Page 34 of A Fragile Enchantment

“All of us play a role in this life. Take me, for instance. I am my father’s only daughter, and so, I am a pawn. I know very well what is expected of me: to be sacrificed for his ends.” She examined a chess piece, turning it through her fingers. Sunlight struck the glass pawn, and a rainbow scattered in fragments across the board. “It’s preciselybecauseI don’t care for the prince that it is an attractive marriage.”

Niamh still did not follow. Her confusion must have shown on her face, because Rosa continued after a beat of silence.

“Happiness is a simple thing. When you accept your lot in life, there are no crushing lows and no soaring highs. The vacillations are exhausting—and they impede your ability to make objective decisions.” Rosa placed the pawn back on the board with a resonantclack. “I am often called dispassionate, but that dispassion allows me to do what needs to be done. This union will benefit Castilia and Avaland’s relationship, and more importantly, it will benefit me. My wedded bliss, if such a thing even exists, is immaterial. I must do this.”

So both she and Kit would marry for nothing but their grim duty. In a way, it relieved Niamh that Rosa was as practicallyminded as Kit about the whole affair. And yet, she doubted that anyone could be so perfectly resigned to such a joyless, monotonous life.

Not even me.

She scrambled to shove that thought back down where it came from and asked, “How can such an arrangement possibly benefit you, if you do not care for him?”

“I am suited to court games, and I am eager to play.” She frowned, and an emotion Niamh could not read passed over her features. “I have my reasons.”

Miriam reappeared in the doorway. “Rosa, are you tormenting the poor thing? Don’t make her play chess with you. It’s no fun at all.”

Rosa smirked. “Itisfun. You’re just a poor player—and a sore loser.”

Niamh couldn’t help smiling at their easy rapport. Miriam, she saw, was the ray of sunlight that pierced through Rosa’s gloom. “How long have you two been friends?”

“Friends?” Rosa asked. “Oh, no. You are mistaken. Miss Lacalle is my jailor.”

“Oh, hush, you.” When Miriam laughed, her eyes crinkled with mirth.

Rosa’s expression softened, only for a moment, before her dull mask snapped back into place and she became the dispassionate politician once again. Niamh had always marveled at the things people kept locked inside themselves. She’d never had the gift for concealing her emotions. Whatever she thought or felt showed plainly on her face. It flowed from her like water from a broken vase.

I have my reasons,Rosa had told her.

Reasons enough that she cared nothing for her own happiness. One of these days, perhaps, Niamh would uncover why.

That night, after Niamh finished her sketches of Infanta Rosa’s gown, when the candles had burned low and the clock hands crept toward midnight, she at last turned her attention to Lovelace’s letter. It sat on the corner of her desk, a splash of cream against the encroaching dark. The wax seal shone like a newly minted coin in the candlelight. She pulled out a fresh sheet of paper, opened a pot of ink, and promptly spilled half of it across her desk. That, she decided, portended nothing good. Once she’d mopped up the mess and procuredanotherfresh sheet of paper, she composed her reply in halting pen strokes.

Dear Lovelace,

Thank you very much for your letter—and for your devotion to us Machlish here in Avaland. I admire your cause greatly, but I cannot help you.

The more she wrote, the more guilt closed in on her. Denying them felt something like selfishness—or perhaps cowardice. But if Jack truly was hiding something, she could not be the one to unearth it.

With a quarter hour until midnight, Niamh slipped out of her room and out into the dark of the palace grounds. Lovelace had instructed her to leave her letter where they could find it: in the lightning-struck tree overlooking the lake. It loomed before her, its starkly bare branches an etching in charcoal against the rich purple of the sky.

She trudged through the lawn, drawing her pelisse tight around herself with one hand and clutching the iron handle of a lantern in the other. It was a cool night, and the grass, damp with dew, glittered faintly in the warm glow of her lantern’s light. In any other circumstances, it would have been quite lovely, but by the time she reached the rendezvous point, she was shivering all over with dread. If word reached Jack that she’d corresponded with Lovelace, even to decline their request for help…

It did not bear thinking about.

The tree was textured with grooves and veins of bubbling black, but the bark beneath her fingers was as hard as bone. She placed her letter into the hollow of the trunk and shook out her hands. There. She’d done the worst of it. Now, all that remained was to return to her room unseen—and without being accosted by a ghost, or any of the Fair Ones. One could never be too careful. When she turned back toward the palace, Niamh froze.

A ghost.

A single light burned dimly, illuminating a figure on the second-floor balcony. The hem of her nightgown drifted like fog around her ankles. Her moon-pale hair tumbled over her shoulders and into the open air like a rope.

No, not a ghost,she realized.Sofia.

Sofia leaned over the railing, her gaze fixed on the horizon, longing weighing down her shoulders. She looked so lonely up there, Niamh’s heart ached with sympathy. How long had it been, she wondered, since Sofia had returned to those ice plains she’d described? How long had it been since she’d seen her sisters?

Niamh shook herself out of it. She could not afford to just stand there, pitying the prince regent’s wife. Sooner or later, Sofia would notice a ghostly lantern floating out on the lawn. Niamh doused the lantern’s flame with a breath, plunging herself into darkness. Slowly, she made her way back to the palace by moonlight. Inside, the reception hall lay as still and quiet as a tomb. She crept up the imperial staircase, then rounded the hallway to her room. Light trickled into the corridor from a door left ajar. She paused just outside. Who else was still awake at this hour?

“Couldn’t sleep?”

Niamh all but leapt into the air. She laid her palm flat against her chest, relieved to feel her heart still beating, and slumped against the doorframe of what she soon saw was the library. Shelves and shelves full of leather-bound books stood sentinel against the walls, with gold-leafed titles gleaming in the dim candlelight within. Kit sat in a wingback chair by the window, one ankle hooked over his knee. He’d removed his jacket and draped it across the back of his chair, which Niamh did her best to ignore. She half expected a cigar to be smoldering between his fingers, but he only cradled an open book in his palm. The sight of him set her stomach churning as gratitude and humiliation chased each other in restless circles.