But then the queen’s threats float back to me, laced with the crackle of the fire.
“Even if I wanted to”—I return my attention to the worktable—“I can’t.”
“Why not? I have plenty of coin to pay you.”
The hot wax of my insides solidifies in an instant. I almost forgot—she had to pay Delphine in order to be admitted. And part of that payment will trickle down to me. Pearl’s comment from dinner strikes home, that the princess is only fascinated with me because I am grotesque. “Because I’m a pet you can toy with and then throw away when you’re bored?”
I storm to the hearth and snatch up the poker, taking out my anger on the half-crumbled logs. The fire coughs and spits black soot. The smell of ash burns against my throat.
“I didn’t mean that. I just— I thought this was how it worked with the Graces.”
“You can’t just pretend to be a patron.” I’m being harsher than necessary, but I don’t care. “And I don’t know how I feel about you paying to spend time with me. As if I’m some kind of— of pleasure Grace.”
A few beats of strained silence thrum.
“I didn’t think of it like that.” Her voice is small. “I’m sorry. I wanted to see you again and you wouldn’t come to me. You left in such a rush after dinner. I can guess why.”
Swiping my sleeve over the soot on my brow, I set the poker down. But I don’t look at her. Don’t admit what happened.
“I’m not an idiot.” Aurora puts herself in my way when I try to slide past. “I know how my mother can be. Do you think you’re the first friend she’s chased off?”
“I have absolutely no idea.”
“Why do you think I told you to meet me in the servants’ halls? Slipped my guards and came here? I don’t pay to see all my friends, you know.”
Some of the tension between my shoulder blades unspools. Aurora wanted to see me badly enough to plan out the particulars.
“Though, I admit, something to turn my guards into toads would have been most useful.” She notices Prince Markham on a nearby table and sticks her finger through the slats of his cage, rubbing his warty head. He lets out a sound that might be a toad purr.
“I can’t do that with an elixir.” She frowns. “And I can’t go back to the palace. Not to see you. Not even in secret. Your mother was very clear.”
“I’m sure she was,” Aurora grumbles. “When I was little, it was the servants’ children. The second one of us started spending too much time with a kitchen girl or maid’s daughter, my mother would pack that family away to another post. Especially the boys. Once, I pointed out that any one of them might be our true love and I was locked in my rooms for a full day.” She picks up a handful of black toadstools and lets them fall back into their bowl. “Of course, that wasn’t as bad as the time I suggested one of the girls might break our curse. For that I got a week.”
I bristle, but can’t explain why. “But they might have. There would be no shame in it. I’ve never understood why your suitors have to be men. The early queens used to take consorts of both genders.”
“Yes,” she agrees. “The early queens also never married. They would have children with multiple men sometimes, as it suited them. Until Catalina.”
That’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time, though I know it well. A Briarian marquess broke Catalina’s curse, and she was besotted with him. But he had ambitions beyond that of a consort. If Catalina wanted him, she would have to marry and remain faithful to him. Catalina was so in love that she penned a marriage contract immediately, and even appointed her new husband to be lord commander of the military. It seemed an innocuous title at the time, when the realm knew only peace. But her decision soon proved a dangerous precedent to set. Every other queen followed Catalina’s lead, marrying their curse breakers and carving up the various pieces of sovereignty, until only crumbs remained.
“But Catalina’s actions don’t explain why you’re restricted to kissing men,” I argue, surprised at the force in my own words. “You should be able to marry whomever you choose. Heirs can be conceived in other ways.”
“I need someone like you on my council one day,” she muses, smiling. My cheeks heat. “And you’re right—which is why the early queens never bothered with marriage. Truthfully, I think there have been instances in which a princess’s curse was broken by a woman. But they were quickly covered up. I imagine the poor girls were probably lesser nobles or servants, even. Easily paid off and sent away.”