Long May She Reign(75)

“Empty sugar sacks over here,” Fitzroy said.

“Put them on the center table. Madeleine, Naomi, look for anything that might have contained water.”

“Especially if it has any fancy labeling on it,” Naomi said.

“Yes.” And I would look around for other clues—the cake recipe, perhaps, or remnants of the gold decorations.

I found nothing. The sugar tested negative for arsenic, and we couldn’t find any signs that water had been imported for the cake. I scraped my hands through my hair. There had to be something.

“What else goes into cake and icing?” I said. “What have we missed?”

“What about coloring?” Naomi said slowly. “The cake was golden yellow, right? What if the poison was hidden in there?”

Madeleine gripped the table. All the color rushed from her face. “No,” she said, in a strangled squeak. “Oh no.”

“Madeleine?” I ran over and grabbed her shoulder. She looked like she was about to be sick. “What’s wrong?”

“The color,” she said. “What if it was in the color?”

“What do you mean?”

She let out a shaky breath. “There’s a color, a beautiful vivid green, that has arsenic as one of its ingredients. It’s fine, you don’t eat it, but artists—when artists use it, they get lines on their fingernails. Black and white ridges, from the poison.” She scraped at her own painted thumbnail, until a bare patch peeked through. She held it out to me. White lines ran across the nail. “See? That’s just from painting with it. I don’t know what color was used in the cake, but what if it had arsenic as an ingredient, too? If nobody knew that . . . what if it was an accident? What if nobody meant it at all?”

Naomi frowned. “Why would you put poison in your paints?”

“Because artists will do anything to create the exact color they want. As long as they don’t eat the paints, it’s not going to kill them. But if someone didn’t know, if they got a new color, an exciting rare color that also contained arsenic, and they baked it into the cakes . . . the cakes would have been full of it. Every piece. Every single bite of it. It’s just dye. Just color. If you saw it, and you didn’t know . . . oh no no no.” She sank onto a kitchen stool. “What if they died for nothing? Nothing at all?”

“We don’t know that,” I said. “We don’t even know if there was poison in the dye. And if there was, someone could have used it on purpose. We don’t know. We have to find it, first.”

We searched through jars, looking for even a hint of the dye. The rich smell of spices tickled my nose, but we didn’t find anything even vaguely gold or yellow.

Four large jars like those that held spices had been left on the side of the counter. I hurried over and pulled off the lids. Nothing but darkness inside. I moved the lamp closer. The first jar was scraped clean. The second was the same. But in the third . . . in the third, a little yellow powder clung to the sides and to the base.

“Here. I found it.” It was difficult to tell in the dim light, but it looked the same as the cake. And how much yellow-gold powder could there be in a kitchen?

I used a spatula to scrap a few clumps of yellow powder out of the jar and deposit them in the zinc and niter bowl.

The dye dissolved. The zinc fizzed. Garlic smoke exploded out of the bowl.

My friends flinched back, but I stayed close, staring at the bubbling metal, the powder dissolving into nothing. Here it was. Here was the answer. I’d expected to feel more excited. More accomplished. Now I just stared at the mixture, horrifying certainty settling into my stomach. This was how the murderer had done it. This was what had killed them.

“All right,” I said. “All right. We found the source of the poison. So now we need to find the source of the dye.”

Madeleine let out a shaky breath.

“It wasn’t necessarily an accident,” I said. It couldn’t be. If it had been an accident, I had no defense against Sten. No one would believe me, not even if I had all the evidence in the world. “It’s a possibility, but—we have to keep investigating. We have to assume someone planned this.”

I picked up the jar. It was heavy and awkward to hold, but I wasn’t going to risk scraping out more powder now. I needed to take the rest back to the lab.

“Well, then. What are you lot doing down here?”

I jumped. Two men stood in the doorway, each holding a large sack. I could see gold candlesticks and decorative cups peeking through the top of each. I tightened my grip on the jar and stepped back. My hip banged against the counter. If they realized I was queen . . .

But they wouldn’t. Why would the queen be here, in the kitchens, dressed as simply as this? They’d think we were other looters, at worst.

“After the spices as well, are you?”

Madeleine stepped forward, smiling prettily, all trace of paleness and panic gone. “Oh, sirs,” she said. “Are you here to help with the cleanup? We’ve been struggling here. The queen’s council told us that more men would be following along soon enough. We’ve been trying our best, but, well, we’re not near strong enough to move everything by ourselves.” She watched them expectantly, that pleasant, hopeful smile still on her face.

The man stared at her. “That’s right,” he said. “We’re just here to help out.”