Daphne

Daphne wakes later in the morning than she usually does—nearly ten o'clock according to the marble clock standing in the corner of her room—but Bairre is still asleep beside her, so she doesn't feel too lazy. They were out late the night before, their conversation with the courtesans and Sisters at the Sororia going on until nearly three in the morning. They filled one another in on the gaps in their knowledge with Elodia and Violie's mother, Avalise, recounting their visit from Violie, Leopold, Pasquale, and Ambrose.

Daphne was annoyed to hear that the group had split in two when they left the Crimson Petal, with Violie and Leopold going to Temarin instead of accompanying Pasquale and Ambrose to Cellaria, which had been the plan. Still, she felt a grudging respect for Leopold for returning to his country to act like the king he'd never truly been when he sat on its throne. She doubted he would be able to uproot her mother's army in such a short time, but at the very least he might cause enough of a distraction to draw her mother's focus to Temarin.

Sister Heloise also told them about the passageway in the empress's chambers that Beatriz used to escape the palace, though given how poorly that escape attempt ended, Daphne suspects her mother is having it monitored. Still, as Empress Seline, Sister Heloise lived in the palace for more than two decades—longer than Daphne and even longer than her mother—so Daphne asked her to sketch out all of the passages she remembered, in case one of them could be used.

The others also had bits and scraps of intelligence they'd gathered simply by going through their days overlooked, information Daphne knows she never could have had access to, no matter how charming or cunning she might be. The courtesans and Sisters have access to places and people Daphne doesn't.

A courtesan named Blanche recounted how one of the empress's council members, the Duke of Allevue, had barged into the home of Bessemia's royal treasurer, Madame Renoire, one night, demanding to speak with her. Blanche, who had been hired by Madame Renoire for the evening, had made herself scarce at the interruption, but she hadn't gone far and heard every word of their quarrel.

Apparently the duke took issue with Madame Renoire's limiting the amount he and others who worked for the empress were entitled to take from the treasury each month, but Madame Renoire insisted it was on the empress's orders.

"He got angry at that," Blanche recounted. "Asked what the empress was hoarding money for—said it wasn't like we were at war."

Yet,Daphne thought, but she knows her mother has been preparing for war on two fronts—with Cellaria and Friv. But the conversation told her that even the empress's closest advisors don't know the extent of her plans, and that they likely wouldn't approve if they did. Daphne can use that.

Sister Alessandria overheard something of interest while attending the star blessing of an infant born to the Earl and Countess of Grisvale—distant cousins of Daphne's on her father's side, who made a short-lived and half-formed play for the throne in the days following the emperor's death. Daphne only knows this because the empress often used them as an example of her generosity—rather than executing or exiling them, she accepted their oaths of fealty and demoted them from their former roles as duke and duchess. A punishment, to be sure, but also a reminder of how much worse she could do if she set her mind to it.

The earl and countess apparently forgot that lesson. With an heir finally born and their family line established for another generation, they apparently made some unwise comments at the star blessing, going so far as to boast to friends that their infant son could one day sit on the Bessemian throne, since the empress had, in the earl's words, sold her daughters abroad.

Daphne knows her cousins well enough not to be too surprised by their boasting, but what surprises her more is the fact that word of it didn't quickly make its way to the empress's ear. If it had, the empress would have made a public example of them and perhaps taken it out on their son as well, but Daphne recalls seeing them in the crowd when she and Bairre arrived.

"My mother is losing her grip on her court," Daphne told Bairre during the carriage ride home. "And I would wager her impromptu journey to Friv didn't help matters. They can see that her attention is shifting past Bessemia's borders, even if they don't understand why."

"It's a weakness," Bairre surmised.

A weakness Daphne can exploit with the right weapon.

She turns the information over in her mind for a few moments as she lies in bed, her mind and body stirring awake, but it does no good. She needs coffee if she's to have any hope of making sense of court machinations and her mother's plots. She leaves Bairre to sleep and takes her silk dressing gown from the hook by her door, pulling it over her nightgown and tying the sash before stepping out of her bedroom and into the sitting room.

At the first sight of red hair in the room she spent so much time with her sisters in, her mind immediately assumes the woman with her back to her is Beatriz, but only for an instant. Cliona's hair is a brighter red than Beatriz's, and she's a full head shorter, her body less curved and more wiry. Daphne isn't disappointed to see Cliona, but she does feel instantly on guard.

"Good morning," Daphne says, brushing past her to the wheeled cart a maid left beside the fireplace, with an etched brass pot of what Daphne presumes is coffee and several bone china cups, with a plate of madeleines beside them.

Sophronia was always picky about madeleines, Daphne remembers, eyeing the tiny shell-shaped cakes as she pours herself a cup of coffee. She would always examine them for the size of the hump and wrinkle her nose if she found them too flat. Daphne blinks quickly, as if she can disperse memories of Sophronia so easily, and takes her cup of coffee, turning back to Cliona, who is watching her with the same wariness Daphne herself feels.

"You were out late," Cliona says.

Daphne wavers, torn about how much to tell her. Cliona has an annoying habit of seeing through Daphne's lies as easily as Daphne sees through hers, so hiding the truth from her now won't do Daphne any favors in earning back Cliona's trust, but on the other hand, Daphne feels uncertain about how much she should trust Cliona. She knows her mother had a reason for driving a wedge between them with Lord Panlington's murder, and then there's the fact that Cliona herself was missing for a significant portion of yesterday, not arriving at their apartments until after Daphne and Bairre had already left.

Cliona knows no one in Bessemia. Where could she have spent all those hours?

Daphne decides to proceed with caution, telling her only as much of the truth as she needs to.

"Mother Ippoline asked Bairre and me to come to the Sororia she runs—something about ensuring that our wedding is valid in Bessemia," she says, waving a dismissive hand. "I don't fully understand it, but there seemed little harm in it."

"Oh," Cliona says, brow furrowing.

"And you?" Daphne asks, careful to keep her tone casual. "You were out all day yesterday. I thought for sure you would be tired from the journey."

"I thought to get my bearings in town," Cliona says with a shrug. "The only other time I left Friv was to fetch you, and I didn't see much more of Bessemia than the woods and an inn on that journey. Hapantoile is…bigger than I expected."

Daphne laughs. "Yes," she says. "The first time you took me to Wallfrost Street, it was not what I was expecting."

"Mrs. Nattermore might face stiff competition here," Cliona says.

"Oh, I don't know about that. I doubt any of the dressmakers here keep gunpowder and rifles in their basements."

"As far as you know," Cliona replies with a smile.

Daphne laughs again, the sound seeming more genuine this time. This feels more natural, she thinks, realizing how much she's missed her friend. It's a temporary truce, she knows this. The wounds Daphne inflicted on Cliona won't heal so quickly, but they will heal. Daphne will do everything she can to ensure that.

"I miss Friv already, truth be told," she admits to Cliona as she makes her way to the sofa and sits.

"Do you?" Cliona asks, looking at her skeptically. "I must say, you fit so well here. It suits you."

"It did," Daphne says, sipping her coffee. "When I first got to Friv, I'd have given my right arm—maybe my left and both legs as well—to come back here, but…Friv grew on me. The place and the people."

She hopes Cliona hears what she doesn't quite say, but if she does, she doesn't acknowledge it. Instead, she clears her throat, looking away from Daphne.

"I'm getting better at lying, apparently," she says.

Daphne frowns, sitting up straighter and setting her coffee cup down on the low table in front of her. "What do you mean?"

"I did some exploring in Hapantoile yesterday, it's true, but not before your mother requested my presence in her study. Though request seems like a mild word."

Daphne, who has been on the receiving end of a countless number of her mother's requests, understands that all too well.

"What did she want?" Daphne asks.

"For me to keep a close watch on you," Cliona tells her. "To inform her of what you did, who you saw, if anything suspicious arose."

Daphne isn't surprised. She wonders if her mother's protest about Cliona staying here was a ruse—a way to convince Daphne that it was her choice when really it was what her mother wanted all along.

"You don't seem bothered," Cliona says.

Daphne shrugs. "My mother has spies everywhere, Cliona," she says. "I would have been surprised—and a little bit offended on your behalf—if she hadn't enlisted you. You can tell her about the Sororia—my guards overheard Mother Ippoline inviting Bairre and me there, so your confirming it would earn some trust from her without giving her more information than she has already."

"And the truth of what happened at the Sororia?" Cliona asks.

Daphne opens her mouth but quickly closes it again. She considers Cliona carefully for a moment.

"I'll tell you if you ask me to," she tells Cliona. "But that would mean giving you a secret to keep from my mother—a burden you may not want."

"I'm not afraid of her," Cliona scoffs.

Daphne laughs. "You're not a fool, Cliona," she replies. "Of course you're afraid of her—so am I. You might have managed to lie to me, but she's far less easily fooled, and if she senses a lie, she will pry it out of you—and I don't mean that figuratively."

Cliona swallows, her face paling slightly, but she considers her next words carefully. "Is it something I need to know?" she asks.

"Not yet," Daphne tells her.

"Is it good or bad?"

"Good, I think. Hopeful, at any rate."

Cliona nods, lips pursed. "When I need to know, tell me," she says.

Daphne smiles. "I will," she promises. "But in the meantime, I'm sure we'll have plenty of fun dreaming up fake stories for you to tell my mother about all my illicit plots and meetings."

When Bairre wakes up half an hour later, Daphne and Cliona are on their second cups of coffee, the plate of madeleines devoured between them—Sophronia might have found fault with them, but Daphne's far less discerning palate didn't. When the door opens, she and Cliona are engulfed in giggles at the idea of Cliona reporting to the empress that Daphne spent the day enlisting courtiers to join her in forming a choir to perform door-to-door in the palace each week, singing hymns.

"Not that I'm not happy to see the two of you getting along," Bairre grumbles, still half asleep as he makes his way to the coffeepot and pours the last dregs of coffee into the remaining cup. His chestnut hair sticks up at all angles, as Daphne's learned it often does in the mornings. "But must you be so loud?"

"Yes," Daphne tells him, causing another peal of giggles from Cliona. "Ring the bell for more coffee while you're up, will you? We've much to discuss and I'm supposed to join my mother for lunch at noon."

By the time afternoon approaches and Daphne leaves her rooms to join her mother for tea, she feels lighter than she has in days—weeks, maybe. It's hope, she realizes. Not just that she, Beatriz, and their friends will be able to stand against the empress, but hope for a future she never dared imagine before. She can't quite let herself envision what that future might look like, but she knows it will be hers.

Daphne enters her mother's sitting room, greeting the guards who hold the door open for her with a smile. Daphne is no stranger to her mother's apartments, but as soon as she steps inside, she can't help but feel like a child again. Perhaps it's the sheer size of the rooms that make up the empress's apartments—a bedroom, three sitting rooms, two dining rooms, a library, a study, and a separate bathing chamber. Daphne is surprised her mother's maids don't regularly get lost inside them.

Perhaps it's also the unchanging nature of the rooms that brings Daphne back to childhood so quickly. While her mother's wardrobe, hairstyle, and beauty practices change with the trends that affect the rest of the court, her rooms are static. The blue velvet sofa in the living room has been there for as long as Daphne can remember. The walls are covered in the same cream-and-gold-leaf wallpaper as they always have been. Even the small baubles scattered throughout the room—the candlesticks and glass bird figurines and painted vases—seem to have always been part of the room.

The door to the lesser of the two dining rooms is ajar, and Daphne glimpses someone moving inside—her mother, she would imagine, since the list of those permitted within the empress's rooms is very short. She steels herself and approaches, pushing the door open and immediately stopping short.

It isn't her mother waiting for her, but a maid—a young woman who looks to be in her early twenties. It shouldn't be unusual, given the size of the empress's chambers, to find a maid at work, but this maid isn't working. She's also, at least to Daphne's knowledge, not employed by the empress at all, but by King Bartholomew in Friv.

The maid isn't in uniform, but her dress is a simple gray cotton, her mouse-brown hair pulled back in a low bun. Her face is plain, neither beautiful nor ugly but simply unremarkable. Daphne knows that this woman worked in her household in Friv, that she tidied Daphne's bedchamber and pressed her wrinkled clothes. Daphne must have seen her every day for months. But while she's always been good at remembering the names of everyone who crosses her path, this woman's name slips through her mind like smoke.

It isn't an accident, Daphne realizes. Any good spy knows how to be overlooked and forgotten, and her mother would only hire the best spies to work for her.

Daphne recovers herself quickly and summons a bright smile that she hopes hide all trace of unease.

"Oh, hello," she says, deciding to pretend she knew the woman's identity all along, or at the very least suspected it. "I'm surprised my mother recalled you back to Bessemia—surely there are things to keep eyes on in Friv?"

Uncertainty flashes in the woman's eyes. "Her Majesty's plans aren't for me to question, Your Highness," she says. Even her voice is easy to ignore—little more than a mumble, with no scrutable accent or dialect.

"Of course not," Daphne says. "I don't suppose you told me your real name in Friv," she says, as if the thought has only just occurred to her and she didn't simply forget the woman's name. "What should I call you now?"

The woman opens her mouth to reply, but before she can, Daphne feels someone at her back, and the scent of roses leaves no doubt it's her mother this time. Daphne turns to her with a smile.

"Hello, Mama," she says. "I was just getting properly acquainted with your spy."

"Clever, isn't she?" the empress says with a smile of her own, directed not at Daphne but at the young woman curtsying. "I found Adilla at an orphanage in the country some years ago. They were ready to throw her onto the streets after she broke into the directress's private liquor stash for the…fifth time?"

"Sixth," Adilla murmurs, looking quite pleased with herself. Daphne can't blame her—she remembers all too well what it felt like to be the subject of her mother's pride.

"And only fourteen, too," the empress says. "Why, Daphne, when you were fourteen you were still struggling with anything more than a basic lockpicking, weren't you? And even that you were quite noisy with. Adilla was undetectable, even when the directress enlisted the help of staff members to stay close to watch for the thief."

Daphne knows what her mother is doing, but that doesn't make it sting any less. She hides her bruised ego with a laugh.

"Clever indeed," she says. "Though I was just saying that I was surprised you brought Adilla back from Friv."

"Why should you be?" the empress asks, brushing past Daphne to take a seat at the small round table big enough to fit four chairs, though it is only set for three. Adilla is staying, Daphne realizes as she follows her mother to the table and takes one of the empty seats, leaving the third for Adilla. "My business in Friv is done, and I certainly won't waste her talents by keeping her languishing there, with little to do but watch snow melt. I'm sure she'll find the weather preferable in the Silvan Isles."

Daphne pours herself a cup of coffee, belatedly realizing her mother was hoping for a response to that, but the Silvan Isles don't mean much to Daphne. She can point them out on a map, but that's about it.

"I'm sure she will," Daphne says. She looks up to find her mother and Adilla watching her. Looking for some sign, but Daphne can't think of what it is.

"I received word from some less-than-credible sources that Prince Gideon and Prince Reid were seen on a ship from Friv bound toward one of the islands there," her mother said.

Daphne doesn't lose her smile, though now she understands what her mother was looking for. "They might well have," she says, shrugging. "As I told you, I wasn't trusted with that information."

It's true. For all Daphne knows, Gideon and Reid are in the Silvan Isles. She's grateful Violie insisted on keeping their location from Daphne, even if she was annoyed about it at the time.

"I don't see why you wouldn't send Adilla to Cellaria, though," Daphne says thoughtfully. "Beatriz's wedding was meant to be two days ago, and now that she's Queen of Cellaria, I'm sure you'll want to move quickly."

"All in good time," the empress says. If she does know about the starshower Beatriz caused—and Daphne has to imagine she'd have heard about it by now—she gives no indication, and Daphne doesn't want to tip her hand and show that she knows about it.

"Have you heard from her?" Daphne asks, taking one of the small finger sandwiches from the tall, tiered platter. "She must know our plans have changed by now?"

The empress doesn't speak, but she and Adilla exchange a look that irritates Daphne as much as it unnerves her. Adilla knows more of her mother's plans than a spy should—more than Daphne does, it seems. After all, the information the empress shared with Daphne about relinquishing her plans for Friv and Cellaria was all lies, but Daphne would wager there is more truth in what she shared with Adilla.

"Beatriz knows precisely what she needs to," the empress says finally before adding, almost as an afterthought, "I heard you and Bairre visited the Sororia last night."

Daphne rolls her eyes. "Mother Ippoline insisted on it, and you know how difficult it is to refuse her. And the ceremony to bless our marriage took ages—she was insistent on waiting for the Lovers' Hands to pass over Bessemia before she performed it, and they didn't appear until after midnight."

"Mother Ippoline is very devoted to traditions," the empress says with a shrug, but Daphne can feel her skepticism lingering. "What did you do for those hours while you waited?"

Daphne considers the question, knowing that any denial or deflection will only heighten her mother's suspicions, so instead she decides to lean into them. "Oh, Bairre and I wandered the Sororia for some time—it is quite a beautiful place at night, with the stars overhead. And the Sisters were performing their nightly rituals. A few of them have truly beautiful singing voices, you know, and fascinating stories."

The empress takes the bait, eyes glinting in the afternoon light pouring through the window. "And were there any Sisters in particular you found interesting?" The empress's voice is still light as she reaches for a tea sandwich of her own, but Daphne knows she's thinking about Sister Heloise, her suspicions shifted from Daphne's reasons for being in the Sororia to the former empress and what she might have told Daphne when their paths crossed.

Daphne could throw Sister Heloise to her mother to placate her—a target for her suspicions and ire that will distract her from Daphne for a time. A few months ago, Daphne suspects, she might have done just that, considered Sister Heloise a worthy sacrifice if it meant keeping herself safe. There would be a risk that Sister Heloise would tell her mother the truth about Daphne's visit to the Sororia, but it would be a small one. Sister Heloise would know that the true explanation wouldn't save her, only hurt Mother Ippoline and others she cares for, and in all likelihood, the empress wouldn't give her a chance to explain anything at all before having her killed.

It would be so easy.

"Oh, there was one who was fascinating," Daphne says, making a show of frowning like she's searching her memory for a moment before it comes to her. She's aware of her mother's growing impatience, but just before she reaches her breaking point, Daphne snaps her fingers. "Sister Geraldine," she says, naming a young Sister who was present the night before. "I believe she's their newest recruit, but she seems to be a breath of fresh air in the Sororia. Really, Mama, Mother Ippoline is getting old—perhaps it's time for her to retire and pass her wimple on to a new disciple."

The empress watches her for a moment, searching for tells Daphne is careful not to give. Finally she sighs. "Mother Ippoline has served the Sororia well for decades now. You're merely put out with her for ordering you around, but you know better than to let your anger control you, Daphne. Emperors and kings and even princes have the luxury of being controlled by their tempers—we do not."

Daphne hides her relief with a scowl before demurring. "Of course, Mama."