Daphne

Daphne avoids Bairre for the rest of the day following her conversation with her mother, trying to decide how best to approach the question of their venturing to Bessemia. She can't tell him the truth, she knows. It isn't that she doesn't trust him, but unlike her, he hasn't spent the bulk of his life learning to hide every emotion. Daphne can read on his face each thought that crosses his mind, and her mother will be able to as well. The empress needs to believe that Daphne trusts her, that she believes the lie that she is too special, too loved to meet the same fate as her sisters. And the only way Daphne can convince her of that is if she lets herself believe it too.

The prospect terrifies her. It's a role that fits her like a second skin, one that will swallow her up if she lets it. She'll just need to keep it up until her mother lets her guard slip, until Daphne can get close enough to her to kill her.

She'll get one chance at it, and even if she does manage it, she knows she likely won't live much longer. One doesn't simply kill an empress and walk away. But she knows her mother won't stop. She won't stop until she gets everything she wants, until Daphne and Beatriz are dead, and likely plenty of other people besides, including Bairre.

Daphne skips supper, returning to her room in the evening and busying herself with preparing to leave Friv. Servants will handle the packing, but Daphne wants to sort through her things herself, picking out what she will take with her and what she will leave behind.

As she riffles through her wardrobe, fingering the plush velvets and soft ermines, a pang of sadness goes through her. When she first came to Friv, she hated everything about this place, particularly the fashions necessitated by the cold weather. She longed for the pastel silks and flowing chiffons she wore in Bessemia, dresses that floated around her like clouds and bared her shoulders to the warmth of the sun. She would have given anything for her mother to summon her home.

But now home is exactly where she stands, and she doesn't want to leave. She wants nothing more than to stay here, to spend the rest of her days in Friv, exploring its stark wilderness and all the magic within it, walking every inch of this land until she knows all of its secrets and stories. In another life, Bairre would tell them to her as they lived out their lives together.

"Daphne?"

Daphne drops her fingers from the gowns in her wardrobe, turning to face Bairre, who stands in the doorway of their bedroom as if her thoughts summoned him.

"You weren't at supper," he says, looking at her with worry in his eyes. "Should I have something sent up?"

Daphne shakes her head. Even the thought of food turns her stomach. She doesn't know how to begin this conversation, how to spin this story that she knows will hurt him. Daphne has always lied as easily as she breathes, but now her lies stick in her throat, threatening to choke her.

"We're going to Bessemia," she blurts out.

Surprise and confusion battle on Bairre's face, always so easy to read. "Why in the name of the stars would we do that?" he asks.

Daphne looks down at the floor in front of her, studying the pattern of leaves woven into the rug. "My mother and I have come to…an understanding," she says. "She's agreed to spare me and to spare Friv."

Bairre laughs, but when Daphne doesn't join him, he stops short. "You're joking," he says. "What about Beatriz? And Leopold and Violie? Does this truce extend to them, too?"

Daphne is ready for this question, even if the answer she needs to give tastes like ash in her mouth. "They can handle themselves," she tells Bairre. "My mother is a pragmatic person, Bairre. I've thrived more in Friv than she expected, I have more allies than she imagined possible. We laid our cards out on the table and she realized that Friv isn't worth the effort it would cost her to take it now. She even seems to respect me for it." She knows if she tells him about her mother's claim to have been swayed by love, he won't believe it. Not after Daphne learned that the empress killed Sophronia. This, though, is a more believable temptation. "She's content to know that her descendants will rule Friv, even if she never does. And she's going to officially name me her heir. One day, together, we'll rule Friv and Bessemia."

"I don't want that," Bairre says, shaking his head.

"I do," Daphne tells him softly. The best lies are close to the truth, after all, and there is a part of Daphne that does want to rule, that was raised to do it, that believes she would be good at it. There is a part of her that craves power, a seed planted by her mother. She decides to water it. "This is what I want, what I've always wanted, Bairre. You knew that from the moment we met."

Bairre stares at her like he's never seen her before, and she struggles to hold on to her mask, to seal away the pain that lances through her at that look.

"She's lying to you, Daphne," he says, his voice coming out raw. "You have to see that."

Daphne bites her lip, considering her next words carefully, hewing as close to the truth as she dares to. "I don't trust her," she admits finally. "Which is why we have to go with her to Bessemia. She can't have me killed there, not in a way that would get her Friv. As long as I'm not on Frivian soil, I'm safe. I don't trust her, but I trust that."

Bairre continues to look at her, a dozen thoughts flickering over his face before his jaw tightens. He gives a single nod. "All right."

Daphne blinks. She expected him to fight her, to tell her how selfish she's being, how aligning with the empress is the worst possible idea and he will absolutely not be coming to Bessemia with her. She was even ready to threaten to tell Bartholomew about his involvement with the rebellion if he didn't.

"All right what?" she asks.

"All right, we're going to Bessemia," he says, as if it's the simplest thing in the world.

A laugh forces itself past her lips. "You don't want to go to Bessemia," she says.

"No, I don't," he agrees. "But you're up to something, and you're asking me to join you, and there's only one answer I can give to that."

Daphne opens her mouth to respond, then closes it. "I told you what I'm up to," she says, trying even harder to keep her face impassive, her words bland, to give him no hint of anything beneath the surface. But Bairre's gaze only sharpens; he is no longer looking at her like a stranger.

"And I know you," Bairre says, his voice softening. "I know you aren't telling me everything and I know you have a reason for that. But I trust you, and I trust that you know what you're doing."

Her shoulders sag and she drops her head into her hands. "You were supposed to hate me," she tells him. "I wanted you to see me as my mother's daughter."

The bed Daphne is sitting on shifts as Bairre sits down beside her. "I'm sorry," he says, not sounding sorry at all. His hand comes to rest on her back, an anchor Daphne tells herself she doesn't want. "I know you too well for that."

He's right, but also wrong. She shrugs his hand off and stands up, desperate to put some distance between them. She needs him angry at her, angry enough that the empress will detect it, thinking her influence has put them at odds, that Daphne is well and truly isolated, just like the empress wants her to be.

"My mother killed Lord Panlington," she blurts out, striding toward the fireplace and crossing her arms over her chest. She keeps her back to him, not wanting to see his face or to let him see hers, since apparently he can read her just as well as she can him.

For a moment, Bairre is silent. "Did she tell you that?" he asks.

Daphne shakes her head. "I saw her do it," she says. "She put powder in his tea and he drank it. I didn't try to stop him."

Silence again, this time longer, louder.

She finally turns to look at him. "I could have," she said. "All it would have taken was a word. I didn't even have to speak, really—I might have stood up from my seat under some pretense and tripped, knocking his cup over. I could have saved him, but not without tipping my hand to my mother before I was ready. I let a man die to protect myself. That's who I am, Bairre."

He shakes his head. "I don't believe you."

Daphne shrugs. "Ask Cliona, then. She knows. I'm sure she'll be thrilled to tell you just how like my mother I really am."

Bairre considers this for a moment before pushing himself to his feet. He starts toward the door and leaves without looking back.

After Bairre leaves, Daphne doesn't let herself fall apart even for a moment. She can't, or she won't know how to pull herself together again. Instead, she paces the room as the light outside her window fades, pale moonlight spilling across the floor. More than anything, she wants to be with her sisters, to hear their voices again and remind herself that she isn't alone, that she hasn't been since the three of them came into the world together. But that isn't true. Sophronia is dead and Beatriz is lost to her.

Daphne thinks about Beatriz—is she still held captive in Cellaria? Have Violie and the others reached her yet? Daphne is sure she would know if Beatriz had been killed, but it could still be too late. She very well may never see her sister again.

Her steps falter, and she comes to stand in the center of the room, struck by that thought, by the prospect of a world without her in it. Daphne has always been one to think through everything, to consider each move carefully before acting, but tonight she doesn't. She moves on instinct.

She searches the room top to bottom until she finds a small vial of stardust tucked at the back of Bairre's desk. She uncorks it as she walks toward the window, stopping in front of it and staring out at the endless sky stretching to the south, littered with stars. Normally, Daphne enjoys finding constellations, the puzzle they present. Tonight, though, she lets her eyes take in the sky in its grand, messy entirety. No order, only chaos.

"Please," she says, her voice barely louder than a whisper as she empties the vial of stardust onto the back of her hand, a smear of glittering black against her pale skin. "I wish to speak to Beatriz."

Daphne feels the sharp needle of her sister's irritation and she's grateful for it.