied him, because when he'd ordered Jenny to leave, she couldn't bear the thought of the frail girl orphaned on the streets. It wasn't fair for Aria and Eliza to have a castle while Jenny had no home at all. It wasn't fair for Jenny to be punished.

She'd begged for Jenny to stay. Her tears had accomplished nothing until she'd thought of one offer. She'll be my maid. I'm allowed to choose my servants, and she'll just be an orphan I took pity on. No one will think twice.

Though his face still bore a deathly cast, the king relented, but only after ordering them both to tell no one the truth and never speak of the matter again.

"I like my place here," Jenny whispered. "I like being with Eliza. And you."

The evening deepened into night, and though Aria tried again to call through the door, Eliza gave no answer. At last, she stood, meaning to escort Jenny back to the servants' quarters so the girl wouldn't fall asleep against a door when the Cast came on. It was creeping earlier with time—while the guards used to fall asleep at midnight, it now happened mere hours after sunset.

Then something lurched inside, like a tablecloth pulled free with all its weight of dishes, revealing a strong, sturdy table beneath; Aria's weight of tiredness evaporated, leaving behind a frenzied energy.

"Your Highness?" Jenny asked.

"No," Aria whispered, staring at Jenny. "No, no, no."

She leapt toward her own door and threw it open. Looking down the hall, she saw slumped figures.

"No," Aria moaned, looking back at Jenny. "Not you too."

Jenny blinked with wide eyes.

All three sisters. The king's descendants, all claimed now. Did Eliza not answer because she was grieving Henry or had she fallen comatose already, as the widow had said would happen?

"Wait here," Aria told Jenny. She would explain things to the girl in a minute.

With the energy of her dark wakefulness, Aria searched out a key to Eliza's room, then barged in, expecting to find her sister collapsed on the floor or worse.

Instead, she found the bedroom deserted, the wardrobe in disarray.

And a letter on the pillow.

Aria,

I love you. I don't blame you for anything that happened to Henry. What I'm about to do will contradict both ideas, but you must trust me, as you asked me to trust you. I know you're the heir, but it isn't your responsibility to fix everything Father breaks.

I'm sorry we couldn't speak in person. I knew you would talk me out of it. I knew if I hugged you, I would never, ever leave.

But I love him, and if exile is to be his sentence, I choose to bear it as well.

Please find happiness, Aria, and tell Mother I'm sorry.

Eliza

Cold dread settled across Aria like winter. She rushed from the room, shouting her sister's name, but if Eliza heard, she gave no answer. How long ago had she left the note? Perhaps she was already in a port, already on a ship, already—

" Eliza !"

Aria burst from the castle into a courtyard, sliding on stones slick with frost. Her breath puffed in the air, and the only witness to her despair was a net of curious stars caught around a silent moon. There was no movement at the palace gate, no sign of Eliza's passing.

Only a horse missing from the stables.

When the first wisp of dawn's pink touched the horizon, Aria was already standing beside her father's bed. He blinked groggily awake as she dropped Eliza's letter on his face.

"You did this," she whispered harshly. Her unnatural energy from the night had bled into her familiar daytime exhaustion, nearly collapsing her where she stood, but she gripped a bedpost to remain upright.

It took her father a few moments to read, to wake, to grasp. Then he shouted for guards, sent runners after his missing daughter, demanded a closure and search of every nearby port.

"What if they don't find her?" Aria asked.

Her father raked his fingers through his hair. He'd thrown on a red silk housecoat and his gold circlet, and while Aria stood still, he paced the room, murmuring curses to himself and a repeated oath all its own: "Ridiculous girl. Ridiculous, lovesick girl."

"What if they don't—"

"They'll find her!" he snapped.

"And what if they do?"

He stopped pacing.

Aria gripped the bedpost tighter, using the solid oak as much for emotional support as physical. "Will you repeal Henry's punishment? Will you allow them to be together? Or will you drag Eliza home just to leave her miserable?"

"Running away is the action of a child, and I will not indulge her ridiculous, na?ve heart."

"Eliza isn't ridiculous! She's—"

"She has no grasp of what she's doing!" He shook the letter in Aria's face. "Throwing her entire life away for a boy she's glimpsed at a few parties! She's always taken after her mother, with a head full of clouds and not a raindrop of sense."

"My mother."

He frowned. "What?"

" My mother. She's my mother, too, and she would never call my sister ridiculous."

"Because she shares the same deficiencies."

The early morning light cast the king's face in harsh shadows, and Aria realized it was the worst light she'd ever seen him in. It revealed things she'd never seen before.

"You talk about Mother's deficiencies often enough yet never mention your own."

He dropped Eliza's letter, dismissing her in the same annoyed gesture.

Aria's knees shivered, begging her to relax into a seat, to let everything go. It was too much effort to argue. But she thought of Eliza, and she held her ground, finally asking the one question she'd been afraid to ask for months.

"What happened with Charles Morton?"

Her father had turned away from her, so she couldn't see his expression, but she saw his shoulders tense.

"That matter was resolved months ago," he said. "I executed a spy within my court."

"He was your friend's son. Henry was your friend's son. Does loyalty mean so little to you?"

"I did what was required for the safety of my kingdom. I always do."

"I don't think it was required."

Silence cut the room but carried an emotional rumble, like a fault line dividing the ground between them under the first stirrings of an earthquake. Cold air seeped from the window.

"I think"—Aria's voice trembled—"you made a mistake. And I think it's been slowly killing you since."

Her father angled at last, allowing her a view of his profile, rigid as stone. He kept his eyes fixed straight ahead as he said, "A king cannot make mistakes."

Aria nodded slowly. A wall inside her was cracking, and the rest of her mind clawed to keep the stones together, to hold back the truth pounding like a battering ram.

Don't say it. Hold your tongue.

Everything will change if you say it.

Aria said, "What about Jenny? You made her."

Mark.

Mark, mark, maaark.

Her father turned fully, and they stared at one another. Aria could not guess at what showed on her face, nor could she read the strange expression on her father's.

"Why?" she whispered. "Why kill Charles?"

When he finally spoke, his voice was hoarse. "I had to, Aria. I had to ."

" Why ?"

The king turned away once more, expression and posture closed off. "This rebellious mindset is an effect of Casting, and until the matter with Northglen is resolved, you're not to leave the castle for any reason."

Aria ought to have been upset, but she felt only weary. "Then I'm under house arrest along with every Caster. Ironic, Father."

"You are under Widow Morton's thrall; you practically are of their ranks. I ought to have treated it as such sooner." He drew in a deep breath, nodding. "That's the truth of Eliza's matter as well. She's being driven by this curse laid against my house. When my guards see her safely returned home, they will ensure you both remain here."

"Then I shall make myself comfortable. If you'll excuse me, Father."

She caught his quick glance, saw the frown. He'd clearly expected pushback, but there was no reason to waste her effort here. She would not convince her father of anything—that had become apparent—and amazingly, there was something freeing in the admittance.

If no words could persuade him, if no actions could please him, then every path opened to her. Rather than seeking the elusive, painfully narrow path of "the right thing" as defined by her father's approval, she could run with full purpose down a wider, sunlit road.

She could follow what she felt was right.