Page 146 of The Ragpicker King
“At least let my grandfather counsel you,” she said. “Even if youcannot bear the sight of me, at least let there be someone you can rely on in the Palace—”
“Stop it!” Lin took a step back; she did not think he had ever shouted at her before. “Don’t you understand? You are deadly to me, Lin, like poison or a blade. I cannot be near you.”
“But I—”
“Leave me,” he snarled. “Consider it a royal order. Stay away from me. Stay away from the Palace.Go.”
He might as well have shoved her. She staggered back, found her way to the door. She could feel the burn of tears behind her eyes; even as she reached for the doorknob, it seemed to waver in front of her.
The door swung open. Lin paused, then turned on the threshold. “Your father,” she said. “Order me away if you wish, but he is my patient, and there are things you should know—”
He looked at her from across the room. He was motionless, the icy moonlight striking sparks from the silver clasp at his throat. From the crown half hidden in his tangled hair; she had thought at first, for a moment, that he was not wearing it. But she supposed it changed nothing about him and who he was whether the crown was visible or not.
“The King is no longer any concern of yours,” he said. “I release you from your place as his physician. Consider this a binding royal order, Lin. Stay away from the Palace. Stay away from my father. And stay away from me.”
Lin took a deep breath. “Then you can throw me in the Trick for this, if you must,” she said. “But before I go, there is one thing I must tell you. About your father. And not just about him—about you.”
Delfina
Delfina lays the odd and irregularly shaped package down in front of the door to the Prince’s apartments and hurries away without knocking.
The last thing she wants is questions about where the package has come from. And besides, the entirety of the Palace staff knows to stay away from the Prince when he is in a bad mood, and he is currently in averybad mood. Nor could Delfina guess whether the contents of the package—such a large, ugly necklace, why would he want it?—or the note would improve his mood or worsen it.
Delfina has been in the employ of the Palace since she was a young woman, freshly off the boat from Detmarch. And for nearly all that time, she has carried clandestine messages to and fro from the city to the Hill and back again, for a few crowns each time. One day she will retire with averycomfortable savings.
She rarely peeks at the contents of the messages she is given, but this time she had. She’d been handed the package—along with five crowns—by Jerrod Belmerci, but when she had asked if it was from the Ragpicker King as usual, he had only winked at her.
It had been enough to rouse her suspicions. She was happy to carry messages, but the package was surprisingly heavy—what if itwas something dangerous? She’d carefully undone the twine holding it together and peeked inside. What she’d found surprised her. It was a sort of necklace, very large and ugly. Certainly nothing that the Prince would be likely to wear or to admire.
With it had been a small, scribbled note. Delfina had opened and read it without a trace of compunction, having already decided that if the contents seemed likely to upset the Prince, she might give it to him tomorrow, or maybe even next week.
The note, however, had merely been nonsense, or so it had seemed to her. As she walks down the steps of the Castel Mitat, she can’t help but think about what she’d read: Why was it that people couldn’t just be straightforward these days? Honestly, just think of all the strife in the world that could be avoided if people would just say what they meant.
For Prince Conor Aurelia
Before there were Sword Catchers in this world, there were enchanted objects that offered a different sort of protection. With such an amulet, one could survive a fatal dose of poison or a blade to the heart. What would you do with such magic if you had it, Monseigneur?
Though I would not have thought so once, I now believe that you would—that you will—do the right thing.
—Prosper Beck
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Lin barely remembered leaving Conor’s rooms, or leaving the grounds of Marivent. She walked numbly out of the Castel Mitat and across the Palace grounds. Now that she was no longer dressed in Ashkar garb, no one seemed to take much notice of her, even when she passed through the North Gate and made her way down to the city.
Her thoughts were a blur of white noise. She was aware of the dust in the air and the smell of thegarrigue,lavender and sage and sea salt. Eventually there was the end of the dirt path and the beginning of houses that rose up around her like comforting walls. Like the walls of the Sault, which would never circle her again.
After some time she realized she could see Scarlet Square only a few streets away. She wondered when she had learned to navigate her way to the Black Mansion without thinking about where she was going. She wondered when she had grown grateful to see it rather than wary, when it had become a place of possible refuge.
She tried to imagine what she would say to the Ragpicker King, to the others. She had been so sure she would be able to convince Conor to see the truth.
The guard in front of the mansion stepped aside to let her in.“Domna Caster,” he said to Lin, surprising her; usually he was silent. “Morettus is waiting for you inside. In the Great Room.”
“Thank you.” Lin hurried past him and through the snaking corridors of the mansion until the Great Room opened up before her.
It was almost as though she’d never left. She saw Andreyen in his chair, his staff in his hand; Ji-An and Merren were both standing near him, though none of them were speaking. Waiting for her, she thought. For news from the Palace.
She took a step into the room. “He wouldn’t listen to me,” she said. “Not about Kel, not about the conspiracy.”
