My head clears at least a little. I squeeze the dame’s hand and then pull free. The conversation picks back up again with Count von Hirsching pressing Adalbrecht for details on the murder as he returns to his seat. I don a look of genteel horror and find the mirror surface in my pocket, then trace out:
Want me to poison him?
After a moment, I feel the pulse of heat from the case. I sneak the mirror into my lap to read the answer in the fogged glass.
Yes
Then:
DON’T
Emeric might know me a little too well.
Irmgard lets out a scandalized squeal, no doubt over some grisly detail—and I realize Adalbrecht may give something away here, with what he knows about Klemens’s death. I twist the case lid into the recording mode and slip it back into my pocket.
Prinzvon Falbirg speaks up with a strained rumble. “Forgive me, but perhaps business matters would make for better breakfast conversation.MarkgrafAdalbrecht, do you have the adrogation paperwork here—”
Adrogation.Where have I heard that term before?
He’s cut off by a minor furor as breakfast arrives. The table fills withrohtwurst, pumpernickel, steamingdamfnudeln. Irmgard practically leaps for the tureen ofweysserwurst. Some part of me finds that a little on the nose.
“It’s in my study,” Adalbrecht says over his coffee. “As long as the paperwork is dealt with before the ceremony, I’m at your leisure.”
I pick at thedamfnudeln, biting my tongue. Adalbrecht isn’t atanyone’sleisure, ever, and he makes sure they know it.
“Very well. Gisele, dear, we’ve also brought your Imperial Citizenship papers. You should be able to submit them at the end of the month.”
Adalbrecht tenses. “Bring those to my study as well. We wouldn’t want them getting misplaced in all the”—he slices into aweysserwurst, grim-faced—“revelry.”
“Certainly not.”Prinzvon Falbirg leans forward to peer down the table at me. “You’ve barely touched your breakfast. Are you feeling all right?”
“O-of course, Papa,” I say. “I’m just so excited.”
Irmgard tilts her head, lips pursing. “You must certainly be. We know how much you love yourdamfnudeln.”
“Well, eat up,” the prince says sternly. “Can’t have you fainting on the big day.”
But the dame has other priorities. Her eyes are gleaming with pride at my neglected plate. “Leave her be, dear. It’s a fine thing for a young lady to mind her figure.”
Saints and martyrs. I remember Dame von Falbirg pushing Gisele to eat like a bird when we were younger, but this is my first time being on the receiving end. Why go to the trouble of procuring the pearls only to keep trying to cut her down?
I make myself take an enormous bite, if only to watch the dame’s smile falter.
“My poor little moonbeam has such a delicate constitution,” Adalbrecht says.
Prinzvon Falbirg’s brows raise. “Really? She had such a hearty stomach in Sovabin.”
“Perhaps Minkjan fare does not agree with her,” Irmgard coos with a sympathetic pout.
My throat closes.
“What a lovely ruby.” Dame von Falbirg reaches for my face. I flinch back on instinct, then scramble to turn it into a cough. She tilts my cheek when I’m done. “Wherever did you get it?”
“She won’t say,” Irmgard declares, smirking.
The dame gasps with delight, a gossip hound scenting blood. She always treated these things like a game, a rosebush someone else grows for her, shoving her face in the petals but ignoring the thorns. “Is it a secret? A nameless admirer, perhaps?”
Adalbrecht looks like he’s going to flip the table.
