“Why was I such an idiot, or why did the guards grab me?”
“You aren’t an idiot.” I’d called him that in my head a hundred times, but one brief conversation with him was enough to prove that wasn’t true. It had never been true. He was . . . I wasn’t sure what he was. But he wasn’t an idiot. “I mean, why did the guards—”
“I guess they thought I might be king, with my father dead.”
So there had been at least some movement toward crowning Fitzroy that night. Some assumptions. “Did you want to be king?”
“What, then?” He laughed. It was a painful sound. “It was pretty much the last thing on my mind.”
I couldn’t bear to look at him. I fixed my eyes on the floor, breathing in and out. “I’m sorry,” I said. “About your father.”
Silence. Then: “At least I survived. That’s more than most people can say from that night.”
“Yes. I suppose it is.” My hands shook and I felt an unexpected urge to comfort Fitzroy. Instead I said, “You’re being very honest with me.”
“Isn’t that what you want?”
“Yes. But—” I didn’t know how to explain it. “I didn’t really expect you to be. I thought you’d laugh at me.”
“You are the queen.”
“That didn’t stop you from mocking me earlier.”
“I didn’t mean—” He ran his hand through his hair again. The gesture made him look vulnerable—far softer than the laughing, boisterous Fitzroy I was used to seeing at court. “I was just being ridiculous, Freya. I make jokes. It’s how I survive.”
“How you survive?” That was a bit melodramatic.
“Of course. I was a threat to pretty much everybody there. I still am, I guess. So I had to make people like me.”
“You didn’t consider just being nice?” I didn’t mean to attack him, but the questions poured out of me, demanding to be answered.
“Nice? In this court? Not for me. People would think I was weak and tear me apart. Or think I was being manipulative, and tear me apart.”
“So you make fun of them instead?”
He sighed. “I didn’t mean to make fun of you. I was just—it’s awkward, all right? All of this is awkward. I thought you would laugh. But you didn’t. And I’m sorry.”
It was a strange feeling, to believe him. “Is that why you were honest with me? Because you felt guilty?”
“I don’t—” Another sigh, definitely frustrated now. “I don’t know where you got your opinion of me, Freya, but it’s not true. I was honest with you because I have nothing to hide. I’ve seen you, over the past few days. You seem honest. I’m not sure that’s such a good thing, from your perspective, but I trust you. I don’t know. Something about you makes me want to trust you.”
“And you think I should trust you?”
“You probably shouldn’t. I am the last king’s son, after all.” The words should have been another one of his jokes, but his tone didn’t change. “Not really one that counts, but I’m sure your advisers will be quick to tell you how much of a threat I am. Just try not to cut my head off, all right? I rather like it where it is.”
Still no change in tone. I shivered. “I’m not cutting off anyone’s head.”
“I’ll take that as a promise.” He turned away, stepping toward the middle of the room. The tension between us snapped, leaving the ground unsteady underneath me. “Here’s why you can trust me, Freya,” he said. “For all my father’s spontaneous sulks, he was in the middle of legitimizing me. He wanted to make me his heir. If he hadn’t died, I would have been the next king. Even if you think me ruthless enough to kill my father and everyone at court for the sake of my own ambition . . . even then, it couldn’t have been me. I would have been king. I would have been accepted here, surrounded by everyone I care about, and now I’m not. I’m not your murderer, Freya. And if you find them, let me know. I’d like to be there to skin them, myself.”
He gave me a little smile and a casual tilt of his head, as though that were a joke, too, nothing serious meant at all. But the strain in his shoulders ruined the illusion. He might not actually be willing to murder the person responsible, but he wasn’t entirely joking, either.
“I will,” I said. “Don’t—don’t worry about that.” I wanted to say something else, something more, but I didn’t know what. It felt like something significant should follow, but instead the silence hovered between us, waiting to be broken.
Part of me wanted to continue the conversation, to draw it out, to dwell in the rawness of it. But my hands were still shaking, and my heart was beating too fast. It felt dangerous, all of this. Far too open. “Thank you,” I said. “For coming here. For answering my questions.”
He nodded. “It was my pleasure. I mean, without the pleasure, but—still.” He stared at me for a long moment. “I hope your investigations come to something, Freya. Try and survive until then.”
THIRTEEN
I FELT ON EDGE FOR THE REST OF THE DAY. I WAS CONFIDENT I could cross Fitzroy off my list of suspects, after that conversation, but I was even more confused and uncertain than I had been before I’d summoned him. I tried to organize my possessions as they arrived in the lab, but it was almost as if his piercing blue eyes were still watching me from across the room. I could still feel his rawness filling the air.
Shame swirled in my stomach as I worked. I’d always thought Fitzroy was a fool, but I had never paused to think that it might all be an act, that there might be something more substantial underneath. I’d never even really thought of him as a person. First Madeleine Wolff, now William Fitzroy . . . was it the murders that had brought out these sides in people, or had they always been there, lurking underneath the court’s gold veneer all along? What did that say about my observation skills, if I’d never noticed?
What did it say about me as a person, if I’d never cared to try?
Naomi slipped into the lab in the afternoon, but she was no closer to getting her hands on a copy of the book. It would be too dangerous to let people know about her search, considering all that had happened, and although Naomi was brave, she wasn’t stupid. She’d spoken to as many people as she could without raising suspicion, turning the conversation to the Gustavites, using flattery to convince the older members of court to explain the problems to her, again and again, teasing out each person’s beliefs. The survivors of the banquet had been more reticent, she said, but many nobles had begun to arrive for the funerals, and to many of them, the situation was more a source of gossip than one of grief.