The Essence (32 page)

I’d relaxed then, releasing my breath in a cloud of steam.

“I wish we had more time to get to know each other,” she’d added.

That strange sensation lingered still, the one that warned me that no one, not even the queens—maybe especially not the queens—could be taken at face value. I’d replayed the conversation in my head over and over again, questioning every syllable, every lilt in her speech patterns, every subtle glance she given me as we’d packed to go.

I’d behaved like the epitome of guilt. Yet I was certain she didn’t suspect me.

“Perhaps another time,” I’d finally managed to say to her, and she’d squeezed me in such a warm and comforting way that I felt as if I were betraying a true friend.

On our way out of the palace walls, we’d passed Queen Langdon’s party, also preparing to depart. Her soldiers solemnly surrounded a box covered by a shroud fashioned from their country’s flag—green and gold and sapphire blue. There had been no doubt that it was her casket.

I’d turned to Zafir, my brow furrowed. “The writing,” I’d said.

Zafir noticed the same thing I did: the flag. “Yes. The language is a form of Gaullish. Solaris is one of the eastern queendoms.”

The Eastern Region was a vague thing, defined less by geography and more by the long-dead beliefs that had once allied them. Now, however, the only thing that truly linked them linked them was Gaullish, their shared language—in its various versions. “How many others are there? Of the queens in attendance?” I spoke softly, not wanting to be overheard.

“Astonia and New Rome,” Zafir answered, naming Elena’s and Thea’s nations.

I thought about the map, the one marked with my route to the summit, and I wondered if it could have originated in any one of those countries. If the traitor were Astonian, New Roman, or Solarian.

I wondered if I’d killed the queen of the traitor.

Even now, the thought made me sweat inside my coat.

“I missed you too, Charlie,” Max said, bringing me back to the present. “More than I can ever say. When I saw that rider approaching the palace . . . When he told me what he’d seen on the road . . . Brook’s men . . .” He’d already said this, or at least tried, half a dozen times. He couldn’t seem to finish his thoughts, but I knew.

“Max . . .” I tried to grin, to show him I was okay. “I’m fine. And look, we’re together now. We’ll be home in no time, and everything’ll go back to normal, right?”

He bent down and leaned his chin against the top of my head. “Not really, Charlie. We’re not going home. Not yet.”

I jerked back. “What are you talking about? Then where are we going?”

His charcoal eyes crinkled. “Relax. We’re going south, to the estate where your parents and Angelina have been staying.” He sighed, his voice dropping so no one else could hear us. “We still don’t know who the traitor is, and even though I’m sure Brook’s father is somehow behind this whole thing, we still haven’t managed to capture him. Until we have him in custody, I’d feel better—we’d all feel better—if you stayed away from the palace.”

My eyebrows rose. “Just like you all thought I should go to the summit?” I questioned, sounding intentionally dubious of their plans. So far, I wasn’t convinced that any of us really knew what we were doing.

Max shrugged. “It wasn’t our idea to go south, actually. It was Bartolo’s.”

Again, conflict roiled through me as I wondered how much faith should be afforded to Niko Bartolo. On the one hand, I knew he’d never let anything happen to Sabara. But could I honestly say that same concern extended to me?

I supposed it had to. At least for as long as she was inside me.

“So, what’s his plan, exactly?”

Max shook his head, his fingers threading through mine now, and my pulse picked up. His gaze fell on someone behind me, and I knew immediately that we were no longer alone. “I’ll let him explain it to you.”

We all sat around a banged-up metal table below deck. The coal furnace filled the room with so much heat it was stifling and hard to breathe. I almost preferred the cold.

I stripped out of my hat and coat, and laid my gloves in front of me, looking around at those who were privy to this information. Since we could only afford to share the details with those we knew—without a doubt—could be trusted, we made for a pathetic assemblage. There were seven of us in all. Aside from me and Max, there were Brook and Aron, Claude and Zafir, and Niko.

“We’re going to try to draw the traitor out,” said Niko. “Once we reach the palace, we’re going to take you, along with a small band, and head south to where your family is staying. We’ll slip away so that no one knows we’re gone, and hopefully when he tries to make contact with his—”

“Or
her
,” Aron interrupted and everyone looked up at him at once. “What? You’re talking as if we’re certain the traitor is a man, as if it can’t possibly be a woman. But Brook could just as easily be an assassin as she could be a soldier.”

Brook grinned at Aron, taking his words as a compliment.

“He’s right,” I admitted. “It could just as easily be a woman.”

Niko just shook his head. “When the traitor tries to make contact with his
or her
,” he amended, “people, they’ll come to the palace looking for you. And when they get there . . .”

Brook’s eyes widened. “It’ll be a trap!” she exclaimed, slamming her fist enthusiastically on the rusted tabletop. “I love it. So which group do I get to be in? Please say trap, please say trap.” She crossed her fingers on both hands, hoping to be part of the ambush.

Max was already shaking his head, but it was Niko who answered. “Sorry, Commander. We need you to be with the queen and her family. Their safety will still be of the utmost importance.” I hated that I knew what he really meant: that Sabara’s safety was of the utmost importance.

“I don’t get it,” I said, wondering if I’d missed something. “Won’t they know I’m not at the palace? Wouldn’t it be obvious that I’m missing?”

“No,” Niko said, sounding more sure than I thought he should. “We’ll have a stand-in for you. Someone pretending to be you.”

“Where are you going to find someone to be me? Who could you get to fool the guards?”

Niko signaled to Claude, who opened the door.

We all watched silently, while the furnace continued to pump out that oppressive heat.

A girl stepped inside, and I frowned. It was Avonlea.

“She can’t . . . ,” I started to say, realizing that Niko meant for Avonlea to take my place. “She looks nothing like me. No one would ever believe it.”

She smiled then, a small slip of a smile that was almost a non-smile, as she reached for her hat. When she pulled it off, her hair fell free. Only it wasn’t
her
hair. It was mine. Silver-blond strands that spilled around her face.

“What . . . ? How?” I got up from the table to stand before her. I was amazed. Mesmerized.

I thought of all the nights Brook and I had spent in the clubs, of the rainbows of colors we’d seen people dye their hair for the night. Temporary colors that would never be allowed out in public. But those were
colors
.

This, what Avonlea had done to her auburn-streaked hair, was the exact opposite. This was the absence of color, as if she’d somehow stripped the fiery hues from her hair.

“It’s not possible,” I said at last.

“It was a gift,” Max said, coming to stand behind me. He put his hands on my shoulders. “From Queen Neva.”

I reached for Avonlea, fingering a strand of her hair. It felt like mine too. “What did she do to you?”

Avonlea blushed, and even her almost-blue eyes seemed, somehow, bluer.

It was Niko who answered. “Neva knew you were in trouble and she offered to use her gift to protect you. This is what she can do—create illusions.”

I stared at Avonlea, and thought about the way Neva had hugged me, about the way she’d told me to be safe. She’d known the plan and had wanted to help.

“Is it permanent?” I asked.

Niko shook his head. “It’ll start wearing off in a few days. By the end of the week, she’ll be completely back to normal. We’ll have to act quickly. For her part, Avonlea will need to keep to herself as much as possible, stay in your rooms and pretend she’s not feeling well.” Niko turned to Avonlea. “Think you can manage that?”

She looked at Niko like he was simpleminded. “If you’re asking if I can lie in bed all day while other people wait on me?” Her Scablander inflection was still firmly in place. “I imagine I can handle it.”

“Yeah, well don’t get too comfortable,” Brook cautioned.

I wrapped my arm around Avonlea. “I don’t know, you guys, I think I could get used to this. I kinda like having someone else acting as the queen.”

Avonlea pulled away, but she was grinning back at me. “I wouldn’t take your job for nothing,” she groused. “A few days, sure. But I saw the way those other queens were. Odd bunch, those ones. I’d sooner take my chances with Floss than deal with the lot of them.”

We didn’t even have to ride an entire day before we reached the train line, and then it was less than two days’ travel by rail. Both were heaven compared to the ferry, which was either too cold above board or too hot below. And far better than being at Vannova, where I’d been shackled by the weight of my secrets and burdened by guilt.

At least on the train I could be myself again. There were no rules to abide by. No etiquette I had to follow in order to avoid offending anyone.

The only challenge was sleep, because that was when my defenses were down and Sabara’s presence was strongest. I dreamed still. My dreams, and hers, until sometimes I couldn’t tell the two apart.

In one, I dreamed of a newborn baby. She didn’t cry or kick, didn’t breathe at all. She was a beautiful child, so small and fragile. And so very, very still.

I held her, rocking her in my arms as I whispered a lullaby in a broken language I didn’t recognize. Yet that didn’t stop me from understanding the haunting words.

Close your sweet eyes

Life doesn’t last long

You’d better go sleeping

Flying through dreams

Close your sweet eyes

’Cause life is a lie

Find happiness in dreams

And good night, my child. . . .

A knife pierced my chest as I clutched her to me, filling me with so much ache I wanted to open my mouth and shriek, to howl and bawl and pound my fists against everything and everyone. When I opened my mouth again, nothing came out, just a hoarse thread of whimpers that meant nothing, that said nothing.

Then he was there, taking the baby from me, and I knew: She was ours. Mine and his.

I glanced up, into his golden eyes, and back down at the downy patch of golden hair on her tiny, lumpy skull. I wanted to press one more kiss there, to feel that feathery hair against my lips, but he was already wrapping the blanket over her face. Concealing her. Hiding her.

And, soon, he’d bury her, too.

There were other births, and other graves, but never that same sense of loss. Even in the dream, I wondered:
How many babies had Sabara conceived? How many children had she outlived?

Her life was my worst nightmare, losing those whom I loved. Yet she’d done it for decades, centuries, eons.

All except for Niko.

Niko, who came back to her time and time again . . . in a never-ending migration of leaving her just so they could be together once more.

When I rolled over, I fell into arms that enveloped me, and the scent of soap and leather and musk tempted me from sleep. They were Max’s smells.

“You were crying,” Max said quietly over the sounds of the train around us. “Bad dream?”

I squeezed my eyes shut, wishing I could tell him everything—about Sabara and Niko, and about Queen Langdon. Instead
I whispered back, “Too many to count,” and nestled closer.

But I wasn’t just nestling, I was reaching for him, pulling him to me. We’d been apart for too long, and I suddenly understood a little of what Sabara must have felt, being away from Niko.