Page 96 of The Court of Venus

“No. Nothing good can come from such knowledge.”

“Very wise.” He nodded to himself. “I’d warn you: Do not try and meddle with the future. Nothing will change; the course is set. Your actions will only aid it in coming to pass. Though, I admit, I’m intrigued who this death belongs to.”

From the throne, he rolled the crumpled chart back to me, studying my face for any reaction. I gave him none. Still, my voice stalled in my throat. “What of payment?”

“I’d ask to know whose fate is predicted in this chart here, but you don’t know either, do you? Hmm.” He tapped his chin. “You know, petitioners bring me gold and cloth, but my true wealth is the stories my dead tell me. Buried skeletons are not so frightening when you are already a ghost.” He peered down, an adder about to strike. “For example. Prince Hal refused to marry the emperor’s daughter because of you. True? A magician girl, nearly a princess of Alvion?” Balthasar’s nails rapped against the arm of his throne. Though his tone was gentle, he’d intended violence.

I understood why Prospero had shuddered whenever he heard Balthasar’s name.

What did people think when they heard mine? For what were names but someone else’s idea of what we were, or could be? Bianca, for my shock of white hair. Mouse, for my scurrying. Princess of Alvion never fit, no matter how much Hal wanted it for me. He believed I could wear such a title without becoming his shame.

“Who told you that?” I whispered.

“Your master. Did he lie to me?”

The idea that Prospero knew about Hal and me—impossible. We’d gone to such lengths.

His head tilted to the side. “You cannot imagine how I suffered when Prospero broke our treaty. The emperor was enraged. He planned to close all trade to Alvion, sent missives to Lionesse to declare himself their new ally. His daughter was bereft. She’d fallen in love with Hal’s portrait. Carried it around wherever she went. All because a foolish little magician thought she might be queen one day. I stepped in. Your master sent you away.”

I shook my head no. No, no, no. It couldn’t be true.

“Oh, yes. You had to be put in your place. I did not want to see Alvion suffer for such a small, insignificant thing.”

“Why?” I managed.

“I was born in Alvion. It was my first home.” I had thought I had heard remnants of an accent. “But now,” he continued, “I have a new home. And it is not Bastian. You see, for a Saturn, death is not a state of being, Bianca Mortlake. It is a place.”

He gestured toward the door at the end of the chamber, the wretched old man carved above it. Our audience, it seemed, was over. “Step into my otherrealm. Call for your dead. You have until high tide. And do not forget: The dead are in stasis. They cannot feel, cannot learn—anything you share with them that they did not already know in their lifetime will be forgotten by morning.” His eyes followed me, though he did not turn his head. “Oh—and Bianca Mortlake?”

“Yes?”

“I am most eager to see who arrives in my domain in four days’ time.”

I was spat onto a gray beach, the waves thrashing and cruel. Mist crawled down from the line of dunes. The scene was faint, as if conjured from memory, a piece of childhood chiseled away.

The stone archway leading back to Balthasar’s audience chamber hovered on the brink of the dunes, and the icy tide was already coming in, dragging back the sand beneath my feet as it advanced. Somewhere, there must be another doorway that connected this otherrealm to the land of the dead. Prospero lay beyond it.

When I was a girl, he would urge me to try and sleep. After blowing out my candle and wresting the book from my lap, he’d tell me to kick beneath my sheets to tire myself out. After a quarter hour of kicking, I never tired. And now, I would scream and kick until he showed his face.

“Prospero! Prospero, I’m here! It’s Bianca! Prospero, I’m here!”

The horizon was still.

“PROSPERO! COME OUT! SPEAK TO ME!” I had never shouted as loud as I did then, thundering his name until my voice was hoarse. I gathered stones and threw them as hard as I could into the surf. “PROSPERO, SPEAK TO ME. PROSPERO, I’M HERE!”

My anger rose again, and I wiped away my tears, threw stone after stone into the water. I cupped fistfuls of wet sand and began throwing that too, once I’d run out of nearby rocks and shells. “It’s me. Prospero, you bastard. Was your plan for Roland to die for you? Prospero! I’m waiting for you!”

Roland was right. He wouldn’t answer. I tossed more sand, sinking first to my knees, then my heels. Eventually, my voice gave out. “Father. Please, Father. Roland has taken your place, and he is surrounded by enemies at court. I don’t know what to do, not without your guidance. Help me save his life. Prospero, please! Help me!”

He was either a coward or indifferent. And a small, wounded part of me wondered if what I’d mistaken for his love was merely a tolerance.

I collapsed onto my back, breathing hard, and as I stared up at the bruised sky, I whispered, “Do you remember the first time I called you Father? You held my hand and led me up to bed with Grace, the maid I loved who slipped me oranges from your kitchen. You must remember. You blushed whenever she was around. The sweat took her that one terrible summer. But that night, I kissed your cheek and said, ‘Good night, Father.’ It was a slip. I was so ashamed. I remember flinching. But you laughed and said, ‘Good night, Daughter.’ That night, I smiled as I wept. I giggled into my pillow, saying, ‘Father, Father. My own father.’ Why claim me if you were only going to throw me away? I was a child.”

I blinked up at the unmoving clouds. I floated and was carried out to sea, then returned to shore. “I was only a child,” I murmured to him.

As I lay on the sand, my arms spread wide, my body stinging and itching with salt, I whispered another name, hoping she might hear me.

It was as if she had been awaiting my call.