M.V.
“Maxian Vandorne,” I state.
“Like a child claiming their possession around other children.”
“He grew up with Dominik and Kassandra. Eli joined them in the summers.”
“Then who is P.V.?” Lila holds up the small red boot.
I see the initials inked into the top.
P.V.
“A cousin,” I supply, voice shaking. “Like Daisy. The one who died in the snow.”
Lila shakes her head. “Not even Daisy stayed in the royal apartments. Not Hector and his family. Only the king and queen and…their children.”
“You think there was another Vandorne child?”
“It might be why the salon was always locked, why this closet is fuller than Maxian’s. It could be why all the clothes are for a child of one age.”
“But where…” My voice falters. “Where is…”
We exchange a look, an unspoken conversation, my shock reflected in her visage. As we sit in the starlight, as we hold a small red boot, and a much larger black one, we try to comprehend the unknowable.
“All the royal portraits only show three figures,” Lila whispers. “But if the child had died…”
Wouldn’t they still be featured?
“And Maxian’s first betrothed, you know the rhyme?”
Lila nods. “Daisy, Daisy—in the springtime you grow, in the summer you glow. Daisy, Daisy—winter is here, beware the snow! Daisy, Daisy—why did you go? Poor, poor Daisy—don’t you know flowers freeze in the snow?”
“So surely there would be some record of a royal child,” I reason. “Even if the death was too painful to commemorate—there would’ve been a funeral, a small one. Or a portrait? An engraving? Conversations among nobles about P.V.?”
We sit in stunned silence, attention falling to the red boot.
“Perhaps it’s all here,” Lila says. “Maybe this is what’s left of them.”
Something sparks in my memory, the smallest detail from ourfirst visit. Why did the royal family repair, when they could replace? They have wealth, time, magic. Yet they kept the imperfection.Why?
We only repair by hand what is sentimental to us,Maxian said the night he stepped from the ripped portrait of his grandfather. Before I can speak, I am moving through the space, clutching the red boot, a baby’s boot, really. It fits in the palm of my hand.
“What are you doing?” my friend asks, following, as we enter the main chamber once more and walk toward the tapestry on the wall, the child in the tree, the queen watching.
I stand close, feel along its edges, squint in the moonlight. My fingers snag on it, the extra layer, the cloth used to patch up the weaving. To cover what is too painful to remove entirely.
I pull.
The fabric rips, and Lila gasps.
“What the planes—”
My breath leaves me, and we stumble back.
Before me is a child clinging to the queen’s skirts, baby fist grasping two of her fingers. A male with black hair and violet eyes, dressed in a white tunic and wearing a pair of little red boots. My heart plummets, hands dropping the boot. Lila shakes beside me, breath hitching.
“The king has a sibling,” she whispers.
