Long May She Reign(69)

“Lucy, I’ve told you,” Susan said, her voice harsher now. “Only very special people are queens and princesses. They’re not like you and me. I’m sorry,” she added again, seeming to address everyone in the room.

But I didn’t want her to be sorry. I knelt in front of Lucy. Small children usually made me uncomfortable—you never quite knew what they were going to do—but Lucy would clearly not accept uncertainty or dismissal. “I wasn’t a princess,” I said. “I was never one of those special people, and I became queen.”

Lucy nodded, like she suspected it all along. “We can only play in the playroom,” she said, as she let go of my hand. “You should come.” And she strode away.

“I mean no disrespect, Your Majesty,” Susan said, “but I do wish you hadn’t told her that. It’s no good to give them false hope. What these children need is food, a home, a chance for work when they’re older, maybe. Hope won’t keep them alive.”

After leaving our gift purses at the orphanage, our group began to walk back to the carriage. The driver had followed us most of the way through the streets, but the carriage couldn’t fit down the narrow alleys in this part of the city.

I was happy to walk again. It helped me think.

Playing with Lucy and the others had been surprisingly fun. She had a boldness that reminded me a little of myself when I was little, but was seemingly unconcerned with people’s reactions. It was impossible to be reticent around her.

She had been intelligent, too. Intelligent and brave. She’d achieve great things, if given the chance.

I moved to walk beside Holt. “I want to call a council meeting when we get back,” I said.

He nodded. “Are you planning to make a bigger donation?”

“I’m planning to get them what they need.” Surely I could find some way to fund a real place for the children to live.

Holt nodded again. “I’ll see that it’s done.”





TWENTY-TWO


“WE COULD DO SO MUCH,” I SAID TO FITZROY, FOR AT least the fourth time that night. “Just think about it. We have so many empty manors in the city after the attack. We could easily give one to them. We could even make it a day school, as well, for children who can’t afford tutors. Everyone would have a chance to learn.” I was practically bouncing on the spot from excitement, but Fitzroy didn’t look convinced.

“I don’t think people will be happy if you take away their houses,” he said, leaning against the central table of the lab. “They still belong to somebody. And how will you pay for it all?”

“The court is full of gold,” I said. “We could easily sell some of it.”

“And what about when that runs out? How will you get more?”

“That’s far in the future,” I said, even though I knew he was right. But the gold was wasted in the palace, and we had time to come up with more solutions. “We could ask people to pay to stay at court. We could trade more abroad. We could do lots of things.”

“Maybe sell this poison detector?”

“Maybe. If we ever figure it out.”

I turned back to my notes. Nothing had really reacted with the arsenic solution so far. The closest thing to a breakthrough had come from mixing the powder with spirit of niter—it had dissolved, reluctantly, and when I distilled the result, it left glassy crystals behind, almost like salt. It probably wouldn’t work as a test, but something was happening there. What if I added something else to make the reaction more obvious? Something to catalyze it?

I’d try metals first. “Could you prepare me some more baths of spirit of niter?” I said to Fitzroy, as I climbed off the stool.

“Got another plan?”

“Something like one.”

I crossed the room and considered the jars of metals.

I began to weigh out some copper. Beside me, Fitzroy pulled on his gloves, ready to measure the acid.

“I guess you never thought you’d be doing anything like this,” I said softly.

“What, playing with acid in the old torture room? That’s how I’ve always spent my evenings.”

I smiled. Then Naomi’s teasing words came back to me. It wasn’t possible that Fitzroy liked me, not in the way she had joked. It wasn’t possible for me to like him, not considering all that had happened, not when I hardly even knew him. He was—he was a presence that I was always aware of, my skin prickled when he accidentally brushed against me, my heart was beating a little faster as I thought of him, yes. And yes, scientifically, when I gathered that evidence together, perhaps an impartial observer would hear those facts and reach that conclusion. Possibly. But they’d be wrong.

However, a lot of things weren’t entirely logical right now. Like why Fitzroy was still here, when he’d known Sten so much longer, when he had no evidence that I hadn’t been involved.

“Why did you stay here?”

He was quiet for a long moment. “What do you mean?”

“When Sten left. You’ve known him for years, and you don’t hate him. You’ve barely known me a couple of weeks, and I’m not—” I removed the copper from the scales. “I’m not likely to win this. Anyone with good sense would have left. So why did you stay?”