Chapter 25

"What are you doing out here?"

I startled awake with a gasp, nearly falling over.

After being removed from the king's chambers, I'd been unsure of what to do. A small part of me had wanted to remain on hand, in case I was needed. A much larger part wanted to take a nap. The only thing that kept me from abandoning the monarch was the certainty I'd never be able to find the way back to my rooms on my own.

I must have dozed off, leaning against a column, as I debated what to do.

How long had I been out? It felt like the middle of the night, but in this windowless hall, with its black marble and candlelight, it could have been any time of day. My neck had an uncomfortable twinge in it, and I felt impossibly grubby.

The voice belonged to a figure several columns away. He peered at me skeptically, giving me a wide berth.

My blood curdled as I realized who he was.

He was older now, obviously, but I would have recognized him anywhere.

Leopold.

Though he bore a strong resemblance to the young King Marnaigne in the portrait, his face was thinner, more pointed and angular, and his dark gold hair had been styled into a ridiculous set of curling waves. A flicker of irritation began to kindle in me.

"Well?" he said, testy with impatience. "I asked you a question. Aren't you going to answer?"

I paused, trying to remember exactly what he'd said to wake me.

"Are you deaf? My father has been into all sorts of oddities lately, but this is a first. Why aren't you in there, with him?" He overenunciated his last phrase, gesturing broadly to the closed doors.

"I'm not deaf," I snapped. "Your Majesty," I added feebly.

Was I supposed to curtsy? Or was that just for the king?

I ended up ducking into a short bob that could be a mark of reverence. I suspected it only looked as though I needed to relieve myself. Which I did, truth be told.

"Your Royal Highness," he corrected me, though he didn't seem bothered by my lack of accuracy.

He honestly didn't seem bothered by much of anything at all.

His pupils were dilated enough to render his irises completely black, and he squinted, as if the candlelight pained him. His skin looked damp and clammy, as if he were running a low-grade fever, but I had no doubt what was causing his heated flush.

After a surreptitious glance down the hall, the prince took out a gold-plated case of cigarettes. He offered one to me before lighting it for himself when I declined.

"My mother's favorite. I found myself missing her tonight," he admitted, taking a long drag. When he exhaled, the smoke was a strange shade of green and didn't smell of tobacco at all. "So if you're not my father's new whore, what are you doing outside his rooms?"

I flushed myself, feeling the same shock he'd given me that day in the marketplace. "I'm a healer. They summoned me to—"

"Oh yes." Leopold breathed out another puff of smoke. This time it was a deep shade of purple. "The Dreaded End's girl." His eyes wandered up and down my face, appraising. "Are you really any good? You look awfully young."

I stared at him, trying to decide the best way to answer.

He slid down the wall, sprawling his lanky legs at angles across the plush wool carpet. The cigarette ended in a puff of dark blue. "These are terrible, you know. You were right to turn it down."

"If they're so terrible, why do you smoke them?"

He shrugged. "I was feeling wistful, I suppose. Wistful and stupidly sentimental. I thought it might cheer me up."

"Has it?"

He chuckled, then patted the floor, indicating that I should join him. "Of course not."

I eased myself down, my body recalling every bump in the road it had ridden earlier. "I was sorry to hear of her passing."

He made a sound of deflecting acknowledgment. "Yes, yes. The whole of the kingdom is terribly sad. They're always going on and on about it, foisting their sadness upon us, the ones who actually knew her."

I studied him, unsure of what to make of this new version of Leopold. It was easy to assume that he was still the same dreadful boy, overindulged, forever getting his way in a palace that catered exclusively to just that. But the cigarettes—for all their foulness—gave me pause.

He was grieving, of that I had no doubt, and I knew better than anyone how strong a hold grief could have on a person.

"So, little healer," he went on, his head lolling toward me. "What do you think? Will I be taking on the crown anytime soon?"

"I…I honestly don't know." I hadn't had a moment alone with the king to see if this sickness was curable or if he was already too far gone.

Leopold took out another cigarette but didn't light it. "You will try to save him, though, won't you? All the others who've paraded in promised us the world—cures and full restoration and boundless health and wealth—but the second they saw what they were up against, they turned tail and ran. Every single one of them."

I swallowed, gathering my courage. "I can understand that. I've never seen anything like it. Not in books or stories, certainly not in person. But I will heal him, if there's a way. I won't run from this—from him. I promise."

His black eyes roamed over my face. "You don't look like very much…but you do look brave."

He reached out to touch my chin, and a long moment, slow and strange, passed between us before I tilted away.

"Where did you say you were from?"

"Alletois."

He sighed thoughtfully. "Never heard of it. It's strange, though. I feel as if I've seen you somewhere before."

I studied him, wondering if somewhere inside he did remember that little girl from Rouxbouillet. I nearly opened my mouth, ready to remind him exactly how our first meeting had played out, but something stopped me, holding me in check.

That had been just one moment in both our lives.

It had happened and time had moved on, and it suddenly felt wrong to hold this grieving young man accountable for the mistakes he'd made as a boy.

I wasn't that girl any longer. I'd changed and grown in ways that she'd never have dared to guess possible.

Perhaps the same could be said of Leopold.

With a shrug, he returned the unsmoked cigarette to his case and flicked his fingers, causing it to disappear in midair. I was certain he'd hidden it away in an inner pocket, a clever trick used to dazzle and delight pretty young courtiers, but smiled all the same.

"Surely the Shivers can't be so very rare. We've had four cases of it at the palace alone, in just a fortnight."

"Four?" I repeated. "Aloysius only mentioned three."

Leopold nodded, furrowing his brow as he dredged up the details. "It started with one of Father's holy men. A priest or a postulant, I think. For, you know…" He waved one hand in the air, gesturing toward the ceiling. "One of them."

I frowned at this turn of the story. "Do you know which god?"

Leopold shrugged. "Does it matter? When he grew sick, he went back to whatever temple he was from and we never saw him again."

"It could be helpful to talk with any of the other priests who took care of him."

"Took care of him?" He snorted. "They didn't nurse him back to health, they burned him at the stake."

My mouth fell open. "For what?"

"Breaking his vows, I imagine." He leaned in, dropping his voice warm and deep. "You know how mad about vows all those religious types are."

A laugh sputtered out of me before I could stop it. Surely he was joking. "That's absurd. What vows say you can't get sick?"

Leopold cocked his head, clearly amused. "You don't know yet, do you?"

"Know what?"

"What the Brilliance means. What the Brilliance is. "

"Your father said there are people who believe it's a person's sins coming out." I suddenly understood the priest's demise. "Oh."

Leopold nodded earnestly.

"Is that what you think?"

"It doesn't matter what I think. You're the healer."

"That's true…." I sighed, beginning to formulate my next steps. I very much needed to see the king, to touch his face, but even with his door barred to me, there were other things I could do. "I need to examine others who've had it, see if I can—" The prince cut me off with a bark of laughter. "What?"

"There are no survivors to examine. Once you get the Shivers, you're done for."

I twisted my fingers together. "There must be someone there who's lived through it. No disease kills with that much efficiency. I heard it came from the north. Perhaps if we send out a search party, they'll find someone…."

Leopold made a face I couldn't identify. "No one goes north these days. Not voluntarily, at least."

The king's inquiries on my knowledge of the skirmishes floated back to me, but before I could ask Leopold more about them, he went on.

"Have you heard they've made up a song about it?"

I shook my head, and my stomach recoiled. Only the truly terrible plagues had songs sung of them.

"Little Arnaud's head did ache, his eyes began to quiver. The gold rushed out, his mother cried, her boy had caught the Shivers," the prince sang in a mincing falsetto. "His body danced, his body jerked, the Brilliance turned to black. His mother sobbed, his mother wailed, her boy would not come back." The song blessedly over, Leopold pantomimed a bow. "They say that the children of Chatellerault skip rope to it, can you believe that?"

I could. Children's games were often cruel, taking things of nightmares and setting them to music and dance.

"Wait," I said, stilling as the jaunty tune looped through my mind. It was appallingly catchy. "What does that mean—‘the Brilliance turned to black'?"

Leopold shrugged. "They say that once the gold runs dry—once all your sins have been well and truly purged from you—then comes your atonement. The Brilliance darkens, running down first in streaks of bronze and rust—the Brilliance mixed with blood—until it's black as midnight. It's thicker then, tearing the body apart, ripping open flesh as it purges itself out. It's said to be quite painful. You know, there was a footman here who—"

I cut off the gruesome tale before it could be recounted again. "I heard."

He looked disappointed to not tell it. "Yes. Well. When your atonements are at an end, you fall into a shuddering fit and"—Leopold shook violently, miming a horrific seizure, before the movements came to an abrupt and horrific end—"and then that's it." He briskly wiped his hands. "It's all over."

"They're dead?" I asked, unsure if there was more performance to come.

"Obviously."

I thought through the timeline he'd laid out, grateful to have been given so much information, even if it had been theatrically presented. "So when the gold begins to darken, begins to bleed…how long until the seizures begin?" I asked.

Leopold shrugged. "I couldn't say. I've never seen anyone with it myself. Just…" A look of realization dawned on him and his brow furrowed, marring his otherwise beautiful patrician face. "Has Papa begun to bleed?"

"I think so."

Leopold sank back against the wall, wincing. "Then he doesn't have much time left after all." His head lolled my way but his eyes were distant, as if looking into a future I could not see. He looked as though he might throw up. "Tell me, little healer…," he mused. "Do you think the crown will look good upon my head?"

I offered him a ghost of a smile. "I hope that's something we won't learn for a very long time to come, Your Royal Highness."

He sighed, seemingly content with the answer, and closed hiseyes.

I noticed his lashes were thick with tears and I looked away, allowing him a moment to sit with his emotions. They'd laid his mother in her grave not even a year ago, and already he was having to deal with the notion his father might soon follow and the enormity of the changes that would ensue. The cruelty felt unspeakably heavy.

Leopold murmured something in a voice too hushed and too low to make out. I wanted to lean in to catch his words but remained where I was. He was probably praying to Félicité or the Holy First, begging them to intercede and spare his father's life, begging for good fortune, begging for strength and fortitude should the crown be thrust upon him.

Who knew what princes prayed for?

Stretching, Leopold shifted and leaned his face against the wall. He was nearly asleep but still his lips moved, forming words I couldn't help but overhear as he drifted off.

"His body danced, his body jerked, the Brilliance turned to black," he sang to himself. "Then Leo sobbed and Leo wailed. The king would not come back."