Aria tensed, throwing Jenny off as the younger girl pinned Aria’s hair.
“That’s rude,” Aria said.Inaccurate as well. There aremanythings wrong with me.She had a mental tally at the ready, should Eliza require specifics.
Her sister squinted. “Well, someone has to say it.” Eliza huffed. “You’re courting Lord Kendall, but you don’t evenlikehim.”
“On the contrary. He has dreamy eyes. When he holds a maiden’s gaze, he captures her soul.”Dreamy.Nowtherewas something she’d like to court. A long, uninterrupted dream.
Using mockery in place of honest conversation. Making light of duty. Double mark.
Since confronting her about Northglen, her father did not look at her the same. Though he’d invited her to the most recent Upper Court meeting, he’d not once given her opportunity to speak while the court had discussed Widow Morton’s latest offenses—namely, conspiring against the Crown by actively gathering a force of dangerous individuals. One of her father’s advisers had presented an intercepted letter from Widow Morton to a prominent Stone Caster, Richard Langley, inviting him to join her resistance in Northglen.
The response was unanimous: Widow Morton would be stripped of her title as countess, and a squadron of soldiers would be sent to arrest her.
And Aria’s father did not seem to notice or care that he’d never called for her vote.
Self-pity. Mark.
Inability to stop marking. Mark.
Preferring marking flaws to fixing them.
Mark. Mark. Mark.
“Aria.” Eliza spoke softly this time. “Are you ...”
Aria smiled. “I nearly forgot to ask—how is Henry?”
It was a dirty trick to prey on her sister’s weakness for romance, but it worked. Eliza performed a full swoon, sagging against the wall as she recited a sonnet from her favorite poet, something about an everlasting spring and drinking deep but never quenched. Aria nodded along, but she might also have nodded off.
“A lovesickness,” said Jenny quietly.
Aria straightened, blood pumping, skin cold. The maid had finished Aria’s hair and stepped away. Whatever else she’d said to Eliza hadn’t registered. Aria blinked hard.
“Oh, hush, you!” Eliza giggled. “Without courting, there can be no lovesickness. I’m simply ...”
“Enamored?” Aria supplied.
“Smitten?” Jenny offered.
Eliza gave a dramatic gasp. “Beset by pests! Two of them. Jenny, how are you so tall already, and why am I cursed to be in need of risers in all my shoes?”
Because you take after Mother, Aria wanted to say. Eliza and the queen shared the same golden-brown hair, the same straight nose, and the same diminutive stature. To say nothing of their shared love of music. Aria’s face carried the angles of her father,and she stood a good half-head taller than her sister. She’d also inherited her father’s black hair, dark as a night without stars.
Jenny carried that same shade, though the girl kept her hair tied beneath a white kerchief as she worked.
“Henry is short as well,” Aria said, forcing a smile. “It’s a perfect match.”
Henry Wycliff, second-youngest son of Earl Wycliff, had been the young man watching Eliza at her birthday ball, and Eliza had taken it as a sign of romantic fate that they shared the final dance of the evening—though it didn’t hurt that the boy made a return trip to the palace soon after, supposedly to claim a lost coat but also bringing Eliza a handful of white snowdrops. Eliza had carefully pressed the blossoms into her personal journal, then walked around with the whole thing clutched to her heart.
Eliza raised an eyebrow. “Don’t think you can distract me. Especially when I know Lord Kendall’s not giving you flowers.”
“I have no need of flowers,” Aria said honestly.
She had need of cures. Perhaps when her father’s soldiers brought Widow Morton to the palace, Aria could find some leverage against the woman, force her to revoke the curse in exchange for her freedom.
Unrealistic expectations. Mark. Planning the release of a dangerous criminal. Mark.
“I’m leaving,” Aria said, striding for the door before she could be lulled into sleep by idleness.
