Page 10 of The Poison Princess and the Lord of Misrule

She closes the door behind her and leans against it, arms folded, her pretty face unreadable. “What the goddess was that, Seravyn?” she asks.

I’m seated at my vanity, pulling pins from my hair. “I was caught off-guard.”

“You were smitten,” she accuses.

Curse her for knowing me so well, for being able to read me.

“Look at you,” she says, stepping forward. “You’re still blushing.”

I meet her large eyes in the mirror. Isolde is lovely, with high cheekbones and long auburn hair. Her mouth settles into a line, prepared to refute whatever lie I’m about to construct.

“He was very amusing,” she says, offering me a lifeline.

She also carries her loyalty like a blade of her own. She’s the closest thing I have to home in this gilded prison, and she is, at this moment, offering me a safe space, a small measure of freedom.

“He was filthy,” I say, removing another pin from my hair. “And not a real jester.”

“Which is just curious. Don’t you think?” She crosses the room to me. “He must have been desperate. To go before the entire court, the king himself, without any sort of routine.”

I hold the pin, my knuckles paling as I grip it tight. “The king’s doing, undoubtedly.”

She takes the pin from my hand, then starts removing the others from my hair with the practiced ease she’s mastered of undoing my hair since childhood. Her fingers work through the dark strands, gentle despite the sharpness of her tongue.

“The king is cruel,” she says in earnest agreement. “I hate that you’re here, Sera. In this situation.”

Sera, the name my family uses, the name that belongs to the girl I was before I came here, lands like a stone in a shallow pool. I watch the ripples move through my own reflection.

“I started brewing the dwale,” she whispers lightly, her fingers feathering my hair. “You can take it at night, right before you’re to be with him, and it will be as if your mind is elsewhere.” Her hands still. “You won’t remember a thing.”

She pauses. Her eyes find mine in the mirror, and something knowing and unsaid passes between us. The silent language of women who have been keeping secrets togetherfor a long time.

A tight swallow scrapes my throat. “Thank you, Isolde,” I manage. I already take a tincture to ensure I won’t end up carrying his heir. This is simply a different kind of precaution.

She kisses the top of my head. “Your mother would tell you to sit straighter.”

A throaty laugh escapes. “My mother told me to be a blade.”

Isolde shakes her head knowingly. “Ah, a blade that laughs at vagrant jesters is a blade losing its edge.”

Ren, I think. That’s his name. I let another smile slip. “Again, I tell you, it was involuntary.”

“Of course. He is rather handsome, though,” she remarks with a wink.

Heat rises in my cheeks. “I didn’t notice.”

“Liar.” She resumes her work on my hair. “He’s gaunt as a stray and twice as feral. But the bones are good. Oh, I’m sure he has a very good bone…”

I swat at her, mortified. “Isolde?—”

“And those eyes. One dark, the other light with that scar cutting through it, so dangerous looking. Nythera’s veil…” She trails off, then catches herself, straightening. “Not that you’ve noticed anyway.”

“I haven’t.”

It cannot notice. I’m tasked with only one purpose here.

“I suppose it’s at least some amusement to pass the time,” she says. “A daily performance to keep you entertained. No harm in that.”

Her comment reminds me that that’s exactly what the jester will be, that he will be required to make me smile, to laugh. Every day.