“It was pretty, and Our Queen had touched it. Never had anything nice I could get away with wearing.” I nudged her with my nose and tugged her closer.
“Come here.” Elise pulled away, and I swallowed back my protest when she slid from her chair and onto the floor near my feet. I sat next to her, back to the sturdy table legs, and she settled into the curve of my side, legs stretched out and pressed to mine, cheek on my shoulder and arm tangled around me. All the warmth in the world couldn’t have compared to her. “How did Sallot end up as auditioner Twenty-Three?”
“Easily.” I traced the curves of her thigh through her dress and pulled her legs across my lap till there were no gaps between us, the press of her steady and sure as the sun rising. “You had a poster in your purse, and I wanted out of Kursk.”
She hummed, the sound shuddering from her chest to mine. “Opal is a long leap from road agent.”
“I like Our Queen, and if she needs me, I’ll answer.” And I wanted to kill those she’d let run free. I reached onto the table above us and grabbed a stick of charcoal. “My turn.”
Rath used to do this trick where he’d place a seed in his palm and flick a hidden flower out from between his fingers like magic. I’d never asked how to do it and had no flowers. I took her hand in mine.
“How’d you get on the high court so young?” I dragged the charcoal down the underside of her wrist, slowly drawing an orange blossom over her fluttering pulse. I leaned my cheek against her scalp.
She took a shuddering breath and steeled herself. “I was invited to court after the war—something political involving my father, I’m sure—but Isidora took me in. When Our Queen asked for a list of trustworthy Erlends, they gave her my name. The war was built on half truths and omissions. History is simply what the winner writes, and Our Queen has a host of scribes to keep our histories varied. I am the Erlend scribe.”
“You’re keeping them honest.” I trailed the stem up to her elbow and very carefully laid her arm over her lap. “How noble of you.”
She laughed and touched the tip of one petal, finger coming away black. “You’re supposed to put it behind my ear.”
“What?”
“People tuck a flower behind the ear of the person they’re courting.” Elise arched her neck and bared the soft spot of flesh behind her ear to me. “But since it’s not a real flower, I’ll settle for a kiss.”
She grinned.
I swallowed. We were both at the same place then. “Settle?”
Elise took a breath and rolled her eyes, rising to her knees. With one leg between mine and the other pressed firmly to my hip, she pinned me to the table and knelt in front of me to cup my face in her hands. My breath was caught behind the hollow of my throat, painful and demanding, heart pounding at the pressure of her thighs against my hips, the warmth of her fingers tickling the curves of my ears. I raised my hands to her waist and pulled. Her lips crashed against mine.
My eyes fluttered shut. She threaded her fingers through the hair at the nape of my neck, tugged me closer, the curve of her hips hot against mine, the flutter of her pulse fast and demanding against my lips. She made a small pleased sound and combed her fingers through my hair. I shuddered.
“If you become Opal,” she said softly, voice raspy and out of breath, “you can court me.”
I licked my lips, the taste of her tea filling my mouth. “Yes please.”
“Good.” She shook her head and leaned back, hands falling from my neck, down my chest, pricking the buttons of my shirt. “Go to dinner, Sallot.”
“Of course, my lady.” I watched her rise to her feet, graceful as ever but flushed. My own legs were weak, and a tingling, dreamlike sensation raced across my skin. I stumbled to my feet. “Thought you didn’t kiss people who could kill you just as easily.”
I’d so much blood on my hands, seeped into my soul and heavy as lead, and she was light as air, a breeze through ocean sands. She was summer and heat, the taste of salt on white crests, the shade of storm clouds before late spring rains. She was everything I wasn’t.
“Hush.” Elise darted forward and kissed my cheek, my mask stuck between us. “I’ll kiss whomever I like. There’s not enough innocence left in this world after all we’ve done to it.”
We’d been children, and we reaped what our parents sowed.
But we were both working toward the balance—her teaching kids to read and paying for physicians for her people and me clearing the land of the nobles still stuck in the past. Protecting Our Queen, the only person who’d given us peace.
“Say my name again,” I said and braced myself for the chill of leaving her.
She laughed and smiled. “Sal—”
I kissed her gently, barely brushing my mouth to hers, and memorized the feel of my name on her lips. “I’ll see you when I’m Opal.”
Thirty-Seven
Maud grabbed me soon as I stumbled into my room.
“I know it’s old-fashioned, but trust me.” Maud grabbed my shirt and started undoing the buttons before I could even speak. “It’s as close to Opal as I can do.”
I grabbed her hands and ducked out of her grip. “I trust you, but I can undress myself.”
“Fine.” She stepped aside with a sarcastic bow. “Eventually, you’ll have to get used to me helping you.”
“I trust you,” I said slowly, savoring the words. I grinned. “I’ll work on letting you help me later.”
She only laughed and gestured to the bed. A crisp off-white pair of pants stitched with pale gold laid at one end. A matching shirt, collar wide and open with shell buttons and stitch work of golden stars along the hem, rested beside the pants, and a coat that might have been spun from starlight it was so pale was folded over the chair. The long coat was silk softer than I’d ever touched. I shook my head.
“Maud, I can’t wear this.” I rubbed the hem of the coat. “Where’d you even get it?”
“It was my uncle’s. You’re about the same size, and the only people who’ll buy it want to strip it for pieces. I don’t have the heart to let them pay me so little only to take it apart. I’m hoping my brother will grow into it.” She rustled through a bag at her feet. “You will give it back to me in one piece. The style’s old—coat will hit your knees—but if you leave it unbuttoned, it’ll look like one of those new robes that are getting popular.”
I nodded, no idea about what was popular.
“Let’s make me Opal.”
Maud grinned. “Perfect.”
She rubbed woody, herb-scented oil through my hair, drew a line of thin rouge across my bottom lip, and lined my eyes with black—to make the dark circles more accent than exhaustion.
“Don’t stab me in the eye.” I stared up while she worked. “I’m already bad enough at archery without having to relearn how to aim.”
Maud finished and fanned my face. “If you wanted to be really fashionable, I could draw the runes like Our Queen’s. They look nothing like the real thing, but everyone’s doing it.”