She was lying. I knew she was lying, and sadly being queen didn’t come with magical truth-sensing abilities, so there was no way for me to prove it. “You keep looking at something,” I insisted. “If you know something . . .”
“I don’t know anything,” she said. “I’m not an alchemist, and I’m not pre-med. I’m a physics major. A tired, hungry physics major who wasn’t planning to be in the royal knowe tonight, so I’m a bit freaked out right now, your, um, splendidness.”
“Not a standard form of address, but we’ll roll with it,” I said, and sighed, running a hand through my hair. “Master Davies, we’ll be in the kitchen if you need us. Cassandra, if you’ll come with me, I can help with the ‘hungry’ part of your problem.”
She cast an anxious glance at Master Davies before turning back to me. “Lead the way,” she said.
There was no more reason to stay, and quite a few reasons to go. I led her to the door, and out into the hall. The last thing I saw before the door swung shut was Master Davies leaning over my brother, the scalpel once more in his hand. Then the wood blocked my view, and I was grateful.
A hand touched my arm. I turned to find Cassandra looking at me with the sort of honest, uncalculated concern that I hadn’t seen since the last time I’d talked to Jude. “He’ll figure it out,” she said. “If there’s anyone who can do it, it’s Walther. The man works miracles in his spare time.”
“Walther,” I echoed. She looked at me quizzically, and I shrugged, feeling sheepish. “I couldn’t remember his first name, and it seemed rude to ask when I was already asking for his help.”
Cassandra’s laugh was bright and surprised. “Oh, that’s awesome. No, really. You’re just a normal person with a crown, not some sort of, like, mystical fairy superhero.”
“See, that’s what I keep trying to tell people, but they keep bowing anyway.” I started down the hall, beckoning for her to follow me. “The kitchen’s this way.”
“Great.” Cassandra trotted to catch up, rubbernecking shamelessly as we walked. I took a moment to look where she was looking, trying to see the knowe through her eyes.
October thought—and had explained to me, at great length—that knowes were alive, capable of changing and rearranging themselves on a whim. I didn’t think she was wrong, exactly, but I thought she was discounting the work of the many craftsmen and artisans who had poured their hearts and souls into the very walls.
If the knowe is alive, it’s because so many people bled and dreamt and spent their magic like water to wake it up. I liked to think it knew that, on some level; that it remembered my father, and my grandparents, who had done everything they could to make it grander, and more worthy of being the seat of the Mists, which had been the largest, grandest Kingdom in the West for so long.
The hall was sparsely decorated, leaving the focus on the carved redwood walls. Panels set at eye level told the story of my family’s time in the Mists, carved in a style that was half-representative, half-symbolic. I didn’t think my grandmother had actually coaxed the moon down from the sky to light her way when she was courting my grandfather, for example, but I was sure it had felt that way, at least to her.
They died long before I was born, victims of the long, slow dance of regicide. It was because of them that my father chose to hide the fact that he had children of his own. He knew what happened to kings and queens. I sometimes thought that they had saved my life by dying. There’s no amount of gratitude that makes up for that. But I still wish I’d had the chance to meet them.
“You don’t do your own dusting, right?” asked Cassandra. “Because if you do, you should quit.”
“I’m not allowed to quit,” I said.
“Who says?”
“October.”
Cassandra snorted. “Naturally. Aunt Birdie is great at telling other people to step up and do their duty, but did she hold onto her County? Nope. Passed it off to the first out-of-town noble she could find.”
“Aunt Birdie?” I asked blankly.
“Toby,” she said, and laughed at my expression. “My mom’s her oldest friend. They were kids together. She’d be my godmother if we did that sort of thing. As it is, she’s the first adult I remember who wasn’t my mom or dad. When I was little, I couldn’t pronounce ‘October,’ so I called her ‘Birdie,’ and it stuck inside the family. Sometimes I forget anybody calls her anything else.”
“Ah,” I said. “Your family lives . . . ?”
“In Colma. We’re not sworn to any specific demesne, if that’s what you’re not asking. Mom’s thin-blooded, Dad’s half and half, and no one ever wanted us. Not until Karen started walking in dreams.” She grimaced. “A Firstborn asshole kidnaps half my siblings and half the Courts in the Bay Area start banging on the front door offering to save my sister from a life of useless peasanthood. They sort of forget that we’re not serfs anymore. We have jobs. We do stuff. We’ve been politely turning them down for years. Now that Karen’s started hanging out with the Luidaeg, maybe they’ll listen.”
“The sea witch does seem to have taken an interest,” I said, as neutrally as I could. “I don’t know whether that’s a good thing or not.”
“Karen doesn’t seem to mind.”
We had reached the first stairway. I started down, Cassandra trailing behind. “You’re studying physics?”
“Yeah. Do you, uh . . . shit. There’s no way to say this that isn’t super rude, so I’m going to go with it. Do you know what that means?”
I smiled a little, wryly. “I may be a pureblood, but I’ve spent the last hundred years in the mortal world. I know about physics. I watched the moon landing on TV along with everyone else on my block. I even know how to program a VCR.”
Cassandra looked at me blankly. I rolled my eyes.
“I promise you, references used to stay topical for longer. I know how a cell phone works, okay? Does that prove I’m down with the modern world?”
“What did you do for a hundred years among the mortals?”
I shrugged. The stairs ended in a narrower, less extravagant hallway. The walls were still carved redwood, but the ceiling was straight, not domed, and there were no flowers. “A lot of things. I was a seamstress for years, before it got hard to make a living that way. I worked as a nanny for wealthy mortal families for a while, until they started wanting references and proof of identity. A few odd jobs, and then, in the 1950s, I discovered I liked selling books. So I’ve been a bookseller for the last sixty years. I’m good at figuring out what a person might like to read, and convincing them to give it a chance.”
“Huh,” said Cassandra. “You know, when Aunt Birdie said she’d found the lost princess, I was expecting something more, I guess . . .”
“Disney on Ice?” I smiled faintly. “I can do my best, but I’ll never be the kind of girl who willingly stands in front of the glitter cannon.”
“Boom,” said Cassandra, deadpan.
I laughed. It was a relief. Nolan was asleep, but Master Davies—Walther—was going to find a way to wake him up, and everything was going to be okay. It had to be. I’d already lost more than I could stand to lose. One more thing would be too much.
We arrived to find the kitchen occupied by two Hobs, one standing on a stepstool at the sink with her arms buried in soapy water, the other sitting on a box and peeling potatoes. They froze at the sight of me and Cassandra standing in the doorway. I forced a smile.
“Hi,” I said. “Pretend we’re not here.”
The two Hobs continued to stare. Finally, the seated Hob lowered her knife and said, “I’m not sure we can do that, Highness.”
“Why not?”