“Yes.” I nodded.
“Let me see if I have this rightly understood.” Bored, she reached forward with a gloved hand and scooped some whipped cream onto her finger. She licked the cream off the fabric. Appalled, I had to stop myself from looking away. “Your daughters were not invited to my ball. And you’d like them to be?”
“Yes,” I repeated, experiencing the humiliation exactly as she had intended.
For the first time that afternoon, I saw one of her brilliant smiles, starting slow and spreading across her face. One of her incisors had turned a different color, a fleshy gray, so that it stood out from the rest. Decay that no amount of raw egg or beer wash could have stopped. Then her lips snapped shut and she finished the last of the cream off her gloved finger and, without raising her voice or turning her head, called: “Send Otto in.”
Sigrid sat back with a subtle look of satisfaction. As if my request—and admission—had been what she was after. Saying nothing, she helped herself to lemon cake, which she sliced with the edge of her fork and ferried, in slivered bites, to her lips. When she chewed, a few trembling wrinkles puckered around her mouth. Though I desperately wanted to say something, to put an end to the quiet in the room, to find the right combination of words to ameliorate my shame, I could think of nothing appropriate. My request had laid me bare.
After some time—the lemon cake long finished, Sigrid regarding me like a plate of unwanted crusts—the same paneled door swung inward once more. A tall man with black hair and dark eyes came through. I stared, wide-eyed. He was the stranger from the woods. When he saw me, his brow knit. He straightened, briefly, and paused, before continuing toward Sigrid.
“You,” I said. Remembering myself, I placed my gloved hand over my lips.
The footman reentered behind him and announced me. “Lady Etheldreda Tremaine.”
“Bramley,” I added, this time. “Lady Etheldreda Tremaine Bramley.”
Momentarily confused, he pushed forward with his introduction, gesturing at the stranger: “His Honor, Counselor Otto Abensur.”
Gone were the man’s peasant clothes and undecorated sword. Now he wore a fine tunic, trimmed in fur. And was a counselor. To the royal family.
He looked at me, expressionless, before ducking his head down in a quick nod of acknowledgment. I realized—with a lurch of my stomach—that he remembered me, would be able to connect the woman in the woods, the mud, back to me and, by extension, my daughters.
“You know one another?” The queen looked back and forth between us.
“We have, ah—passed at the village market. Once.” I watched the stranger, to see if he would contradict me. My heart in my throat. He watched me back and remained silent.
“The market,” she repeated, interested. “Say more.”
“Aye, Your Majesty,” he finally spoke. “Our paths crossed when I was out with the carriage issuing invitations.”
His presence in the woods now made sense. Why had I not thought to connect the stranger to the carriage that had appeared moments after he had?
“Lady Tremaine,” Otto said, emphasizing the title, as if confirming it to himself. “How can I be of service?”
“She wants her daughters to be invited to the ball,” Sigrid said, sounding bored. She yawned, without bothering to cover the action. “Good of you to come,” she added, directing the words at me.
I realized, belatedly, that our tête-à-tête was over. There were no goodbyes. And, as the footman escorted me out, I saw Otto Abensur lean over and whisper into the queen’s ear.
My heart thrummed. Information was currency and the man owed me nothing.
As the footman walked me back through all of the rooms, their details—the dazzling chandeliers and inlaid tiles and painted frescoes—gave color and context to my thoughts. Sigrid had been right that our lives would take different paths. We passed mirrored overmantels and coats of arms and, by my count, six different servants attending to candles. And, while I did not doubt being queen came with its own set of burdens, I couldn’t help but think, as we walked around a man polishing a row of decorative weapons, that burdens were easier to bear when you sat on feather pillows. We were moving through a room where everything—walls, furniture, and drapes—called to mind the exact shade of a mint leaf, when a voice called from behind: “Lady Tremaine.”
I turned back. Otto, still expressionless, approached and addressed the footman. “I will see her ladyship out.”
Without looking at me, he began to walk forward. I hurried to match his pace. Once or twice I thought to make conversation, butglancing over at him, and the oyster-sized muscle clenching his jaw, I thought better of it. In his fine clothes, he gave an entirely different impression than the man in the woods. He was quite tall, and had a severe, attractive face with a hard look about his eyes, as if he had been drawn in charcoal with too heavy a hand. We continued through the rooms, lavender and teal and one entirely of polished mahogany. At length, as we moved through a chamber filled with preserved and stuffed animals, he spoke: “You are far removed from the woods this afternoon.”
I nodded, gut tightening. “You, too, have transitioned from the wild.” I pictured him as he had been on that dark path in the forest—worn steel and fine boots—and frowned at how I had spoken to him. How he had spoken to me in return. “I did not place you as a member of the royal retinue.”
He looked over at me for a moment, as if to say he would not have placed me, either—woman of the bird and the rabbit—as the lady of the nearby house. “I am dispatched to keep watch, but there’s little to oversee in verbose invitations orated to ladies in fancy gowns.”
A moment of silence, during which I could hear only the swishing of my own fanciful frock. “One should never underestimate a lady’s ability for metamorphosis.”
He did not respond, and, walking ahead, remained inscrutable. After a long while, he looked back and said: “Indeed.”
I gestured around us at the animals—foxes and rabbits and, in the corner, a stuffed bear. “Though these rooms are not a far cry from the woods. It seems the spirit of the forest has followed us.”
He turned to face forward once more. “The woods have their place and it’s not within these walls.”
