The Blood Spell (Ravenspire, #4)(79)

Dinah gritted her teeth and worked to sound like she regretted her choices. “I thought I could turn it around if I just had a little bit of time. And frankly, I was more concerned with how to protect my family and my quarter than with whether we still qualified for the betrothal. I should have thought about how that would appear to you. I’m sorry.”

The queen was silent for a moment as they walked. Finally, she said, “I’m concerned about protecting your family and your quarter as well. I’ll have the royal magistrate request the debt sheets from James’s creditors so we can verify the authenticity of your signature.”

They turned toward the center of the garden, where tall oaks with fat trunks spread their limbs over clusters of cheerful yellow, purple, and red flowers. The sky was more gray than blue now, and the wind had a bite to it.

Dinah scanned the area for the volshkyn bush but didn’t find it. “Thank you for your help, Adelene.”

The queen patted her arm and said quietly, “I’m getting into the habit of asking the royal magistrate to verify signatures lately.”

Dinah’s skin went cold. “Are you?”

She had to find that volshkyn bush. Quickly, before the queen became more suspicious of her and refused to let her harvest any. Her heart pounded in time with the far-off rumblings of thunder that shook the air over the distant sea.

Drawing in a deep breath, Dinah steadied herself. If the queen knew the truth about Dinah’s actions, she’d have already thrown Dinah in the dungeon.

“Tell me,” Adelene said, “how did you know Valeraine de la Cour?”

Dinah sent the queen a look of surprise and prepared to lie through her teeth. “We were girlhood friends. You know I was part of the merchant class before I met James. We drifted apart a bit after our marriages—hard to stay close when one of you is running an alchemy shop and the other is learning how to be a member of one of the head families—but we never lost touch. Why?”

Adelene frowned. “I was friendly with Valeraine. Our husbands were close. I never heard her mention you, and yet here you are with guardianship over Blue and the de la Cour property.”

Dinah matched the queen’s frown with one of her own. “And so you had the guardianship document checked for authenticity? You could have just asked me for the story behind it.”

“I did just ask you for a story behind the loss of your mansion and your business titles, and I learned that you had your solicitor fake James’s signature on official property deeds.” The queen’s voice was still soft, still sympathetic, but there was stone beneath it now.

Dinah infused her voice with hurt. “And you think that the fact that I had to stoop so low to avoid utter humiliation and homelessness means I would stoop that low again? For what? To have to take care of some mouthy girl and her decrepit farmhouse? How does that benefit me?”

The queen stopped walking and turned to face Dinah. “I don’t know. How does it benefit you?”

Dinah clenched her fists. Let the queen see anger. An innocent woman would be furious at the accusation. “It doesn’t benefit me, Adelene. I lost my husband, my home, my business empire, and my income in one fell swoop. A week later, I had to take guardianship over an old farmhouse, an alchemy shop, and a defiant girl who won’t even help me clean out her own root cellar, much less be of any assistance with anything else. My girls are miserable. I’d much rather be living at one of James’s cousins’ homes in the Chauveau quarter, but my responsibility to Valeraine keeps me at the de la Cours’.”

The queen held up her hand to stop the flow of Dinah’s words. “You made Blue go down into her root cellar?”

Dinah blinked. “Of everything I just said, that’s what you want to discuss? I realize the girl is a friend to your children, but, Adelene, she must be taken in hand. I asked her to do something as simple as go through the boxes of old belongings in the root cellar so we could organize them, and she barely spent twenty minutes working with me before she ran out of the house entirely.”

“Valeraine died in the root cellar. Blue was with her for hours after she died until Pierre got home and could fix the broken ladder and get to her.” Adelene’s tone was a slap, and Dinah quickly blinked a few tears into her eyes.

“Oh no. I didn’t realize Blue was with her when she died. Poor thing, I wish she would have just told me.”

“Blue doesn’t like to talk about it.” Adelene shivered as the wind picked up.

She was going to suggest turning back, and Dinah couldn’t leave. Not without a leaf from the volshkyn bush.

Quickly, Dinah said, “Speaking of Blue, she asked me to get something for her from your garden. A leaf of some plant from Morcant. Volsh . . . something.”

“Volshkyn?” Adelene looked puzzled. “She’s never asked me for that. Why does she need it?”

Why would she need it? Dinah scrambled for an acceptable reason and came up with the task Blue had set herself earlier in the day. “She’s making protection charms for the betrothal girls. I guess she needs that plant for the potion.”

The queen smiled. “That’s Blue. Always ready to try to fix what’s wrong.”

Dinah made herself smile in response. “Perhaps I’ve been too hard on her in my own grief. The upheaval of my world has been difficult to withstand.”