“I’d hoped it would be Mama,” Llor said.
Erian quickly added, “But it’s nice to see you too.”
Llor nodded in agreement. “You have a very nice face.”
Hanna felt herself smiling. No one had ever said she had a nice face. Usually students were too busy worrying over whether they’d pass or fail to think about whether their headmistress seemed “nice” or not. “Are you well? How has Queen Merecot treated you?”
“She gives us chocolate,” Llor said.
“She hasn’t hurt us,” Erian said, her eyes serious—Llor might not understand exactly what was going on or why he was here, but from Erian’s expression, Hanna was certain that Erian did. “But she hasn’t let us go home. Are you here to take us home, Headmistress?”
Hanna hesitated, unsure how to answer the question. She didn’t want to give her false hope, except would it be false? So far, all that Hanna had seen matched what Merecot claimed.
Queen Merecot swept forward. “It is all in your hands, Ambassador. Will you ask Queen Naelin to come to Semo and help me save my children, the people of this land?”
Hanna studied Erian and Llor for a moment more. Both were unharmed, well fed, and seemed to be—with the exception of missing their mother—happy. And Semo was exactly as Queen Merecot had described, overrun and in danger.
It could still be a trap, of course. But she’d seen enough to feel certain of one thing: Queen Naelin needed to come. Her children were here and alive, and there was a chance—a thin chance, true, but still a chance—to establish real, lasting peace. “You will keep your word? You will return the children if Queen Naelin negotiates in good faith?”
“If Queen Naelin comes to Semo and agrees to help me find a solution to our problem, then yes, her children will be free to go.” Queen Merecot made a shooing motion with her hand, as if the children were an irritation she wanted to be free of.
She probably does find them irritating, Hanna thought, suppressing a smile. Merecot didn’t strike her as the maternal type. Oddly, it was that little human reaction that made Hanna believe her, if not precisely trust her.
“Very well,” Hanna said. “I will send word to my queens. You’ll have help saving your people. But if you play us false . . . If you harm these children . . . If you fail to return them . . .”
Queen Merecot raised her eyebrows. “Ah, so this is the part of ‘diplomacy’ where we make cryptic threats? Believe me, Ambassador, I am well aware of the stakes and what will happen if I fail.”
Before Hanna could respond, Erian piped up. “Mama will kill you, that’s what will happen.” Her brother nodded stoutly beside her. “Yes,” Hanna said mildly. “I believe the children are correct.”
Queen Merecot was silent for a moment. “Send your message, Ambassador.”
Chapter 13
Naelin knew that Ambassador Hanna would send her report soon. She’d promised—as soon as she’d assessed the level of threat, as soon as she’d seen the children, as soon as she had any information, she’d send word.
“Soon” wasn’t soon enough.
After Naelin had the spirits demolish her chambers and then repair and rebuild them, she left her room and wandered through the halls of the palace. Courtiers and caretakers bowed to her, offering their condolences for her children’s supposed death.
She smiled brittlely at them and thanked them without correcting them.
It was safer if they didn’t know the truth. Or what she hoped was the truth.
Where is that message, Hanna?
Most regarded Naelin as if she were a fragile teacup that would shatter if they even went close to it or a wild animal who could snap at any moment. I can’t blame them, she thought. I am dangerous.
Fleeing from all the sympathetic and nervous glances, she ended up in the palace kitchen, which was empty except for Arin, Daleina’s younger sister. She was braiding dough to make a knotted pastry. Naelin stood in the archway silently for a moment, wondering if she should leave. Arin looked perfectly content, stretching and twisting the dough in peace, and Naelin didn’t want to shatter that peace with her own anxiousness.
Naelin’s eyes drifted to the winch for the dumbwaiter, and she remembered Erian and Llor telling her how Arin had turned the crank and lifted them up to the Queen’s Tower with the precious antidote. Their words had tumbled out of their mouths so fast that she could barely piece together what they were saying, but she knew that Arin had trusted them to save the queen—and they’d done it. Naelin had been bursting with pride when she’d heard.
No more remembering! No more thinking! Enough!
“May I join you?” Naelin asked.
Startled, Arin jumped. “Your Majesty! Yes, of course. Please. Can I get you anything?”
“Not unless you can bake me some patience.”
Arin looked sympathetic. “No word from Ambassador Hanna yet?”
Naelin sighed and shook her head. She sank onto a stool next to Arin. At least she was with someone who knew the truth—Arin had been in the room when Daleina read the ransom letter. Here, she didn’t have to fend off unwanted sympathy.
“You need a distraction,” Arin said. “A hobby. Like this.” She dipped a thick paintbrush into a cup and began painting butter onto the surface of the dough. It gleamed in the firelight from the kitchen hearth.
“I used to make charms,” Naelin offered. She’d been good at it, back when she’d believed that was all she needed to protect her family.
“Then make some.” Arin nodded at the pantry and at the dried herbs that hung from the rafters. “You’re in the best-stocked kitchen in Mittriel, and it’s not like you need to ask anyone’s permission, being queen and all.”
It was strange, but sometimes it still took a little reminding that as queen, all of this was technically hers (hers and Daleina’s, anyway). As that seeped in, so did Arin’s suggestion, and it was registering as a fairly good idea. Everyone could use more spirit-protection charms, and thanks to her power, hers always had been potent. The more she thought about it, the more she found herself without a reason not to do it. It was late, well after cleanup had been completed from the evening meal, and no one was going to disturb them.
With a confidence she hadn’t felt in days, Naelin busied herself with choosing ingredients from the myriad shelves. She pushed aside a stack of bowls to clear room to work, opposite Arin. For a while, both were silent—Arin with her bread and Naelin with her herbs. She wove a simple earth-spirit protection charm made of forest-floor herbs and laced with dried peppers. The secret was the combination of herbs, to create a scent that seemed both natural in its components and unnatural in its combination, that would repel the spirits.
“You could add more oomph to that,” Arin said. “A few sprigs of basilwort, combined with this powder that I’ve been working on—it won’t just repel them; it will burn them.”
“You’ve been learning that?” Naelin asked. “I thought you were apprenticed to the Queen’s Poisoner. Aren’t you learning about poisons?”
“Only against spirits. Every apprentice choses a specialty—though I think Master Garnah may be disappointed in mine. She likes human targets.” Arin shook her head in disgust, then looked at Naelin. “It doesn’t matter—here, I can show you what I’ve been working on, if you like,” Arin said, wiping off her hands. She had a smudge of flour on her cheek. “Can you call a fire spirit?”
Naelin called to one as if whistling for a dog. It darted down the chimney and landed in the fire in the kitchen fireplace. Embers popped out onto the hearth, and the wood crackled. The tiny spirit was humanlike with a child’s eyes and metallic red scales over its body.
“Better stand back,” Arin warned.
Naelin retreated to an alcove that held a table and stools, where the kitchen staff took turns resting on busy days. She watched as Arin drew a vial out of her pocket and shook it. Arin pursed her lips and steadied her aim—then threw.
The glass shattered on the bricks in the fir
eplace, and purple powder exploded into a cloud over the fire. Naelin jumped as it boomed.
She heard shouts from above, then footsteps.
“Oops,” Arin said.
“Everything’s all right!” Naelin shouted up at the palace guards.
They didn’t believe her, of course, and came pouring into the kitchen. But as the purple smoke cleared, it was clear there was no danger. Only one tiny fire spirit knocked out on the hearth. Naelin crossed to it. Picked up its arm and dropped it. The thin charred arm flopped back onto the brick. She touched the spirit with her mind—it was alive, but it was . . . asleep?
The guards, reassured that their queen was neither in danger nor causing danger, retreated to the stairwell, and Naelin faced Arin. “Let’s definitely put that into charms.”
Arin grinned, and Naelin found herself grinning back.
Side by side, they worked late through the night, until the predawn hours, when the kitchen workers began to drift in, to begin their morning preparations. Gray light was warming the windows when the two finally ceded the kitchen to its staff. Swarming around them, the staff helped them put away the leftover herbs and ingredients, despite Naelin’s protests that she could very well clean up herself—she’d made the mess; she should clean it. The staff, though, was far more efficient, and Naelin and Arin found themselves scooted over to an alcove, along with Arin’s bread and a stack of powder-laced charms.
“If you weren’t queen, I’d say we should open up the best hedgewitch shop in the city,” Arin said, hugging the charms.
“It would have been a thriving business,” Naelin agreed.
“I’d planned to open my own bakery—that was my dream, with Josei. He was the baker’s boy in the town where my family lived. He was my best friend. We’d even talked about marrying when we were older.”
Naelin heard the past tense. “Spirits?” she guessed.
“Yes, when Queen Fara died.”
“I’m sorry.”
“After he died, people kept saying that: ‘I’m sorry.’”
Naelin thought of the people in the palace and the villagers in Redleaf and their endless, empty sympathy. She supposed it was the only thing they knew to say.
And she’d just done it to Arin.
“At first it didn’t help,” the girl continued. “I kept wanting to scream at them, ‘If you’re so sorry, why didn’t you save him?’ But it’s not as if anyone could have saved him. It just happened. And suddenly every dream I had, every plan we’d made, were all dead too.” She looked at Naelin. “I’m not saying it’s the same as for you. I know Erian and Llor aren’t dead, and maybe Bayn isn’t either, but . . .” She trailed off, as if she wanted to say more but didn’t know what words to use.
Reaching across the table, Naelin squeezed Arin’s hand. Arin squeezed back, and then she broke apart one of the loaves she’d baked, sharing it with Naelin.
Naelin bit into a piece. Sweet, soft, and flaky, it was one of the best breads she’d ever eaten. Despite her apprenticeship to a poisoner, Arin clearly had a gift for baking. She should’ve had the chance to open that bakery with her boy. Strange, the twists that come while we make other plans, Naelin thought.
“Guess we should probably sleep,” Arin said, watching the kitchen staff scurry through, preparing to make breakfast for the courtiers, guards, and everyone.
“I think we may have missed that chance,” Naelin said, nodding to the stairwell. The seneschal had just poked his head into the kitchen and was looking around. His eyes lit up beneath his fluffed eyebrows when he spotted Naelin, and he trotted across the kitchen to the alcove.
With full formality, despite this being a kitchen not a throne room, the seneschal bowed. “Queen Naelin, a spirit has arrived, bearing a report from Ambassador Hanna. Queen Daleina was in the middle of meeting with the champions when it came. She insists on waiting for you before sharing it.”
Naelin sprang to her feet. “Keep the charms,” she told Arin. “And . . . thank you.”
Naelin followed the seneschal up the winding stairs. She wanted to run like an impatient child. Please let it be good news! Please!
He led her up—and up and up—to the Chamber of the Queen’s Champions, at the top of the easternmost tree. “Couldn’t some queen have installed a lift?” Naelin puffed. She was used to climbing through the trees, but this was a ridiculous number of stairs. Aren’t we there yet?
“Your predecessors have expressed similar sentiments,” the seneschal said blandly—he didn’t seem to be laughing at her. He wasn’t panting at all, though, she noticed. “Some used spirits to convey them to the chamber.”
“I won’t use spirits for my convenience. Only when it’s necessary.” And there was only one scenario she currently hoped would make it necessary: rescuing her very-much-alive children.
She climbed the stairs faster.
Guards greeted her at the top of the steps, and she barely nodded to them as she passed. All the champions, including Ven, were seated in a ring around the edges of the chamber.
She’d been up here only once, after she was first crowned, to meet the champions. Since then, the vines that circled the arches had withered, with only a few golden leaves still clinging to them. A second throne had been added, this one not grown from the tree itself but still just as beautiful, made of a deep cherry wood and decorated with curls of white pine. Still panting from the climb, Naelin plopped into the throne. She felt the eyes of all the champions on her.
Naelin studied them right back. She didn’t know many of them, but most appeared . . . the kindest word was “grizzled.” Most looked as if a bear had chomped on them, then spat them out because they were too tough.
Then came back for seconds.
It was an amusing thought, but then she noted the empty chairs too. Champions who had died and hadn’t yet been replaced.
She could see their assessment of her in those experienced faces, some curious, others openly hostile—she hadn’t won any friends lately, with the spirit deaths and the earthquake and every other disaster she’d caused. She felt a touch of guilt at that, but also dared them to have their reason for living torn away from them and see how they—
An air spirit grew agitated in the corner, and Naelin quickly retreated behind the wall Hanna had taught her to construct.
Once more in control, she sat up straight, composed.
Queen Daleina nodded regally at her, and Naelin wondered how many times she’d practiced that nod before she’d perfected it. The red, gold, and brown streaks in her hair were artfully arranged in coils beneath her crown. This young girl couldn’t come close to commanding the spirits like Naelin could, and yet every time they were near each other, Naelin always felt like the lesser queen. Maybe it was Daleina’s training. Or her experience. Or maybe she was just born wiser than her years. But being with her made Naelin feel as if she were a child, desperately hoping that Daleina could somehow make everything all right. Naelin glanced away only to meet Ven’s eyes, and she saw her own anxious hope mirrored in them.
“Are they alive?” Naelin demanded.
“Yes,” Daleina said.
Naelin closed her eyes for a moment as a wave of relief crashed through her, as strong as a storm. Then she opened her eyes and asked, “Are they unharmed?”
“Yes.”
She lowered her face into her hands. Her body was shaking, and she tried to control it . . . and failed. She didn’t sob, but the tears came nevertheless. Alive and unharmed! Daleina couldn’t have given her any better gift than those yeses.
Queen Daleina raised her voice to address the array of champions, catching their attention before they could ask any questions. “I apologize for the secrecy, and I thank you for your patience.” Briefly, she summarized the situation: Queen Naelin’s children were alive, Queen Merecot had used Semoian air spirits to kidnap them, and Headmistress Hanna from Northeast Academy has been deployed as an ambassador to assess the situation.
As she spoke, she tapped a roll
of parchment against her palm—Ambassador Hanna’s report. Naelin, composed once more, stared at it as if she could read through the back of the paper, if only she looked hard enough. She wanted to know more! What had her children said? What were they doing? Were they scared? Did they miss home? Did they know how much she missed them?
She wasn’t the only one who wanted to know more—the champions burst into talking all at once.
Naelin wanted to yell at them to shut their mouths and let Daleina finish, but Daleina merely waited while they chattered louder and louder like excitable birds whose nests had been invaded. Fidgeting in her throne, Naelin felt as if their voices were pecking inside her head:
Outrageous!
Kidnapping the queen’s children!
It’s an act of war! Unconscionable!
We must retaliate!
We must mount a rescue mission!
Finally, Ven’s voice cut through the others. “Your Majesty, what is Ambassador Hanna’s report?” Naelin shot him a grateful look.
“Ambassador Hanna reports that the children are alive and well. They appear to be treated as guests and have suffered no injuries. She believes that Queen Merecot acted out of desperation, on behalf of her people.”
There was another outburst at that:
No excuse!
They’re only children!
Unforgivable.
“In exchange for their safe return,” Daleina said, her hands folded across the parchment. Naelin noticed she wasn’t as calm as she looked—bits of the paper crumbled under her fingers as she clenched and unclenched her hands. “Queen Merecot requests that Queen Naelin visit Semo and use her power to assist in the taming of the excess spirits of Semo.”
“It’s a trap, of course,” one of the champions said, surging to his feet.
“That was our belief at first as well,” Daleina said. “We deployed Ambassador Hanna to determine whether or not it was. She deems it safe enough for Queen Naelin to accept Queen Merecot’s invitation, and I trust her judgment.”
Another champion rose to her feet. “Your Majesty, with all due respect, Ambassador Hanna does not possess the power of Queen Merecot. If she were misled—”