Seraphina(83)

Lady Corongi led me through the labyrinth of drying linens to the far corner of the room, where Princess Dionne awaited us, pacing like a caged lioness. This felt wrong. I stopped short; Lady Corongi hauled me forward. The princess sneered. “I suppose it would be fair to let you explain yourself, Maid Dombegh.”

The room had no other door and only the tiniest window, high up the wall, completely steamed over. I began to sweat in the heat; I couldn’t tell what she wanted explained. My dodging the bleed? My rumored dragonhood? Lady Corongi’s other accusation? All of these? I dared not guess. “Explain what, exactly, Your Highness?”

She drew a dagger from her bodice. “Kindly note: I was fair. Clarissa, hold her.”

Lady Corongi was shockingly strong for one so petite and genteel. She put me in a wrestling hold—“the belt buckle,” it’s called, though it’s like a buckle for the shoulders and neck. Princess Dionne moved as if to grab my left arm; I quickly presented her with my right. She gave a small nod and sniffed, satisfied that I was cooperating. I expected her to jab one of my fingers, but she pushed up my sleeves, wrenched my hand back, and drew her knife swiftly across my pale wrist.

I cried out. My heart was galloping like a horse. I jerked my hand away and a spray of red splotches bloomed across the linens hung in front of us like a field of poppies or some hideous parody of a bridal sheet.

“Well. That’s irritating,” said the princess, disgusted.

“No!” cried Lady Corongi. “It’s a trick! I have it on good authority that she reeks of saar!”

“Your good authority got it wrong,” said Princess Dionne, wrinkling her nose. “I smell nothing, and you don’t, either. Rumor changes with the telling; perhaps she wasn’t the one originally implicated. They all look alike, these common brutes.”

Lady Corongi let go of me; I collapsed to the floor. She lifted the hem of her gown fastidiously, pinkies raised, and kicked me with her pointy shoes. “How did you do it, monster? How do you disguise your blood?”

“She’s not a saarantras,” said a calm female voice from beyond the forest of sheets. Someone began crossing the room toward us, paying no attention to the maze, pushing linens aside and barging straight through. “Stop kicking her, you bony bitch,” said Dame Okra Carmine, letting the bloodied sheet fall in place behind her.

Princess Dionne and Lady Corongi stared, as if Dame Okra’s solid shape made a more convincing ghost than all the billowing sheets around her. “I heard a scream,” said Dame Okra. “I considered calling the Guard, but I decided to see what had happened first. Maybe someone merely saw a rat.” She sneered at Lady Corongi. “Close enough.”

Lady Corongi kicked me one last time, as if to prove that Dame Okra couldn’t stop her. Princess Dionne wiped her dagger on a handkerchief, which she tossed into a nearby hamper, and stepped genteelly around my prone form. She paused to glare down at me. “Do not imagine that being human is all it takes to regain my esteem, strumpet. My daughter may be a fool, but I am not.”

She took Lady Corongi’s arm, and the pair of them departed with the dignified air of noblewomen who have nothing to be ashamed of.

Dame Okra held her tongue until they were gone, then rushed to help me, clucking, “Why, yes, you are an idiot for following them into an empty laundry room. Did you imagine they had a fine pillowcase to show you?”

“I never imagined this!” I cradled my arm, which bled alarmingly.

Dame Okra recovered Princess Dionne’s handkerchief and wrapped my wrist. “You do smell of saar,” she said quietly. “A bit of perfume would cover that right up. That’s how I do it. Can’t let a little thing like parentage stand in our way, can we?”

She helped me to my feet. I told her I needed to get to the south solar; she pushed up her glasses with a fat finger and scowled at me like I was mad. “You need help, on multiple fronts,” she said. “My stomach is pulling two directions at once, which is highly irritating. I’m not sure which way to go first.”

We emerged upstairs in the vicinity of the Blue Salon. Dame Okra raised a hand in warning; I held back while she peered around the corner. I heard voices and footsteps, the sounds of Millie and Princess Glisselda heading away from the south solar, where they’d waited for a music lesson that never happened.

Dame Okra squeezed my elbow and whispered, “Whatever her mother may say, Glisselda’s no fool.”

“I know,” I said, swallowing hard.

“Don’t you be one either.”

Dame Okra pulled me around the corner, into the path of the girls. Princess Glisselda emitted a little scream. “Seraphina! Saints in Heaven, what have you done to yourself?”

“Looks like she has a good excuse for being late,” said Millie. “You owe me—”

“Yes, yes, shut up. Where did you find her, Ambassadress?”

“No time to explain just now,” said Dame Okra. “Take her someplace safe, Infanta. There may be people looking for her. And see to her arm. I have one more thing to attend to, and then I will find you.”

The handkerchief had soaked through; there was a streak of blood all the way down the front of my gown. My sight grew dim, but then there was a young woman at each of my elbows, propping me up, moving me on, chatting away. They swept me upstairs into an apartment I deduced was Millie’s. “… you’re nearly the same size,” Glisselda squealed excitedly. “We’ll finally have you looking pretty as can be!”