Bitterblue (Graceling Realm #3)(66)
Author: Kristin Cashore

"I don't know," he said. "It doesn't matter. She doesn't trust me and she's smart enough not to believe that I trust her.

That's not how we're going to win this game."

Standing quietly, Bitterblue took Saf in, his soft, purple eyes that didn't match his blunt manner. Trying to understand him. Feeling, inconveniently, that she never did, except for when she was touching him. "Is this a game, then, Saf?"

she said. "Dangling from the castle wal s every day with a person who could ruin your life? following her at night to wherever she goes? When were you going to tell me?"

"I wish you would stop being queen," he said, with a strange, sudden shyness that came out of nowhere, "and join me, when I go away. You know you have the instincts for my kind of work."

Bitterblue was utterly speechless. Helda, meanwhile, did not suffer from the same affliction. "Watch yourself," she said, taking a step toward Saf, her face like thunder. "You just watch what you say to the queen, young man, or you'll find yourself leaving by the window, and fast. You've brought her nothing but trouble so far."

"At any rate," Saf said, glancing at Helda warily, "I'm going to steal the crown tonight."

Bitterblue's breath came back in a rush. "What? How?"

"The main entrance to the cave is always guarded by three men. But I believe there's a second entrance, for there's a guard who always sits some distance from the main entrance, in a hol ow where lots of rocks are piled."

"But Saf," she said, "you're basing your knowledge, and your attack plan, solely on the position of a guard? You've seen no actual entrance?"

"They're planning to blackmail you," Saf said. "They want the right to handpick a new prison master for your prisons, three new judges for your High Court, and the Monsean Guard assigned to the east city, or else they'll make it known that the queen had an affair with a common Lienid thief who stole her crown during a tryst."

Again, Bitterblue was speechless. She managed a breath.

"This is my fault," she said. "I all owed her to witness so much of what was happening."

"I'm the one who all owed that, Lady Queen," said Helda quietly. "I'm the one who brought her on. I liked her Grace of being fearless without being reckless. She was so useful for the tricky tasks, like climbing up into the windows, and she had such spy potential."

"I think you're both forgetting that she's a professional," said Saf. "She positioned herself close to you a long time ago, didn't she? Her family has been stealing from this castle didn't she? Her family has been stealing from this castle forever, and they positioned her near you. And I made their job easy as pie, stealing your crown, of all things, and handing it straight to them. You realize that, don't you? I handed her a bigger prize than she could've ever hoped to steal herself. I bet she knows every corner of your castle, every hidden doorway. I bet she's known how to navigate Leck's maze from the start. Those keys I nicked from her pocket were probably a family treasure—I bet her family's had them since Leck died and everyone in the castle started cleaning out his things. She's a professional, just like the rest of her family, but more insidious than they, because she's not afraid of anything. I'm not sure she has a conscience."

"That's interesting," Bitterblue said. "You think a conscience requires fear?"

"What I think is that they can't blackmail you without the crown," said Saf. "Which is why I'm going to steal it tonight."

"With the help of my Lienid Door Guard, you mean."

"No," Saf said sharply. "If you've guards to spare, send them to the shop. I can do this quietly, myself."

"How many men guard the cave, Saf?" snapped Bitterblue.

"Al right, then," he said. "I'll bring Teddy, Bren, and Tilda.

We know how to do this type of thing and we trust each other. Don't get in our way."

"Teddy, Bren, and Tilda," Bitterblue muttered. "Al these closeknit family businesses. I'm quite jealous."

"You and your uncle rule half the world," Saf said with a snort, then dove behind an armchair as the outer doors creaked open.

"It's Giddon," Bitterblue announced as the man himself walked in.

When Saf emerged from behind his chair, Giddon made his face blank. "I'll wait til he goes, Lady Queen," Giddon said.

"Right," said Saf sarcastical y. "I'll be making my dramatic exit, then. Should you give me something to steal, in case Fox sees me climbing out the window and I need an excuse?"

Helda marched to the table, grabbed a silver fork, marched back to Saf, and shoved it at his chest. "I know it's not up to your usual plunder," she said darkly.

"Right," Saf said again, accepting the fork. "Thank you, Helda, I'm sure."

"Saf," Bitterblue said. "Be careful."

"Don't worry, Lady Queen," he said, catching her eyes, holding them for a moment. "I'll bring your crown back in the morning. I promise."

His exit brought cold air rushing into the room. When he'd closed the window behind him, Bitterblue went to the fire to capture some of its heat. "How are you, Giddon?"

"Thiel was walking on Winged Bridge last night, Lady Queen," said Giddon without preamble. "It seemed a bit odd at the time, so we thought you should know."

With a small sigh, Bitterblue pinched the bridge of her nose. "Thiel on Winged Bridge. Fox, Hava, and Saf on Winter Bridge. My father would be so pleased with the popularity of his bridges. Why were you on Winged Bridge, Giddon?"

"Bann and I were making some improvements to Saf 's hiding place, Lady Queen. Thiel walked by just as we were about to leave."

"Did he see you?"

"I don't think he saw anything," said Giddon. "He was in another world. He came from the far side of the river and he had no light, so we didn't see him at all until he walked directly past our window. Moving like a ghost—made us both jump. We followed him, Lady Queen. He took the steps down to the street and entered the east city, but I'm afraid we lost him after that."

Bitterblue rubbed her eyes, hiding her face in comforting darkness. "Do either of you know if Thiel knows about Hava's Grace for disguise?"

"I don't believe he does, Lady Queen," said Helda.

"I'm sure it's nothing," Bitterblue said. "I'm sure he's just going for melancholy walks. But perhaps we could ask her to follow him once."

"Yes, Lady Queen," said Helda. "If she's will ing, it may be better to know. Runnemood is supposed to have jumped off one of the bridges, and Thiel is a bit depressed."

"Oh, Helda," said Bitterblue, sighing again. "I don't think I can bear it being anything other than melancholy walks."

THAT NIGHT, EXHAUSTION and worry pushed Bitterblue beyond sleep. She lay on her back staring at the blackness. Rubbing her arm, which still seemed marvelous to her somehow, aching with tiredness but free from that horrid cast, and, final y, dressed in her knives again.

Eventual y, she lit a candle so that she could watch the gold and scarlet stars glimmer on her bedroom ceiling. It occurred to her that she was keeping a sort of vigil, for Saf.

For Teddy, Tilda, and Bren, who were stealing a crown. For Thiel, who walked alone at night and shattered too easily.

For those of her friends who were far away, Po, Raffin, and Katsa, perhaps shivering in tunnels.

When drowsiness began to soften the edges of her exhaustion and she knew sleep was near, Bitterblue all owed herself to linger with a thing she hadn't all owed herself in some time: the dream of herself as a baby in her mother's arms. It had been too sad to touch recently, with Leck's journals so near. But tonight she would all ow it, in honor of Saf, for Saf had been the one, that night she'd slept on the hard shop floor, who'd told her to dream of something nice, like babies; Saf had pushed her nightmares away.

Chapter 37

SHE WOKE, AND dressed, to a peculiar gray-green daylight and a shrieking wind that seemed to be racing around the castle in circles.

In the sitting room, Hava sat as close to the fire as one could without actual y sitting in it. She was wrapped in blankets, drinking a steaming cup of something.

"I'm afraid Hava has a report that's going to upset you, Lady Queen," said Helda. "Perhaps you should sit down."

"Upsetting about Thiel?"

"Yes. We've heard nothing about Sapphire yet," Helda said, answering the question Bitterblue had actual y been asking.

"When will —"

"Lord Giddon was out all night on other business," Helda said, "and promised not to come back without a report."

"Al right," Bitterblue said, crossing the room and sitting on the hearth beside Hava, shifting to avoid her own sword.

She tried to steel herself against something that she knew, somehow, would break her heart, but it was difficult. There was too much worry. "Go on, Hava."

Hava stared into her drink. "Across Winged Bridge and a short distance west, Lady Queen, there's a black cavern in the ground, tucked under the river. It smells like—something thick and cloying, Lady Queen," she said, "and in a place in the back—sort of a second room—there are piles and piles of bones."

"Bones," Bitterblue said. "More bones." H is hospital is under the river.

"Last night, very late, Thiel left the castle through the tunnel from the eastern corridor," Hava said. "He crossed the bridge, went to the cave, and fil ed a box with bones. Then he carried the box back onto the bridge, stood at the center, and tipped the bones over the edge. Then he went back and did it two more times—"

"Thiel threw bones into the river," Bitterblue said numbly.

"Yes," said Hava. "And partway through, he was joined by Darby, Rood, two of your clerks, your judge Qual , and my uncle."

"Your uncle!" cried Bitterblue, staring at Hava. "Holt!"

"Yes, Lady Queen," said Hava, her strange eyes flashing with misery. "Al of them fil ed boxes with bones and dumped them in the river."

"It's Leck's hospital," Bitterblue said. "They're trying to hide it."

"Leck's hospital?" asked Helda, appearing at Bitterblue's elbow and slipping a hot drink into her hands.

"Yes. 'The dampness and the roundness of the ceiling make for such acoustics.'"

"Ah. Yes," said Helda, then tucked her chin to her chest for a moment. "There was a bit in a recent translation about the smel in the hospital. He stacked the bodies instead of burning them, or disposing of them in any normal way. He liked the smel and the vermin. It made others il , of course."