Chapter 5

The Queen didn't leave when Adrian asked her to. She stood rooted in place, staring at Jade like she was something offensive, a costume worn wrong, a joke made in poor taste at the worst possible moment. "Get out," she finally said, though the words weren't aimed at Jade at all they were on her husband. "Margaret.."

"Get her out of my sight." Her voice shook, grief and fury tangled so tightly together that Jade couldn't tell which one would win. "How dare you Adrian. How dare you bring some street girl in here and dress her up like my daughter?"

"I did what's necessary." Adrian's voice softened a bit.

"Necessary." The queen's laugh was broken, humourless. "Necessary was to bury Aurelia properly. Necessary was letting me mourn her instead of hiding her death like a stain on the carpet. This_" she gestured to Jade without looking at her, she couldn't bear to hold her gaze for a second at a time_" this is not necessary, this is mockery.

"This is survival," Adrian said, his voice hardening. "If the kingdom learns she is gon...."

"I don't care about the kingdom!" The queen screamed at him, raw enough that Edmund flinched by the door. "I care about my daughter! I care that you took her death and turned to a strategy before I had even finished weeping over her grave."

Jade stood very still, feeling like an intruder in a grief meant to be hers to witness. She understood with a sinking clarity, that whatever came next in this palace, the queen would never see her as anything but an insult to her dignity.

The queen's eyes finally landed back on her cold now, the earlier tears had hardened to something sharper. "You," she said. "Do you even understand what you're agreeing to? You're not saving anyone, you're helping him bury my daughter twice."

"I didn't ask for this," Jade said quietly, that was her first word since the queen's arrival.

"No," the queen said "but you will do it anyway. Won't you?" For gold, for whatever he promised you." Her mouth twisted with anger and disgust written on her face. "You people are all the same."

"Margaret enough." Adrian's voice cracked like a whip, and for once the queen stopped, though her glare didn't soften.

"Enough." Her voice came again bitterly. 

"Yes. For you I imagine it is. You've had three months to make peace with your daughter to turn on your board. I've had one night to look at a stranger wearing her face." She turned robes sweeping around and paused at the door, only long enough to look at Jade one final time. "You will never be her," she said. "No matter how you learn to walk, speak or smile. "I will know, every single day I will know." The door slammed hard behind her and the sound made Jade jolt.

Silence lingered as she left. Adrian didn't move to comfort anyone. He didn't look moved at all, he only bore tiredness of a man who just handled another list of inconveniences. "She will come around," he said, though it sounded more like an order than hope.                         Jade doubted that very much, she knew it, she saw it. She saw the level of hatred in the queen's eyes. It's going nowhere. If anything, Jade suspected it would only harden the longer she stayed, leaving her as a permanent reminder in a dead girl’s shoes.

"I need to see someone before I leave," Jade said, mostly to change the subject and get out of the room before the weight of it crushed her entirely. "I need to settle my affairs."

Adrian studied her for a long moment, like he was deciding whether the request was worth the risk. "One hour, Edmund would escort you." No one should know." He said finally. "I know the terms."

"Then go."

*

The room above Vivian's smelt the same pottage, woodsmoke and the fresh stale mildew of a roof that never quite kept rain. Jade stood in the doorway for a long moment before she came inside. Glancing shortly at Edmund inches away, she exhaled deeply and went inside.

Vivian was at the stove, and she didn't turn around immediately. "You're late," she said. "I was starting to think you had finally gotten yourself caught for good."

"Something like that," Jade said and her voice cracked a bit despite every effort not to let it.

Vivian turned, and her eyes went straight to her state, the raw ropes marked on her wrist, the bruises on her face and jaw that left blood trail though she had washed her face earlier, the wrong cloak someone had thrown on her in the palace before she left. The spoons on Vivian's hand rattled against the stove.

"What happened to you?"

"I got into trouble." Jade said. "I have to leave the slums."

"Trouble doesn't leave marks like that and let a girl walk home the same night." Vivian's voice was sharp, but underneath it, Jade could hear the fear. "Tell me the truth."

"I can't."

"Jade..."

"I can't, Vivian." The words came out harder than she meant them to, and she softened immediately, guilt twisting in her chest at the hurt flickering across Vivian's face. "It's not that I don't want to. If I tell you, it puts you in danger. Please. Just trust that I have a reason."

Vivian crossed the room and took her face in both hands, the same way she always had, checking for fever, for injury, for whatever kind of trouble Jade had dragged home this time. Her hands were shaking against Jade's face while her eyes watered.

"Are you safe?" She asked with a deep concerned tone.

Jade didn't answer right away, and that silence told Vivian everything.

"I'll be careful," Jade said instead. "I promise."

"That's not what I asked." Vivian protested.

Outside, Edmund shifted audibly by the door, time ebbing away. Jade pulled back before Vivian could ask again, before the guilt in her chest could crack all the way open.

"I have to go."

Vivian's eyes were bright with tears she refused to let fall. "Then go," she said, voice rough. "Before I do something foolish and try to stop you."

Jade managed a small, broken smile. "You'd lose."

"I know." Vivian pulled her into one last, fierce hug, arms tight enough to hurt around Jade's bruised shoulders. "Be careful, whoever they are, whatever this is, be careful."

"I will." Jade assured nodding her head.

She didn't look back at the damp patch shaped like a rabbit on the ceiling. She walked out into the rain, guards falling into step beside her, and let the door close behind her with a soft, final click. Vivian only watched from the window, "guide her soul," she whispered a silent prayer.

Some doors, once shut, didn't open again. Jade understood that now, walking away from the only home she'd ever known , one hostile queen, one dead princess, and one impossible bargain waiting for her on the other side of the city.

*Thank you for reading! If you're enjoying the story so far, I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments. 💛*