A Court for Thieves

  It was one reason she had to go her own way now. She had to find Sebastian. She had to undo some of the damage that had come from her unmasking. She had to at least let him know how much she loved him, even though she knew it could never lead to anything. She couldn’t do all that while following Kate along on her mission for vengeance.

  In truth, she didn’t want to watch that side of her sister either.

  “So, this is it?” Sophia said, stepping back from Kate.

  “Not forever,” Kate replied. “Not even for long. I’ll do this, you’ll talk to your prince, and we’ll meet up. It will be a day at most.”

  Sophia nodded. Not forever, just for now. They would find one another again. They were connected in a way that meant that they would never truly be alone. Even so, as Sophia set off back in the direction of the city, it hurt to leave her sister behind.

  Love was worth it, though, if anything was.

  CHAPTER TEN

  It was a long walk for Sophia back to the palace, not least because she spent most of it looking around, trying to make sure there was no one following her. With every step now, she expected someone to make a grab for her. After all, it had happened before.

  It meant that, by the time she reached the palace, her nerves felt as tightly strung as a harp, leaving her glancing around at every noise as she made her way up to the gates. She tried not to think about the way she looked. The clothes she’d taken from the cart were better than the shift from the orphanage, but she doubted she looked much like the noble she’d been pretending to be anymore.

  It didn’t help that her back was still in agony, and the long walk from the outskirts of the city hadn’t improved things. She wasn’t sure what it would look like if she collapsed on the steps of the palace, but Sophia doubted that it would be good. She wasn’t sure, given how dirty and worn she must look then, that anyone would even let her in.

  Her heart fell at that thought, and at the sight of the guards at the gates, but it rose again quickly enough. She recognized one of the guards there as the one who had been sent by Sebastian to follow her into the city when she’d gone to meet her sister.

  “Hello,” she said. “I’m surprised to see you on the gate.”

  “We go where we’re sent, my lady,” the guard said. Sophia could pick out the surprise in his thoughts at the way she looked, but he wasn’t thinking about her as some kind of intruder. News of what had happened hadn’t gotten around the palace yet.

  Prince Sebastian will want us to treat her with courtesy, Sophia heard, picking the thoughts out with her talent. She dared to relax, just a little. Perhaps this could work.

  “I’m here to see Sebastian,” she said.

  “Yes, my lady,” the guard said. “May I ask what this is about? You were not expected.”

  How could Sophia answer that? If she told the man that she was there to declare her love for the prince, then he would probably laugh at her, or assume that she was just one more in a parade of young women petitioning the royal family for attention. She knew it happened often enough with Rupert. Probably the guards were used to turning girls away by now once he was done with them, even if Sebastian wasn’t anything like the same.

  “I just need to see him,” Sophia said, trying to make it sound as though she had the confidence of nobility, and didn’t need guards telling her where she could go.

  Perhaps it even worked, because the guard stepped back to let her inside without asking more questions.

  He turned as she moved to go in. “I should say, my lady, that Prince Sebastian isn’t here. He left the palace this morning and hasn’t come back yet. If you wish to wait for him, though, I am sure no one will mind.”

  Sophia was sure that there were plenty of people who would mind, but she went to do it anyway. Disappointment rose in her that Sebastian wasn’t there, because she wanted to talk to him now, here, before she lost the courage to do it.

  She could wait, though. She would wait. She would go to Sebastian’s rooms and be there when he got back. Even if he asked her to leave again, at least that way she would have a chance to tell him just how much she loved him.

  Sophia set off through the palace, and was a little surprised by how easily she found her way through it now. She’d gotten used to it in the time she’d spent with Sebastian. She’d learned to fit in there, even if really, she’d never felt as though she belonged. If some of the servants she passed looked at Sophia with surprise, she didn’t mind. The important thing was that she was going to see Sebastian again.

  There were other people Sophia was less eager to speak with.

  Milady d’Angelica was standing outside Sebastian’s rooms, with the look of someone trying to appear to be merely passing, but who had been standing there for some time. She was resplendent in a cream and gold dress that had been cut to flatter her, in stark contrast to Sophia’s simple clothing. Sophia tried to pull back into an alcove, but she didn’t move fast enough to avoid Angelica’s gaze.

  “What are you doing here?” Angelica demanded, making no attempt to disguise her dislike. “Especially looking as though you’ve stolen your clothes from a brothel.”

  Sophia forced herself to remain civil at least. The way to deal with the likes of Angelica was not to rise to their provocation.

  “I’m here to see Sebastian,” she said, as calmly as she could.

  Angelica sniffed. “And what would you have to say to my fiancé?”

  That last word seemed to fall onto Sophia like a stone.

  “Your… no, I don’t believe it,” Sophia said. “You’re lying.”

  “Believe what you like,” Angelica said. “But the marriage is being arranged as we speak. That’s the way things are done among civilized people.”

  Sophia wanted to say that it was a lie again, but she’d met the Dowager, and the circle in which she moved. She knew how things were done amongst the kingdom’s noble families, and beyond. She’d made a point of learning so that she could play the part of the displaced noble, on the run from the wars across the water.

  “Sebastian wouldn’t agree,” she tried.

  “To a marriage to someone so suitable?” Angelica countered. “You know how Sebastian feels about doing his duty. And I promise you, this is one duty he will enjoy doing.”

  The worst part was that Sophia could see it. Sebastian had put her aside because of his duty, hadn’t he? Didn’t it make sense that he would do this if his duty demanded it too? And Angelica was right about the rest too. She was suitable. She was nobly born, intelligent, beautiful, and elegant. The part where she was also cruel and calculating didn’t come into it. It possibly even counted in her favor, in Ashton.

  “The truth hurts, doesn’t it?” Angelica said.

  It hurt more than Sophia could have imagined. Worse than the pain in her back. Worse than any of the losses that she’d suffered, because it felt as though it closed off a door in a way that it couldn’t be opened again. Sophia fought against the tears that threatened to spring into her eyes, but she didn’t know how long she would be able to keep them at bay.

  “To think I thought you were a threat,” Angelica said. “Look at you. Just a weak, broken thing in a dress that doesn’t even fit her.”

  “I’ll—” Sophia began, but the truth was she didn’t know what she would do. If she’d been Kate, probably she would have hit Angelica then. If she’d been the noble she’d been pretending to be, she would have brought the weight of her connections and her position to bear. As it was, she could only stand there.

  “What will you do, Sophia of Meinhalt? If that’s even your name.” Angelica smiled over at her. “Why don’t you go? Run along.” Her expression turned ugly. “Run, or I’ll have you dragged from here and thrown into the gutter, where you belong.”

  Sophia ran, and not just because Angelica told her to. She ran because she couldn’t face the situation in front of her. Because the thought of Angelica with Sebastian was just too terrible to face. She ran because she really didn’t
belong there, and she’d been stupid to believe that she ever could.

  She ran blindly, partly because the tears made it hard to look where she was going, and partly because Sophia didn’t have anywhere to go right then. She ran deeper into the castle, not caring that she didn’t know where she was running to.

  “Lady Sophia?” a woman’s voice called, and the familiarity of the voice stopped Sophia. She looked around and found herself staring at Laurette van Klet, the artist whose painting had ruined the façade she’d worked so hard to produce. She stood there, dressed in an artist’s smock, paint flecking her hands as though Sophia had caught her in the middle of painting a new work.

  Sophia stood staring at her, torn between the urge to run again and the desire to step forward and slap her for doing so much to help ruin Sophia’s life. Everything had been perfect until Laurette had spotted the mark of Sophia’s indenture.

  “Are you all right?” Laurette asked.

  How could Sophia answer that? She couldn’t, and she turned to go again, because there was nothing for her here.

  “Wait,” Laurette called. “Please don’t go.”

  Sophia stopped. “Why?” she asked. She thought for a moment. “What are you even doing here? I thought Sebastian sent you away.”

  “He did,” she said. “But I didn’t get far. I wanted to speak to you.”

  “If it’s about what you painted, it’s too late to change it,” Sophia snapped.

  She saw the artist frown. Sophia was too upset to begin to sort through the woman’s thoughts, but the confusion seemed genuine.

  “Why would I change it?” she asked. “I paint what’s there.”

  Sebastian had said much the same thing. That it was the artist’s gift, and her curse. It had been the reason he’d sent her away to paint in the high hills of the northern mountains.

  “If it’s not that, then what?” Sophia demanded.

  “I saw something,” Laurette said. “And I thought you should see it too. I’m sorry, you’re upset. People tell me that I should notice these things more.”

  She passed Sophia a handkerchief that had probably been a very fine thing before paint had gotten onto it. Even so, it was a moment of kindness, and those had been few and far between in the last day or two.

  “Will you come with me?” Laurette asked. “I have something to show you.”

  Sophia went with her, following along into rooms that Sophia recognized. They’d held paintings when she and Sebastian had gone there. Now, they just held a forest of bare easels, waiting in expectation to be filled.

  “Most of my things are still packed away,” Laurette said. “Tell me, do you think Sebastian will want me to paint for his new wedding too? I know he sent me away, but I think he was just angry at what was happening.”

  “I… don’t know,” Sophia said, managing to keep a grip on her temper only because it was obvious that the artist’s mind didn’t work in quite the way other people’s did. “You said that you had something to show me.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” Laurette replied, going over to a bag that was more like a sack with handles, filled with art supplies and old canvases. She started to sort through them, picking out one wrapped in paper against the possibility of it being damaged in transit. She took it out and started to unwrap it, setting it on one of the easels.

  “What am I looking at?” Sophia asked.

  “I stopped at the Marquis of Bruthel’s estate last night,” Laurette said. “And of course he wanted to show me his paintings. And… well, look.”

  The painting she placed on the easel showed a man and a woman in early middle age, wearing what looked like expensive but slightly out of date clothes. Sophia recognized their features instantly, because she saw those faces in her dreams every time she went to sleep. The shock of that was enough to keep her staring.

  “Those are my parents,” Sophia said, unable to keep the excitement out of her voice.

  “You’re sure?” Laurette asked. “I wanted you to see the painting because I saw the resemblance, but also because… they didn’t want me to see this. They said they shouldn’t show me, but I told him I wanted to study the brush strokes, and I told him I’d restore a spot where it has faded.”

  Sophia frowned at that. “Who said it?”

  “The Marquis,” Laurette said. “He said he shouldn’t even have the painting, but it was too good to destroy. A Hollarde, he said. The former royal painter, before the civil wars.”

  The wars again. They seemed to have shaped every aspect of the kingdom as it stood now, turning it into something that was neither one thing nor another, caught between different sides in a constant dance that seemed to hurt everyone else.

  “Do you know who they are?” Sophia asked, looking at the painting for any clues. The man looked strong but kind. The woman was beautiful and poised, with the same features Sophia saw whenever she looked into a mirror. She needed to know. She could tell Kate. Sophia was sure her sister would want to know even more than she did. After all, she’d carried the locket with her mother’s picture around for years.

  Laurette nodded and turned the picture over, reading from a label. “Lord Alfred Danse and his wife, Christina, at their estate in Monthys, on the occasion of his lordship’s fortieth birthday.”

  It looked more like a formal occasion than a celebration to Sophia, but that part barely mattered then. All that mattered was finding out the truth.

  “Monthys?” she asked.

  “It’s in the north,” Laurette said. “In the foothills of the mountain lands. I went close to there once, to paint watermills.”

  “You’re sure?” Sophia said. “I suppose I could check in the library.”

  “No,” Laurette said, and Sophia caught the sense of panic behind it. “No, you mustn’t.”

  It’s too dangerous. Doesn’t she know?

  “Know what?” Sophia asked, and only then realized what she was doing. “You’re acting as if it’s dangerous, Laurette.”

  “It is,” she said. “Lord Alfred and Lady Christina were important people, and… I don’t know if they’re alive now, but the Marquis was afraid even to mention them. They were so close to the throne, and now… now it’s as though they were never alive at all.”

  “Close to the throne?” Sophia said.

  Laurette shook her head, but her thoughts gave it away.

  Their children might have inherited if not for the wars, if not…

  Shock hit Sophia with that thought. If her parents had royal blood, then she had royal blood, and so did Kate. The idea of it seemed preposterous, the world seeming to spin under her.

  “Are you all right?” Laurette asked.

  “I’m just… I’m trying to make some kind of sense of this,” Sophia said.

  It didn’t make sense. She was just a girl from an orphanage, playing at being a noblewoman. The idea that she might really be everything she claimed was ludicrous. How could that have happened? How could she have ended up in the House of the Unclaimed?

  The answer to that came to her in memories of flames and the need to run.

  Sophia knew what she had to do then. She had to go north. She had to find Monthys, and learn the truth of all this. It struck her as the kind of thing Kate would have jumped at, and maybe she still would, but Sophia knew she was the one who had to do it. Kate would have loved this. She would have seen the thought of a trek across half the country as an adventure. Sophia was the one who had to make the journey, though, and she would do the best she could.

  “What will you do now?” Laurette asked.

  “I… I guess I’ll try to find out the truth,” Sophia said.

  “Just be careful,” the artist replied. “You know, the Dowager wants me to paint for the new wedding, regardless of how Sebastian feels. I think that will feel strange. Have you met Milady d’Angelica?”

  “Yes,” Sophia said tightly. “I’ve met her.”

  “I don’t think she’ll be as good a sitter as you,” Laurette said. ?
??Good luck, and… I’m sorry that I caused so much trouble for you.”

  Sophia shook her head. “That wasn’t you,” she said. “It was my stupidity.”

  Now, though, maybe she had a chance to make up for it. Maybe she could find a way to make this right. Maybe she could find out the truth.

  She set off through the palace, determined to get going and find a way north. She made her way through the corridors of the palace, and it was only when a hand closed over her shoulder that Sophia realized she hadn’t been as careful as she should have been.

  “And just where,” Prince Rupert asked, “do you think you’re going?”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Sebastian thought he knew all about Ashton, but it wasn’t until he toured it trying to find Sophia that he got a true sense of how large it was. He found himself stalking down every alley on horseback, hunting through every square for some sign of her.

  Where would she go after what had happened? After all he’d done to hurt her?

  Sebastian’s feelings felt like some tangled sailor’s knot, and it was that knot that kept him walking the city, stopping at every flash of red hair or glimpse of a face that seemed faintly similar.

  It was only when he started to hear the rumors about the House of the Unclaimed that Sebastian started to get a sick feeling in his stomach. The orphanage had been burned, everyone within slaughtered. Packs of children were on the streets, running and stealing. If Sebastian hadn’t known about Sophia’s past, he wouldn’t have connected her to it. Now…

  What had he done, turning her away like that? He’d done what duty demanded, what his family would have demanded, had they known. There was no way he could have been with Sophia without the risk of bringing the whole monarchy crashing down. The Assembly of Nobles would never have stood for a marriage between him and one of the indentured.

  Right then, none of that mattered. Sebastian wanted to at least see Sophia again, even if he didn’t know what he wanted to do when he did. He still had the ring he’d given her, and that she’d let fall to the carpet when she’d left. He knew he couldn’t offer her that in marriage, but he still had it tucked away in the pocket of his tunic, against the moment when he might meet her again.