Long May She Reign(91)

I had to think. Think. Fitzroy had reason to silence his father, but to kill everybody, and not make a move for the throne himself? To help me in my investigations—and he had helped, he had brought me closer to the truth—and defend me against Sten? I’d seen him in the Fort, the morning after the banquet, and again after I was crowned. He’d been distraught. He had looked like he could not make sense of what was happening, like he didn’t quite believe the pain was real.

I wasn’t good at reading people, but Fitzroy . . . Fitzroy had been so raw. He was a good performer, when he wanted to be, but I’d seen him without that mask now, and I felt certain I’d seen his true feelings then. His face in that moment, the agony there . . .

Madeleine had been sad, too. Madeleine had grieved. But always in that sophisticated, wonderful Madeleine way, so perfect, with none of the messiness that Fitzroy and Naomi had displayed. And she had been out of the capital when the attack occurred, safe and free from suspicion. If I hadn’t left the palace, she would have inherited the throne. And when the poison was a food dye, intended to be in the meal, included on the king’s orders . . . who would ever suspect her of murder, even as a painter who had used the color before?

She’d said she was away from the capital because of an illness, one that seemed to have no clear cause. “Melancholy,” the doctor called it, but Madeleine said she’d never had such a stomachache from melancholy before. Stomachache, a sign of mild arsenic poisoning. Arsenic like in the paints she used.

And Madeleine licked her paintbrushes. I’d seen her do it, smoothing the bristles on my makeup brushes. If there had been traces of King’s Yellow there, it could have given her that stomachache, and if she’d realized the source . . .

Had that given her the idea?

I did not want to believe it. But it was possible. It was beyond possible.

When I got back to the Fort, I did not order guards. I did not make a scene. I walked into Madeleine’s rooms to find her sitting in an armchair, a book propped open on her lap. Our eyes met, and Madeleine’s lips parted, her face paling slightly. And I knew. There was such a resigned look on Madeleine’s face. She stood, her skirts flowing around her like water, never looking away.

“It was you.” I was surprised by how calm I felt, how clear. Now it was fact, now I knew, it didn’t seem worth screaming about. “You killed them.”

“I didn’t put the poison in the cake,” she said, in the same soft tone I’d heard from her before, whenever she discussed the deaths. “But I introduced him to that dye, yes.”

“Why?” There was so much I needed to say, but that question pushed away everything else. Why.

“It needed to be done.”

“You needed to kill all your friends?”

“I did not know he would do it,” Madeleine said. “I did not force him to act as he did. I knew he would like it, for the extravagance, but I did not know—I did not know he would fill a dish with it at the banquet.”

“Why? Why would you do this?”

Madeleine tilted her chin upward, meeting my gaze without flinching. “You know I loved the court, when I first came here. It was so lively. Every day had a new distraction. I felt like I belonged, like it made up for everything I’d lost. And then, a couple of years ago, I was sick for the first time. I spent several months back in the country, painting, walking, meeting new people and learning how to breathe. And when I returned . . . I saw it, Freya. I saw it for what it really was. The vanity of it, the waste. The day I returned, we had a huge party in the garden of the palace. The theme was gold. Gold flakes in the food, gold flakes in the water, gold on the dresses and in people’s hair. It was a celebration of the peace and goodness of the court, the peace we’d had for so long. And I stood in the middle of it, seeing how ugly it was. Seeing how no one had really cared for my absence. No one cared about me, no one cared about anyone. They just wanted to have fun, and to be more fantastic than anyone else. The next day, I went to the king. I’d seen people struggling, and I wanted to help. But when I asked him for money, he laughed at me. He said I was too much like my cousin, and the crown did not have the funds to waste. The countryside dealt with its own affairs. He had the money to let his whole court literally eat gold, but not to make sure others were fed. And from then on, I saw it, Freya. I saw what Gustav was talking about, as I know you have. We needed change. We needed it. And it wasn’t going to happen by itself.”

“Because the Forgotten must return?”

“The Forgotten aren’t real, Freya. We’re deluding ourselves to think they are. The people who lived here before were just people, with skill and knowledge we don’t have. And we’ll never have them, because we think we must wait for the Forgotten to give them to us. We use that myth as an excuse. Things were broken, Freya. And someone needed to fix them.”

I stared at her. “That was your reason?” There must have been more. That couldn’t be it.

“Would it be better, if I had something more dramatic to offer? Some personal grievance, some cry for revenge? Ambition for myself, perhaps? Surely it would be worse, to hurt people for such selfish reasons. I wanted to help. I wanted to create a better kingdom. And I believe I have.”

“Don’t pretend you intended me to be queen. That you didn’t think it would be you.”