Page 119 of The Court of Venus

Roland’s head whipped around. “As he has done to us. Deception is the court’s way of breathing. They deceive, and so they live.”

His eyes followed me as I circled around his throne, stepping into the light. “And so for friends, and friends alone, we’ll reserve our truth.”

In the deepest part of night, when Redhall’s stained windows poured bloody light onto the stones, I sought out Roland. I knew he would be unable to sleep, too. And I sought him out because I wanted him.

My chemise whispered against my thighs as I weaved through the castle. Just hours ago, Roland and I had crept through it in disguise.

There was something I was missing. Roet dragons. Guildford griffins. Seton basilisks. All the scheming families. They thought two or three moves ahead; I thought five. Yet Hal’s murderer—and my vengeance—still eluded me. Prospero, a voice whispered. It was Prospero. Always Prospero. Yet, despite the fact that two men were on a barge to the Tomb and Tom Guildford was dead, I could not turn back time. I was not the version of myself who had loved Hal. I was not even the version of myself who had come to court, seeking answers, cloaked in grief. The sky had spun, and we had all changed.

Roland had felt it in me when he’d seen me again that first day: You want something you can only find here. Now I finally knew what it was. Above all else, I wanted to find the past. To turn a corner here, or walk through a door, and slip right into it. To not know terrible things. To extricate myself from pain. To set it all right.

I made a wrong turn, lost in thought, and ended up in the wrong wing. Some doors tricked me. One required a secret. “I am afraid of myself,” I whispered.

A new groom stood in the corridor outside Roland’s chambers, now returned to him. Eager and wearing his swan badge proudly, he waved me briskly inside, as if Roland had given him my description, hoping I would come.

He was fiddling with the pieces on his chessboard. “You know,” Roland said, knocking over a pawn with his rook, “I’m a little surprised you’ve come as yourself, and through the door, too. Not as something that slinks around or crawls. And I include Ed Guildford in that category.”

I settled in the chair beside his. “Have you tried to rest? It is nearly dawn.”

“Can’t. Not when—”

I nodded. “Any word?”

“None. The king is sleeping soundly. I have guards checking on him every quarter hour—and Wyatt Francis has been promoted to groom of the stool, so he’s been reporting to me as well.”

I made a face. “Is Wyatt loyal?”

“Oh, I think he sees now he has no choice. Who else will fund his revels?” Roland rested his head back. The fire flickered in the space between our bodies.

“What if we have wrenched a crown away from a tyrant, only to hand it to new ones?”

“Us, you mean?”

I looked down at my lap as I spoke. “I have always known there was something wrong in me. Something shameful. Ever since I was a girl, there was a—a hidden face. A far side. And tonight, I saw it when they all ran.” I dared a glance at him, tears slipping down my cheeks. “When they all ran from the great hall screaming.”

“Mouse, I have a far side too.”

I wiped my eye with the back of my hand.

“Shh.” He beckoned for me to come closer, so I pushed away my chair and curled up in his lap. “I adore this hidden face of yours. Your far side. Your cunning. For all Hal was, he did not understand our torments. We were taken from our families so young. You were—what? Six? Seven?” I lifted my head and nodded. “Seven. We were taught by Prospero to serve others, to become their tools. And so you grew your claws and teeth to protect yourself from being hurt. How could you of all people be a tyrant? Your magic is empathy itself. To feel what others feel. Consider this: the king and Fulke do not walk in different bodies as you do. They are only concerned with themselves.”

“I used to wonder if you liked hurting people.”

He sighed. “If I hurt people in the past, it hurt me, too. I was careless. I was searching for meaning in others. I thought I loved plenty of them. Since then, that love has been … re-contextualized.”

“By what new information?”

“A girl.” He corrected himself. “A woman. At first, I didn’t understand her. She was complex. A little hardened toward me, and the world. And now understanding her has become the most important thing to me. Before I saw her again, I would have said I had been in love a handful of times. Now I know she has been the only one. I can love you completely because the piece of you that loved him is in me, too. I think of Hal always, and I will think of him forever. I would never tell you to be rid of him.”

I often struggled with my words. So I poured all I felt into his mind, each emotion rich in texture and color, deepened and hardened by so many years—the anticipation of seeing him again, the excitement when he was near. The agony when I’d learned he had been sent to the Tomb. The terror of losing him, and the terror of loving him.

That rendered him silent for a while. Then he brushed his lips across my wet lashes. “What was it you said to Cecily?”

When my eyes opened, I saw his were full of fire. “That I’d enjoy your bed.”

“Why don’t you enjoy it, then?”

When I smiled, he scooped me up and settled on the edge of the bed, me in his lap. My hair poured to my waist. He groaned to see it loose, running his fingers through the strands as they caught the light, murmuring, “Beautiful. So beautiful.” I pulled my shift over my head, and when I was bare and straddling his hips, his attention turned to my breasts. He was held rapt by them for a long time, sucking and teasing my nipples, whispering how perfect they were.