Khoda pinched his eyes shut, rubbing the spot between his brows. “Yes. But no. But yes. Ugh.” He blew out a breath and fixed his stare on Fie. “We’ll take Tavin’s approach. You play the fool from now on, all right? A beautiful, elegant, empty-headed fool. The queen will have an easier time believing you’re just a naïve country bumpkin than a Peacock who puts the welfare of Crows over her own status in court.”
“And if Rhusana thinks you’re a fool, she may let something slip in front of you,” added Jas. “That’s how I survived five years of her.”
Fie shuddered, remembering the look on Tavin’s face when she’d asked how anyone lived like this. “Has it always been this way?”
Khoda and Jasimir traded looks. “Not always… this bad,” Jasimir said slowly.
A knock rattled the door. Fie scrambled to throw herself onto the nearest low sofa in a genteel swoon, as Jasimir stationed himself behind her with a palm fan, straight-faced. “What are youdoing?” he whispered, bewildered.
“Being a fine lady,” Fie muttered back from behind a sleeve.
“You look like you’re dying in a tragedy play.”
“Silence, manservant,” she hissed, pinching her mouth at him as Khoda shot them both dirty looks and answered the door. Fie caught a ruffle of murmurs and the clink of silver. A moment later, a tray appeared in Khoda’s hands and the door swung shut.
“Refreshments for my lady,” he said loudly, then jerked his head at the door.
A shadow still lingered in the gap between the bottom of the door and its frame. They had an audience.
“Well then, bring them here!” Fie called in her most petulant snob voice. “What are you waiting for?”
Jasimir tapped her shoulder. When she looked up, he pointed to his open mouth, then drew a finger across his throat and shook his head.
Khoda set the tray down on a nearby low table. “At your leisure, Your Ladyship.”
The shadow at the door slipped away.
Jasimir tossed the palm fan aside, then went to the window, pushed the screen aside, and plucked a fresh frond from a palm outside. Then he approached the tray, tapping an index finger to his chin as he studied a plate of flower-shaped sweet biscuits, a soft white dome of cheese, tiny jars of jewel-colored sauces, and pitchers of chilled tea and water. He dipped the palm frond in the water; naught happened. He tried the tea next.
The tip of the frond withered instantly, and black lines spidered up even the untouched green. Jasimir hastily let the frond go. It sagged over the pitcher’s edge.
“Already trying to poison you, that’s a good sign,” he remarked, and picked up an envelope. “Oh, but she sent an invitation to her party tomorrow in the Midnight Pavilion. That’s a smart touch. It’s harder to argue that she’d bother inviting someone she thought would be dead.” Then he read something and wrinkled his nose. “Or perhaps not. ‘The pleasure of your company is specifically requested by His Royal Highness, Prince Jasimir.’”
Khoda lifted the tea, careful not to splash any on himself, and pulled aside the serving cloth beneath it. A slip of parchment waited there. He unfolded it, scanned a moment, then nodded to himself. “Yula says we can leave the food in the chamber pots and she’ll smuggle meals to us when she sends cleaning staff to the room.” He glanced at the door again, mouth twisting. “Rhusana’s still interrogating the Phoenix priests. She thinks they’re behind the failed ceremony and the prince’s escape, so that’s pressure off us for a bit. Two servants are missing. Both were called away from a team job, one yesterday, one shortly before the coronation, but they both returned. They only went missing after they left the palace and went into Dumosa.”
“Sounds like runaways,” Fie said. “Took off and didn’t look back.”
“Running from what, though?” asked Jasimir.
No one had an answer for him. Fie couldn’t help watching the rest of the palm frond blacken and die as it absorbed the tea.
Maybe Tavin was trying to protect her—not her,Niemi—by giving her status as his guest. Or maybe Rhusana meant to kill her publicly this time.
She couldn’t trust either of them. And no matter what Tavin said or what he did, it was all for a dead Peacock girl.
In her dream, she drifted on her back in cold, dark water, staring up at the sky.
“You can’t stay in there forever,” a woman’s voice called nearby. She came into view in between bright scarlet petals floating on the water: a soft, lined brown face, black hair braided in a crown over her head. The hood of her long, black silk robe lay flat over her shoulders.
“Watch me,” Fie heard herself answer, and let the water swallow her whole.
The Midnight Pavilion could not have been more different from the Midday Pavilion. Instead of vivid oranges and turquoises, this was a work of black marble, wrought iron, and lapis lazuli of deepest blue, all trimmed in gold. Instead of reflecting pools, alabaster fountains sent a fine mist across the warm night. Jasmine perfume hung in the air, wafting from vines stringing constellations of star-shaped blossoms below the clear crystal panes of the pavilion’s roof. Strings of silver and gold lanterns cast a shimmering light around the grounds.
More notable, though, were the hedges enclosing the garden,dotted with snow-white oleander blossoms. There was no chance that was a coincidence. If anything, Khoda had said, it was so open now that it was near becoming an opening: Rhusana was so busy signaling her support of the Oleander Gentry that she’d become overconfident in their popularity.
Fie had kept her thoughts to herself on that front, but all she could think of was the Hall of the Dawn, when the Peacocks had been asked to speak for the queen.
None of her skeptics had spoken for her then, but none of them had argued when Lord Urasa did, either.
