“Does it hurt?” Aria asked. She paused to swallow down the remaining nausea. “Using magic.”
After hesitating, Lettie nodded. “No one else says so, but mine does. Mine has always been different.”
“It’s hard to be different.”
Lettie nodded again.
Aria meant to stand, meant to be strong, but she sank to the floor instead, crossing her legs beneath her, grateful for trousers. She couldn’t tell if the dizziness was from the climb or Lettie’s magic or both, but either way, the room wavered, and she breathed shallowly.
Lettie took a few quiet steps on the rug. She brushed her fingers over a cushioned chair beside the bed and smiled faintly.
“Charlie was different too. He always slept here, and Mama got so mad that he wouldn’t use his bed, that he wouldn’t be human. He just loved being a cat.”
“I wish I could have met him,” Aria said honestly.
“You would have liked him. Everyone liked Charlie.”
“Why did you bring me here, Lettie?”
The girl tensed. She knotted her hands in her skirt. Then she pulled a folded sheet of parchment from her pocket.
“I took it earlier,” she said, hanging her head. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to know what it said.”
Aria hadn’t even noticed the moment the peace agreement had vanished; her attention had been rather captured by other things.
Lettie unfolded it. “You wrote about Charlie.”
“I want to prevent what happened to him from ever happening again.”
“It’s my fault,” Lettie whispered. “He wanted to sneak around the castle, and Mama locked him in our rooms so he wouldn’t. He was so sad. I ... I wasn’t supposed to, but I ...”
At once, Lettie’s whole body shook, a trembling autumn leaf moments from falling.
Aria climbed to her feet and stumbled forward. She took the girl’s hands gently in her own. “Lettie, listen to me. It isn’t your fault.”
But the girl rambled on, telling the story that probably played on repeat through her mind every night. “Anytime we went somewhere new, he always explored, and he never got caught. He never got caught—until I helped him. I wish I could take it back. I wish I never had magic!”
“Shh,” Aria murmured, rubbing soothing circles on the girl’s hands.
“When Charlie died, Mama was so angry. She’s never been so angry. She broke the dishes one by one because Charlie would never eat again.” Lettie’s voice shrank as tears leaked from her eyes. “If she knew I was the one who helped him, she would have cursed me, not you.”
Aria steered Lettie into Charlie’s chair, giving her a gentle push so she sat. Lettie burrowed into the cushions, rubbing her cheekagainst the soft velvet of the curving back. She hugged a pillow to her chest, her breath coming in hiccups.
“Did you know I have a sister?” Aria took a shaky breath of her own. “Two, actually, but my sister Eliza and I did everything together. We used to go riding and have picnics. She made me laugh.”
Lettie slowly calmed, watching her with tearful blue eyes.
“Something bad happened, and I promised Eliza I would fix it, but I couldn’t. She ran away from home, and I thought it was because of me. But she left me a letter that said it wasn’t, that said she loves me. Lettie, if Charlie could send you a letter right now, I think he would say it wasn’t your fault. He would say he knew you just wanted to make him happy. He knew you loved him. And he loved you too.”
Lettie sniffled, wiping her nose. She opened her mouth to speak, and then her eyes moved to the doorway, and she froze, trembling again.
Aria’s stomach fell. She turned to see Widow Morton haunting the hall like a dark shadow.
“I thought I rid myself of you, Highness.” She stepped into the room. Her gaze roamed from the untouched bed to the vase of graveside flowers, and as the line of her mouth tightened, Aria saw the cracks in the woman’s anger, trails leading to a bottomless pain Aria could never hope to understand.
All the determination she’d felt while climbing a mountainside vanished, stolen like breath from her lungs in a blast of wind. Twice, this woman had tried to kill her, and the odds of Widow Morton’s success still felt inevitable. Aria had no weapons, no magic, no armies, no true power at all. If she were a Caster, if she were a queen, perhaps she would have a chance. But she was just a helpless girl.
“Mama ...” Lettie shrank in the chair.
