“WE COULD DO SO MUCH,” I SAID TO FITZROY, FOR AT least the fourth time that night. “Just think about it. We have so many empty manors in the city after the attack. We could easily give one to them. We could even make it a day school, as well, for children who can’t afford tutors. Everyone would have a chance to learn.” I was practically bouncing on the spot from excitement, but Fitzroy didn’t look convinced.
“I don’t think people will be happy if you take away their houses,” he said, leaning against the central table of the lab. “They still belong to somebody. And how will you pay for it all?”
“The court is full of gold,” I said. “We could easily sell some of it.”
“And what about when that runs out? How will you get more?”
“That’s far in the future,” I said, even though I knew he was right. But the gold was wasted in the palace, and we had time to come up with more solutions. “We could ask people to pay to stay at court. We could trade more abroad. We could do lots of things.”
“Maybe sell this poison detector?”
“Maybe. If we ever figure it out.”
I turned back to my notes. Nothing had really reacted with the arsenic solution so far. The closest thing to a breakthrough had come from mixing the powder with spirit of niter—it had dissolved, reluctantly, and when I distilled the result, it left glassy crystals behind, almost like salt. It probably wouldn’t work as a test, but something was happening there. What if I added something else to make the reaction more obvious? Something to catalyze it?
I’d try metals first. “Could you prepare me some more baths of spirit of niter?” I said to Fitzroy, as I climbed off the stool.
“Got another plan?”
“Something like one.”
I crossed the room and considered the jars of metals.
I began to weigh out some copper. Beside me, Fitzroy pulled on his gloves, ready to measure the acid.
“I guess you never thought you’d be doing anything like this,” I said softly.
“What, playing with acid in the old torture room? That’s how I’ve always spent my evenings.”
I smiled. Then Naomi’s teasing words came back to me. It wasn’t possible that Fitzroy liked me, not in the way she had joked. It wasn’t possible for me to like him, not considering all that had happened, not when I hardly even knew him. He was—he was a presence that I was always aware of, my skin prickled when he accidentally brushed against me, my heart was beating a little faster as I thought of him, yes. And yes, scientifically, when I gathered that evidence together, perhaps an impartial observer would hear those facts and reach that conclusion. Possibly. But they’d be wrong.
However, a lot of things weren’t entirely logical right now. Like why Fitzroy was still here, when he’d known Sten so much longer, when he had no evidence that I hadn’t been involved.
“Why did you stay here?”
He was quiet for a long moment. “What do you mean?”
“When Sten left. You’ve known him for years, and you don’t hate him. You’ve barely known me a couple of weeks, and I’m not—” I removed the copper from the scales. “I’m not likely to win this. Anyone with good sense would have left. So why did you stay?”
“Lots of reasons,” he said. “I think Sten’s wrong. You didn’t kill my father, and you definitely don’t deserve to die. I think you’ll be a good queen. And travel is so annoying. All that dust, and never having anywhere to sleep? Why would I choose that?”
I laughed, but the tension remained in my chest.
“Plus,” he added, his voice slightly lower. I could sense him arranging the vials beside me, still working, constantly moving. “I like you.”
I turned my head to look at him. He was studying the jars. “You like me?”
“Of course. What’s not to like?”
“I—” He was speaking so casually. What did he mean? Was he saying he liked me as in “We’re friends, of course I wouldn’t betray you”? Or as in “You’re not an awful person, and I’m happy for you to be queen”? Or . . . or did he mean he liked me, as in he liked me? As in had feelings for me?
I should ask him.
I was definitely not going to ask him.
“Are you ready?” I said, with more confidence than I felt. “We’ll start with the copper.”
Fitzroy raised his eyebrows at that, but then he nodded.
The first two attempts yielded nothing of use. The copper was uninterested in reacting, the iron similarly bored. Then I tossed in some zinc.
The reaction was almost immediate. The zinc fizzed, releasing a gas that smelled strongly of garlic.
“Get back,” Fitzroy said. “It could be poisonous.”
But I just stared at the gas. A reaction. I’d finally gotten a reaction, a visible, testable reaction. Had I done it?
I had to be sure. “Quick. Fetch me some food.”
“Food?”
“So I can poison it! I need to lace something with arsenic, and then test it, to make sure it works.” I waved my right hand at him, already reaching for more of the powder with my left. “Fetch some, quickly, quickly!”
Fitzroy nodded and strode out of the lab, and I laughed. Spirit of niter and zinc! I’d known the answer was lurking here somewhere. I’d known I could do it.
I grabbed another bowl and filled it with more acid, ready for Fitzroy’s return.
When he finally came back, he carried a piece of bread with jam spread on top. It had a bite taken out of it—he must have stolen someone’s supper. I sprinkled arsenic powder into the jam, stirring it with a knife until it vanished, and then took a glob of it and added it to the acid. I threw in another piece of zinc and waited.
Another cloud of garlicky gas burst out.
“I did it,” I said, as Fitzroy pulled me away from the still-streaming gas. “I did it!” I wanted to jump up and down. I wanted to spin on the spot. I wanted to squeal. And why not? I did all three at once, the world spinning around me, already slightly dizzy from how wide I was grinning. And Fitzroy was there, grinning too, looking at me like . . . like I was someone who’d just figured out how to jump up to the moon, like I’d figured out how to fly, like I could solve all the world’s mysteries if I put my mind to it. So I threw my arms around him, pulling him close, still laughing and squealing. He pressed his hands against my back, holding me steady, and another thrill ran over my skin, the sense of him so close.
I giggled and twisted back to look at the central table again.
“Now we have to test the cake,” I said. “Just to be sure.”
The poisoned sponge was growing mold in a cupboard. I hoped the addition wouldn’t affect the test.
It didn’t. That test worked, too. Fizzing zinc, garlic gas. I jumped on the spot. I’d solved it. A test for arsenic. A way to save lives. A way to find the murderer, if I used it right.