“I’ve heard many opinions of Queen Elyssa now, but I’m curious: what is yours?”
“That she should never have been given a kingdom to rule.”
“That much is obvious to everyone. But what was she like?”
“Shallow. Careless.”
The very words Kelsea would have chosen. She shrank into the cushions.
“Let me give you some free advice, Glynn. You are too invested. The tie of blood is only as strong as you want it to be. Some parents are poison, and it’s best to simply let them go.”
“Did you find it that easy?”
“Yes.” The Red Queen moved to sit at the far end of the sofa. “Heir and spare or no, my mother, like yours, should never have borne children. Realizing that, I left her behind and did not look back.”
She’s lying, Kelsea thought. She had seen into this woman’s mind, if only briefly, and the Beautiful Queen was littered all over the landscape.
“Who is your father?” the Red Queen asked. “I confess, I am curious to know.”
“So am I.”
“You do not know either?” The Red Queen shook her head, smirking. “Ah, Elyssa.”
“You won’t attack me by attacking my mother.”
“Who attacks her? I have a different man in my bed every night. We are not the Tear, to demand that women ignore all the pleasures of the world. But it was unlike Elyssa to keep secrets. And even more strange,” the Red Queen mused, holding up the sapphires, “that these did not tell you.”
Kelsea shrugged. “Perhaps not so odd. I’ve never had a burning need to know.”
“You do not care who your father is?”
“Why should I? He did not raise me, did not shape me. I had others for that.”
“But blood does tell, Glynn.” The Red Queen smiled sadly, and Kelsea was alarmed to find herself almost sorry for the woman. She would not delve further into the Red Queen’s memories, but she could not unstring the connections she had already made. The Beautiful Queen had traded away her daughter, as one would trade a steer at market, and that betrayal still loomed over the Red Queen’s mind, darkening it, scorching the earth beneath. “Blood raises us and shapes us in ways we don’t yet understand.”
“Ah, yes. I’ve heard that you call yourself a geneticist.”
“It is only a word. In truth, I know very little of genes themselves. We have not regained that technology, not yet. But traits, Glynn, traits . . . these I watch, and these I analyze. We are back at the level of Mendel, but still there is much to be learned and understood about behavior.”
“Mendel dealt in physical traits.”
“He was not ambitious enough. There are mental traits to be passed down as well.”
“This from the woman who tells me blood means nothing.”
The Red Queen smiled in acknowledgment, but the smile gave Kelsea no ease. What did the woman want from her?
“You said yourself that no one understands these jewels. What makes you think I do?”
“You must. They have been rendered lifeless. I’ve never heard of such a thing, but there it is. What have you done?”
“I don’t know,” Kelsea answered truthfully. “Why don’t you ask Row Finn?”
“Who is Row Finn?”
Kelsea narrowed her eyes. If the woman meant to play with her, she would not converse at all. But then, searching back through the memories she had glimpsed in the Red Queen’s mind, she realized that it was perfectly possible that the Red Queen had never known Row Finn’s real name. The two of them had a mutual history, clearly, and Kelsea had glimpsed something about a dead child . . . but it was already gone. Her foray into the woman’s mind had been too brief.
“Stop.”
The Red Queen grabbed her wrist.
“I know what you’re doing. It’s unfair.”
“Unfair? You’re holding me in a cell.”
“What you’re examining is not yours. You stole it. I did not look through the contents of your mind.”
“But you would if you could, Lady Crimson.”
“What difference does that make?”
The question startled Kelsea. She felt very sure that it did make a difference . . . but did it really? Mace would have said yes, but Kelsea was no longer sure. Just because she could, just because others would have done the same, did that actually make it right?
“I get a weekly report on the state of your kingdom,” the Red Queen continued, her voice laced with mockery. “Kelsea Glynn, a queen of great principle. Your government trumpets the value of privacy. Even your laughable new judiciary has decided cases on this basis. Privacy is privacy, Kelsea Glynn. Now, are you a queen of principle, or are you not?”
Kelsea grimaced, finding herself checked. There was hypocrisy in the Red Queen’s argument, but that did not change its underlying logic. She could not believe in privacy for some and invade it in others. After another moment’s pause, she dropped the fabric of the Red Queen’s memories, and they seemed to puddle, a shapeless mass at the foot of her mind, as when she stepped out of a dress.
The Red Queen nodded, a hint of triumph in her voice. “Principle weakens you, Glynn. It will always be used against you at the most inconvenient time.”
“Lack of principle is worse.”