“Come,” the page told her. “The Queen waits.”
Kelsea followed her down another long corridor, this one lined with dark fireplaces. There seemed to be guards everywhere, and while they wore the Queen’s red, they did not have the feel of close guards. Unlike Kelsea, the Red Queen did not have to barricade herself in a single wing of her palace with a handpicked group. What would it feel like, Kelsea wondered, to be that secure on the throne?
They were headed for two black doors at the far end of the corridor, blocked by a man who clearly was a close guard. He seemed vaguely familiar, but there was something else: a sense of pride in his station, even though it merely consisted of standing there. For the men in the long hallway just past, guarding was merely a job, but not for this one. At a nod from the chamberlain, he knocked twice before opening the door.
Kelsea had expected a throne room of some sort, but only a few steps in she realized that this was a private chamber. Everything was hung with crimson silk: walls, ceilings, even the enormous bed that dominated the room. The room also held a vast oakwood desk and a sofa upholstered in red velvet. Nothing here was gold, and that forced Kelsea into a reassessment of the Red Queen. Velvet and silk were luxuries, certainly, but the space was not gaudy or tasteless. It was a room that conveyed a forceful personality.
“Kelsea Glynn.”
The Red Queen stood in the far corner. Her dress matched the hangings so perfectly that Kelsea had missed her the first time around, but now she saw that the Red Queen was unwell. Her skin was pallid and waxy, as though with fever. Her eye sockets had the bruised look of someone who had not slept soundly in a long time.
That makes two of us, Kelsea thought ruefully.
“That will be all, Emily. Ghislaine, leave us.”
Pen would have argued with Kelsea at this point—ah, but thinking of Pen was a mistake as well; the image of his stricken face on the New London Bridge would be with Kelsea all of her days—but the Red Queen’s close guard merely bowed and left the room. He was the man who had manacled her in the tent, Kelsea remembered suddenly. She had thought he meant to cut her throat, but he had merely clamped her in irons and taken her away. How could that day seem so long ago?
“Sit,” the Red Queen commanded in Mort, indicating the crimson sofa. She might be ill, but her dark eyes remained as unperturbed as ever, a calm port in a raging storm. Kelsea admired that outward serenity, wished she knew how it was done. She was trying to hold on to her bargaining face, but it was difficult. Her sapphires were here somewhere, and though Kelsea had willingly given them away, the Queen of Spades wanted them back.
She seated herself—a clumsy experience with bound wrists—and found that the sofa was the softest piece of furniture she had ever encountered. She seemed to sink into the plush velvet. The Red Queen sat down in a nearby chair, staring at her for a long moment, until Kelsea was acutely uncomfortable.
“You used to be a plain thing,” the Red Queen remarked, “when I saw you in dreams. But you are not so plain any longer, are you?”
“You neither, Lady Crimson.”
The Red Queen’s jaw firmed, a sign of irritation.
“How are your accommodations?”
“None too comfortable, but I’ve been in worse places.”
“Really?”
The Red Queen’s gaze sharpened, interested, and Kelsea reminded herself to watch her step. In the tent, the Red Queen had recognized her out of Lily’s portrait. She didn’t know Lily, but her fascination with the portrait, and with its subject, might be an important bargaining chip. But what was the bargain? What could Kelsea possibly offer that would make this woman set her free?
“It was worse to be stuck in a doomed city with my hands tied.”
“Your hands weren’t tied.”
I didn’t know that, Kelsea almost answered, but then she thought of Mace, Mace who, when dealing with a known enemy, would have given nothing away. Thinking of him steadied her, allowed her to find her own authority. She would never see Mace again unless she got home.
The Red Queen reached into the pocket of her dress and came out with both sapphires, dangling them from her fingers. “I wish to know what you’ve done to these jewels. Why won’t they work for me?”
Kelsea stared at the two jewels, trying to understand her own feelings. She had been longing for them for days, thinking of the hell she could rain down if she only had them in her hands again. But now that she saw them, she felt nothing, just as she had felt nothing when she had taken them off. What did that mean?
Seeing that she was not going to reply, the Red Queen shrugged. “No one understands them, the Tear jewels. Not even those who wear them. Elyssa never had the slightest idea. She merely thought them pretty pendants to wear around her neck, but she was attached to them as such. I could never get her to take them off, not even as the price of her kingdom.”