He smiled. “The Raleighs, the grasping Raleighs … you may have their blood, but you’re no Raleigh. You’re a Tear.”
“The Tears were slaughtered. None survived.”
“Are you so dense, child? Look in the mirror!”
Kelsea turned and looked. From old habit, she expected to see a girl there, but instead she found a woman, tall and lovely, her expression grave, her face prematurely lined with sorrow.
Lily.
For a moment, Kelsea thought it must be a trick, some illusion concocted by Finn to sway her. She raised her hand, watched her reflection do the same. She might have been Lily herself, standing in front of the floor-length mirror that stood in the front hallway of the New Canaan house. Only Kelsea’s eyes were still her own, deep green rather than Lily’s cool blue.
“Was my mother one of the Tear line, somehow?”
“Elyssa?” Finn giggled, a sound that chilled Kelsea.
“Do you know who my father was?”
“I do.”
“Who?”
He shook his head, and in his eyes, Kelsea saw the most alarming thing she had seen during this entire nightmare evening: a thin vein of pity. “Believe me, Tear heir, you don’t want to know.”
Mace had said the same thing, but Kelsea pressed onward. “Of course I do.”
“Too bad. That isn’t part of the bargain.” Finn gestured toward the sapphires. “Keep your end, Tear heir.”
She clasped both sapphires in her right hand. So bad that she wouldn’t want to know … which of the rogue’s gallery in her mother’s generation could it be?
“I forgive you, Rowland Finn,” he prompted.
Kelsea closed her eyes. Her mother’s face swam up before her, but Kelsea ignored it and spoke clearly. “I forgive you, Rowland Finn.”
IN THE DARK of her tent, less than five miles away, the Queen of Mortmesne woke screaming.
FINN SMILED WIDE, showing bright, sharp teeth. “Do not even consider revoking your forgiveness, Tear heir. You gave it on your sapphires, and oathbreakers are punished, badly.”
“Ah.” Kelsea sat back, staring at him. “I see. What was your punishment, then? Different, I’d imagine, from that of the Fetch.”
Finn stared at her for a moment, then shrugged. “I am going to pay you a great compliment, Tear heir. Always, I come to the women with this.” He circled his perfect face with one hand. “It pleases them, and flatters them, and muddles their thinking. But you’re too clever to be distracted, and you’re too honest to be flattered.”
Kelsea wasn’t sure of that. Her pulse had elevated, as it always did when Finn was near. But if he had been fooled, then so much the better.
“You asked, so I will show you my punishment. See who I really am.”
Finn’s face began to change, the color bleeding away. His hair thinned, became a ragged patchwork on his scalp. His skin whitened, the lips reddened, the eyes grew their own dark hoods. The face was that of a clown, perhaps the joker in a deck of cards, but there was no humor in those eyes, only a killing joy that embraced everything and nothing. Kelsea nearly screamed, but she clapped her hand over her mouth at the last moment, realizing that it would only bring her entire Guard running.
“It burns,” Finn rasped. “All the time it burns.”
“What happened to you?”
“I have been alive for more than three centuries. I have wished for death many times, but I cannot inflict it on myself. Only on others.”
Kelsea had backed up until her knees met the bed, and now she sat down, staring at him.
“Do not be frightened, Tear heir. I am dangerous, infinitely so, but I have no immediate business with you. My hatred lies east, with the Mort Queen. If you fail, I will succeed.”
He moved toward the fireplace, and Kelsea felt relieved, but just at the hearth, he turned back to her, his red eyes burning.
“I have no feeling, Tear heir, not for any living thing in this world. But at this moment, you have my gratitude, and perhaps even respect. Do not get in my way.”
“That depends on where your way leads you. Stay out of the Tearling.”
Finn’s smile widened. “I promise nothing. You have been warned.”
He retreated back into the fireplace, damping the flames, and Kelsea’s stomach knotted in anxiety as she watched him go. Finn’s form faded until there was nothing, only the sinking sense that she had not avoided Elyssa’s Bargain after all, that the deal she had just made might turn out to be even worse.
Too late now. It was nearly dawn. Kelsea wondered where Lily was now, what she was doing. Had they launched the ships? To where? How had Tear been able to protect his tiny kingdom of travelers from the collapsing world around them? The pre-Crossing earth had held more than twenty billion people, but no one had followed them to the New World. How had Tear gotten away?
“Only crossing,” Kelsea whispered again, savoring the words like a talisman. Finn had said that Tear’s jewel dealt in time; had Tear been able to see the future, anticipate obstacles? No, that was too simple. An undiscovered landmass in the middle of the Atlantic? That seemed unlikely, if not impossible. Yet they had sailed thousands of miles, crossing God’s Ocean to land on the western shores of the New World.
Time, Tear heir, time.
Finn’s voice echoed in her head, and Kelsea looked up, startled, as a vision took shape before her. There were no certainties here; there never were where her sapphires were concerned. But she thought she understood, if only dimly, what had happened. Tear’s people had traveled thousands of miles across the ocean, yes, but the real journey was not in distance.
The real Crossing was time.
AN HOUR LATER, cleaned up and dressed, Kelsea went to Arliss’s office, where he handed her a sheet of paper without comment. She turned it over and found, charmed, that Arliss had taken some pains with his handwriting, pushing his normally straggling letters into upright legibility. He hadn’t waited for her approval of the language; beside him was a steadily growing stack of copies.
Bill of Regency
Her Majesty, Kelsea Raleigh Glynn, seventh Queen of the Tearling, hereby relinquishes her office and places it in the hands of Lazarus of the Mace, Captain of the Queen’s Guard, his heirs and assigns, to act as Regent of Her Majesty’s Government. Should Her Majesty die or become incapacitated while this Bill of Regency is in effect, the aforementioned transfer of office shall become permanent and the Regent shall be declared ruler of the Tearling. All acts by the Regent will be taken in Her Majesty’s name and according to Her Majesty’s laws—
“That’s good,” Kelsea muttered. “I forgot to tell you that.”
—but any such acts may be repudiated by decree of Her Majesty upon resumption of her throne.
Kelsea looked up at Arliss. “A resumption clause?”
“Andalie told me to put it in.”
“How did Andalie know?”
“She just knew, Queenie, same as she always does.”
Kelsea looked back down at the bill.
At such time as Her Majesty may return and resume her throne, this Bill will be declared null and void. The Regent will relinquish all powers of office to Her Majesty, or Her Majesty’s heirs upon sufficient evidence.
Kelsea shook her head. “A resumption clause is a bad idea. It weakens Lazarus right out of the gate.”
“You need one, Queenie. Both Andalie and that little sibyl of hers say you’ll come back.”
She looked up, startled. “They do?”
“The little one seemed particularly sure of it. Vastly changed, she said you’ll be, but you will come back.”
Kelsea didn’t see how this could be. If she tried to kill the Red Queen, she would either succeed or fail, but either way, it seemed unlikely that she would live long after the attempt. But it was too late to change the bill now; they needed enough copies to distribute throughout New London. Kelsea sat down in the chair opposite Arliss and began to sign her way through the stack. The work was soothing, but monotonous, and Kelsea’s mind wandered back to the conversation with Row Finn. Again, the nagging question recurred: who had fathered her? If the Tear line had survived somehow, it could only be because someone had been hidden during the bloody period after Jonathan Tear’s assassination. A secret that old would be nearly impossible to discover … but Kelsea’s paternity might provide a start.