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“Dead?” I repeat as if her words weren’t crystal clear. My mind flashes to a razor-sharp smile that had thoroughly enjoyed watching my hand get turned into a pin cushion. I don’t feel bad at all.

She nods, settling her head on the bed pillow across from me. We are both in matching nightgowns, largely at my insistence, and a few cake crumbs surround her little mouth. It had been a fun attempt at a sleepover, a rare fixture from my youth I’d thoroughly enjoyed. But much in the same way I always had to say goodbye to my friends in the morning and head home to my less idyllic reality, this sleepover has similarly fallen apart at the seams.

“I can’t say it’s a shame, but... it was certainly unexpected,” I point out. “You’ve been holding this in all evening haven’t you?”

“Yes.” Emma moves an empty glass that had once held lemonade from the lightly stained bed covers to a nightstand.

The death of a palace maid is typically no cause for concern, but it was clear that Linette was the Empress’ dog and far closer to her than others. Both Linette and Kora were the people whom the empress used to administer her will throughout the palace and the horror stories of Linette violently lording above other maids and servants have long haunted the marble corridors of the imperial palace for years. So why now? Why kill her now?

“She wouldn’t kill someone for no reason, your highness,” Emma adds.

“Exactly. There is usually always a reason. We just haven’t determined it yet.” I sit up in bed, the sugar coma wearing off as my thoughts begin to sprint in every different direction.

“If she isn’t already asleep, please find Marie and ask her to fetch us a candle. I will stay up all night if I have to, just to figure out what my dearest mother is up to.” I prop my head on my chin, working my way towards premature wrinkles as I screw my head up in thought. I’m missing something, that’s what my instincts are telling me. There is a piece to this puzzle that I’m not seeing. I can barely hear my bedroom door shut behind Emma, so focused am I on untangling the mystery before me.

.....

Meanwhile, just a few rooms away, someone else is having a reckoning of their own.

——–

In Marie’s hands, the crumpled paper slick with tears had nearly become unintelligible. But it made little difference. Every word was hammered into her heart as if someone had taken a stake to her chest. A heavy hand fell onto the vanity, causing perfume bottles to shake and fall. Marie fearfully looked at the door, but no one approached. Few roamed around the princess’ quarters at this hour and most of the attendants who were posted near Princess Winter’s bedroom door were too busy fighting off sleep. No one would come and find her.

“Lief, my poor L-lief...” she moaned. Her jaw shook, heavy with guilt. But Marie knew if she gave in to the weight, she would start sobbing uncontrollably. Her younger sister, who she had not seen since her youth had entrusted her son to Marie and now Marie had just lost him.

She did not need to leave her post and rush to her quaint home by the docks to see if the words in the secret letter a lowly sweeping maid had shoved into her hands were true – the empress was many things, but a liar she was not.

In truth, Marie knew this was her punishment. She was not deserving of true happiness, and yet the past few years had brought much joy and light into her modest and simple life. First, there was the young princess, who reminded Marie of the baby daughter she had once lost many moons ago. Then a few years later, her chubby-cheeked nephew strode into her life, whose good nature and chipper tone was so reminiscent of her sister’s.

It was cruel, what the crumpled note asked of Marie. She, a mother who had lost her sole child, had taken two more under her wing only for a wicked choice to be presented to her: choose which one will die.

Lief or Winter? The princess or her nephew?

If she chose Winter, Marie knew she would never see sweet, kind, innocent Lief again, who had only gotten involved in the messy palace business at her request. He was a young soul just starting the journey of manhood, Lief did not deserve to have that cruelly cut short by her own foolishness. But Marie was under no delusions of what would happen if she chose Lief. If she chose Lief, the little princess who had lifted her spirits and given her a reason to breathe again would slowly yet surely be snuffed out, none the wiser that the one responsible for her premature death was someone she had trusted since her rocky youth. She would have to betray one to save and protect the other. What a heavy burden this was.

Her knees weakened. Still clutching the desk, Marie slowly sank to the floor. She wished nothing more but for the ground to swallow her up, to take her life instead and leave both children alone.

Even in her haze of sorrow, Marie could still hear the somewhat muted footsteps slowly approaching. It stopped at each door in the long hall, opening it and then rapidly closing it again. This could only be Emma, who loathed to call out people by name and instead just found them with her own efforts. She was two doors down from Marie, so Marie had little time to cover her tracks.

She shoved the note in her bosom, the paper corners stabbing her just like her guilt did. Rubbing the tears from her cheeks, Marie hoped her face and eyes weren’t red enough to be seen in weak lighting as the door swung open and Emma ducked her head inside. Emma was no longer as small as before. The girl had sprouted up like a green bean since the new year had begun. Her figure was now long and lanky, possessing the kind of grace that only the well-trained royal knights possessed. The stone-colored eyes that slowly blinked were as placid and gray as ever, but her face was becoming lean and angular as the baby fat began to melt away.

“Emma,” Marie called out, grateful that her voice didn’t crack. “How can I help you, darling?”

For a moment, she feared that Emma would somehow know to ask her about the note. Then the young maid’s hand would reach into her apron pocket where a blade was hidden and press it to Marie’s throat demanding answers. Despite her distress and as much as she was devoted to the cause of Princess Winter, Marie knew she could not let Winter know about the threatening note. Not because the princess was too young to understand, but because she knew that despite Winter’s newfound manpower, she would not be able to retrieve Marie’s nephew so easily. The empress would never be so careless as to let Winter get ahold of his whereabouts so easily, let alone free him.

In fact, a dark, fearful part of Marie was afraid that all the information that Winter had gathered about the Duvernays and Empress Katya thus far was because that was what Katya wanted Winter to know. Nothing more, nothing less.

But instead of a dagger to the throat, Emma’s eyes softened and the guarded look she always carried slightly receding but not fully. The girl probably slept with one eye open. Still, Marie hated how her chaotic thoughts suddenly warned her to be especially careful against letting Emma know about the note tucked in her bosom.

“Her highness will be staying up tonight. Please bring her a fresh candle to her room, the current ones are all out of wax,” Emma quietly requested. She did not ask what Marie had been doing in the dressing room.

“Oh, yes, of course!” Usually, she would engage Emma in a little conversation, asking the girl if she had eaten or how her daily task had gone. But Marie knew she couldn’t uphold the fa?ade of being perfectly fine for too long so she hurried past Emma out of the dressing room and went to perform her task.

Behind her, she didn’t see Emma pick up the few perfume bottles that had fallen over when Marie had smacked the desk with a thoughtful expression. But even if she had, it wouldn’t have made any difference.

There was a special storage closet for wax candles in the basement floor of the central palace, so that way the summer heat wouldn’t affect them during the daytime. Marie made her way down the stairs to the closet in a daze, her feet moving with a mind of their own after repeating these actions thousands of times. In the past, there had been no special storage closet. Despite being stuffed into the fine Rose Palace, the princess had lived like anything but a princess within it. Marie would have to carefully wrap the few candles they received every month in old newspapers and put them under the princess’ bed or deep in her closet to prevent them from melting. When they ran out, they would recycle the wax and fashion sloppy candles out of them so that Winter could read her books deep into the night.

Marie thought they had left those desperate days behind. But as she descended to the lowest floor step by step, she now felt as if they had never escaped the quicksand that was the Rose Palace, where the opulent pink decorations and finishings seemed to mock them as they struggled to survive.

“Helio, give me guidance. Please,” she begged under her breath. “Who must I choose? Who must I lose?”

Of course, there was no answer. Marie was not much of a believer anyways. It was hard to believe when she had personally witnessed the corruption of the Holy Church that had rotted the faith from the inside out. But unbeknownst to Marie, that seed of rot planted by House Duvernay had already taken root within her heart and would soon begin to sprout.