Chapter 9

Dinner in the palace, Jade was quickly learning, was less a meal and more a performance with cutlery.

The long table was covered in more silver than Jade had ever seen in her life. Candlelight spread across the faces of people she didn't fully trust and plates and utensils she still didn't know how to use properly.

Adrian sat at the head of the table, with Margaret beside him. Her expression was carefully arranged into something that almost looked warm, if no one looked too closely.

Jade sat across from several nobles Vosk had briefed her about that morning. She had already forgotten half their names. They all blurred together, just like everything Vosk taught her, until the moment she actually needed to remember.

Lucien's chair sat empty. He was absent, probably in one of his phases.

Jade noticed it right away. It wasn't exactly relief, but her chest loosened a little. At least there was one less person watching her through the meal.

"The Prince sends his apologies," Adrian said, before anyone could ask. "Matters of state."

No one questioned it aloud, but Jade noticed two nobles glance at each other across the table. It was quick, like they were judging something, then it was gone before she could figure out what it meant.

"Your Highness looks well," said the man to her left, a lord whose name she'd already lost. "Recovered fully, I trust?"

"Fully," Jade said, reaching for her wine glass the way Vosk had drilled into her—slow and careful, without the quick, practical movements she was used to.

"We were all so relieved," said a woman further down the table, older, sharp-eyed in a way that made Jade's spine straighten without meaning to. "Bellmere's loss, is it now? Such a shame you didn't finish out the term."

Jade's stomach dropped, and her fingers tightened around the glass. Finish out the term. Another thing she hadn't known. Aurelia had left Bellmere early, and no one had told Jade why.

"The studies weren't quite what I expected," Jade said carefully, choosing each word. "I found I missed home more than I thought I would."

During the silence that followed, the doors opened. A woman walked in without waiting to be announced. Her hair was streaked with silver, her gown looked years out of fashion, and her face held such open relief that Jade's pulse jumped before she even recognized her.

"There you are!" the woman said, crossing the room with far less ceremony than anyone else had shown all evening. "I nearly didn't believe it when they told me. Aurelia, darling, look at you."

Lady Agnes.

Jade had no idea who the woman was. Her eyes briefly met Vosk's, and Vosk quietly mouthed, "Lady Agnes."

Jade glanced back at the woman, remembering the story she had overheard from the Queen's memory—a rabbit, a fence, a laugh neither of them could hold in. She had no idea how much of that memory Lady Agnes might expect her to share.

"Lady Agnes," Jade said, rising with the warm smile Vosk had taught her. "It's good to see you."

"Good to see me? Is that all?" Agnes laughed, delighted, taking both of Jade's hands in hers without invitation. "After everything, you'd think I'd at least get a proper hug." She pulled Jade into one before she could answer, warm and unguarded, and over her shoulder Jade caught Margaret watching the exchange with an expression that flickered, just for a moment, into something raw.

"Forgive me," Jade said, extracting herself gently. "It's been a strange few months. I'm still finding my feet."

"Of course, of course." Agnes settled into the empty seat beside her—Lucien's seat, Jade realized belatedly. No one seemed bothered by it.

"Though I must say, you look thinner than I remember." Agnes tilted her head, studying Jade. "Well, however that may be, I'm glad you're home. It hasn't been the same around here without your—" She paused, a mischievous smile appearing on her face. "—your particular kind of chaos. Do you remember the rabbit?"

Jade's whole body went still.

"The rabbit," she repeated, her voice barely steady.

Her mind raced. She searched desperately through the memory she had overheard from the Queen, trying to piece together every little detail she could remember. She couldn't afford to get this wrong. Not here. Not in front of everyone.

She forced herself to breathe and looked at Agnes, hoping something—anything—would come back to her before she had to answer.

"Oh, don't tell me you've forgotten that." Agnes laughed again, delighted at the very idea. "The garden party. My poor Bartholomew, tripping headlong over the fence in front of the entire visiting court, and you laughing so hard you nearly fell off your own chair—"

"Bartholomew," Jade said slowly.

The name came to her, not as a memory, but as something she had pieced together from the Queen's story. She held her breath, hoping she had it right.

"The grey one." "The very same." Agnes beamed, completely satisfied.

Just like that, the tension passed. There was no suspicion in her face, only warmth and relief at having shared an old joke again.

"I do miss that rabbit's dignity," she said with a small laugh. "I don't think he ever recovered from that fence."

Jade gave a small, careful laugh, the kind she had been practising all week. As everyone turned their attention elsewhere, she felt some of the tightness in her chest ease.

For now, she was safe, she thought.

*

The treasury room, by contrast, held no warmth at all.

Captain Edmund arrived just after midday, without warning. He held a sealed decree in one hand, his face serious in a way Jade had already learned to associate with bad news disguised as routine palace business.

"Your Majesty." He gave a brief, respectful bow. "The southern merchant guild has rejected the new tariff terms. They sent this in response."

Adrian took the parchment without ceremony, scanning it once, his jaw tightening as his eyes landed on every line. "They're threatening to withhold shipments."

"They are, Your Majesty."

"And if I let them?"

"Then the capital will run short of grain within the month, and every noble house that relies on southern trade will know exactly who to blame."

Edmund's voice remained calm, but his expression had tightened slightly. He already seemed to know what Adrian was going to do, and he clearly wasn't pleased about it.

Adrian set the decree down slowly, staring at it like it might rearrange itself into a more favorable outcome through a sheer force of will.

"Draft a response," he said finally. "Full compliance with their terms. Publicly, we call it goodwill. Privately—" his eyes hardened, "—make it clear this is the last concession this crown makes to merchants who forget who actually rules this kingdom."

"And the shortfall it creates in the treasury?" Edmund questioned again.

"Will be managed," Adrian said, in a tone that closed the conversation entirely. His eyes never left Edmund's.

Edmund bowed and turned to leave.

Adrian remained where he was, staring at the empty space where the decree had lain, his jaw tight with the exhaustion of a man running out of places to hide his kingdom's cracks.

Then his eyes shifted to the sealed letter sitting at the far end of the table.

The one he had been hoping never to open. 

His expression hardened.

"Send for the princess."

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