Page 73 of A Treason of Thorns

By the time I return, the inn’s public room is nearly empty. Only Alfred still sits up in a corner near the hearth, bent over his ever-present books and papers. As I cross the room, he glances up.

“Violet Sterling, are you alright?” Alfred asks kindly. “I mean, not alright, but coping? How can we help?”

I shake my head. “I’ve no idea. I’m just—what if we don’t find the deed? What if we do, and Burleigh kills me, like the Sixth House did to Marianne Ingilby? What if I can’t find Burleigh’s heart to complete the unbinding—they say only a Caretaker can do that. Or what if I free the House, and it doesn’t fix Burleigh the way we thought it would, but lets all that magic out into the countryside? What if everything goes well but the king decides to burn Burleigh anyway? What if Wyn—”

I stop, because I can’t bring myself to speak that particular what-if into being.

Alfred leans back in his chair. “Just do the next thing. Don’t focus on anything else. That’s how I cope with all this.” He waves a hand vaguely at our surroundings. “The living in inns, the bribery, the underhanded dealings. I just make do, because Espie wants to see the Great Houses freed in her lifetime, and if she wants something, she brings it about. If I hadn’t met her, I’d either be alone, poking through ruins in Europe on some abandoned hillside, or home at Weston Manor, buried among my books. Instead I am as you see me. A reluctant traitor to the crown.”

“You do know when she’s queen, you’ll be prince consort?” I point out. “You’ll never really be settled then, or alone.”

“I know,” he says. “But the thing is, Violet, some people are worth it. They’re worth giving up everything you thought you wanted. And Espie’s not just the princess of Wales to me, or even the girl I love. She’s home.”

Blood and mortar, how can he be so certain when I’m so muddled? I love Burleigh and I loved the fens, and I’m not entirely sure yet what sort of love I have for Wyn; I only know I sleep better when he’s in earshot and I burn like a torch when he touches me.

A good Caretaker puts her House first.Papa’s voice echoes in my head as I climb the stairs to the rented room Espie and I are sharing.Before king. Before country. Before her own life. Before her heart.

I believed him once, with all my heart. But now I’m not sure I can live that way anymore.

“You should have slept later,” Esperanza chides when I appear in the inn’s public room before sunrise. “The sea cave will still be there.”

“I couldn’t.” I sit down across from her at a small side table andshe clears a pile of correspondence away to make room. A serving girl appears next to us with a bob of her head.

“Just a muffin and some tea,” I say, and the girl disappears. “Where’s Alfred?”

“Still sleeping, like you should be,” Espie answers, never one to let a chance at driving home her point pass her by. “He’s always late to bed and late to rise when he has his choice.”

“Why aren’t you still sleeping, then?” I ask.

Esperanza cuts a sausage into dainty slices and pops one in her mouth, chewing meditatively. “I suppose I never feel as if I should have the luxury. If I’m to be queen someday, I ought to rise when my subjects do, and the fishermen set out to sea an hour ago. The farmers have already milked their cattle. The tin miners are at their pitches. Who am I to lie abed?”

I rest my chin on one hand and gaze at her, so full of life and so certain of herself. “Espie, do you ever think we want too much? Me wanting to save Burleigh, you wanting to take the throne, all of us wanting a new fate for the Great Houses? Maybe... maybe it’s just more than we’re meant to have.”

Esperanza wipes her mouth on a napkin, sets it down, and wags a finger at me. “Don’t be a fatalist. It’s too early, and it doesn’t become you. Who’s ever said we should have less?”

“Your father, for one,” I point out.

“My father, and all of my forefathers back to William the Deedwinner, sat on the throne of this country because they wanted something that didn’t belong to them. The world is full of men who want things, and never question their right to go after them.” Esperanza’s eyes spark, and she leans forward in her chair. “Whyshould we feel any less worthy than they do, so long as what we want does no harm?”

For the first time, I’m struck by the thought that my friend, with whom circumstances have thrown me together, will make an excellent queen.

“Are you talking about the Deedwinner?” Alfred says, appearing beside us and drawing another chair up to the table. “I’ve nearly got to his chapter in my monograph.”

He’s impeccably tidy as always, and Espie favors him with an approving smile.

“You’re up early.”

“Turning over a new leaf. I can’t let you feel smug about greeting the dawn all the time, can I? And I had a feeling Violet would want to make an early start. So I’ll go talk to the staff about packing us a lunch, because whether we find the deed or not, we’ll likely be hungry after clambering around in a cave.”

“Why don’t you pace or something?” Espie tells me when he’s gone. “You look like a caged bear.”

I push out of my seat. It’s true—nervous energy is coursing through me, now we’re so close to our goal. “What if I walk to the harbor? Can we meet there?”

“Of course. Go gaze at your sea.”

There’s an unseasonably cold wind coming in from offshore, but at least the sky is clear. Small clouds scud across it, like a mirror image of the whitecapped Atlantic. I walk and walk, from one end of the sandy harbor beach to another, and though the fishermen have taken the boats from their slips, a few people linger at the harbor’s edge, mending nets or crab pots. But for the most part, St.Ives is shockingly empty. When I was last here, holidaymakers lined the sand, children laughed on the carousel, and little carts stood out on the beach, from which hawkers sold lemonade and ice creams. Even a hundred miles from Burleigh House, the proof of its decay is everywhere I look.

Alfred and Esperanza join me, and we hike through town and out onto the rugged green cliffs of the Cornish coast. The wind is even stronger up here, away from the protection of the harbor. We walk in silence. I take the lead, traveling westward, remembering Burleigh’s vision of a setting sun. The tang of the salt air and theboom, hushof the surf and the knowledge that I am about to reach the end I’ve been working toward have my head spinning.