Spindle Fire (Spindle Fire #1)(48)

She runs her fingers over the model. “It’s cracked,” she notices.

“Philip wasn’t impressed by the idea. He said oil was too expensive.”

Isbe imagines the prince’s older brother throwing the cannon models on the floor in derision as she moves her hand back to the warships, feeling the delicacy with which their sails were carved, wondering what William is getting at. . . .

“Isabelle of Deluce, I’ll do my best to help you and your sister.”

“Wait. What?”

“Even if she doesn’t awaken,” William goes on, “we can certainly arrange for a marriage announcement—no one will have to know the difference. Aubin is almost as good as Deluce at covering up a scandal.”

The idea that Aurora may never recover causes Isbe’s guts to twist. But this is good news. He will help her. “Why? What made you decide?”

William sighs. “I do know what it’s like to lose a sibling, Isabelle. Even one not as beloved as yours is to you. I’ve lost two. It’s like a lantern sputtering out in a dark tunnel. There are times when I think about how I’m going to lead Aubin into a brighter future, and I am overwhelmed by the impossibility of it.” He pauses. “You know, I used to love looking at the stars at night. I used to think they were put there to guide us. Now I know they are just watching and winking, mute observers, bemused by our failures and our loss.”

She has never heard anyone talk this way before. Of stars and of loss. How can the man who sculpted such meticulous objects out of ivory, who speaks so rhapsodically about the night sky, be the same man who rudely knocked her to the floor when he first saw her—the man who deeply insulted her kingdom and its people?

She never spent much time thinking about the personalities of the Aubinian princes. Most of her and Aurora’s gossip had been about their looks and reputations. But she’s beginning to feel that William is contradictory and strange. With his velvet cloak. With his smell of lime. With his swaying-tree voice and his slamming-door laugh. But he has a heart—he must, for he seems moved by her desire to save Aurora. Moved enough to help.

“So you’ll come with me to Deluce, and you’ll help me establish the alliance,” Isbe says carefully.

“I will. But there are conditions,” he adds.

“Which are?”

“We need your oil.”

His statement lands heavy as a boulder. So it isn’t empathy that’s convinced him. His decision is tactical: he wants Delucian oil for his fancy cannon design.

Anticipating her next question, he goes on: “Like I said, we’re an efficient country. We’ve spent all of our money on warships, not on whaling vessels. We could accrue our own sources of oil—but not as quickly as we would need, if we are to implement these weapons in time.”

Isbe swallows. She imagines the narwhal that narrowly freed itself from the harpoon, spinning through the darkness of the North Sea, its tusk pointing the way like a glowing sword, the bloody wound in its shoulder reddening the waters as it dives. And she knows there are far larger, far greater beasts of the sea that have died and must die in order to provide all of Deluce’s oil.

But then she thinks of Gil, promising his luck away to Binks for information. For her.

“What’s your answer, then?” the prince asks. “Shall we stand on the same side of this war?”

Isbe takes a breath, then holds out her hand for him to shake. “You have a deal.”

She had almost forgotten what it feels like to enter or exit through an actual door. Isbe turns her face to the sun now, blinking, taking in its distant warmth. The new cloak William gave her smells fresh and clean, like the winter air that whispers along the bare part of her neck as she allows the prince to lead her, arm in arm, through the palace gates.

When William told her over a breakfast of warm bread, salted fish, and bubbling, runny eggs, that it would be a danger to travel under his banner—that he’d be a moving target after the death of his brothers—she suggested they dress as peasants and journey as husband and wife.

But the prince dismissed the idea. “The ports are still closed. If I issue an order to reopen them, it will draw attention to our departure. We must take the land route, which is easily a week’s journey. And what with fears of the sickness, it’s likely no inn will accept us along the way. Luckily—”

“I have an idea,” they both said at the same time.

He let her go first.

Isbe’s idea was to travel by way of the trade route along the river, and then cross the South Sea at the land bridge, using the convent at Isolé as a safe haven before making the rest of the journey through Deluce. She didn’t mention to him why she thought of Isolé—that it was the very place to which the Delucian council had planned to send her on the eve of Aurora’s wedding. She knows nothing about it other than that it must be trusted by the council and therefore is likely safe.

As for William’s idea, he mentioned only that last night the ideal mode of travel occurred to him, and that he would show her in person.

Now, as he leads her across the palace grounds and into the castle village, a church bell gongs six times. They move past the church, where she hears the whinnying of two horses, and the shuffle of leather straps and buckles. A carriage.

Surely he isn’t suggesting they take a royal carriage! She turns to him and he explains. “I was thinking about the death of Edward and Philip. That’s what gave me the idea to travel as they did.”