Page 97 of The Court of Venus

The sea parted, and three women emerged. They carried their heads.

I rose to my feet, nearly stumbled as gusts whipped through my hair. The three women set their heads back on their necks at odd angles. Gertrude’s ghost remained deeper in the surf, waves crashing through the window of her body, but Alice and Eleanor walked up to meet me by the dunes.

I turned to Eleanor. Her face was rounder, more childish than I remembered. She trembled in a chill she could not feel. “We found the blood cipher hidden in your Book of Hours,” I accused. “We nearly died.”

“And did you discover the secret?” Her voice was faint, nearly lost in the howling winds.

“You knew what exaltation did to Marguerite. Was Roland’s life so expendable to you?”

“We had no choice,” she said simply. She gestured to the other ghosts. “All of us, offered up to serve the king’s whims. My own father and uncle offered me. None of us loved truly or laughed freely. Prospero was researching exaltation long before I was married to Richard. He became more frantic about it toward the end. He was close. That consumed him. I found him working late at night, and he took pity on me because he knew the king had already tired of me, and through me, him. Together, we tried to provide the king with alternatives. A longer lifespan, for one. We were trying to survive. Do you blame us for that? Venus was not the only planet we were researching—Prospero believed every magician had the potential to be exalted, every planet capable of wondrous things. But he never managed to find out what causes the change to occur.”

“If he had, would you have offered Roland to the king?”

“Yes,” she said, without hesitation.

“There was a star chart hidden in the book as well. A Final Breath. It is only days away now. Whose death is it?”

“You know who it is.” The wind carried Eleanor’s words away, scattering them. “Prospero and I had years to prepare.”

But I didn’t know. I reached for a handful of sand and filtered it through my fist. Who was important enough? Whose death would loom so large in Prospero’s and Eleanor’s minds?

The relief arrived first, because it wasn’t Roland.

It was King Richard.

“The king now blames Roland for his failures, just as he once blamed Prospero,” I told Eleanor. “Roland has few friends at court. How do I save him?”

It was Alice Seton who answered. “My advice is this: The king cares not for how long he has been loyally served. He cares not for promises or flattery or pleading. He is incapable of sifting through truth and lies. He cannot be told truths—he must be shown them.”

Gertrude’s eyes bored into mine. “You loved my son.”

The other two women blinked in shock.

“Yes,” I told Gertrude, taking a step toward her. “I loved him so much. He was—” I broke off and took a deep breath. “All my goodness was his.”

“All of mine as well.”

“When he died—”

“Died? What a passive word that is. Hal was murdered,” said Gertrude. She was even stonier in death than she had been in life. “I questioned Prospero after the inquest. He said he believed Hal killed himself rather than live a false life with a woman he didn’t love. That was a lie. I know my son. Hal wanted to be king, to create a better Alvion for us all. He had waited years for his father to see him as a man, and Richard finally did. Richard was so proud of the son I gave him. His boy, his dynasty. I did my duty, only for someone to rip it away.”

“Time is running short,” Eleanor cut in.

I glanced down, frantic. The waves lapped against the dunes now. My slippers were under water, my feet red and numb.

“What will you do?” asked Alice. She studied me in a curious, catlike way. Waiting for my response as if it dangled between us and she was readying to pounce.

Gertrude lifted her head and repositioned it on her neck. “She will avenge my son.”

The wind whipped the whitecaps into a frenzy. The three women waded into the sea, unmoved by the cold. “Wait!”

But they were gone as quick as they came.

“Wait!” I shouted again. I ran into the water, chasing after them, but only curtains of seaweed floated there.

“I’ve been waiting,” murmured a voice.

A voice like this very tide, always drawing away. Another secret I could have told Roland: I was terrified to fall asleep, because sometimes when I woke from a long nap in the gardens, I forgot Hal was dead. For a few blissful moments, he was alive for me again, until I remembered.