"Which is a name she remembers from almost fifty years ago," Death said sarcastically, "spoken to her, not spelled, presumably not a name from her own language, and conveyed to you mentally fifty years later. And I'm to recall every instance of a name of that nature in all the birth records available to me from the relevant year for all seven kingdoms, on the extremely slim chance that we have the name right and a record exists?"
"I know you're just as happy as I am," said Bitterblue.
Death's mouth twitched. Then he said, "Give me some time to remember, Lady Queen."
WHEN YOU VISIT us, Fire said, you will see the ways Leck tried to re-create the Dells here. I hope it doesn't distress you. Our kingdom is beautiful and I would hate for it to cause you pain.
They stood in Bitterblue's office, looking out at the bridges. "I believe," Bitterblue said, giving it careful consideration, "that if your home reminds me of mine, I will like your home. Leck was—what he was. But he did manage, somehow, to make this castle beautiful and strange, and I'd be sorry to change some things about it. He accidentally filled it with art that tells the truth," she said. "And I've even begun to appreciate the folly of these bridges. They have little reason to exist, except as a monument to the truth of all that's happened, and because they're beautiful."
Bitterblue let Winged Bridge fill her sight, floating blue and white, like a winged thing. Monster Bridge, where her mother's body had burned. Winter Bridge, glimmering with mirrors that reflected the gray of the winter sky.
She said, "I suppose those are reasons to exist."
WE WILL LEAVE before too long, said Fire. Do I understand that you'll send a small party with us?
"Yes," Bitterblue said. "Helda is helping me assemble it. I don't know most of them, Fire. I'm sorry not to send people I know more personally. My friends are absorbed with the Estillan situation and my own crisis here, and I fear that my clerks and guards are a bit too fragile right now for me to send with you." It was difficult to characterize the effect Fire had on Bitterblue's clerks and guards, or indeed, on any of her more empty-eyed people. She brought a deep peace to some, she made others frantic, and Bitterblue wasn't certain that one was any better than the other. Her people needed practice sitting comfortably in their own minds.
There's one who's asked to join us that I believe you know well, said Fire.
"Is there?"
A sailor. He wants to join us in our exploration of the eastern seas. I understand that he's been in some trouble with your law, Bitterblue?
Ah, said Bitterblue, taking a breath through a rush of sadness. Absorbing the inevitability of this news. You must mean Sapphire. Yes. Sapphire stole my crown.
Fire paused, considering Bitterblue as she stood, small and quiet, in the window. Why did he steal your crown?
Because, Bitterblue whispered. He loved me and I hurt him.
After a moment, Fire said gently, He is welcome to join us.
Take care of him.
We will, of course.
He can give you good dreams, Bitterblue said.
Good dreams? The sleeping kind?
Yes, the sleeping kind. It's his Grace. He can make you dream the most marvelous, comforting things.
Well, Fire said. It's possible I've been waiting to meet your thief all my life.
44
ON A JANUARY morning, the day before the Dellians' departure, Bitterblue was reading Death's latest report on the journal translation. Lady Queen, she read, I believe this journal I've been translating all along is from Leck's final year and is the last journal he ever wrote. In the section I just translated, he finally does kill Bellamew, as he has been threatening to do for some time.
Froggatt ushered someone into her office and Bitterblue didn't even look up, because in her peripheral vision, the visitor looked like Po. Then he chuckled.
Her eyes shot to him. "Skye!"
"You thought I was Po," said Po's gray-eyed brother, grinning.
Bitterblue jumped up and went to him. "I'm so happy to see you! Why didn't anyone tell me you'd landed? Where's your father?"
Skye wrapped her in a hug. "I decided to be the courier myself," he said. "You look wonderful, Cousin. Father's in Monport, with half the Lienid Navy."
"Oh, right," Bitterblue said. "I forgot."
One of Skye's eyebrows jumped up and his grin widened. "You forgot that you asked my father to bring his navy?"
"No, no. There's just been—a lot going on. You've arrived in time to meet the Dellians before they go."
"The what?"
"The Dellians. They live in a kingdom to the east, under the mountains."
"Bitterblue," said Skye hesitantly, "are you in your right mind?"
Bitterblue took Skye's arm. "Let's go find Po, and I'll tell you about it."
IT WAS A pleasure to watch Po and Skye come together. Bitterblue couldn't explain why her heart swelled to see brothers kiss and hug each other, but it made her feel as if the world wasn't hopeless. The meeting took place in Katsa's rooms, where Katsa, Po, and Giddon were doing some brainstorming about Estill. After the appropriate round of greetings and explanations, Po put an arm around Skye and took him into the adjacent room. Shut the door.
Katsa watched them go. Then, crossing her arms tight, she kicked an armchair.
After a bit more kicking of furniture, walls, and floor had transpired, Giddon said to her, "Skye loves Po. This won't make him stop loving Po."
Katsa turned to Giddon with tears in her eyes. "He'll be so angry."
"He won't stay angry forever."
"Won't he?" she said. "People do sometimes."
"Do they?" he said. "Reasonable people? I hope that's not true."
Katsa gave him a funny look, but didn't answer. Resumed hugging herself and kicking things.
Bitterblue didn't want to go, but she had to; she had a meeting with Teddy in her tower. She was going to ask him if he mightn't like to work in her newly formed Ministry of Education, as an official representative adviser from the city. Part-time, of course. She wouldn't want to deprive him of the work he already loved.
THE MONSEAN GUARD was in too much disarray at the moment to press Bitterblue on the matter of whether her crown was missing. And so Saf had been allowed to go home, although Bitterblue was still nervous about it. The crown was missing, it was at the bottom of the river, and there had been witnesses. It did not seem the time in the High Court just now, while they were trying to restore a kind of honesty, for Bitterblue to lie or try to falsify evidence of a crown she could not produce.
She had not seen Saf since the night on the bridge. He was leaving with the Dellians in the morning. And so, just after sunset, Bitterblue ran through the snowy city to the shop.
Teddy answered her knock, grinned, bowed, and went away to rustle up Saf. She waited in the shop, shivering. The front wall and part of the ceiling, which had burned, were covered over with roughhewn planks that were not airtight. The room was very cold and smelled of burning; much of the furniture was gone.
Saf came in quietly, then stood there with his hands in his pockets, not saying anything. Glancing at her with a kind of shyness.
"You're leaving tomorrow," she said.
"Yes," he said.
"Saf," she said. "I have a question I need to ask you."