A Cousin Who Knows

I did not sleep.

The council had finally released us near dawn, with Ezekiel's soft blessing and Lord Varek's heavy frown, and Kael had walked me back to the royal suite in complete silence. At the door of my room he had stopped, as if there were something he wanted to say, then given a short nod and gone to his own chamber instead.

I lay awake until the windows turned grey, listening for the sound of footsteps. Every creak of the old stone made me think of Seraphine's voice at my ear.

I know what you see.

By the time the maids came with water and a breakfast tray, I had made two decisions. The first was to say nothing about it to Kael until I understood how much she knew. The second was to find out.

"The south garden is my favourite," Seraphine said brightly. "Nobody ever comes here before noon. It is the only place in the whole citadel where one can speak freely."

"That seems unwise to say."

"On the contrary. It is exactly why I say it."

She had come to my door a little after eight, in a morning gown of pale green silk, with a basket on her arm and a smile that could have charmed a dying man. She had called it a tour. She had called me cousin. The maids had practically fallen over themselves to dress me in a hurry, and I had followed her out of sheer necessity. If she wanted to talk, I wanted to hear it. And I preferred to hear it on ground where I could see exits.

The south garden lay on a terrace outside the east wing, enclosed by high white walls and thick with roses. Late autumn had turned the leaves gold and the air sharp. A stone fountain trickled in the centre. In the distance, over the walls, I could see the grey peaks of the Silvercrest mountains and a thin plume of smoke rising from the lower town.

Seraphine set her basket down on a bench and began to cut a few late blooms with a small silver knife. "You must forgive me for last night," she said. "I am terribly impulsive. My mother used to say my tongue was faster than my sense."

"Your mother must have been a perceptive woman."

"She was." Something flickered across her face, there and gone. "She is dead. Eleven years now."

"I am sorry."

"Everyone is." She snipped a stem. "It is a strange thing, to be the daughter of a dead woman. People think you want sympathy. I mostly want them to leave me alone with my memories."

I did not know what to say, so I said nothing.

She turned and looked at me, and the warmth in her face did not change. But her eyes did. They were green and bright and astonishingly clear, with none of the haze of the pretty, careless girl she pretended to be.

"I am going to be honest with you, Elena," she said. "I find it saves a great deal of time."

"Please."

"You can see them. Threads. Bonds. The things that tie us together." She said it calmly, as one might say you can play the harp. "You looked at my chest last night as though you were reading a sentence. And you looked at Lord Aldren's mistress just now, in the council, with such horror that I thought you would be sick on the table."

My mouth had gone dry. "I do not know what you are talking about."

"Of course you do." She laid down the knife. "I would be very unimpressed if you did not."

"Seraphine—"

"I am not going to expose you." Her voice softened. "That is the first thing I wish you to understand. I have no interest in running to Kael or Ezekiel or the council. If I wanted you dead, I would have said so in front of four hundred wolves."

"Then what do you want?"

"Help."

It was not what I had expected. I stood perfectly still on the gravel path and let the word settle.

"The court is full of people who are not what they seem," Seraphine said. "Men who are bound to women they never chose. Wolves who have been made to love, or to obey, or to keep silent. I have spent twelve years trying to find out who is tied to whom. It is dangerous, patient work, and I have only my own eyes." She smiled thinly. "You could do it in an afternoon."

"You want me to read the council."

"I want you to tell me what you read. Every bond. Every liar." She stepped closer, and her scent rose around me, jasmine and cold iron. "I would never use it against the innocent. I would use it to protect the kingdom. You have seen how fragile it is, Elena. One bad marriage, one forced oath, and an entire pack can be turned. Knowledge like yours is a weapon. In the right hands, it is a shield."

"And in the wrong hands?"

"Then I suppose you will have to decide whether mine are the wrong ones."

I studied her. She was good, I had to admit. She did not lie. Every word had the shine of truth about it, and she had picked the very argument most likely to work on me. I had spent sixteen years dreaming of a way to turn what I could see into something that would help.

But I had also seen the sealed stump of her thread.

"What happened to yours?" I asked.

She went completely still.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Your bond. The one that was cut." I kept my voice level. "I saw it last night. Someone severed it a long time ago. Who was it?"

For the first time, I saw the real Seraphine. It was only for a second, a crack in the glass. Her mouth tightened. Her eyes dropped, and there was something raw in them, something bare and frightened and very, very old.

"That," she said quietly, "is not for sale."

"Then neither is my silence."

"Elena." Her voice sharpened. "You are standing on a knife edge. Do not pretend you do not understand. Half of the men in the council have a reason to want you dead. The other half want what you carry. I am offering you a friend."

"You are offering me a leash."

She blinked.

"I know what a leash looks like," I said. "I have seen them around people's necks. I will not wear yours."

A long silence stretched between us. A single yellow leaf drifted down from a rose-covered arch and landed between our feet.

"I see," said Seraphine. Her smile returned, gentler now, and so smooth that I almost missed the steel beneath it. "You are braver than I expected. And cleverer. It is a pity. We could have been so good together."

"I doubt it."

"I would not be so sure. The offer stands, cousin. It will stand until the council decides what to do with you. After that, I make no promises."

"Seraphine."

The voice came from behind us, low and flat. I turned.

Kael stood at the edge of the terrace, bareheaded, in a plain dark coat. He had come without guards. He was watching us the way a wolf watches two strange dogs in the same yard.

"Cousin!" Seraphine said warmly. "We were just admiring the roses."

"I saw."

"Elena is delightful. Such wit. I am surprised you found her in a ledger."

"I did not find her. The council did." He walked toward us along the gravel path, and his boots crunched, slow and measured. "It is early for a tour."

"It is never too early to make a friend."

"Is that what you are doing?" His gaze moved from her face to mine, and I felt it search me, quick and sharp, looking for bruises or fear. "You look pale."

"I am tired," I said. "Your cousin was kind enough to distract me."

"I am sure she was." The words were pleasant, but he did not smile. He held out his arm to me. "Come. Breakfast is waiting, and I would like to see my wife eat something before she collapses."

I took his arm. It was warm and solid and strangely comforting.

Behind me, Seraphine bent to pick up her basket, and I heard her murmur, light and amused: "Be careful of that one, Kael. She has a great many secrets."

"So do you," he said, without turning around.

She laughed. It did not reach her eyes.

The breakfast room was a bright, round chamber on the eastern side of the tower, with tall windows and a table set with white linen. A hearth fire crackled. Plates of eggs and honey bread and cold meat were arranged with the careful neatness of people who had been told to stay out of the way. Dorian was already there, leaning against the wall with a cup in his hand, and he straightened when he saw us.

"Majesty. My lady."

"Anything?" Kael asked.

"The messenger boy. His name was Tam Garrow. Sixteen years old. His mother says he left yesterday morning for the market and never came back." Dorian's boyish face was grim. "She wept for an hour. She did not know who he was working for."

"And the girl? Wren?"

"Nothing more than what Mara found."

Kael nodded and drew out a chair for me. I sat. He sat beside me, close, not touching, but near enough that I could feel the warmth of him through my sleeve. A footman poured coffee. A second set a cup of tea at my elbow, steaming, fragrant with orange peel and cloves.

I reached for it.

"Wait," said a quavering voice.

An old man stood at my shoulder, small and stooped, in the red sash of the royal taster. He had white hair and kind, rheumy eyes, and I had seen him earlier, hovering near the door. His name, someone had told me, was Pell. He had tasted the king's food for thirty years.

"A moment, my lady. It is the rule." He smiled apologetically, picked up a small silver spoon, and dipped it in my cup. "It has been the rule since the old king's time. One cannot be too careful."

"Of course," I said.

He sipped. He swallowed. He gave a small, contented nod.

"Orange and clove," he said. "A lovely blend, my lady. It has a sweet—"

He stopped.

His smile stayed on his face a moment longer than his eyes did. Then the spoon fell from his fingers and rang on the stone floor, and his hand rose slowly to his throat.

"Pell?" said Kael sharply.

The old man looked at me. He looked at the cup.

"Oh," said Pell, very softly, in the voice of someone who has finally understood a joke. Then his knees gave way, and he folded to the floor, and the tea in my cup, perfectly still, perfectly warm, steamed up into my face.