Long May She Reign(37)

“Your father made you come onto the dais, for the fire-eaters.”

“He did. I survived, I sat back down, things went on. Until the end of the feast.”

“With the cake?”

“Yes. With the cake. Every part of it was gold, so obviously he wasn’t going to waste any on me. He wanted to make a point. So everyone around me got a piece, and I got plain sponge. Just plain. Everyone commented on it, so I made some stupid joke, acted like the plain sponge was the real prize, since no one else had it.”

“Were you upset?” There was something about this rawer, quieter Fitzroy that made me shift closer. He was compelling, almost magnetizing—all the things his usual persona tried so hard to be. Succeeded in being, for everyone but me.

“Was I upset? A bit, I guess. But I’m used to it. That’s just my life, isn’t it? Or it was. And it turned out I was lucky. Gerald was next to me, acting completely normal, and then he started coughing. Acting like he couldn’t breathe. I asked him if he was all right, and he turned away and threw up. And before I could even react to that, everyone else around me started reacting, too.”

“All at once?”

“No,” he said, a little quieter. “Not all at once. That was the most frightening thing. A lot of people fell ill at the same time, but people kept getting ill. Everyone was terrified, pushing and shoving to get out of the hall, as though the outside would save them.”

I closed my eyes, heart pounding. I could picture every breath of it. I didn’t want to, tried to shove the images away, but they burst to life before my eyes, all the faces I’d seen for years, the golden plates clattering on the floor, the terror of it. “I’m sorry.”

Fitzroy swallowed. “People didn’t know. They felt dizzy, or felt sick, and they thought it was poison, so they panicked . . . but it could have been panic making some of them unwell. We didn’t know.”

“How did you feel?”

“I was watching everyone I knew suffer and die. How do you think I felt?”

I flinched. “I just—I’m trying to understand.”

“So am I,” Fitzroy said. “I didn’t know what to do. You think, if something terrible happened, you’d do the right thing. Maybe not be the hero, but do something. I just stood there. Gaping. Then the guards grabbed me and hauled me out of the palace.”

“Why?”

“Why was I such an idiot, or why did the guards grab me?”

“You aren’t an idiot.” I’d called him that in my head a hundred times, but one brief conversation with him was enough to prove that wasn’t true. It had never been true. He was . . . I wasn’t sure what he was. But he wasn’t an idiot. “I mean, why did the guards—”

“I guess they thought I might be king, with my father dead.”

So there had been at least some movement toward crowning Fitzroy that night. Some assumptions. “Did you want to be king?”

“What, then?” He laughed. It was a painful sound. “It was pretty much the last thing on my mind.”

I couldn’t bear to look at him. I fixed my eyes on the floor, breathing in and out. “I’m sorry,” I said. “About your father.”

Silence. Then: “At least I survived. That’s more than most people can say from that night.”

“Yes. I suppose it is.” My hands shook and I felt an unexpected urge to comfort Fitzroy. Instead I said, “You’re being very honest with me.”

“Isn’t that what you want?”

“Yes. But—” I didn’t know how to explain it. “I didn’t really expect you to be. I thought you’d laugh at me.”

“You are the queen.”

“That didn’t stop you from mocking me earlier.”

“I didn’t mean—” He ran his hand through his hair again. The gesture made him look vulnerable—far softer than the laughing, boisterous Fitzroy I was used to seeing at court. “I was just being ridiculous, Freya. I make jokes. It’s how I survive.”

“How you survive?” That was a bit melodramatic.

“Of course. I was a threat to pretty much everybody there. I still am, I guess. So I had to make people like me.”

“You didn’t consider just being nice?” I didn’t mean to attack him, but the questions poured out of me, demanding to be answered.

“Nice? In this court? Not for me. People would think I was weak and tear me apart. Or think I was being manipulative, and tear me apart.”

“So you make fun of them instead?”

He sighed. “I didn’t mean to make fun of you. I was just—it’s awkward, all right? All of this is awkward. I thought you would laugh. But you didn’t. And I’m sorry.”

It was a strange feeling, to believe him. “Is that why you were honest with me? Because you felt guilty?”

“I don’t—” Another sigh, definitely frustrated now. “I don’t know where you got your opinion of me, Freya, but it’s not true. I was honest with you because I have nothing to hide. I’ve seen you, over the past few days. You seem honest. I’m not sure that’s such a good thing, from your perspective, but I trust you. I don’t know. Something about you makes me want to trust you.”