The Queen's Bastard

BELINDA PRIMROSE

15 October 1587 Lutetia, Gallin My Dearest Jayne; The letters were etched into parchment, retraced so many times they might have been inked onto the table beneath it. In the deepest of the grooves, ink sat in shallow puddles, the parchment’s ability to absorb it lost. Belinda picked up her quill for the dozenth time, scraping it over the shapes of the letters. She had thought too much; she must simply write, and when the words had spilled out of her she could choose and decide what she ought and ought not say in a letter to the Aulunian spymaster. My Dearest Jayne;

Lutetia agrees with me more than I might have dreamed, and I have been remiss in writing to tell you of it. The weather is temperate-a blessing after stormy Lanyarchan nights!-and the people are kind. I have made friends both high and low, from a woman whose beauty is so extraordinary I would scarcely believe it real had I not met her myself, to a man of the greatest power. I would tell you his name, though I think you will not believe me: he is Javier, prince of Gallin and heir to that throne and another: Essandia, should Rodrigo fail to marry as seems so likely now that he is in his fifties. And la: listen to me, calculating out the heirship as if I might someday bear children into it. A good Lanyarchan woman would not cast her gaze so high-and yet there are moments, dear sister, when I wish it were otherwise. He is handsome, and commands power. Any woman might dream of such a husband, even a woman widowed with no sons to prove her fertility.

He is very kind, the prince, and has taken me into his group of friends-

All but on cue, Nina knocked on the door and opened it, ducking her head in a brief curtsey. “Marius is here, my lady.” She smiled, full of bright hope and cheer; in the weeks that had passed since the opera, Marius had given no sign of being daunted by Belinda’s friendship with the prince, and called as often as his duties would allow. The merchant’s son was a good match, bordering on excellent, and Nina was determined that her mistress should not miss it. Belinda felt a brief unaccustomed pang of guilt through her belly, wondering how long the young man would continue courting her.

“Thank you, Nina. Tell him I’ll be down momentarily.” Belinda set the quill aside with more care than was necessary and scooped a palmful of sand over the paper, shaking it to take away excess ink. Tilting the paper sent fine grains sliding back into their cup, though several stuck in the deep-scratched lines of the salutation, glittering as the light caught them. Her father would be amused by the emotion wrought in those deep lines. Belinda scowled at them, determining to rewrite the letter even if the words came out flawlessly. She stood up, exasperated, to discover Nina still hesitating in the door. “Well? What is it?”

“Do you not like him, my lady?” the servant asked timidly. “He is a fine match, and, forgive me, my lady, but-”

“But royalty is beyond my grasp, no?”

Nina blushed and dropped her gaze. Belinda put her hands on the desk and leaned heavily on it for a few moments, letting the weight of her head stretch an ache into her spine. “I like him well enough. Are you too polite to tell me that my chance is slipping away?” She looked up. Nina’s eyes remained fixed on the floor, but she nodded, a minute gesture that spoke more by daring to be made than the sentiment expressed. “And how do you know that, Nina?”

Guilt rolled off the girl in waves, thick enough to flavour the air. Belinda took a deep breath of it, closing her eyes and savoring it. It was her secret, her one secret from the prince in the matters of witchcraft. For six weeks, through summer’s end and into autumn, they had stolen as many hours as they dared, pressing the borders of the longer nights to study together. Study, and more. Even with the mixed blessing of too-clear memory, Belinda could only hazily remember a time when she felt as if she’d had enough sleep.

But the walls that Robert had placed in her mind had softened. Where there had been a hard-won pinhole of access to her witchbreed power, there was now a pool, serene and calm at the heart of her. There was more yet to be gained, but she no longer struggled every night simply to cup her hands together and call witchlight to them. Even now she felt the impulse to curl her fingers and light the tiny glow, curtained by her palm. It was a small thing, but each new lesson gave her ideas as to how she might increase her gift and her strength.

Behind it all, though, was the talent she had been stayed by need from sharing with Javier, and which she kept close to her heart now for the joy of secrets. The little things she had learned paled by the depths to which she could now read emotion. Fear and lust, delight and anger were all writ in the air around the men and women she encountered. Contentedness and ambition, hope and despair, so heavy around them that Belinda wondered how she had never seen it before. The difficulty was no longer in delving for those secret emotions, but rather in fending them away. It took no more than a thought to know if a man desired her, and what kind of needs he had in bed. No more than a wish to know, to discover if the neighbor’s wife feared her husband discovering he was being cuckolded. It lent Belinda glorious confidence, and she resented her father’s decision to lock that gift away behind a barrier in her mind. Only a little: she could not afford resentment or anger to any great degree-the stillness wrapped around her and tightened on her bones when she pursued rebellious thoughts. They ill-suited her; at the core of her, beneath newfound power and even beneath her precious, long-nurtured stillness, Belinda knew herself to believe, without reservation, in her duty to a mother who could never acknowledge her. She let herself wonder, very briefly, what she might feel now from Lorraine, with this burgeoning power at her disposal.

It would not, she was certain, be the guilt and discomfort that made Nina squirm in the doorway. “He complimented you,” Belinda guessed with a faint smile. “Did he impose himself upon you, Nina?”

Surprise replaced guilt, washing off the girl as her eyes jerked from the floor to meet Belinda’s. “No, my lady. Only-” She swallowed and flinched through the chest, making her breasts twitch with the motion.

“Only told you that you have lovely breasts, and lovely eyes.” Horrified embarrassment swept over her, Nina’s ears burning red. Belinda smiled and touched the girl’s bodice as she passed by. “He was right.”

Nina’s confusion and startled desire followed her down the stairs. “There is snow in the air.” Marius walked with his hand at the small of Belinda’s back, a touch that was barely there. It made her aware, as she rarely was, of the tiny dagger she wore there, nestled beneath layers of clothing. Not for the first time she let herself smile at the ridiculous placement of the thing; trapped against her skin it did no good whatsoever for defense, and more than once she’d had to palm it away into the fallen folds of her gown when a man undressed her. It didn’t matter. The knife was sentimental, a reminder of who she was and a reminder of the stillness, not a weapon. She turned the smile up at Marius, curiosity in her eyes.

“Does it snow this far south, my lord?”

“Beatrice,” Marius said with mild exasperation. “How many times must I ask you to call me Marius?”

“At least once more.” Belinda smiled again, letting her gaze drift from the boy at her side. It was harder among intimates of a higher class, she was discovering, to follow her own rule of never calling a man by his name. Formality drenched every move to such a degree that the calling of names became far more important than it was as a serving girl. She found herself unable to forget Marius or Javier’s names, unable to not learn them, as she’d been able to not learn…Viktor, she reminded herself. Poor Viktor.

Asselin was easier; she saw him less, and his gaze on her was frank and lustful and open, like most men’s. Over the weeks he’d given no sign of recognizing her as the strumpet from the tavern. Without that concern threatening their play, it was clear he understood the game between men and women in a fashion that Marius did not, and Javier disdained. Asselin called her Lady Irvine, openly mocking the formality, and she called him Lord Asselin with all the sly wit and sexual rejoinder that he sought.

Eliza was different. Belinda’s own law didn’t stand in the face of women. Women only rarely had power and most of that came through the men they wed or whored themselves to; it was rare indeed that Belinda was sent after a woman. There was no need to misremember Eliza’s name, or call her by a formal one.

Then again, friendship had not blossomed between them, though they were not quite enemies. Eliza had too much respect for her friend-and Belinda wondered for the dozenth time, lover? The answer was there for the taking if Belinda chose to read either of them deeply enough, but the curiosity was more thrilling than the answering. Eliza would not declare open warfare on a woman Javier chose to invite into his circle of friends, or his bed, until he tired of her. Belinda admired Eliza’s loyalty, recognizing it for the bitter draughts of unrequited love. That was a cup of poison Belinda had no desire to ever drink of, and it left her with a trace of sympathy for Eliza’s position. She refused to be drawn into cat fights with the other woman, frustrating Eliza and amusing Asselin.

“You are not with me.”

“What?” Belinda cursed herself, turning her gaze back to Marius, who watched her eyes older than his years, not so much sad as weary. “Forgive me, my lord. I was lost in thought.”

“Thoughts of Javier.” It was half a question. Marius lifted his hand to brush his fingers across Belinda’s cheek. Her eyebrows drew down, then lifted.

“Eliza, my lord.”

Surprise and a trace of hope graced Marius’s expression. “Eliza?”

“She doesn’t like me.”

Marius smiled and looked away. “Eliza doesn’t like anyone who lands in Jav’s bed.”

“I do not believe you’re supposed to know that, my lord.”

Marius looked back, eyebrows elevated. “That Eliza doesn’t like anyone who’s in Javier’s bed, or that you’re there, my lady Beatrice?”

“The latter.” A faint smile curved Belinda’s mouth. “The former seems eminently obvious.”

“The difficulty,” Marius said, turning his gaze away again, “with being friends with Jav is that women do not dare tell him no, even when they might otherwise wish to.” He glanced at her again, folding his arms across his chest. “Spare me the insistence that you are bound to me heart and soul and that you only spread your legs for him because you have no other choice. Jav’s hard to resist.”

“Then why did you introduce me to him?” Belinda put her hand on Marius’s forearm. “Women are not so different from men, my lord. We, too, are drawn to power. Why introduce me to him?”

“Because he is my friend.” Marius withdrew a step, making Belinda’s fingers slide away from his arm.

Another voice came out of the distance, not so far away that their conversation might have gone unheard: “And because we’re all damned in our lovers by knowing him. No way to go forward or back without his permission, so we must introduce our paramours whether we will or won’t.” Asselin stalked up to them, shoulders hunched against cold more threatened than felt in the air. “Marius, may I borrow your fine lady for a little while? My sister’s giving another damned recital and my mother expects me to bring a comely woman of marriageable age.”

“You couldn’t find one of your own?” Marius sighed with resignation. “Beatrice, his sister has a voice like a harpy. Your ears may never forgive me if I let you go.”

“But she’s got the body of an angel, Marius. Turn up alone yourself and my mother might see past the merchant street to consider you a prospect. No offense to our lady Irvine, but a Comtesse is a rank worth aspiring to.”

“I’ll come,” Marius said sourly, “if only to be certain Beatrice isn’t being mistreated by the lout I call friend. Shall we all go together?”

Asselin’s gaze, appraising, raked over Marius, then Belinda. “Irvine will do,” he said after a moment, “but Mother would never let you past the front door in those clothes, Marius. Meet us there. I’ll save you enough wine to stop the sound of my sister’s voice from scratching out your ears. Beatrice, if you’d do me a few moments’ honour?” He extended his arm, heightening Belinda’s awareness that Marius had stepped away from her, abandoning her to stand on her own. A flash of unkind playfulness prompted her to take Asselin’s elbow, her gaze direct on Marius.

“If no one else will offer me an arm and warmth against the cold, I suppose I’m forced to your side, my lord Asselin.” She transferred a look of mocking adoration to the stocky man, watching a flush creep up Marius’s cheek before he sketched a short bow.

“My lady. Forgive me. It seems I am inappropriately attired to be seen in the company of nobility. I’ll join you again shortly.” He turned on his heel, clipping across brown grass at a brisk pace. Belinda pursed her lips, looking to Asselin.

“Was that really necessary, my lord?”

“Oh, yes, it was. Tell me, Irvine. How long has the Reformation bitch sat on the Aulunian throne?”

Stillness wrapped around her so swiftly that a chill shot over Belinda’s body. It prickled her breasts and her spine, nestling icily in her groin, and lingered there, a cold throb of desire. She had no fear of betraying herself; she felt her head tilt, a curious smile playing at her mouth, the coldness entirely within. No hairs raised on her arms or neck and her heartbeat remained steady as her own words from a night months earlier were thrown back in her face. “Longer than my lifetime, certainly, my lord.” A moment’s hesitation before she said, “Nearly thirty years. I think there will be a Jubilee held in Alunaer soon.”

“Well done,” Asselin breathed. “Ah, well done, my lady Beatrice, but don’t bother. Marius pointed you out to me days before he introduced you. I know you, Irvine, or whatever your name is. I’ve held your tits in my hands and buried my cock in your cunt, and I’ve known it since the moment he showed me his new true love. You’ve something I want, and that’s all we’ve got to discuss.”

Beatrice’s veneer let a blush slide through, scalding Belinda’s throat and jaw before she regained control of herself. Of the too-quick heartbeat whose pace never should have changed, even with Asselin’s accusations thrown in her face. Beatrice was a dangerous part to play, wearing Belinda down, too thin and close to the surface for the stillness to entirely protect her. She could feel witchpower rising in her, soft golden light that might distract Asselin’s thoughts, might make him forget who and what he knew her as, if she could focus it enough. She had no doubt he’d recognized her, no underlying certainty that she could make him believe he was mistaken with less than the growing power she had at hand. And that, though a temptation, was too great a risk: she and Javier had been cautious in their studies, hiding them beneath the facade of an affair. The idea of flame and a stake to be bound to still edged her thoughts, and Javier’s own fears ran to a far deeper sort of Hell, a true belief in his condemnation in the eyes of God. No; she was not yet prepared to try changing a man’s thoughts through her own will.

Instead, she tightened her fingers on Asselin’s arm, letting a wash of fear at having been recognized come into her eyes and sharpen her voice. “Perhaps this isn’t the place to discuss it.”

Asselin pulled her, without remorse, toward a copse of trees that made shadows and darkness in the daylit park. “Of course it isn’t. But Marius will expect us at my mother’s in less than an hour, and anywhere private enough to suit you will require more time than I’m willing to sacrifice. This will do, Irvine.” Shadows enveloped them as he spoke, leafless branches making vicious lines against Belinda’s skin. She reached for them with the witchpower, half wondering if she could disappear before Sacha’s very eyes. They lengthened, seeming to penetrate her body, darkness as invasive and sensual as a lover.

The cold trunk of a tree pressed against her spine as Asselin pulled her around to face him, deliberately trapping her between the woods and his body. For the second time in a matter of minutes she became aware of her dagger, useless and reassuring at the small of her back. Asselin traced his thumb over the hollow of her throat, making her lift her head and swallow involuntarily.

“My lord Asselin.” Her voice was dryer than she meant it to be, but the stocky lord read it as fear and a dark interest came into his eyes. She swallowed again, letting her pulse ride high and watching his gaze dart to it. “Will you denounce me, then?”

“I’ve got more use for you than that. I knew you weren’t base-born the moment I heard you talk. No uneducated woman cares that much about the politics of another country, not even a good God-fearing one. I don’t know who you are. I don’t care who you are.”

“Then what-?” Genuine curiosity filled the question, draining tension away. The shadows deepened, writhing around her protectively, as if they could help eyes pass her by. Power caressed the darkness, encouraging it, draining out of her and leaving her feeling pale and wanton beneath the weight of Asselin’s body.

“What I want is your passion.”

Belinda laughed, startled bark of sound. “So you think to take me in a park, in broad daylight? I thought you had more reserve than that, my lord Asselin.”

“Not for me.” A leer, sudden and good-natured, curved the blunt man’s mouth and he looked down her body, one hand still at her throat. “Well, but that’s an aside we’ll take care of in a moment. It’s Javier I want you for, Irvine. He’s not the sort to get distracted every time a woman flaps her skirts at him, and a good thing for all of us, too, else he’d be so busy fucking Eliza that no one would see him for months on end.”

“Eliza,” Belinda said, breathlessly, “wears trousers. Perhaps that’s her mistake.”

“Have you ever looked at a woman’s arse cupped in pants, Irvine? It does things to a man even skirts can’t.” He dismissed the statement with another lustful sneer, pressing his thumb into the hollow of her throat. “You’ve kept Jav’s attention for weeks. Trying to earn his trust. Trying to make your voice heard. Tell me it isn’t so. Tell me Marius wasn’t a means to an end.”

Belinda tilted her head back against the bark, swallowing again beneath the pressure Asselin kept on her throat. Desire piqued again, and with it, curiosity. “You’ve made up your mind to that already. What do you want, Asselin?”

“It’s time to move. Push him. Jav’s complacent. He believes that when the old whore finally dies, Aulun will come back to the fold without protest. That in the people’s hearts they are Ecumenics still and that blood will cease to be shed. He’s naive, and he needs a shove.”

“One you won’t give for fear of it being your neck on the block,” Belinda breathed. Asselin twisted a smile.

“That’s the beauty of it, isn’t it? What are your choices, Irvine? Refuse me and I’ll turn you in for a whore and rabble-rouser anyway. Agree, and you might get what you want.”

Belinda half-lidded her eyes, watching Asselin’s eager features a few inches from her own. “And what is it you think I want? You don’t think I’m so foolish as to reach for a throne.” She made it a statement, too offended by the idea to phrase it as a question. Asselin crowded closer, the scent of his desire caught between bodies.

“I think you want so badly for the Red Bitch to be off the Aulunian throne you’ll let a dog fuck you in the arse to get it.” He caught her wrist, sudden impulse to twist her away from him clear. Belinda went solid, refusing to move under the direction and bringing surprise to his eyes.

“You are not a dog, my lord, and you will want me to be able to walk like a woman at your sister’s recital. Does Marius know?”

A flash of acceptance lit Asselin’s eyes, then faded. “That you’re a high-minded whore? No, and I’m willing to keep it that way if you play the way I want you to.” Belinda deliberately widened her stance as he spoke, unspoken acquiescence and understanding of his demand. A hungry smirk curled the broad-shouldered lord’s mouth and he leaned closer. “That this push to make Javier move must be done? Yes. The only one of us who doesn’t think Jav should push his mother or himself is Jav. Marius is a good boy, and I want you to understand that the sweet arguments he’ll make will persuade you.”

“Or else?” The question came lightly, Belinda wetting her lips. Asselin took a breath against her skin as if he could taste her with its depth.

“Or else.”

He was, Belinda thought later, considerably more coarse than she had expected. “Her voice,” Belinda murmured in low accusation, “was not so bad as all that.” Indeed, Asselin’s sister had sung sweetly enough at her afternoon recital to gain the approval of more than one young man’s mother. Like Asselin, she was sandy-haired, though tending more toward blond than her brother, and what were unruly curls on him were long loose ringlets on her. Belinda, left wanting from Sacha’s decidedly selfish desires, had studied the girl’s heart-shaped face and the soft, round curves of her body and wondered without remorse what the girl would look like pink-faced and flushed with need, or if she had ever known passion’s hand. The impulse to find out hadn’t faded, and Belinda had excused herself to walk in the gardens with Marius as quickly as she could. “She’d make a good match,” she added idly. “Better than me, in truth.”

Marius, dressed in a more gentrified manner than he had been earlier, touched her arm in alarm that was only partially mocked. “Do you grow tired of me already, Beatrice?”

She allowed herself one of Beatrice’s easy smiles, tucking her arm around his. “On the contrary, I expect you to tire of me.” She hesitated, then added, “Or for the situation to become unbearable.”

Marius tightened a fist, muscle playing beneath Belinda’s hand. She rubbed her thumb against the hard knot, listening with half an ear as he muttered, “That can’t happen. I have no choice. Nor do you.”

“Have we not?” Belinda slowed, turning Marius to face her. “It may be that I no longer do. A woman does not idly dismiss a prince and expect to walk away unscathed, but you, my lord…”

“You have something Jav needs,” Marius whispered, voice hoarse. Belinda bit her lower lip, filling her gaze with uncertainty and sorrow.

“Me? I’m only a woman, my lord, how could-”

“You’re a woman of faith.” Marius gentled his voice as Belinda looked up at him in wide-eyed bewilderment. “I see you at church. You have no pretenses there. You understand politics. And you are the daughter of an oppressed land. You did not,” he murmured, echoing words she’d spoken weeks earlier, much as Asselin had, “come to Gallin only for the food. How strong is your faith, Beatrice?”

Belinda lowered her gaze, letting calm settle around her again. “As strong as it must be, my lord,” she whispered after long moments. An eyelash-shuttered glance upward took in the pain in Marius’s expression and she went on, refusing the haste that might have eased his agony. “A generation has already grown up as Reformists. The queen is said to be in good health, despite her years. There may be another generation born and raised under her before her days are ended.”

God willing, Belinda thought, a fierce and unusual prayer thrown silently into her enemy’s teeth. She let none of it near her face or voice, watching Marius with the desperation of a woman knowing her path and fearing it. A woman wise enough to seek guidance from a strong man, pretending that any power she might have came from him alone. It was one of the few tactics she’d learned from the queen her mother, whose proclamations of weakness and womanly foolishness blunted her advisors’ realization of Lorraine’s sure military and political hand. “It is a fear we struggle with every day in Lanyarch. We are not quite forbidden our masses, but there are honours and praises for those who give up the true religion for the Reformation. Soldiers watch those of us who bow our heads to the Ecumenic church, and children drift away from God to explore the false hopes of the Reformation. In another generation, our religion might be lost.”

“Rally him to his mother’s cause,” Marius said in a low voice. Belinda lifted her chin, eyebrows wrinkling.

“My lord?”

Marius glanced at her very briefly, then away again. “Even in Gallin, Beatrice, these are dangerous things to speak of.” His voice remained low, making her step closer to him to hear him well.

“You speak of revolution, my lord.”

“No.” The word was sharp as his gaze, though both softened after a moment. “Something more dangerous than that.”

“More dangerous than open war?” Belinda laughed, fluttering sound in the back of her throat. “What-” She let understanding darken her eyes, then shook her head. “My lord…”

“You said yourself, Beatrice. The Aulunian queen is in good health and could well survive another generation. Ecumenics may not survive that.”

“You have so little faith in Cordula, my lord…?”

Marius made another short gesture of irritation. “Island Ecumenics,” he modified. “Our faith is stronger on the continent.”

Belinda drew herself up, colour staining her cheeks as Beatrice’s indignity filled her. “Do you doubt my faith, my lord?”

“Beatrice!” Impatience shot through Marius’s voice. “I didn’t mean you.”

“Only my people. Only all of us who try to keep faith under a godless queen. We are not perfect, my lord. Fear and money bought even Judas. Do you condemn the weak among us for choosing the state religion over a loss of liberty and wealth?” Belinda’s hands shook with poorly suppressed anger. Marius’s mouth turned downward in apology, and he reached for her hands.

“Forgive me. Perhaps I speak with too much sentiment and too little understanding. We are not persecuted here for worshipping God in the true church. Perhaps it is too easy to judge and too hard to understand.”

Belinda turned her face away from him, her jaw set. It was long moments before the role she played softened enough for her shoulders to drop and the line of her chin to loosen. “You speak of things I dare not even say aloud, my lord. You speak of…death.”

“Yes.” Marius’s hands tightened around hers. “Make him see, Beatrice. Make him see that Aulun will be lost without this.”

Belinda looked back at him, stiff with caution. “You believe I have such…sway?”

He smiled a little, the expression leaving his dark eyes reluctant and sad. “Standing here now, seeing you argue, seeing your belief, yes, lady, I do. If you were a man yourself you might make a great general, to call the men to battle. But you are only a woman, and so the most you might do is inspire the men who can make such things happen.”

“The most.” Belinda breathed out laughter. “Is that not rather a lot, my lord? Some say men would never war, but for women.” She fell silent, studying Marius’s face and feeling the rapid skip of her own heart. A handful of words could lay the path to Sandalia’s destruction, if only Marius would speak them. It was not written condemnation, but it might be the hint of chicanery against Lorraine that Belinda searched for. “You believe the regent supports this, my lord?”

His tone went guarded. “I cannot say what Her Majesty may or may not believe.”

“But you called it her cause.” Belinda lowered her voice further, stepping closer to him. She reached for the pool of golden power within her, shaping it with her desire. She wet her lips, looking up at the man through her eyelashes, and curled her fingers around his. “I would not betray you,” she whispered. “I understand that she could not voice such beliefs in any way, for fear of being accused of plotting regicide. A royal assassination is a desperate measure, my lord. It breaks the laws of God and man alike. Worst”-Belinda crooked a tiny smile, letting wryness colour the desire she pressed on Marius-“worst, at least for a king, is knowing that to assassinate another royal opens the possibility that he, too, might die in such a way. I understand,” she whispered again. “These are not things which we dare speak of aloud. But tell me, Marius, tell me in truth. Do you believe that this is what the queen and regent wants?” She brought his hands, over hers, up to the cool skin of her chest, pressing his warm knuckles below her collarbones. They looked like lovers, her mouth turned up to his, so close that a kiss might be exchanged instead of words. Marius’s claims would carry no weight in a court, but Belinda had no need to justify herself to a judge. She only needed a place to begin, a thread of confirmation from the lips of a man close to the regent’s son.

And he was desperate to please her. She could feel that in the lines of his body pressed against hers, could almost taste it in his breath. So close to him, and open to the witchpower Javier had awakened in her, it was easy to mistake Marius’s desire for her own. Easy to accept thwarted pleasure from earlier as desperation now. She moved a half step closer, crowding her hips against his. Need flared in him, and the grip with which they held each other’s hands abruptly opened a channel between them. Uninhibited glee shot through her, joy like little she’d ever known: this stealing of thoughts, the gift of witchpower, was what she was born to, even more than being her mother’s tool. It burned through her so brightly she had to fight off laughter, had to swallow a yearning to take Marius’s desire and make it her own, and then to ride it until they were both left exhausted.

But stillness won out, habit stronger than the urge to play, and she made herself listen to the young man’s rapid-fire thoughts, savoring them as if each was a precious morsel.

She is faithful, he was thinking, faithful to God if not to a single man (but if not to a single man then not to any man and I might have her, too). She trusts me, God above, help me, see how she looks at me, with trust (and desire, she wants me, it is only Javier standing in the way)-a thought, Belinda realised curiously, that held no jealousy in it, merely hope. I will never win her if I lie now (what would she do if I kissed her? would she scream? would she slap me? would she fold with desire and damn the consequences?) and I ask her to do something terribly dangerous-

“I believe,” he whispered, the true words drowning out the chaos of his thoughts, “that her majesty would look…favourably on a course that would free Aulun from its Reformatic prison.” Thick emotion, caution and nervousness, swirled around him, sinking into Belinda’s skin. “I believe that with the support of her son, she might”-he swallowed, slow and tense-“she might take action that might otherwise seem…unthinkable.” So careful; he chose his words so carefully. Belinda bit her lower lip, then pulled herself even closer to him, releasing his hands so she might put her fingers into his hair.

“I will try,” she promised, a breath below his ear. The embrace felt like a lover’s, their bodies dangerous against each other. “For Aulun. For Lanyarch.” She pulled back, meeting his gaze with wide eyes. “For you, my lord.”

Marius groaned and sank his hands into her hair, pulling her mouth up to his for a kiss that drowned her with its need. The heat of his desire rolled through her, building until she was forced to break the kiss, hands against his chest again.

“We must not,” she whispered. “We cannot. Not yet. Not if I am to do this thing with the prince. Forgive me.” She looked up at him again, pulse leaping in her throat. “Forgive me, my lord. A day will come when I am yours.”

“It cannot come soon enough.” He shoved her away, not far away, keeping his hands on her waist but putting space between their bodies. “You must succeed, Beatrice. I cannot bear any of this if you do not succeed.”

“I will.” Belinda gave a jerky nod, stepping back. “I swear, my lord. I will.” Then she smiled, fragile thing, and said, lightly, “When do you think it might snow, sir?”

Marius forced a laugh and offered her his arm. “Soon. Soon, my lady. Winter comes on stronger than we know.” Snow fell two nights later. Belinda stood in the shadows of Javier’s balcony window, face turned up to the silent white stars falling through the night. The flakes tickled her cheeks where they blew past curtains to land on her, almost imperceptible weight gracing her eyelashes. They lingered a moment, then turned to drops of water, beading until their accumulated size spilled them down her face. Snow tears, Belinda thought. Precious as a virgin’s. The air, heavy with the silence of snow, seemed warm and comforting. Belinda stepped out into it, and was caught by an arm around her waist. Javier drew her close again, lowering his head over her shoulder. “Discretion, Beatrice.”

“Do you think we’re fooling anyone?” Certainly not Marius, the one whom Javier might most intend to hide from. Belinda shook her head fractionally, in dismissal, and waited for the prince’s answer.

“Yes,” Javier said. “Not that you’re here, not that you’re my lover. But in our true purpose in meeting? They cannot suspect it.”

“It cannot be found out.” Belinda shivered, curling her arms over Javier’s. Rather than relax into her closeness he stiffened, lifting his mouth away from her shoulder. Discomfort flared in him, the clarity of words and thought broken before she could read them, his skin taken from hers too quickly. Only uncomfortable familiarity lingered, making Belinda twist in his grasp to peer up at him. “My lord?”

“It cannot be found out.” He echoed the words in a hoarse, low voice, strain suddenly telling tales. “You know what they would do to us, Beatrice.”

“I do.” Another tremble ran over her skin, too appropriate to forbid. “I don’t like to think on it.”

“Nor I, and yet it has haunted me since childhood. You have no idea,” he said, abrupt and startlingly harsh. “Beatrice, to find even one other person like me…you have no idea. I only wish I knew if we were damned together, or granted salvation.” He put his arms around her again, a wordless ache of loneliness answered rising in him and sweeping over her as their skin touched. “It must not be found out,” he repeated. “Only the ignorant and superstitious would begin to believe what you and I know as truth, and they would free us from our curse with fire.”

Belinda turned to smile up at him, deliberately pushing away nightmare thoughts. “Are you accusing me of being ignorant and superstitious, my lord? I believed you instantly.” Her eyebrows rose, mocking horror. “Are you claiming it is not true love that brings us together in so many darkling hours? My lord, my heart breaks. How could you?”

“I make no such claims,” Javier said promptly. “I would never dream of dashing a lady’s hopes.”

“Unless your mother or uncle instructed you to,” Belinda said wryly, turning again so she could watch the snow fall. The balcony floor was too warm to sustain it, flakes melting where they landed. Turmoil coursing through Javier’s emotions, a chagrined distress at odds with his calm exterior.

“I have no choice, Beatrice,” he said eventually. “What would you have me do? I am who I was born to be.”

“As are we all, my lord. I meant no harm. I know the obligations a man of your station has.”

“Do you?” Javier said. “I wonder how the duties of a minor Lanyarchan noble compare to that of royalty.”

Silent as the snow, Belinda let stillness settle into her bones. The act of Beatrice was too open; she let the stillness go too often in favour of thoughtless, appropriate reaction to the gentility whose class she’d joined. The part was easy to play, far more enjoyable than the serving girl role she was accustomed to taking on. Without the need to hide in plain sight or explain herself to her betters, she could taste a little of what she might have become, in a different world. Wealth and comfort were dangerous; they let her feel free. She hadn’t known the cost of freedom was so high.

Fleetingly, she wondered what Javier would say, if she whispered the truth to him. That her blood was as royal as his, if on the wrong side of the bed. That her duties were as significant as his, all the more so because she might someday make a misstep, and when she was found out her royal mother would not reach out a hand to save her. Belinda couldn’t easily name the emotion that lanced through her belly, could barely form words for the blur of wistfulness and might-have-been that she let herself imagine for a moment. There was no room in her life for daydreams or regret, so little room that she hardly recognized them.

“I think our duties lie heavy on us all at times, my lord. Forgive me. I didn’t mean to cause you distress.” Armoured by stillness, she smiled at the prince. His gaze softened and she lowered her eyes. Oh, yes. Freedom was dangerous. Belinda thought of the letter to her father, still half-finished, and let herself shiver as if with cold. “Forget freedom,” she murmured, knowing she spoke aloud. “With duty, we know our places, my lord. Perhaps there is nothing more we can ask.”

“Sound advice,” Javier said. “Do you follow it yourself?”

“I try.”

She heard the smile in his voice. “And with these new gifts, where do your duties now lie, Beatrice? Does it change with what you’re able to do?”

Belinda spread her hands, looking at them. “A woman has only the power granted to her by men, my lord. At least…usually. No man has granted me this. Trained me in it,” she conceded before he could take offense, “but not granted it to me. Perhaps it changes me. Perhaps it changes what I ought to do.” She lifted her chin, looking out at the snow. “Although I command very little power, in truth. You…have more, my lord.” Almost a lie. Javier had no walls in his mind, cutting him off from the source of his witchpower. For the moment, at least, he commanded greater power than Belinda could call up. And it flattered his ego, which was more useful than truth anyway.

Thusly flattered, the prince chuckled. “What, then, would you do if you wielded the gifts that I do?”

“Dangerous things, my lord,” Belinda whispered. Javier’s body against hers turned curious, hips tilting as he canted his head closer so she might answer even more softly.

“What things? Tell me.” Command combined with desire in his voice; the thought of a powerful woman excited him. Belinda felt hairs lift on her arms anyway, reluctant to voice words treasonous to Aulun, even when those ideas were at the heart of the role she played. She wet her lips twice and swallowed before making herself speak.

“I would remove the Aulunian threat from Lanyarch, my lord. I would seek allies with Cordula’s support and break the yoke of Reformationism that weighs down on island shoulders.” Panic squirreled in her belly, spreading sharp claws of nausea up to wrap around her heart and tighten her throat. It trickled downward as well, pounding between her thighs and making her knees tremble. Belinda fought against banishing terror, knowing the calm of stillness would push it all away and leave her untouchable.

But the words she spoke were terribly dangerous, and Beatrice Irvine was no more than a minor noble who answered to Aulunian law. Beatrice could be put to death for the things she’d said, and it would be Belinda’s head that rolled. Javier himself might betray her, offer her to Lorraine as a gift to soothe troubled waters between Gallin and Aulun, betwixt Ecumenics and Reformationists, more importantly. A public execution, carried out by the queen’s men-Belinda Primrose would be no more. She doubted, in the core of her, that Lorraine would waste so valuable an asset; far more practical to behead some poor woman with similar features. Belinda herself would be safe to pursue the queen’s wishes under cover of another identity, but she would no more be her beloved uncle’s niece, no more be able to claim that thin line of heritage. Panic brought chills and sweat both at once, the air too thin to breathe. Why did he not speak? Belinda shuddered, afraid to move, afraid to speak, afraid to do anything but wait.

Javier’s silence brought her frayed nerves to the shattering point before he inhaled and straightened. “And then?” Light tone, almost playful, but Belinda felt the undercurrent of intensity in it. Acute desire pushed through him, pricking at Belinda’s skin, but she couldn’t determine what the man desired. She closed her eyes, wetting her lips again.

“I named you true heir to the Aulunian throne the night I met you, my prince.” Her voice quavered, so weak and small she barely recognized it. She swallowed again, trying to strengthen herself without lifting her voice so loudly that a spy might overhear. “The Aulunian queen is the child of an illegitimate marriage, and there are no other Walters to follow her father Henry. Moreover, your mother’s first husband was heir to the Aulunian throne, and you, though no child of his, are a child of hers. He made her queen, and in doing so made you heir.”

“Oh, but it’s more complex than that, isn’t it?” Javier’s voice was as low as her own. “Henry Walter’s first wife was my grandaunt, and if she was the only legitimate wife, then perhaps I can lay claim to the Aulunian throne through those means, too. But Gallin is mine already, and Uncle Rodrigo looks unlikely to wed, so Essandia is likely mine as well. Would you have me conquer all of Echon, Beatrice? Would you make yourself a king-maker?”

“I cannot make what God hath already wrought, your highness.” The fervor in her voice was such that Belinda believed herself for a moment.

“You would get on well with my mother.” Javier released her and Belinda’s heart lurched as he stepped back into the warmth of his chambers. He had not before made mention of Sandalia in her presence, certainly not in such intimate terms as my mother. It offered the first glimmer that her approach to the Gallic court had been a good one; that the prince should say such a thing so easily and carelessly hinted that there was a chance Belinda would be introduced to Sandalia so such comparisons might be made. No triumph rose within her; it was far too early for that, but a hint that she’d taken the right slow road pushed down some of the nerves that had come over her as she’d whispered her daring thoughts. Patience, patience; to trap a queen was a long and dangerous path, but finally she felt herself on it, one stride closer to success.

Buoyed a little, Belinda turned to watch Javier as she waited on his indication that she should join him. He dropped into a chair by the fire, sprawling his legs out. Slender calves, well-muscled under his tights, backlit by the fire. Belinda let herself admire the lines of him, the graceful turn of his fingers as he pressed them against his forehead.

“My lord?” she ventured when silence drew out too long. Javier lifted his head and crooked his fingers, the dismissive acknowledgment he might call a dog with. It was the way of men, especially men of power. Belinda crossed to him, kneeling at his feet in a rustle of skirts. “Forgive me, my lord.” Eyes lowered, she felt his touch on her cheek, drawing her gaze up, before she saw it.

“There’s nothing to forgive. I did ask. Watch your tongue, though, Beatrice. You do speak of dangerous things.”

“Yes, my lord.” Belinda lowered her eyes again even as she lifted her chin, giving her throat to the prince. Javier chuckled and leaned forward, wrapping his hand behind her head. She came to her knees, breath gone short, and smiled up at him.

“Another man might be less lenient.”

“Then I am fortunate to be wi-”

“Jav!” The door banged open, a feat in itself: the weight of oak and the woven rug it dragged across precluded such enthusiasm under nearly any circumstances. Asselin lurched in, his weight making the door bounce against the stone wall a second time, barely muffled by hanging tapestries. “Oh, bugger and bollocks, Jav, get rid of the tart, there’s things to discuss.” Asselin waved a flagon of wine around with more drama than care; red droplets flew and splattered across the walls and rugs. He focused on Belinda, blinking heavily, then sketched a bow so deep it bordered on ludicrous. “Forgive me, Irvine. I didn’t see you there. Shite, Jav, why can’t I find a noble girl who’ll go down on her knees for me?”

Blood drained from Belinda’s face, then rushed back in a pound of scarlet. She scrambled to her feet, knotting her hands in her skirt and staring fixedly at the floor. Stillness kept her a safe distance from laughter while she played out the part of Beatrice’s mortification, trembling with humiliation and embarrassment. Javier climbed to his feet with languid poise, brushing his fingers across Belinda’s crimson cheek in apology. “Sacha, you’re a pig and a fool,” he said mildly. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Asselin still watched Belinda. “Praying to God you’re as free with your women as with your wine, old man. Look at her, Jav, blushing like a maiden. You’re a widow, Irvine, and even if you weren’t Jav here would’ve had your head a hundred times by now. Come on, Javier, can’t we share a bit of a shag?”

Belinda jerked her eyes up, horrified on Beatrice’s part and startled beyond belief on her own. Asselin waggled his eyebrows at her with such exaggeration she wanted to laugh. He sauntered over to her, leading with his hips and both hands held high, wine droplets spilling carelessly down his wrist. “Never dreamed of that, did you, Beatrice? A woman’s got more than one hole, might as well put them all to good use.” He took a few dancing steps around her, and came up against Javier. “Shite,” he said into the prince’s closed expression. He let his arms fall and shrugged liquidly. “You can’t blame a man for trying, now, can you, Jav?”

Javier remained expressionless, staring his compatriot down. Asselin exhaled noisily and fell one step back. “My apologies, Lady Irvine. Drink has got me, and I take more pleasure in her than good sense might allow.”

“It…it is-” Belinda cast a frantic look at Javier, expecting, and finding, his slight nod. “It is all right,” she whispered. Heat still stained her cheeks, a flush that would be attributed to shame, not amusement or arousal. She locked her eyes on the floor, aware that she still held her hands clutched in her skirts, fig-leafing in a useless show of modesty. Everything in how she stood bespoke her embarrassment, but keeping her gaze down let her indulge in curious imagination without betraying herself.

“What’s so damned important, Sacha?” Javier settled back into his chair, gesturing for Asselin to take the matching one opposite him. Asselin flung himself into it hard enough to knock it back a few inches, and leaned forward to bring the front legs down again.

“What about her?”

Javier’s gaze flickered to Belinda. “Beatrice, there are wineglasses in the front chamber. Enough for all, please.”

“My lord.” Belinda bobbed a curtsey and took care not to stomp as she left the room. A woman was a serving maid no matter what her station, shy of being a queen. Carrying the rank of lady only made for better dresses to sweat in.

Asselin’s drunk had passed by the time she returned. He sat forward in his chair, flagon dangling from his fingertips and voice low as he spoke earnestly to Javier. The prince remained leaning back, ankle cocked over his knee and one arm dangling over the side of the chair as he listened. They were, Belinda thought, very much man and servant, for all the friendship held between them. Asselin straightened as she came back in. Belinda bobbed another curtsey, murmuring, “My lords,” and took the flagon from Asselin’s fingertips to pour wine. There was no moment of shared thought, as she hoped there might be; the fingertip touch was too brief, or her skill too little. His emotions were clouded with lust, as frank and open as it had been the night she’d met him in a low-class pub; as they had been when he’d taken her in the park days earlier. He was a blunt man, dangerous like a hammer, and Belinda found herself liking him for it once more, despite the threat he posed to her. Threat, though, could be dealt with without mercy if necessary, and for everything Sacha Asselin thought he knew about Beatrice Irvine, he knew nothing at all of Belinda Primrose. So long as their ends lay down similar paths, she was content to leave him alive, but should the knowledge he carried become a burden to her, her only regret in his death would be the hurt it would cause Javier.

Faint surprise coiled through her at the thought; Javier’s emotions were irrelevant to her goals. Sacha’s death might pull him away from the desire to teach her more of the witchpower magic, though, and that was enough to feel a twinge of dismay over. Belinda dropped her gaze briefly, then offered Asselin a filled wine cup. His eyebrows shot up as he took it. “Daring, to give me the first cup and not Jav.”

Nerves bunched in Belinda’s stomach. As a serving girl, she never would have made the error of serving the lower-ranked man first. She poured a second glass, offering it to Javier. There was no tremble in the liquid that betrayed the quiver she felt inside. Javier lifted an eyebrow, as aware of the slight as Asselin had been, but he took the glass. Belinda poured herself a glass as well, setting the flagon aside and smiling with cool reserve at Asselin. “You brought the wine.”

“And I,” Javier said, “did not rescue you quickly enough, hm?” His other eyebrow elevated to match the first, challenging. Belinda, trusting social propriety over Beatrice’s embarrassment, tilted her head.

“My lord? I am sure there was nothing I needed rescuing from. Lord Asselin is a gentleman, and you a prince. How could a woman fear in such company?”

“Oh, she’s good,” Asselin said past her, to Javier. The prince arched an eyebrow again, warning, and Asselin subsided. Belinda inclined her head and drew a footstool a little closer to the fire, smoothing her skirt as she sat down.

“Now that the matter of Beatrice is aside,” Javier said, “to what do I owe this unexpected visit, Asselin? You may have guessed: I had plans.” Neither man looked at Belinda. She felt the weight of their avoidance far more heavily than she might have felt a knowing smile or wink, and wished she dared roll her eyes. Instead she lowered her gaze and sipped her wine, demure, as Asselin launched into talk of inconsequentialities. Belinda felt Javier’s impatience as if it were her own, the witchpower stirring in him as he sought a way to bring Asselin to the point. It was her presence that stayed the young lord’s tongue; they all three knew it, and that Javier had waved her to stay was…interesting. Belinda pressed wine against her lips, feeling them wet, imagining colour staining them.

Golden witchlight spread through the back of her mind, tempered into darkness by the stillness. Belinda was grateful for that; without the stillness she thought the bright power might burst out of every crevasse of her body, blinding her and everything around her. She gathered the light around her as if it were the stillness, tucking it around the corners of her mind. It tingled and itched; she could not remember the same sensations a dozen years ago when she tried to hide in the shadows. But she had been less aware then, she reminded herself. More powerful, perhaps, but less aware. The prickle over her skin was bearable, even ignorable, but fascinating. She stopped herself from spreading her fingers to investigate, knowing she could try again another time when she would not call attention to herself with the action.

She took a slow breath, calmness washing through her as it suppressed the skin tickle that power had awakened. Excitement tasted of copper at the back of her throat and made her fingertips ache; the calm was so profound it had the weight of chains. She knew the sensation, like the frightening quiet at the heart of a storm. It held her prisoner and safe both at once, denying her the ability to break free even as it offered the consummate certainty that nothing could reach her. Belinda’s lungs burned, heart pounding sickly in the cavity of her chest. She dragged in a shaking breath that only served to prove how little air there seemed to be around her. With the breath, tranquility stretched taut and snapped. In silence, it surrounded her, tucking her safely into the shadows. The wine in her glass darkened, no longer reflecting the warmth of firelight. Asselin’s voice cut through, sudden and loud, amplified as if he stood in an echo chamber. Belinda lifted her head, confident in the shadows that held her, and watched the two men openly.

“It’s Liz, Jav. You don’t know-”

“Liz?” Javier glanced at where Belinda sat, clearly without seeing her there. “All this bother and dancing around the topic and it’s Eliza? What could you not say about her in front of Beatrice, man?”

Asselin’s silence fell almost as heavily as the solitude surrounding Belinda. “You are my prince,” he said eventually. “My oldest friend and my brother, but my God, you’re an idiot sometimes, Jav.”

Javier turned a round-mouthed gape of astonishment on the stocky noble. “I beg your pardon?”

Asselin sighed. “Nothing. Suffice it to say that Liz would rather not be discussed in front of your lady Irvine.”

“Liz,” Javier pointed out, “would rather not be discussed behind her back at all.”

Asselin waved a hand dismissively. “So would we all. But if she must be, let us not compound the injury by doing it in front of her ri-in front of Irvine.”

“You don’t like her.” Javier sounded stiff, petulant. Belinda, safe in her shadows, allowed herself an open smile, and sipped her wine. Asselin let out a raspberry of exasperation.

“What’s to like or not like? She’s a pretty woman and she must be a good lay or you wouldn’t keep bothering with her. It’s not like you, though, Jav. We’ve been friends since boyhood, the four of us, and you’re the one who’s kept that sacrosanct. Now you invite this woman in without a hitch or hesitation?”

“Marius invited her.” Belinda hadn’t known the prince could be sulky. She smiled again, into her glass, and watched the men through her eyelashes. Years of long practise kept her from wriggling with amusement, or permitting herself the giggle that fought its way through her, but the grin she gave free rein to. Delight in success pounded through her like sexual arousal, thrills of excitement and interest making her overaware of her body. How easy it would be to carry out her missions, if she could sit unseen in a room with men who had moments ago been fully aware of her presence. If she could learn to walk within the shadows-she didn’t dare try now-she might become the most successful and secret assassin Echon had ever known.

“Marius showed her to us,” Asselin disagreed. “You invited her, Jav. You’re the only one of us who can.”

“Sacha, that’s not true-”

“Yes, my prince.” Asselin’s voice softened, sympathy in it. “It is. It’s why we’re never more than four, Javi. We can only present outsiders. It’s your will that takes them in or leaves them to the cold.”

Javier slumped in his seat, expression unguarded and youthful. “You haven’t called me that in a long time.”

Asselin crooked a smile. “We haven’t been boys in a long time, Javi. I don’t like to use it around Marius and Liza.” His grin went more sheepish. “We knew each other first. I think of it as my name for you, and if I used it, it would become theirs, too.”

“Jealous lordling,” Javier said, but he leaned forward to reach for Asselin’s hand, grasping it a moment.

“Rarely.” Asselin sat back with a sigh and kicked his heels out on the rug. “Which brings us, Jav, back to Eliza.”

Javier lifted his eyebrows. “She’s become a jealous lordling? Sacha-” The prince straightened, curious dismay wrinkling his forehead. “Is that why none of you have married? Because of me? Because you think you need my…approval?”

“Oh, God, Jav, don’t tie the noose yet. There are moments when you’re our only line to freedom. Marriage beds will come soon enough. They’re political machinations, not full of love and romance. It won’t make any difference if you like our wives. Hell, it won’t make any difference if we like our wives. A woman’s got no strength to come between the four of us anyway. Which,” Asselin said, “brings us back to Eliza, Jav. Again.”

“All right, all right! God in Heaven, Sacha. What’s the problem?”

“Her father’s found her out, Jav.”

Javier’s eyes shuttered, light in them turning black. “Then I’ll protect her.”

“She won’t let you, Jav. She never has.”

“Don’t be absurd. She has rooms here-”

“She’ll refuse them as long as Irvine is here.”

Javier came up short. “Is she as jealous as that? Beatrice is-”

“A distraction? A toy? Easier to believe when she’s not on your arm every evening and in your bed every night. Are you going to introduce her to your mother?”

“God,” Javier said with feeling, then exhaled. “I’ll have to, if I continue with her. Mother’s absence has been-”

“A gift?”

“Not unwelcome.” Javier glanced at the stool where Belinda sat, as if imagining her there. She caught her lower lip in her teeth, watching with interest. After a moment he shook his head and turned his attention back to Sacha. “But once she’s returned, I’ll have to make the introduction. I can’t put Beatrice aside right now.”

Fascinated horror lit Asselin’s eyes. “Good God, man, you haven’t gotten her pregnant, have you?”

Javier blanched and shuddered. “No. My God, no. It’s-There are other things. Other reasons.” He shrugged, making an end of it. Sacha sighed explosively.

“You’re bewitched, Javi. Look, Liz won’t come to my home, either, but if she goes home her father will likely-”

Javier lifted a hand. “I think I have a solution. One she won’t like, but it may appeal. Sacha, don’t tell her you were here talking about her, all right?”

“Do I look like a complete fool?” Asselin demanded. Javier gave him a slow grin and Sacha laughed. “Some friend you are. All right. All right, Jav, but make quick work of it, because she’s got nowhere to go.” He looked around. “What the hell happened to Irvine? I thought she was bringing more drink.”

Belinda cocked an eyebrow curiously, then gathered her skirts and stood to slip through shadow in search of wine.

Dawn came on before Javier brought the subject around to Eliza and offered up his plan. Belinda sprawled across his bed, hair twisted over her shoulder into a mocking semblance of propriety. Javier stood at his window, watching the mist-coated palace grounds as sunlight struggled to break through the grey. “So your women will all be under one roof?” Belinda murmured. “Convenient, my lord.”

He scowled over his shoulder. “It’s not like that between Eliza and myself, Beatrice. I thought you knew that.”

“I do. I was only teasing, my lord.” She stood and crossed to him, putting her fingertips on his shoulders. “Then why?”

“Eliza’s father doesn’t like her friendship with me.”

Belinda’s eyebrows shot up. “Doesn’t like a friendship with the prince?”

“He thinks I…” Javier turned his head, uncomfortable. “Abuse the friendship.”

“Abuse. A powerful man, a beautiful woman.” Belinda’s eyebrows remained elevated. “Few would call it abuse.”

“They are very poor.” Javier’s jaw set. “Poor enough that a father might only see his daughter as a victim in such a relationship.”

Belinda stepped back, letting surprise stiffen her movements. “Poor…? She speaks so beautifully, my lord.”

Disdain flashed through Javier’s expression. “High-born tones can be learned. We’ve been friends a long time.”

“Yes.” Belinda stiffened further, flushing as she glanced down. “Of course, my lord.” She knotted her fingers together in front of her belly, turning her palms up. “Another father might use such a relationship as leverage into a good marriage,” she suggested. A glance at Javier through her eyelashes found him shaking his head.

“It might’ve if she wasn’t as stubborn as the day is long. Her mother and three sisters died five years ago of a bad fever. Eliza was the only one who survived. She refuses to grow her hair back out and behave like a proper woman. Her father’s hand…is growing heavy.”

A shiver spilled down Belinda’s spine, making the hairs on her arms stand up against the light fabric of the dressing gown she’d stolen from Javier. “Then why come to me, my lord? You must know…” She hesitated. “Eliza considers me a…rival.” She chose her words with delicacy, watching the prince for his reactions. Javier let out a breath that bordered on laughter.

“I’m aware. But I can hardly place her with Sacha or Marius, can I? A woman at least has the gloss of appropriateness. Besides,” he finally met her eyes again, “it would divert talk from our relationship.”

“Or compound it, my lord.”

Javier flashed a grin. “Which might do as well. Please, Bea. I don’t ask favours that often.”

Belinda lifted her eyebrows again as she offered Javier her hands. “Is she going to want to murder me in my sleep, my lord? Ought I sleep with one eye open every night from now on?”

“You sleep enough nights with me that I think you’re safe.” Javier lifted her hands to his mouth, kissing her knuckles. “Perhaps sleep with both eyes open those nights you don’t.”

“So you’d have me get no sleep at all,” Belinda teased. “Very well, my lord. But I warn you: we may become fast friends and both toss our heads and laugh when you come calling. Women are strange creatures.”

“Then I’ll have gotten what I deserved for putting the two of you together. That dress, Beatrice. The one you wore to the opera.”

She tilted her head, curious. “Aye?”

“It was Eliza’s design. It’s her true talent, making beautiful gowns. With your help, she might soon be able to begin a business of her own. It’d be good for both of you: she wouldn’t be under your roof anymore, and she wouldn’t be under her father’s.”

Belinda frowned, shaking her head. “If it’s her design, my lord, why on earth hasn’t she begun a business already? Certainly with your patronage-” Her chin came up. “Ah.”

Javier quirked an eyebrow. “Ah?”

“She won’t take your help, will she? Too much pride.”

Javier inclined his head. “I remember, as a child, the beggars who flung themselves at mine and my mother’s feet as we walked into church. I thought then that pride was a provenance of the wealthy. When I met Eliza I realised that the poor have an even more desperate pride than the rich. She’s never let me help her, except when she was too ill to object.”

“The fever?”

Javier nodded. Belinda’s chin lifted again in new understanding. “Your doctors saved her but not the rest of her family.”

Javier nodded a second time. Belinda stepped back, pressing her fingers over her lips. “Her mother. Her sisters.” She didn’t wait for the prince’s nod, though it came again. “No wonder her father hates you, my lord. Four for one. I wouldn’t trust your intentions, either.”

“They wouldn’t let me help,” Javier murmured. “Her mother allowed me to take her, but not the rest of them.”

“You are a prince, my lord. How could one poor woman stop you? And how could one wretched man beg your mercy for the rest of his family when you had shown preference to one?”

Javier met her eyes, helpless. “I didn’t want to offend them. Does my rank give me the right to disrupt the lives of others as I see fit?”

Belinda laughed out loud, throaty and warm. “Isn’t that what royalty does, my lord?”

Javier’s spine stiffened, his face gone pale with anger. “Yes. And that is why I do not care to do it myself, Lady Irvine. I try to respect those around me.”

“Unless they are too inconvenient.” Belinda stepped forward again, curling her fingers in his shirt. “In which case, there is always the witchpower, no? An extension of yourself. You can hardly be blamed for making use of it.” She stood on her toes, brushing her mouth against the pulse in his throat. “It is a peculiar and fine line to dance, my prince. But you are a rare man if you are willing to walk it at all. Most would never think twice of imposing their will as they saw fit, given the means and opportunity. I will try to help make Eliza a dressmaker with clientele all her own, as untouched by your helping hand as is possible, if you, my lord…” She lifted her eyes, bright winsome smile teasing him, “will but come back to bed now. It’s very early, and you’ve no duties until the tenth hour.” Belinda put on a pout, then drew him toward the bed. “Is it not a fine bargain I make?”

Javier laughed and let himself be drawn. “In a pig’s eyes.”

“Liza-”

“Like hell, Javier, no. I won’t.”

“I need you-”

Eliza snorted, derisive, and turned to stare challengingly at the prince. “I need you,” he repeated with as much patience as he could muster, “to watch her.”

Silence. Belinda held her breath, feeling herself barely more than a shadow under the starry skies. She was not supposed to be there, no more than Javier himself was: she could feel, subtly, his pleasure at having escaped the guards that evening. Not his thoughts; those were too well-shielded, only readable in a handful of moments when she touched his skin. The impressions were enough, though, carrying Belinda with them as if she belonged inside the prince’s skin herself. She’d left his chambers well before duty called him to work, intending to return home and begin arranging for Eliza’s arrival. Only a few steps outside his rooms, though, she found herself filled with burgeoning curiosity. It had been rare impulse that prompted her to follow him, less to observe his day than to see if she could manipulate the stillness and the silence into making people believe she wasn’t there. If she could do that under the watchful eyes of a prince’s guard, under the gaze of men who were supposed to see everything that happened around their ward, then she had discovered power indeed.

It was exhausting, draining beyond anything she knew. Even now, simply thinking of what she did sent trembles through her, as if conscious recognition threatened to shatter what control she had. It had been easier earlier in the day, and as the strain grew so did her intent to maintain it. Power of any kind was worth only as much as could be grasped and held. Limits were there to be pushed and explored, but more critically, acknowledged in a moment of necessity. She had slipped after the prince for nearly twelve hours now, following him into the privacy of his bedchambers and into the courtly halls of the palace. No one had noticed her.

No one would ever know. Belinda twisted her hands, a small gesture like she held a garrote and had a slender throat to wrap it around. It would take mere seconds in the pretender queen’s presence to slaughter her, and with the stillness so profoundly wrapped about her, no one would ever see Belinda to blame her. The idea of that opportunity made her heart beat harder, sending heat through her core until it became sexual excitement. Robert had not told her to kill Javier’s mother. Regicide was a dangerous game, and with one royal murdered, eyes might turn to another as the next possible victim. Her duty was merely to discover the breadth of plots against Lorraine, and end them.

Sandalia’s death would be a resounding note to end them on.

And that was a childish impulse toward a glory Belinda would never be allowed to acknowledge. Should she succeed in assassinating the Essandian princess, Robert might know of it. Lorraine should, could, not, though in the secret places of her heart she might suspect.

Belinda’s heart fluttered in her chest, spiking sickening joy into her throat. That would be enough. To have her mother know Belinda’s loyalty would be enough. For a startling few seconds tears burned her eyes, heat scalding her cheeks as she thought of it. There was little enough that the queen’s bastard could do to connect herself with her royal mother. A death offered from the daughter as a gift to the mother was the greatest intimacy Belinda could dare imagine, an insurrection stopped and a kingdom preserved. That was who, and what, the secret daughter was. Belinda curled her hands into fists against the heady fear she might fly away on the breathless hope of securing her mother’s throne for years to come.

Shadows glimmered and twitched around her, sinking deeper into her skin as if they’d drink up the failing pool of witchpower from which Belinda drew. She allowed herself one last shaking sigh, a sound of desire that men would count themselves fortunate to earn from her, and straightened herself, letting go of powerful wishes in order to maintain her hidden presence a few minutes longer. She quested outward, careful exploration of nearby emotion, riding that as strongly as she dared. She wasn’t yet ready to try influencing those emotions, but every experience of another’s mental state would help her when that time came.

Javier was easier by far than Eliza, Belinda’s hours with him helping her to read him even without the witchpower. She let her eyes lid, wetting her lips as tendrils of golden power threaded outward, settling around Javier and testing him, seeing what she could read without giving herself away.

The prince cast a wordless prayer in the guise of a glance at the heavens, leaning wearily against the bridge railing. His quiet pleasure at escaping the honour guard was still there, though muted beneath wry frustration at Eliza. She, like Sacha and Marius, could forget the guard, so long as they lingered at a semi-respectful distance. Javier himself never forgot. It made the few stolen hours when he shook them off all the more precious. Spending them arguing, even with a beautiful woman, was far from his preference.

Eliza held her mouth in a pinch, eyes guarded, though at least she listened. Belinda felt almost nothing from her: faint challenge, angry acknowledgment. After a few seconds she let her sense of the other woman go; Javier was the more important of the two to understand. Eliza’s voice was low and cutting, distorted by distance as Belinda severed the faint link of power she’d held to the dark-haired woman. “Don’t you trust her?”

Javier groaned and looked to the sky again. Thin clouds, pale against the blackness, blocked out patches of stars, and his breath steamed to wash away another handful of nighttime diamonds. Belinda’s own gaze flickered upward, half expecting the stars to be blocked by the shadows that wrapped her. Instead, a handful of them glittered hard, picking out the form of a dragon in the sky.

It brought with it memory, a cold winter night when Belinda was a child, so clear that for a moment it overrode the discussion held by the two she watched. Robert had stood beside her, his warm arm around her shoulders to ward off the night’s chill as he’d picked out figures in the stars. A lion here, a bear there, a hunter presiding. A dragon, his spray of fire a scattering of stars across the night sky. Belinda had turned a dubious look on her father, insisting, “The others are real. Are there dragons, then, Papa?”

Robert lowered his hand from the stars to study her with a grave expression. “There are, Primrose.”

Belinda’s eyes widened until cold crept into their corners, a chill of ice lacing through her vision. “What are they like?”

“Nothing like you would imagine, Bella. Nothing like you would imagine.” He’d picked her up then in a rare and unexpected hug, and carried her back into the house to warm up over a cup of mulled wine and sweetmeats left out by the cook. Belinda smiled at the stars in thanks for the memory, then brought her mind back to the conversation she spied upon.

“I trust her,” Javier had already murmured. “But my judgment may be clouded.”

Eliza laughed, sharp in the chilly air. “What confession, my lord prince! How much did that cost?”

“More than I’d like.” The impulse to snap was there, to draw himself up and wield insult like anger, cowing the woman into her place. It was an easy trick, a thoughtless flexing of the witchpower he carried inside himself. It was, to Eliza and the others, a mark of royalty, a sign of position he held over them. Javier could not remember the last time he had knowingly used the witchpower on his friends. When they were children, certainly, not more than twelve or thirteen. Before he understood that no one shared his gift; before he understood that using it could only deepen the space between his station and their own. Friendship was rare and precious to him, more fragile than his three companions understood. In his life, they were the only things he was truly certain of.

They, and now Beatrice. Relief and gratitude swept through him, an alleviation of loneliness that took Belinda off-guard. She bit into her lower lip, reaching for the bridge railing as she struggled to shake herself free of that passion. Struggled to ignore a similar welling within herself. Understanding Javier was one thing. Wearing his needs and fears on her own sleeve was a greater commitment than she was prepared to make.

“What is it about her, Jav?” Belinda heard the note of frustration in Eliza’s voice and watched Javier drop his chin to his chest, exhaling heavily.

“I couldn’t tell you.” Merely an evasion. Belinda knew as well as he did, and knew as well that he couldn’t-wouldn’t-tell, not Liz nor their two brothers in arms. “But this is something I need.”

Eliza snorted again. Javier half smiled, turning his gaze down the silent bridge. Belinda steeled herself, ready this time for the influx of sentiment from the prince. It was easier, prepared, to absorb what he felt without being subsumed by it. The bridge was one of his favourite places in the city, particularly at night, with the Sacrauna running through it undisturbed by daytime travellers. Torchlight reflected here and there against the black waters, and when the surface lay very still, the stars. As a child he had laid on the banks, reaching to touch those stars only to watch them ripple away when his fingers broke through the water tension. It left him melancholy, with a sense of loss he could neither explain nor share with others. Belinda curved a humourless smile at the water, familiar with the remoteness that Javier felt, and more comfortable with admitting it than she was with acknowledging the loneliness and recognition of a similar creature that she’d sensed from the prince moments earlier. Even so, she broke away from too deeply pursuing that connection, wary of anything that might alert Javier to her presence.

“What do you need me to watch for?” Eliza broke the silence, staring at the stones beneath her feet rather than meet Javier’s eyes. “Her spending habits? If she keeps secret lovers? You could find those things out without me, Jav.”

“I trust,” Javier said tartly, “that there are no secret lovers.” Eliza breathed out laughter.

“That’s because you’re a man.”

“What does that mean?” He straightened, affronted. Eliza shook her head.

“Only that men see what they want to see, and women must see the truth. We have no other power.”

Cold anger curdled at the back of Javier’s throat, Belinda tasting it with sudden and aroused interest. “Eliza.” His voice came low and dangerous, the witchpower responding even when Belinda could feel he would have it otherwise. A wind snapped up, icy and sharp, and Belinda retreated from her own investigation of his emotions, caution overcoming curiosity: with his power alert, the chances of discovery were far greater, and not worth the risk. Eliza frowned and drew her cloak around herself more tightly, lifting its hood. “Eliza,” Javier repeated. “Are you saying that Beatrice has another lover?”

Her head pulled back as if she’d been hit, complete startlement in the movement. “Don’t be ridiculous. I may not like her, but the woman’s not a fool. I’m just saying if she did you’d be the last to know.”

“No.” The anger and power was still in his voice, deepening it. Belinda could see Eliza react to it, not in fear, she knew him too well for that, but respect, perhaps submission, though she barely lifted her chin at all. More telling than either of those, her stance changed, weight rolling forward through her hips, a subtle offering of desire. It was easier to see in Eliza, with her breeches and men’s shirt, than in court-dressed ladies. Even burdened by her winter cloak, the lines of her hips were more blatant than any woman under a half dozen petticoats could hope for.

“No?” Eliza’s voice had deepened, too, fueled by want, not anger. Belinda caught her breath, tip of her tongue between her teeth, and let her shaking power reach forth again, desire to read the truth of Javier’s interest in Eliza far greater than her fear of being noticed.

Impulse rolled over her in heady waves, anger cutting away intellect. It would be easy-it would be welcome-to crowd Eliza against the bridge railing and take her. Her desire and his power had danced a knife’s edge almost as long as either of them could remember. It was a dance that had to remain unconsummated; anything else would too drastically change the power structure among the four friends. Javier forced his hands to loosen and glanced away, Belinda finding herself doing the same, even to letting a breath out in a quiet sigh. Javier felt, and Belinda through him, Eliza’s bright burst of hurt and anger, even without looking at her. He waited a few moments before looking back. Her expression was under control when he did, fresh and open but for a sliver of disappointment that would someday fester into hate. Belinda shivered with pleasure, not at that truth, but at Javier’s recognition of it, and retreated again before her presence was detected.

“Liz…”

“Don’t.” Eliza turned her head away sharply. “Don’t, Jav.”

Javier curled a fist again, then let it go. It was a visible moment before he trusted himself to say, lightly, “I wouldn’t be the last to know, because you would tell me. But it’s not her spending or her lovers I want you to watch. It’s simply what she does through the day. I must know if she can be trusted.”

“Do you intend to marry her?”

Javier’s eyebrows went up. “Beatrice? She’s practically a commoner-” And then his thought rolled across his face, so clear Belinda needed no power to read it: ah, Javier, you are a fool. Eliza turned a gaze of daggers on him. “Eliza-”

“You know I can’t tell you no.” She looked away again.

“Yes,” Javier said, almost regretfully. He stepped closer, lifting his fingers to brush them over Eliza’s cheek. She stiffened, refusing to look back at him. He produced a wry grin and added, “Because I could order you, anyway, and you’re bound by oath of fealty to do as I say.”

It worked admirably enough that even Belinda smiled. The tension broke, some of the sting leaving Eliza’s eyes as her full mouth curved slightly. “I was ten, Jav.”

“And I was eight. Do you think it meant less to either of us for all our tender years?”

“You were going to have me thrown in the dungeon.” Eliza’s smile grew, and Javier laughed.

“It seemed like a good threat at the time.”

“I was terrified!”

Javier laughed again, shaking his head. “Now that, Liz, I do not believe. I don’t think you’ve ever been terrified.”

“I am.” Amusement left her and she turned to lean on the railing, staring down into the black river. “But the fears that haunt me are very different from yours, Jav. Things you wouldn’t understand. It’s the worlds we come from.”

“You’ve never let me understand.” Javier leaned beside her, fingers dangling over the rail. Eliza shook her head.

“No. And I never will.”

“Why?” Belinda tasted the impulse behind the question: he had wanted to ask it a hundred times, never daring. But there was something raw in the wind tonight, letting them touch on topics they had let lie fallow for fifteen years of friendship. Belinda found herself curling her fingers against the stone railing, wondering if that strangeness was her. She could sense tight control in not only the prince, but in his common-born friend as well. They never spoke of desire or the positions in the world that helped keep them apart. It was harder, too hard, for Eliza; that was what Javier told himself. “Haven’t I been there for your life, Eliza?” He reached over to touch her hair, catching a short-shorn lock between his fingertips. “I remember when we cut your hair,” he murmured.

“The first or the second time?” Eliza gave the river an unhappy smile. “Those were the best years, you know, Jav. Before God saw fit to grant me tits and hips that made sure I could never really pass as one of the boys again.”

“You were a stick,” Javier said. “Narrow everywhere.”

“I was a child. We all were. But you’re a man, Jav, you wouldn’t understand the change in freedom.” Eliza touched her own hair. “My hair was my vanity then, you know. And you three pinned me down.” She laughed, clear sound that Belinda found herself savoring, just as Javier did, for its rarity. “You pinned me down and cut it all off.”

“You were fashionable,” Javier protested, grinning.

“For a ten-year-old boy!”

“I never asked,” Javier murmured. “What did your family say?”

Eliza shook her head, the action draping stillness of soul over her. Her voice went quiet. “They were angry. But in deference to the station of my friends”-a minute shrug-“they let me keep it shorn so short for a whole two years. Until I got my blood.”

“Is that what happened. I remember you being sulky for weeks and looking like a hedgehog while your hair grew out.”

“No one would marry a woman with a boy’s haircut, Jav. And an unmarried woman is only a burden on her family. My father had daughters enough without the added trial of trying to marry off one who wears a boy’s haircut.”

“I would have taken care of you, Liz. Of your whole family.”

“Oh, aye. My whole family. And the cousins, Jav? And their babies? And the hangers-on and the families down the block who were related by blood three generations back? Until you had all the poor of Lutetia in your chambers, maybe. Maybe then you’d understand what you can’t. It isn’t your fault, Jav. You come from places that are too high.”

“And you won’t let me walk in the low ones, Liz.”

“No,” Eliza agreed. “Because you can’t save us all. You can’t even save one of us.”

He reached out to touch her hair again. “I saved you.”

“And my mother and three sisters died, Jav. Sacha and Marius should never have brought me to the palace.”

“You had the fever, Eliza. What were they to do, let you die? They would have brought you all. They say your mother refused. That she only let them take you because you were so very ill. I remember the second time, too, Liz. You looked so damned fragile, so pale and sick. They were afraid your hair took too much of your strength, and you needed it all to live.”

“And I looked like a shaved skull when I woke up. My mother thought I was Death come knocking on the door when I went home.” Eliza fell silent. “And she was right, Jav. They all died.”

“I would have tried to save them,” Javier whispered. Eliza sighed and put her hand over his. Belinda flinched, feeling the warmth of the woman’s hand on hers, and jerked her gaze to her own hand before looking back toward Javier and Eliza.

Eliza had long fingers, her hands nearly as big as the prince’s, for all that he was a half-hand taller than she. He turned his palm up to lace his fingers with hers, holding on hard for the few moments that she let him.

“I know, Jav. But we all have our pride.” She stared down at the river. When she spoke again her voice was carefully neutral. “It left me barren, you know that? The fever. I used to dream of marrying a prince.” Her smile had no humour in it, only years of resigned sadness. “I knew it was only a dream. Royalty doesn’t marry commoners, no matter how pretty they are. But still, I dreamed. Then the month after the fever my blood didn’t come, nor has it in the five years since. Not just common, but common and barren. No dream can survive that.”

“Eliza.” Cold flooded Belinda’s hands, Javier’s horror her own. He tightened his fingers around Eliza’s, uselessly, and she flashed him another sad smile.

“Sacha knows, can you believe that? I got piss drunk a few years ago and he asked me point-blank, I don’t know why. And I told him. Made him swear not to tell you. Then we fucked. It hasn’t happened again, so he thinks I don’t remember, but I do. Nineteen, I was nineteen and despite looking like this,” she jerked her hand from Javier’s so she could gesture at herself, “I was a virgin.”

“Really?” Javier’s voice broke with surprise and he glowered at the black river below. Eliza laughed without real humour.

“Really. I’d wanted-” She shrugged, stiff, and leaned on the railing, her elbows hyperextended with the pressure she put on them. “I’d make a fine rich man’s mistress, Jav.” She strove to keep her voice light, stretching her throat long to do it. “He’d never have to worry about by-blows.”

“You’re better than that, Liz.”

She smiled and turned to him, putting both hands on his chest and patting her fingers against the soft fabric of his doublet. “Yes.” She sighed and dropped her hands a few inches, putting her forehead against his chest for a moment. Then she stepped back, holding her right hand up. Gold coins glittered between her fingers, then jumped as she flipped her hand over and bounced the coins, three of them, across her knuckles. “I am.”

Javier clapped his hand to his purse. “Eliza!”

She laughed, popping the coins over to land stacked in her palm. Javier picked them up, scattering them across his own palm; they were all faceup, all imprinted with the same year. “How do you do that?”

“Practise,” Eliza said with a shrug. She bent her wrist in and fetched a fourth coin from inside of her sleeve, holding it up between two fingers. “Practise and a healthy disregard for other people’s belongings.”

Javier snatched the coin out of her fingers, grinning. “Are there more?”

Eliza spread her arms. “You’ll have to look.”

“Eliza…”

She dropped her hands and shrugged. “It’s your coin, Jav. I don’t mind making it my own. Call it the cost of setting me on your lover.”

“You’ll do it, then.”

She eyed him, turning back to the river. “Sacha told on me, didn’t he. He told you my father found out what I’d been doing.”

“Yes.” Javier put his backside against the railing and studied his feet.

Eliza’s mouth quirked and she shook her head. “Darling Sacha. I don’t need your protection, Jav. I have enough money hidden away to make a fine life for myself.”

“And yet you don’t do it.”

“Of course not. Your mother would never approve.”

Javier frowned. “What?”

“Come on, Jav. Your streetside friend suddenly makes good? All of Lutetia would think I’d given into your wiles and you were putting me up in style. The prince’s mistress.”

“Is it such a terrible facade?”

“No.” Eliza pressed her lips together, leaning more heavily over the river. “But I won’t climb the ranks on rumour of royal bed, Jav. I’ll find a way by myself or not at all.”

“Let me help. Take the position in Beatrice’s house. It’s a place to begin, Liz.”

“You’re a hard man to say no to, Prince Javier.”

“I know.” He bumped his hip against hers, smiling. “And you won’t, will you?”

Eliza’s shoulders dropped. “I’m not a lady, Jav.”

“You will be.” Javier twisted to put his arm around Eliza’s waist, kissing her temple. Belinda felt a sigh go through him, relief that the argument had ended without him making his plea an order. Below that lay gladness, not just that Eliza had agreed, but that he’d spoken earlier with Belinda, choosing his battles in the right order. Not, Belinda knew, that she could have refused the prince any more easily than Eliza could have. “I have to get back,” he murmured against Eliza’s hair. “Someone will miss me.”

“She’ll miss you.”

“No. I only spend the night with one woman at a time. She’s not in my chambers tonight. Tonight was yours.”

“Charmer.” Eliza turned her head to kiss his cheek. “Good night, my prince.”

Javier left her on the bridge, less alone than either of them might think. Eliza watched the river until the bells tolled the half hour after Javier’s departure, nothing of her emotions readable to Belinda’s weary investigations. Only when Eliza slipped away did she let the power go, staggering under the onslaught of stars after so many hours hidden in shadow. She reached for the railing, leaned heavily on it, forcing herself to shallow gasps when she wanted to drag in half-panicked lungsful of air. It would not do, would not do, to show weakness from use of power. Belinda curled her lip, barely an expression on the outside, but focusing all her remaining strength through it, forcing all her disdain at her own faltering vigor into it. A lifetime’s training straightened her spine, steadied her breathing even when her legs trembled and her heartbeat scampered with speed and lack of air. This was what the stillness was for: to forbid anything external from seeing her frailty. The stillness had nothing to do with the power she’d used to excess; it was her own gift to herself, studied and learned. The witchpower might enhance it, but the stillness was not born of the witchpower, and Belinda would not allow herself to soften in its use now. She spread her fingers against the bridge railing, light gentle touch that forbade her leaning, and slipped a smile into place as she gazed out over the quiet water.

No wall stood in her mind any longer, the odd, inexplicable flavour of her father washed away, his barricade destroyed. The desire to act was no longer separate from the ability to do so, golden strength finally her own. What was left of it? The day’s exercise had drained that pool so thoroughly she could only feel the emptiness where it belonged. She cupped her hands together as if she would call the witchlight to her, but in truth made no effort to-it would respond no more than a man exhausted by a hedonistic night. Like a man, though, it would replenish itself; Belinda had no reason to believe that, but found herself easily confident of it, the fear that it might not return as absurd as fearing the sun might not rise.

Taking her hands from the railing to cup them told her she had the strength to stand unsupported. Replacing them there made it clear how much preferable support was. An unexpected quiet laugh bubbled to the surface and Belinda leaned forward, catching a glimpse of her reflection in the dark water below. Returning home would be more of a challenge than slipping unnoticed into the palace had been that day.

Water rippled and distorted her features for an instant, adding a length to her face and peaking her hairline in a way that reminded her of Lorraine. Belinda straightened again, brushing her fingers against her forehead to wipe away the thought. Allowing herself to dwell on the Aulunian queen was always dangerous, but more so now. She could slip into the minds of others and sense their emotions, even share their thoughts if she touched them. Should Javier have a similar secret, then Belinda must be certain to keep her mind guarded always. Her duties to Aulun had to remain in the quietest part of her, lest she be exposed and die for her troubles.

There was a trick still left to be explored. Belinda put away thoughts of her work and turned to a thrill of exploration that brought another smile to her lips. Beatrice, she thought without heat, smiled too easily. Even now, when the Lanyarchan lass had been set aside for a while, her influence lay over Belinda like a cloak. Still, she chose not to wipe away the smile as she considered the last step she might take with her newfound skills.

She could read thoughts, gauge emotions. Influencing them would be a power worth reckoning with. An Essandian princess might be moved to suicide, if caught in the right mood, or her red-haired son made to fall in love with and rashly wed a barren commoner. Javier was a perilous target to test on, though; his own witchpower might easily make him immune to Belinda’s influence. And if the power were a gift of royal blood, then Sandalia, too, might be difficult to sway.

But the weaker minds around them could be used. Asselin already moved toward sedition; with a little effort, he might betray himself and his compatriots. A plot against Lorraine, built by those close to Javier-perhaps, to succeed, Belinda didn’t need so much as Sandalia’s own hand in the pot. Sacha’s ambition might well bring Belinda far closer to her goal, his plots the mechanism to undo them all. And sweet Marius would-

“Beatrice?”

Belinda startled more profoundly than she could remember doing since she was a child, a jolt flinching her entire torso as she twisted toward the sound of her name. Marius, in an extravagant hat and boots that showed off the shape of his calves, came up to her in astonishment. “Beatrice, whatever are you doing out here alone at this hour?”

“Has it grown so late?” Her question was distant even to her own ears, a flighty smile curving her mouth. “I suppose it has, hasn’t it? I’ve watched my reflection in the dark water without thinking anything of it.” Marius put his arm around her, warm and solid, just as the memory of her father had been. Belinda turned her head toward his throat, inhaling the scent of a tavern on his skin: wood smoke and ale.

“Are you all right, lady?”

“Better now,” she murmured. Marius’s pulse leapt and she put her lips against it, probing curiously with her tongue even as her own thoughts demanded to know what she was doing. Marius gasped, the soft sound of startled pleasure, and Belinda lifted her hand to knock his hat off and pull herself closer to him, closing her teeth over the rapid beat in his neck. The hat made a lonely splash against the water and Marius made a strangled noise, desire mixed with bewilderment.

“What, m’sieur, have you never had a woman act first?” Belinda kept one hand in his hair and slid the other down his body, rucking cloth out of the way to investigate what manner of man his codpiece concealed. He croaked and sagged, catching the bridge railing for support as Belinda let go a delighted chortle to tease his throat. “Less padding than a decent woman would imagine. What a lovely surprise, Marius Poulin.”

“Beatrice…we…the prince…we cannot…”

“The prince is welcome to join us.” There was sense in Marius’s protests and none at all in Belinda’s actions, but she withdrew her hand to unlace his ties and shoved his breeches down a necessary few inches. Need pounded through her, a desire for control and domination that was nearly alien to her. Her position was to be weak, attractive, usable; men of power, the sort she was trained to seduce and kill, did not in general appreciate a strong hand in bed. The sudden opportunity to take it was disconcertingly appealing, all the more so for the very problem that Marius had voiced. Belinda pulled him around until her back was against the bridge railing, put his hands on her waist in a demand he understood whether intellect ruled against them or not. He lifted her high enough to rest her bottom on the railing, Belinda twisting her skirts out of the way as she pulled him closer.

He muffled a cry against her shoulder as she sheathed him within herself, and she bit his throat again, hard enough to leave marks. “Have you ever shared a woman with your prince, Marius?” All her rules were shattering, stillness forgotten in the demanding rock of her hips. His name was on her lips, used more than once, filled with a hunger that confused her. “They say there’s so little between a woman’s walls that if you both take her at once you feel the other. Shall we invite Javier, Marius, my love?” She nearly laughed at her last word, its gratuitous nature garnering another cry from the youth buried within her. She slid forward on him, barely balanced on the railing for all that he groaned and pushed forward again. “Hold me tight and we’ll pretend, Marius. Fuck me well and imagine the dangers of taking the prince’s lover as your own.”

For once, gloriously, her lover’s enjoyment meant nothing to her. Her breasts ached, body throbbing with a need that she gave in to utterly, forcing her own hand between their bodies to seek out her own pleasure. Marius protested and she bit him again, drawing a sharp sound of confused pain and then the tilt of his chin, giving her his throat in acquiescence. She wrapped her legs around his hips, dragging him closer, trusting his strength to not let her fall, and his hands knotted at her waist in a promise that he wouldn’t. “Harder, Marius.” Belinda barely knew her own voice, low with demand and desire, but the youth in her arms whimpered as he drove into her, desperate to oblige. A sensation of rightness overwhelmed her, carried on climax beginning to crest; she had spent too long, far too long playing to the whims of others. Marius would be hers, marked as hers, and no one would dispute her claim.

She knotted her fingers in his hair, pulling his head back to force him to look into her eyes. His own were wide, glazed with desire, pupils dilated. His breath was harsh, the play of his mouth lost and sweet. Belinda brought his mouth to hers and when he begged a kiss bit his lower lip until she tasted blood. “You’ll make me come,” she whispered. “With your next thrust you’ll make me come or I’ll cut your throat and leave you here to bleed, I swear it on my soul.”

Honest terror slid through him, delicious rewidening of his eyes as he believed a threat Belinda knew she could carry out. His body went still in hers, no bad thing with her own weight bearing her down on his cock, making a spot of desperately rising pleasure as she worked her fingers against herself. But she smiled against his mouth, shaking her head. “Oh no, love. Not now. You don’t get to stop now.”

She took her hand from his hair, his head falling forward over her breasts, though fear still held him still. She slipped her hand down his backside, fingers spread wide over his crack and then diving relentlessly inside him.

His voice broke, high sharp sound as he shoved forward, scraping her against the railing, scraping against the bone within her that brought violent spasms of heat spilling through her body. She bit his shoulder again, rolling against him with her own whimpers and cries knotted in her throat. Marius still dared not move, only clung to her and gasped in uncertain need as she took what she wanted from him. Only when she slipped her fingers from within him did he groan and risk rocking forward again, a plea that broke hard laughter from Belinda’s throat. She pushed herself off him, balanced on the railing momentarily to shove him away and thump her feet to the ground.

Confusion filled his face, his hands spread in question, unsated cock jutting at a desperate angle through the folds of his tunic. Belinda straightened her arm, fully cognizant of another man she’d pushed away thus, a lifetime earlier, and watched Marius stumble back a step, but not to his death. “Come now, Marius.” Her voice was harsh in her ears, mocking more viciously than he deserved. “Can you imagine the disaster of making me pregnant, with the prince as my lover? I can’t risk your seed spilling inside me. Put it away and take it home to a serving girl.” Her heart banged against her ribs, cruelty aching and distinct within her, as much in search of release as the fading throb between her thighs had been. She crimped a fist against the hurt in his dark eyes and brought her voice back under control, a greater struggle than she liked to admit.

“Go, Marius.” Almost nothing more than a whisper. “Your sweet mouth, your eyes. I knew enough to resist, but it’s hard when one man can’t be denied where another is wanted.” Sorrow etched the words and a flush came over Marius’s cheeks, forgiveness too easily obtained. “Tomorrow,” Belinda promised. “Tomorrow we’ll talk, we’ll try to see how this can be gotten through, when I know now I’m not strong enough to stand strong against you.” Tears filled her eyes, tangling in her lashes and making hot lines down her cheeks as she turned her head, offering her throat just as he’d done for her moments earlier. “Forgive me, m’sieur.”

“Beatrice.” Marius’s voice went rough and he stuffed himself back into his clothes before stepping forward to catch her in a hopeless, desperate hug. “There is nothing to forgive. You’re right, of course you’re right, about children, about…tomorrow.” He broke his own near-apologies off and clenched her against his chest, a promise of safety. “I’ll call on you tomorrow,” he promised, then released her so quickly it seemed he feared what he might do. Within seconds he’d taken himself away, hurrying across the bridge without daring to look back. Belinda watched him go, licking the coppery taste of blood from her lower lip.

Feared what he might do, or, she thought, feared what she might do. Red fire tinged the edges of the reemerging golden pool of power within her mind, as if she had for the first time acknowledged her own strength. It made no sense; she had acted against her own character and reveled in it. She did not take, or risk, or demand, not in the fashion she had just done, and yet it felt more pure and delicious than any moment she could remember. She did not release the stillness she’d learned so carefully and rut without a thought for anything but herself. Less than a quarter hour earlier, she would have said she could not do so.

Fresh fire burned through her, spilling from the top of her skull down through her body, making points of desire in her nipples and groin. She wet her lips, eyes half closed as she considered the barrier that no longer lay in her mind. Perhaps it had held back this part of her, too. She had broken down that careful barricade, drained her witchpower to nothing, and in the aftermath given in to her own wanting in a way she had never imagined doing. If those things were connected, it was a lesson learned: using her power to its nadir was aggressively dangerous to her, destroying a lifetime’s careful study.

Her perfect memory rose up with a gift: a serving girl’s blush and shocked hunger following her down the stairs.

Belinda smoothed her skirts and set herself homeward, a predator’s smile curving her mouth.