The Mirror King (Orphan Queen) (32 page)

“What are you implying?” A frown pulled at Tobiah’s mouth—a reminder of his princely mask. “I’ve had a long journey and I’m not in the mood to untangle your paranoia.”

Prince Colin’s voice was steady. “I’m implying that it’s convenient you were declared dead, Wilhelmina was crowned
queen, and then you arrived immediately after.”

Oh, saints. I opened my mouth to tell him to shut it, but Tobiah got there first.

“You think this was convenient?” Tobiah stood and looked down on his uncle. “You think I planned for the wraith to destroy my city? My home? Thousands of my people? You think I planned to have to abandon everything and trek across the wraith-flooded kingdom to seek refuge in the land I was kidnapped to as a child? You think I planned my numerous brushes with death, and having to persuade everyone that coming to Aecor was our only hope of survival? All so that Wilhelmina could be crowned queen?”

No one moved. Not even Prince Colin.

“Even if that had all been planned—which would make me both a mass murderer and capable of seeing into the future—do you think I’d have timed my arrival to look so suspicious? There is nothing convenient about today.” Tobiah let that linger, and then he sat down again.

Well. Now that Tobiah had
that
out of the way. “Prince Colin,” I said, “you are dismissed.”

He shook his head. “I want to talk about the bridge.”

I allowed my voice to dip lower, dangerous. “You are dismissed. James, please help Prince Colin to the door.”

James stepped away from his place by the wall, but Prince Colin was already up and moving. He paused at the door, taking a heartbeat to glare at Tobiah, and then at me. “Isn’t it alarming how quickly King Tobiah recovered from the death of his bride, and now he rises to support the queen who commands the creature that killed our dear Meredith?”

As members of the council glanced at one another, some with disgust or surprise, Prince Colin disappeared down the hall.

Tobiah motioned to one of his guards. “Watch him.”

The man bowed and left the room.

“Now,” I said, “there’s a ball to prepare for. Everyone has one minute to leave the room.”

As the council chamber emptied, leaving Tobiah, Melanie, James, and me alone, I drifted to the window from where Melanie and I had watched the bridge explode.

“He had a point about the bridge,” Melanie said. “The Red Militia was thorough when they collapsed it. Forty-seven people died.”

“I didn’t think we’d see anyone else from the Indigo Kingdom. At least not for a long time.” Outside, the bridge was jagged and broken once more. Gulls circled the dust plumes and remnants. “It was obviously a powerful flasher who made the bridge whole while you came across. All that magic contributed to the wraith, but there’s a part of me that doesn’t care. I’m just happy to see you again. All of you.”

“Radiants,” Tobiah said. “I thought we agreed radiants.”

Through the notebook. “Yes. We did.” I wanted to ask why he’d stopped writing and if he’d seen all the letters I sent after, but when I glanced at him, his eyes were still on the bridge. Muscles tensed in his jaw and neck and shoulders.

He’d survived war and loss and now the wraith.

This morning I’d believed he was dead. Now I faced days or months or years with only a door between us at night, but it might as well have been a kingdom. That door was Meredith
and the wraith boy, and the never-fading memory of what he’d done to her.

I understood now what I hadn’t before: Chrysalis wasn’t good or bad; he was simply power. He wasn’t human, but he was part of me, a reflection of my desperate wants.

Last autumn, Black Knife and I had talked about flashers and their magic, and why they might use it even knowing the wraith was coming. I’d said they were desperate, and their desperation made them dangerous.

Chrysalis was my desperate danger.

I’d created him. I was responsible for him. And though I hadn’t wanted him to bring down the cathedral or kill Meredith, I’d wanted to be somewhere else and see the night sky, and I’d wanted Tobiah not to marry Meredith.

I understood, now, and how it might be unforgivable.

THE BALLROOM WAS
heavy with the beat of music, but the dancing hadn’t yet begun.

I lingered on the threshold, watching everyone mingle. Though I recognized people from both kingdoms, they weren’t as separated as I’d thought they’d be. Francesca spoke with Jasper and Cora Calloway. Lady Chey flirted with Kevin, who watched his tutor, Alana Todd, as she sipped from a glass of wine. Sergeant Ferris smiled at Paige.

The two kingdoms merged into one right before my eyes.

One figure stood apart. He wore solid black, with high, elegant boots and long tailcoats. The way he moved around the room was just like Black Knife: fluid and focused. When a soldier came up to him and spoke into his ear, he offered only a clipped nod and quick dismissal.

“Your Majesty?” The herald lifted an eyebrow, and I stepped forward. He turned to the ballroom to announce me: Her Royal
Majesty Queen Wilhelmina Ileen Elizabeth Korte.

I forced myself to smile as the music seemed to swell and every eye focused on me. I was impossible to miss, dressed in another gown of Aecorian red silk that glittered when I moved. The style was more modern than the coronation gown, but the designs across the bodice and sleeves were similar. This gown, too, boasted a useless cape, but it was shorter and lighter, made of a flowing layer of tiny-beaded silk.

Now that everyone was staring, I made myself look over the crowd appraisingly, as though I’d just arrived and hadn’t been watching everyone for an entire minute. I met eyes, smiled warmly, and thanked people for coming tonight.

I said the things a queen would. I walked the way a queen should. As I greeted people by name, I ignored the discomfort knotting in the back of my thoughts. It was too late to change my mind. I’d gotten what I always wanted, and now I had to live with it.

A tall, dark figure stepped in front of me. “Dance?” Tobiah’s tone was somewhere between exhausted and annoyed, but when I met his eyes there was something else. There was something desperate and starving in his gaze, and suddenly I couldn’t
breathe
with the way he was looking at me.

He hadn’t moved; he was a still shadow of a king, so striking and familiar, but foreign all the same. His face had barely shifted from the cool mask of a monarch, but I’d seen it. Like I’d learned to see behind the Black Knife mask, I could see through this one, too.

“I would love to dance.” My heart pounded in my throat as I took his offered hand, and together we made our way to
the center of the floor. The music shifted, and people cleared away.

The dance took us in measured steps around each other, like two predators circling. We couldn’t speak about anything important, not with so many people watching us, but our eyes stayed locked.

To others, it must have looked fierce, like there was a battle between us, but the reality was deeper: I saw straight into his grief.

This was a king who’d lost everything. His father. His fiancée. His kingdom. His home. He’d been helpless to stop it; it was all so much bigger than him.

As the dance brought us closer, I whispered, “I understand.”

The tension around his mouth relaxed as the music faded. “I knew you would,” he murmured. “Better than anyone, I knew you would.”

“You know me.” My life, my secrets, my faults.

“I know you.” A faint smile pulled at his lips. “Curtsy, Wilhelmina.”

We’d stood a moment too long. I stepped back and dipped into a curtsy, while he bowed, and the guests applauded as though we’d saved the whole world from the wraith right there.

I held up a hand and the noise died. “I’m not going to make a speech tonight. I think we’ve had enough speeches for one day—for the year, perhaps—and we’d all like to see more
action
.”

A few people cheered.

“Let’s start with dancing and celebration. First thing tomorrow morning, we will face our problems: the Red Militia, the wraith, and the poverty our people have struggled under for so
long. Tomorrow, we will begin the process of restoring Aecor.”

More cheers rose up, and I had to call over them: “Thank you! Now please dance.”

Tobiah walked me off the floor. “That was good.”

“No one actually likes speeches.” The music started up again, and everyone was talking and moving to take their positions. “They come for the gossip and food. And to show off their wealth. For me, it’s about the food.”

“Always food with you.”

“Live on the streets a few years and life will be about your next meal, too.” I hesitated when I saw the line of people near the chairs brought in for everyone with “Highness” or “Majesty” attached to their names. Flags were draped over the backs, and mine stood taller than the others, as though there might be confusion about who sat where.

“You’re doing a good job at the showing-off-your-wealth part.”

I frowned and slid the back of my hand along the edge of my cape. “I’m not even sure where these gowns are coming from.”

“You look like a queen.”

I forced a note of teasing into my voice. “And you look like a vigilante.”

He looked at me with complete seriousness. “If that’s what you want me to be.”

Every possible response caught in my chest. Yes? No? I wanted Tobiah to be himself, with or without the mask. But I couldn’t say that, not here, and not in front of all these people. Some conversations were best held in the dark.

I took my chair.

For an hour, we spoke to people, watched the dancing, and ate when food was brought our way. At last, people stopped creeping up to us with questions or requests, and I leaned on the arm of my chair, toward Tobiah.

“I wish I were in the city right now, as Black Knife.”

He let out a soft snort. “Do you remember the night of my engagement ball?”

I remembered Meredith and how stunning she’d been that evening. I remembered the way she’d looked up at Tobiah, her happiness shining through.

Tobiah didn’t comment on my sudden stillness. “Until I danced with you, all I could think about was Black Knife. And then you asked about him. Now I realize what a strange conversation that was. Me, knowing you as the nameless girl. You, knowing me from the One-Night War. Neither of us putting the final pieces together.”

“Nothing has ever been simple between us, has it?”

“I don’t think anything is simple. Ever.” He stood and offered me a hand. “Is there somewhere we can talk?”

“They’ll notice we’re gone.”

“We’ll be just a few minutes.”

I didn’t take his hand, but stood up and led him to a nearby office. When I turned on the gas lamp, the flare of light revealed only an old desk, a couple of bookcases, and a faded painting of a long-dead king. I closed the door behind us, even though James and Oscar were the only ones standing outside.

“I don’t remember Sandcliff Castle having so many gas lamps.” Tobiah strode to the window and stared out toward the bridge.

“Your uncle had them installed.”

“Ah.” He glanced over his shoulder. “How does it feel to take your throne at last?”

I leaned a hip on the desk and sighed. “I’d like to say important and monumental, but that wouldn’t be the truth.”

“Since when does lying stop you from saying something?” His tone was all teasing.

“Never,” I said. “But I will change. I want to be an honest and fair queen. I used to think my parents were.”

“Perhaps you judge them too harshly? Perhaps they were doing their best.”

“Perhaps.” I pulled myself straight. “But they didn’t even try to find an alternative way to provide the lowcity with clean water, or meet with the Wraith Alliance kingdoms. Perhaps they were doing the best they could, Tobiah, but I want to do better. I must do better.”

“I believe you will.” He faced me, his expression open and honest. “You have the advantage of empathy.”

“What do you mean?”

“Those who crave power tend to be too selfish to have the empathy they need to be good leaders. But you care about your people as individuals, not some teeming mass to be reclaimed and ruled. Even before all of this started, you loved your Ospreys. They were never expendable to you.”

No, they weren’t. Not like they were to Patrick, just faces with sets of skills, ready to be deployed at his convenience.

My throat was tight. “You can’t know how much it means for me to hear you say that.”

“I’m not just saying it, Wilhelmina. I believe it.” He walked toward me, his face shadowed as he turned from the light. “You
will be a good queen, and I will gladly follow your lead now that I am a ward of Aecor.”

Oh. He
was
a ward of the kingdom. Just like everyone else who’d crossed the bridge, the Wraith Alliance allowed him to retain his titles, but none of the power unless I granted otherwise.

Tobiah was a ruler in name only, as I’d been just yesterday.

He studied my face, and though I hadn’t spoken or given any sort of reaction, he still read my thoughts in my eyes. “The Indigo Kingdom isn’t all gone. Not yet. But the valley is. That was the heart of the kingdom. The rest will fall until there’s nothing left. I can only hope that all my people find somewhere safe.”

“There’s nowhere safe,” I reminded him.

“But there’s still hope.”

“Optimistic Knife strikes again.”

“That menace.” He dared a smile, but it was quickly put out. “My uncle is missing. After the meeting this afternoon, I had him followed.”

“I remember.”

“Well, they lost him. And now no one can find him. Nor can they find his supporters, the men who were stationed here under him, and even some of the loyalists you freed when you arrived.” Tobiah leaned his weight on the desk, shoulders hunched and head bowed low. “It’s about five thousand people, total. Nothing we can’t defend against, but just the idea of my uncle marching through your city, tonight of all nights—”

“We can defend against it. Did you tell James? He’s in charge of castle security, though I suppose you’ll want him back.”

“James knows.” Tobiah closed his eyes, and his throat jumped. “He also told me about the Red Militia—your maid
moving information between Patrick and the others, and this looming threat the Militia poses.”

“Tonight,” I whispered. “It will happen tonight. Patrick needs to make a statement.”

Tobiah bowed his head. “That’s why you didn’t want the coronation ball. What would you be doing instead, though?”

“Denying a pleasure to my friends and guests so that I could indulge in worry and paranoia.”

“Indeed. You already have police and military on duty. This is one of those times you need to let other people do their jobs, while you do yours. Right now, your job is to be the great queen people expect you to be.”

I didn’t feel like a great queen. Or a queen at all. Just a girl dressing up for yet another deception.

“After the wraith came though Skyvale, I felt so helpless. It made me think of you and the One-Night War, and the two of us watching my father’s army burn through your city. I couldn’t stop wondering if you felt the same hopelessness that night.”

“Yes.” I almost reached for his hand, but his face was dark and downcast.

“When I left Skyvale, I could have sent someone else for my mother in Hawes. I could have sent someone else to Two Rivers City.” He pressed his mouth into a thin line. “But I’d never seen either city before, let alone any of the small towns and villages between. I wanted to go because I needed a memory of my kingdom before the wraith covered it.”

“Are you glad you went?”

He opened his eyes and nodded. “The Indigo Kingdom is magnificent.”

“Yes, it is.” Easily, I could recall the rolling blue mountains, the Midvale Ridge, the glorious valley. It was a place I’d always denied was my home, but now that it was gone, I missed it. I didn’t blame Tobiah for taking the time to create one last memory. But . . . “Why didn’t you write back to me? Or James? What about the Ospreys? Did you lose the notebooks?”

“No,” he said. “We had them. We never let them out of our sight.”

“Then you know what you put us through.”

“I know.” Darkness passed over his eyes. “I had to make everyone believe I was dead. I traveled the Indigo Kingdom under disguise, revealing my identity to only those necessary.”

“Why?”

“The Wraith Alliance. I knew James would make the argument for your coronation as soon as my death was presumed. I hoped it would be sooner, but I suppose people don’t give up on kings easily.”

“You could have waited until you were here. The Wraith Alliance holds even when you’re alive.”

He smiled faintly. “My uncle would have argued that if I were alive, I would still rule Aecor Territory. I had to leave no room for that. Your claim had to be irrefutable.”

“Unfortunately, I think we’ve only angered him.” I didn’t like that he and his people were missing. Not at the same time large parts of the Red Militia were missing. Not tonight of all nights.

“I know.”

A thread of silence pulled tight between us.

“Wil, I wanted to talk to you about Mere—” Someone
knocked on the door and Tobiah let out a breath of frustration. “Go away.”

James poked his head into the room. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but people are looking for you.”

“Wilhelmina and I are discussing important matters.”

The last thing I wanted to do was discuss Meredith. “It can wait.” I caught James’s eye and motioned for him to enter. “You two had an argument before James followed me here. It’s time to work that out.”

Both boys shot frowns. “Are you sure this is the time?” James asked.

“You almost never had the chance to work this out. Don’t waste more time.”

James faced Tobiah; the two weren’t mirror images, but could easily have been mistaken for brothers. Both were narrow faced and strong jawed, with piercing dark eyes. But where Tobiah stood with the lazy grace of disguise, James held himself tall and straight and just like a soldier. “I have to know something.”

“All right.”

James’s expression pinched, as if questioning his king were physically painful. “I think there’s something you’re not telling me, and that’s why you always put off investigating my healing.”