“What do you mean?” Isbe feels her face getting hot with frustration.
“We have every reason to suspect that Deluce, and not LaMorte, is responsible for the murder of my brothers,” William says, his words hard as stone on stone.
“But—I—why?”
“Because your kingdom doesn’t want this alliance any more than ours does. If you really think your royal council is acting in the general interests of the populace, then you are wrong. It seems I know what the Delucian peasantry wants more than you do, Isabelle. They are sick of seeing the lavish waste of the upper classes while they work and suffer.”
She swallows hard. “And Aubin’s peasants are living in luxury, I suppose?” she asks, sweeping her arms around to indicate the decadence of the room, though even as she does, she realizes that from what she’s observed so far, this palace is in fact far less furnished, decorated, and perfumed than the Delucian palace.
“No,” William admits. “But we lead by example. We have strict regulations that all nobility must adhere to. We make public accounting of all our taxations. Our kingdom is lean and efficient. Our expenses go toward weapons and military, not superfluous indulgences.”
“But . . . but . . . Deluce is constantly exporting goods to Aubin.”
“Oils, metals, essentials. Not spices or silks.”
She can’t argue with him—she doesn’t know enough about Delucian trade to assess whether what he says is accurate. “Even if you’re right, you’re still not going to be able to save yourselves from Malfleur, if the information I have is true.”
“And what information is that?”
“The sleeping sickness is the work of the fae. Dark faerie magic, William. Meant to cripple us just as Malfleur launches her plot to overtake us. And that means closing the borders won’t help. The sickness is not a typical disease of nature, but the result of a curse. It will come for you too, all of you. Unless we work together to stop it.”
“And how do you propose we do that?” He seems to be really listening now.
“I know how to undo the curse,” she says.
“Hmm,” he says—it’s his thinking noise, she realizes. “A faerie curse. You must realize how this sounds. The fae have been dormant for decades. Most could not abide by the laws laid down by my father’s father and have long since left Aubin . . . those that haven’t died out, that is. I’ve never heard of one having the power to curse a nation and cause a disease.”
“You have to belie—”
“That said,” the prince goes on, cutting her off. “If what you say is true . . .”
“It is. I know it is. Malfleur cursed Aurora, my sister, to die on her sixteenth birthday. Then the faerie duchess Violette amended the curse, saying she wouldn’t die but would fall into a deep sleep, only to be awakened by true love. As far as I can gather, my father and his wife made every attempt to cover it up, and the Delucian council is complicit in hiding it. They saw it as an irredeemable scandal, one they clearly wanted to keep hidden from the people and, even more importantly, from Aubin. And now almost everyone in attendance at her christening is dead or asleep. But Violette said true love would awaken Aurora. And that’s where you come in.”
“You think I’m Aurora’s true love?”
“I think you can be. I don’t know much about the fae except that their curses are not always as literal as they seem. And I have to try. I have to try. If you come help me, and if you succeed in awakening my sister, it will send a signal to Malfleur that we can stand against her magic.”
The prince is quiet for a moment. “But what if we can’t?”
“So you do believe me, then?” Isbe asks, relief flooding her, bringing in a new wave of energy.
“Hmm,” he says.
“Let me ask you something,” Isbe says softly. “If you had a chance to bring back your brothers, would you try?”
His laugh this time is curt and hard, a door slamming. “The answer to that is complicated. My brothers . . . they weren’t very kind.”
Isbe doesn’t know how to respond to that. It’s not at all what she was expecting him to say. All the hope she felt moments ago shrivels like a dried leaf. He doesn’t believe in faerie magic. He doesn’t believe the sleeping sickness is a curse, or that he could possibly play a role in undoing it. He isn’t going to help. She’s come all this way—she’s lost Gil and risked her own life, and for what?
Her mouth feels dry. She licks her lips. They are chapped, and sting. Her whole face is chapped, in fact, her skin stretched dry from the salt and the freezing wind. Her body aches—she’s still cold, and wet, and horribly reeking—and her hand stings from her cut. Her head hurts. Despair pushes down on her, making it difficult to stay upright. She needs a chair. Why is there no chair? She sways slightly, trying to think, trying to figure out how to save this. But she can’t think. Not anymore. Gilbert is gone. Aurora is asleep—maybe forever. And Deluce, just as the prince said, is doomed.
“Isabelle, I do believe that Malfleur intends to go to war, and that our kingdoms are mutually endangered. Though her soldiers, if they mean to take the Delucian palace, will first have to survive the sickness, which may in fact buy us some time. Still, I will hear no further political entreaties until you have done one thing for me.”
Isbe swallows. “And what is that?” She’s been through so much, she’s afraid this last request will be the one that kills her.
“For the love of all things decent, I insist you have a bath.”
It is late now. She is alone. The night guard is quiet enough that she can hear the scampering of mice in the corners of the halls, the fluttering of bats in the courtyard, the lone coo of an owl searching the dark, its hunger as yet unsatisfied. She can hear, almost, the settling of sheets around sleeping bodies, the scuttling of the palace baker preparing for the next day’s meals, the hum of snores. And even more faintly, more impossibly, comes the sweet voice from her mother dreams, twisting the lyrics of the rose lullaby like vines around her heart.
The prince informed only Elise, one of his most trusted servants, to draw and heat the water and to provide fresh clothes before leaving Isbe to disrobe. No one else knows of her presence. Hundreds of fresh cuts and scrapes cry out silently as Isbe lowers her sore, tender limbs into the bath through a cloud of citrus-scented steam, but gradually the chill begins to recede from her bones. Her nakedness makes her feel even more alone, and she sinks lower, until the water comes up to her chin and ears, to the tips of her shorn hair.
This bath is going to make her smell like William.
She clutches her wounded palm and thinks of the prince’s premonition about Malfleur. Thinks of how readily he said it: war.
The word moves through Isbe with a tremor. She spent much of her youth spying on military drills and has always fantasized about fighting for a cause.
Maybe even dying for one.