“You might remind him of the strain it places on her, then.”
“Sure.”
Beyond the front doors, their cars waited in the gravel driveway. The breeze had grown stronger and swept the fragrance of earlyspring blooms from the gardens around them. Sofia and Marvel piled into a bright yellow packard with her in the driver’s seat.
“They arrived together?” Yemi raised an eyebrow.
“No one was surprised, believe me,” Dahlia replied.
After helping Marvel into the car, Dorian made his way back toward them, and Dahlia paused in climbing into her own passenger seat, giving Yemi a thoughtful look.
“I appreciate your candor tonight. What you said.”
Yemi nodded.You’re welcomedidn’t seem an appropriate response.
“I hope Her Majesty’s strain doesn’t prevent the two ofusfrom… connecting more often. We are old friends, after all.”
Yemi tried to glean the subtext from Dahlia’s facial expression. Was this flirting? Everyone knew about her and Nova.
“I don’t see why it should,” she replied.
Dahlia nodded, satisfied. “Good.”
“Everything alright here?” Dorian asked cheerily from the other side of the car.
“Of course,” Dahlia told him. “Good day, Qorrea.”
Yemi nodded at them both and retreated back into the palace to find her mother for whatever verbal lashing she was due. She found her still at the dining room table, but with a more relaxed posture.
“That was… colorful,” said the queen.
“Got them going, didn’t it?” Yemi signaled to a pair of attendants standing on the far wall to help remove and stow her mother’s headdress.
“Also wholly inappropriate to speak of a dead man that way,” the queen added when she was free of it. Save for a fine sheen of sweat on the smooth, dark skin of her face, she seemed no worse for wear. And at least mildly amused.
“Mm. Have you eaten?” Yemi dabbed the sweat from her mother’s face until she waved for her to stop fussing, then signaled the servers, who rushed out their dishes of pale green soup and spiced sea bass. Yemi retook her seat beside her mother.
“What about this body you found? I haven’t been briefed yet.”
“Off the coast of a remote island. No sign of wreckage or mayhem. No flotsam, no jetsam, just… the trunk of a person and a tattered flag nearby.”
“Where’s the body now?”
“Had Lain do the rite on theDulce. It would have been a health hazard to bring back on board, and there was nothing left to identify.”
“Hmm,” the Queen grunted. “Kespia?”
Yemi shook her head. “Doesn’t make sense. The proposed alternative, though, is worse, and I think more people are thinking it than are willing to say it.”
There was a moment of silence between them. The black stone skin of her mother’s arms rippled like sharp feathers against the dining table as she raised and lowered a spoon. She was serene, the Bear Queen. Unbothered. But the faint, infernal scraping noise featured in every one of Yemi’s nightmares.
Yemi twitched. “They blame you,” she told her mother. “For theClodionand all the other ships. They think the Mer are taking them down. Cerro doesn’t think you’re doing enough to stop them.”
“Heads of state get blamed for everything. It’s as true for me as it was for anyone else,” the queen assured her.
“So you don’t think there’s anything to it? That the Mer aren’t responsible?”
“I wouldn’t know. I’m not their queen. I’ve told the Kept as much.”
