Kel could not see what was admirable about setting a perfectly good cake on fire, but he knew he was supposed to look impressed when a piece of the phoenix dessert was placed in front of him, shimmering on a gold plate. It was sponge cake in hard, shining icing, like the carapace of a beetle.
He almost didn’t want to eat it. It had always seemed one of the greatest tragedies of the Sundering to him that not only had the world lost almost all magic, but that creatures like phoenixes and dragons, manticores and basilisks, had vanished overnight.
Still. He picked a piece of icing off the cake in front of him and put it in his mouth. It seemed to explode in flavors stronger than any he had ever experienced, a thousand times the sweetness of apples, mixed with spice and the perfume of flowers. He pressed his tongue against the back of his teeth, half dazed with the savor of it.
He wished he could close his eyes. Everything seemed both as if it were fading and too clear at the same time. He could hear his own heart beating, and beyond that the voices of nobles chattering and laughing, with a sound like knives tearing through silk. He knew that, under the laughter, they were dueling with their words, insulting and challenging and praising one another in a language he knew, but did not understand.
Through the fringed curtain of his lashes, he saw the King looking at the phoenix cake. There was a sort of weary loathing on his face that surprised Kel. Certainly a monarch could not feel so strongly about pastry; the King must be thinking about something else.
Kel slipped further toward sleep as the night went on; apparently there was only so long that being terrified could keep one awake. Eventually he slipped his knife into his lap. Every time he found himself drifting off, he would close his hand around it and the pain would jolt him back awake.
The banquet did not seem to end so much as fade away. First one group left, and then another. Joss Falconet waved to him as he departed alone. Antonetta kissed his cheek, which set his heart tripping faster and made him blush hard enough that he could only hope no one noticed.
The music softened into silence. The peacock feathers, drowned under their weight of gold paint, drooped like the heads of sleepy children. The fire had burned down to cherry embers by the time everyone was gone from the room save the royal family and the King’s adviser.
And Kel.
“Well, I thought that all went rather well, darling,” the Queen observed. She was still seated at the table, delicately peeling the green skin from a sweet dalandan with her long fingers. “Considering how difficult the Sarthians like to be about every little detail.”
The King did not reply. Instead he stood up, looking down at Kel. It was like being regarded by a giant. “The boy is peculiarly literate,” he said. His voice was gravelly, deep as a drowned city. “I thought he would have little knowledge save what he had picked up on the streets.”
“He is from one of Your Highness’s orphanages,” said Bensimon. “They have books, teaching. Royal generosity at work.”
“He ate like a starveling thing,” said the Queen, separating the coral flesh of the dalandan from its white core. Her voice was sandpaper and honey. “It was unseemly.”
“He recovered from the mistake,” said Bensimon. “That is important. And he did well with Antonetta Alleyne. She is a friend of Conor’s. If she did not notice the difference, then who would?”
Kel cleared his throat. It was strange to be talked about as if he were not there. “I’d like to go back now.”
The Queen lifted her eyes from her fruit. The King and Bensimon both looked silently at Kel. He tried to imagine rising to his feet, stretching out a hand, and saying, Thank you, but I am leaving now. He could bow politely, perhaps. Someday this would be a story he would tell—his one night of seeing what power looked like up close. Of realizing that it had a feeling like velvet against your skin at one moment, and the edge of a blade the next.
But he knew better than that. This was never meant to be a story he could tell.
“Back?” said the Queen. “Back to your filthy orphanage, is that it? Not very grateful.” She licked her thumb. “Bensimon. You said he would be grateful.”
“He does not yet know the true purpose of his visit,” said Bensimon. “If you find him acceptable, I will explain it to him. He will then, I expect, be very grateful indeed.”
The Queen frowned. “I don’t think—”
“He is acceptable,” said the King. “As long as Conor agrees.” He snapped his fingers. “Make your explanations, Mayesh. I will be in the Star Tower. It is a clear night.”
With that, he turned on his heel and left. The Queen, a darkly rebellious gleam in her eye, departed flanked by Castelguards, without another look at Kel.
It was as it had been before, no one in the room but Kel and the King’s Counselor. Though now, the remains of food were scattered across the table. The musicians had gone, the fire burned down to ash.
Kel curled and uncurled his hand under the table. It was sticky with blood. He looked at Bensimon. “You said . . . I would be going back.”
“I did not know if the King would find you acceptable or not,” said Bensimon. “It seems he did. Get up. We are not done yet.”
Kel hated it when adults said we when what they meant was you. He frowned as he once again followed Bensimon through the winding corridors of the Palace. Many of the torches had been put out; he could no longer see the contents of the Palace rooms and stumbled as they made their way up a massive stairway, which seemed to curve in on itself like the whorl of a seashell.
Another few turns and Bensimon was leading him down a marble hall and into a grand room. This room, at least, was lit, and decorated in soft hues of fawn and blue. A velvet-draped bed stood in one corner, and next to it, a smaller bed, which puzzled Kel. Was one bed for a parent and the other a child? Yet there were no other signs of children: The furniture was polished mahogany with ivory pieces set in; the paintings on the walls depicted Lotan, the Father of the Gods, with his three sons: Ascalon, Anibal, and Aigon. War, death, and the sea. An iron spiral staircase led up through an opening in the ceiling.
Spread across a nearby table was a clutter of different weapons. Kel knew nothing about weapons and could not have named most of them, though he guessed some to be daggers and others, short-swords. They had delicately incised handles of ivory and jade, studded with gems in different colors.
There was a slight commotion at the door. Kel looked up to a swirl of Castelguards outside, like an incursion of flames. In their midst was a boy, who passed through the door and closed it firmly behind him.
Bensimon straightened up; he did not seem surprised. “Prince Conor.”
Kel felt his stomach drop. Here was the boy he’d been impersonating. A boy who had clearly never been sick. He gathered, now, that it had all been a test—and that this was somehow the final part.
The Crown Prince was all in steel blue, just like Kel. He was not wearing a circlet, but Kel would have known him for a prince regardless. He was tall for his age, with his mother’s fine features, and there was a sort of leaping flame behind his eyes and laughing expression on his face that made Kel want to smile at him, which was startling enough in itself. He knew the boy ought to be terrifying—he was royalty—and he was, and yet Kel wanted to smile at the Prince all the same.