Bitterblue

Teddy's face lit up. "We could," he said. "It may take a few weeks, but we'll do it, Lady Queen."

"Thank you," Bitterblue said. "On another matter, can any of you make letter molds?"

"Bren quite enjoys it, Lady Queen," said Tilda.

Bitterblue handed Tilda a piece of paper on which she'd drawn the thirty-two letters of the Dellian alphabet. "Please ask her to make molds of these shapes," said Bitterblue. For Death's translation of the first volume was moving at a crawl and all this talk of fire was making Bitterblue distinctly anxious; what if they lost the other thirty-four volumes somehow, before Death got to them? "Leck's journals need printing," she said. "Tell no one."

THE NEXT MORNING, Bitterblue emerged from her rooms, rubbing sleep from her eyes.

In the sitting room, Helda arranged the breakfast dishes. "Hava was just here, Lady Queen," she said, banging plates around. "She's succeeded where the other tail hasn't. She's followed Fox to her nighttime lair."

"Lair." Bitterblue went to kneel before the fire, adjusting her sword, breathing in the light. It was hard to wake up when the snow never stopped and the sun never reached her windows. "That's not a friendly word. You know, Helda, I've been thinking some things through. Is Fox's lair, by any chance, a cave?"

"It is, Lady Queen," said Helda humorlessly. "Fox lives in a cave across the river."

"And Spook and Gray also live in a cave?"

"Yes. An interesting coincidence, isn't it? Fox's cave is on the other side of Winter Bridge. She gets onto the bridge, if you can believe it, by climbing up its pillars from where they start under the docks."

"Balls," said Bitterblue. "Why not just walk onto it the normal way? Why not row across the river in a boat?"

"We can only assume that she's alert to the possibility of being followed, Lady Queen. It's difficult to spot a person in dark clothing climbing the pillars of a bridge at night, even a bridge made of mirrors. Once Hava understood what Fox was doing, of course, she backtracked and ran onto the bridge in the usual way, but Fox was too fast for her, and got too far ahead. Fox crossed the bridge, shimmied down the pillars again, and, as best as Hava could tell from above, disappeared into a grove of trees."

"How does Hava know about the lair, then?"

"Because she followed the next person who came across the bridge, Lady Queen."

Something in Helda's tone gave Bitterblue a sinking feeling. "And that person was?"

"Sapphire, Lady Queen. He led Hava directly into the trees, then to an outcropping of rock that was guarded by men with swords. Hava can't be sure, of course, but she believes it's a cave and that it was Fox's destination as well."

"Tell me he didn't go in," said Bitterblue. "Tell me he hasn't been working with them all this time."

"No, Lady Queen," said Helda. "Lady Queen! Take a breath," said Helda, coming to Bitterblue, kneeling, grasping Bitterblue's hands hard. "Sapphire did not go in, nor did he make his presence known to the guards. He hid, and poked around. He seemed to be investigating the place."

For a moment, Bitterblue rested her head on Helda's shoulder, breathing through the relief. "Bring him somewhere discreet, please, Helda," she said, "so that I can talk to him."

A CIPHERED NOTE from Helda at noon told Bitterblue that Saf was waiting in her rooms.

"How is this discreet?" Bitterblue asked, blowing into the sitting room. Helda sat at the table, calmly eating her lunch. Saf stood before the sofa in coat and hat, gloves and halter belt, stamping his feet and radiating cold. "How many people saw him?"

"He came through that window, Lady Queen," said Helda. "The window faces the garden and the river, both of which are empty at the moment."

Seeing the ropes then, she went to the window in question to examine the platform. She hadn't realized how narrow the platform was. It swayed and clanked against the castle wall.

Gripping her hands into fists, she said, "Where is Fox?"

"Fox disappears for lunch, Lady Queen," said Saf.

"How do you know she doesn't disappear somewhere where she can see my windows?"

"I don't," Saf said, shrugging. "I'll factor it into whatever happens next."

"And what do you expect to happen next?"

"I was hoping you'd ask me to push her off the platform, Lady Queen," he said.

It was a relief that he was being insolent, even while using her title; it gave her a familiar patch of ground to stand on. "Fox is Gray," she said, "isn't she? My gray-eyed Graceling servant and spy is Spook's granddaughter Gray."

"It would seem so, Lady Queen," said Saf plainly. "And what your creepy girl who turns into things probably doesn't know, despite her wondrous abilities, is that last night, I found a place where, if I put my ear to the ground, I could overhear Fox and Spook talking. The crown is in that cave. I'm sure of it. Along with a lot of other royal loot, from the sound of it."

"How did you know Hava was following you?"

Saf snorted. "There was an enormous gargoyle on Winter Bridge," he said. "Winter Bridge is the mirrored bridge that disappears into the sky, and it doesn't have stone gargoyles. And I knew you'd been having Fox tailed. That's how I tailed Fox myself. By tailing your tails. Fox kept disappearing under the docks. Your spies would give up, but I was more persistent. I took a lucky guess a few nights ago and caught sight of her on the bridge."

"Have you been seen, Saf? It doesn't sound like you've been very careful."

"I don't know," he said. "It doesn't matter. She doesn't trust me and she's smart enough not to believe that I trust her. That's not how we're going to win this game."

Standing quietly, Bitterblue took Saf in, his soft, purple eyes that didn't match his blunt manner. Trying to understand him. Feeling, inconveniently, that she never did, except for when she was touching him. "Is this a game, then, Saf?" she said. "Dangling from the castle walls every day with a person who could ruin your life? Following her at night to wherever she goes? When were you going to tell me?"

"I wish you would stop being queen," he said, with a strange, sudden shyness that came out of nowhere, "and join me, when I go away. You know you have the instincts for my kind of work."

Bitterblue was utterly speechless. Helda, meanwhile, did not suffer from the same affliction. "Watch yourself," she said, taking a step toward Saf, her face like thunder. "You just watch what you say to the queen, young man, or you'll find yourself leaving by the window, and fast. You've brought her nothing but trouble so far."

"At any rate," Saf said, glancing at Helda warily, "I'm going to steal the crown tonight."

Bitterblue's breath came back in a rush. "What? How?"

"The main entrance to the cave is always guarded by three men. But I believe there's a second entrance, for there's a guard who always sits some distance from the main entrance, in a hollow where lots of rocks are piled."

"But Saf," she said, "you're basing your knowledge, and your attack plan, solely on the position of a guard? You've seen no actual entrance?"

"They're planning to blackmail you," Saf said. "They want the right to handpick a new prison master for your prisons, three new judges for your High Court, and the Monsean Guard assigned to the east city, or else they'll make it known that the queen had an affair with a common Lienid thief who stole her crown during a tryst."

Again, Bitterblue was speechless. She managed a breath. "This is my fault," she said. "I allowed her to witness so much of what was happening."

"I'm the one who allowed that, Lady Queen," said Helda quietly. "I'm the one who brought her on. I liked her Grace of being fearless without being reckless. She was so useful for the tricky tasks, like climbing up into the windows, and she had such spy potential."

"I think you're both forgetting that she's a professional," said Saf. "She positioned herself close to you a long time ago, didn't she? Her family has been stealing from this castle forever, and they positioned her near you. And I made their job easy as pie, stealing your crown, of all things, and handing it straight to them. You realize that, don't you? I handed her a bigger prize than she could've ever hoped to steal herself. I bet she knows every corner of your castle, every hidden doorway. I bet she's known how to navigate Leck's maze from the start. Those keys I nicked from her pocket were probably a family treasure—I bet her family's had them since Leck died and everyone in the castle started cleaning out his things. She's a professional, just like the rest of her family, but more insidious than they, because she's not afraid of anything. I'm not sure she has a conscience."