I gape at Barthl.
And then I blurt out: “Who’s Gisele?”
Then: “Wait. Uh.”
“You forgot to cover the ruby last night, you dullard.” Barthl jabs a long pale finger in my face. “When you answered the door. You remembered the rest of this ludicrous little getup but forgot that. And don’t think I missed all the drunken giggling either. I don’t care if you’re romping around with the prefect boy, but my family has served House Reigenbach sinceKunigunde, and I will not have your indiscretion disgracing the name more than Adalbrecht already has—”
He cuts himself off, but it’s too late.
“You don’t like the margrave?” I whisper.
Barthl eyes me like I have a knife to his throat. He attempts to brandish one of his own. “And you’re having an affair.”
“I’m really, really not,” I say, “or I’d be in a much better mood right now. I saw you lurking outside Adalbrecht’s study on the night of the ball. Have you been eavesdropping on him?”
“What wereyoudoing sneaking around his wing?” Barthl returns.
We stare at each other a long, tense moment, both hovering on the edge of a dangerous admission, neither of us willing to turn over our cards.
Then gold glimmers at the edge of my sight. Fortune can’t help but meddle; my luck is about to turn for the better.
Sure enough, Barthl’s eyes narrow. “You’re spending a lot of time with the prefect boy.”
“I wonder,” I say, stretching out each syllable with significance, “why that would be.”
Barthl seems to catch on. He hesitates, then matches that meaningfully strung-out tone. “My father . . . was the former margrave’s steward. He was the one—”
“Who found the old margrave’s body, with the ruined feet,” I finish, a fistful of disjointed wisps twisting into the binding thread. “Youtipped off the Order! Were you spying on him this whole time?”
Barthl’s face pales. “Please, Princess Gisele, you must know you’re in danger. The margrave has to be stopped. Just leave the prefect boy alone and let him do his job.”
It clicks. He still thinks I’m another selfish noble, one who will treat this nightmare like a parlor game, something to giggle about from an armchair.
Well, there’s a quick and easy way to dispel him of that notion. I reach for the pearls in my pocket. “Barthl, I think we have a lot to unpack here. Have you heard of thePfennigeist?”
`
If anyone were to walk into the castle chapel Wednesday morning, the most unusual thing they’d see would be that there are four fools in Minkja devout enough to be praying at this predawn hour. However, we all have excuses (Gisele and I are praying for the hunt to go well, Barthl is getting in his daily dose of piety at the end of his night shift, and Emeric’s not exactly from the Order of Agnostic Prefects). Moreover, this is the one place on the castle grounds we can be certain nonachtmärenwill enter.
We’re still keeping our voices low in case of passing clergy, and Gisele’s left the pearls dangling around her throat, ready to be clasped in a hurry, but we can speak freely here. Just like Barthl and I did, at length, about ten hours ago.
“Junior, Gisele,” I say under my breath, “I’d like you to meet my new best friend. Barthl, you can tell them everything.”
Barthl stares up at the vaulted ceiling with its painted saints, as if beseeching the Low Gods for strength. Not to bolster his convictions— wefound quite a lot of common ground in our mutual detestation of Adalbrecht—but more likely to endure the indignity of being referred to as my best friend.
“I’ve been suspicious of the margrave since he came back from the battlefield with blue eyes,” Barthl begins. “If anyone asked, he just insisted his eyes had always been that way and they were imagining things.”
Of course he did. That’s the true cost of someone who makes you pick your battles: You can cling to a fistful of victories, but they rarely outweigh the thousand little fights lost before they even began.
Barthl’s still speaking. “A few years ago, he began sending frequent messages to Count von Hirsching, which I found unusual given their difference in station. I believe he burned his letters until summer, when it was too warm to do it himself.”
“So he fobbed it off on Barthl,” I say smugly. “Lazy bastard.”
Emeric straightens in his pew. “Please tell me you still have them.”
“Only the letters senttothe margrave, but they paint a clear picture.” Barthl glances over his shoulder, and I can’t blame him for the paranoia. His father quit and moved all the way to Rósenbor just because he saw the old margrave’s body; Barthl knows the deadly dice he’s rolling to betray Adalbrecht like this. “Once he holds the title ofprinz-wahl, the Blessed Empress will be . . . removed. An alliance of southern territories will back his candidacy for emperor to guarantee his election, and in exchange, once crowned, he will dissolve the Free Imperial States and award the lands to the southern nobility.”
Gisele’s hands knot together. “That should be impossible. The Low Gods would never allow the free states to fall.”
