But six hours later I open cottony eyes and the world continues to turn. My head aches and my ribs are so sore I can’t move without gritting my teeth, but I live.
I don’t let the bots touch my ribbons, though. I deserve this. I destroyed everything. Worse, I had salvation in my hands, and I threw it away. I stand utterly still while the bots whirl around my dressing stool, tossing layers of silk and satin over my head. I see nothing. I try to be quiet—I imagine Saber was working until five or six this morning, and I at least attempt to let him sleep.
But I want…I want someone who knew me when I was still a good person. I’m quite certain that label doesn’t fit me anymore. This isn’t what I planned or expected when I started this journey. I knew I was skirting decency—that selling Glitter wasn’t something I’d have done if I didn’t feel my life was in peril. But somewhere between my mother’s death and discovering the kind of morals I’m enabling via Saber, I’ve truly begun to wonder if this has all been a mistake.
I want Molli. As soon as I’m presentable, I leave my rooms. My vision feels like a tunnel as I turn down the long wing that houses the families of the lower nobility, and I’m desperate to reach her. A crowd is gathered at the end of the hallway, and I grumble under my breath. It’s the last thing I need right now. But as I draw nearer, I realize that among the many, many doors in this section of the palace, the one they’re surrounding is Molli’s. My heart begins to pound as trepidation roars in my mind.
“Excuse me,” I say softly, tapping one man on the shoulder. But I might as well be a gentle breeze for all the attention he shows me. Apprehension bubbles in my chest as the tension and chatter around me rise.
Then something, some pathos-drenched idiom from Giovanni’s lessons or maybe even before, whispers, Remember who you are. Instantly, reflexively, I cease my gentle tapping of shoulders and stand ramrod straight instead. “Make way,” I bark in as Queenly a manner as I can. “Royal business. Stand aside!”
Layers of people peel away as I stride forward, and I don’t feel guilty in the least as I finally near the door. What good is power if one cannot use it? There are yet more people inside the tiny atrium of Molli’s apartment, but at least the official guards in security livery are holding most of them at bay. One of them steps forward with his hands in front of him like he would stop me from going farther, but I shake my head, wave his hand away, and continue walking toward Molli’s bedroom.
He doesn’t try to stop me again.
The cramped interior manages to feel crowded even in the absence of a true crowd; I’d almost forgotten that her room is so small. Sometimes I wondered if the administration was trying to get her family to move out without actually evicting them. If there’s such a thing as being poor within the Palace of Versailles, the Percy family qualifies.
There’s water slopped all over the bathroom floor, and a white sheet has been draped over the form that lies there, sticking almost transparently in patches of wetness.
But the naturally golden hair spreading across the tiles in limp, damp waves is unmistakable. When I hear a guttural cry echo off the tiled walls, it takes several seconds for me to realize it’s mine. I’m on my knees beside the body in moments, and I know neither how I got there nor how many people I shoved out of the way. I yank the sheet toward me, and in the moment when my fingers have grasped the wet cotton but haven’t yet revealed her face, I indulge in the hope that I’m wrong.
Hands pull at my arms, my shoulders, but I push them away and reach for Molli’s body; I cradle her wet hair against my shoulder and feel water trickle down my skin, seeping through my bodice. It might as well be blood.
“What happened?” I ask, once my throat stops convulsing enough for me to speak.
“She drowned,” a medical aide says simply. She’s not the one who came to clean up after my mother. I’m glad.
“In a bathtub?” I demand, my words dripping with scorn.
The woman visibly tightens her jaw, then shakes her head. “Your…Grace? Her father says she’s been known to drink heavily. That can result…well…”
The aide seems to want to say more, but my eyes are fixed on Molli’s face. At the top of one cheekbone, I spot a shimmery residue that tells me all I need to know. With her strict parents and the dearth of luxury in her life, Molli’s always been one to overindulge when the opportunity presents itself. I should have remembered that. How much did she use? How much has the water already washed away?
“There was only one bot for the entire apartment,” the aide goes on, oblivious to the tears that have started rolling down my face anew. “So no one to assist her with her bathing. If she passed out and slipped under—she wouldn’t have felt any pain.” As though that makes any difference.
Whether she overdosed or simply took enough to fly her so high she couldn’t save herself, Molli is dead because of me. I clutch her body until the bathroom is tidied and the gurney has arrived to take her. Reluctantly, I let them lift her up and away from me. The woman offers to allow me to accompany the body to the morgue, but I shake my head.
“Where are her parents?” I ask.
“They were both pretty distraught. Due to their age, we thought it best to sedate them for a few hours. A nurse is sitting in the room with them.”
I nod numbly and follow the gurney out of the room. But when it reaches the lift, I hold back and simply watch as they take Molli down to the morgue, all alone.
Molli died because I gave her Glitter. And because she was too poor to afford extra bots. And because, in the end, I didn’t do enough for her. Two deaths, and both on my head. Their blood on my hands. When did I lose control?
I FEEL NOTHING as I walk slowly back toward my chambers. The hem of my dress is soaked, as is the front of my bodice, and it drags and weighs me down like a millstone. I’m certain I look awful, and that the people I see in the halls turn and whisper into their hands the moment I pass, but I don’t care.
My feet take me through the Salle du Sacre, the Guard Room, the Antechamber, the Salon des Nobels: four enormous rooms that lead to the Queen’s Bedchamber, but that are all technically “the Queen’s Rooms.” My rooms. Molli’s entire family apartment could have fit into any one of them.
As I approach the room that was once, and most famously, occupied by Marie-Antoinette, the double doors open automatically. At a word, they close behind me, and I stand alone in one of the finest rooms in the palace—no, one of the finest bedchambers in the entire world—and I hate myself.
When I start to shiver from the clammy damp of my clothes, I stumble toward the wardrobe, twisting my ankle when I misstep on my heels. My jeweled heels, each worth a fortune by itself. With a savage grunt I kick them off, and one hits the far wall, leaving a dark scuff. In sodden stockings I walk to my vanity, where the empty perfume diffuser sits. I take it in one cold hand, raise it close to my face, and study the angles of the cut glass that catch the light and sparkle, throwing off rainbows.
With a scream, I dash it against the wall.
The sound and sight of shattering glass make me feel better.
No, not better. I’m beginning to imagine that I might never feel better again. But different, momentarily. A canister of face cream follows the diffuser, globs of white smearing the walls and dripping down in thick stripes. Farther into the room, past the golden gate, a statue from the bureau. Then a decorative ceramic thimble that might actually be an antique. I don’t hesitate. Expensive smashes as loudly as cheap.
A familiar whir sounds in my ears and I turn to see two small cleaning-bots busily collecting crystal shards and misting purple cleaning solution over the smear of lotion. They’re far from the only bots in this room; I also have two dressing-bots devoted to me at any given time of the day. Does my schedule include a private visit from the royal modiste? Two more will be sent in to assist. Even when I lived with my parents, I usually had a bot to myself. I never thought of it as a safety precaution—in fact, I often found it exceedingly annoying.
But if Molli had had one…
I stop looking for porcelain or glass and just start throwing everything I can get my hands on. Shoes, jewelry, bedding, pillow after stupid, pointless pillow. Sealing wax and pens. My writing tablet, which makes five dents in the wall before the screen finally cracks, showing at last the rainbow shards that mean it’ll never display an intelligible word again. When there’s nothing else to throw, I grab the edge of my dressing table and lift with all my might. The spindly-legged table doesn’t stand a chance. It tips precariously, then falls, its curlicue-edged mirror exploding against the golden rail with an earsplitting crash.
In the wake of that cacophony the room goes utterly silent. But then the sound of the whirring bots invades my ears again; time hasn’t stopped.
Molli’s still dead.
My knees crumple beneath me, and the boning in my corset jars against my already-bruised ribs as I fall to the ground. I welcome the sensation. Sobs shake my body; my mother would have been mortified by the sounds escaping from between my gritted teeth.
I don’t know how much time passes before I feel warm arms steal around me. I thought I’d be ashamed to see Saber after failing him so completely last night, but I grasp at whatever comfort he’s willing to offer. He holds me cradled against his chest, rocking back and forth like I’m a child. He’s saying something, but it’s neither English nor French, and in the end, it’s not the words he’s saying that matter nearly as much as the fact that he’s saying them.
I close my eyes and press my face into his shirt and howl against him, liquid agony pouring from me. He smooths my hair from my face and continues to murmur, but he never shushes me, never tells me to stop. Never tells me it’ll be all right. He knows life too well to believe such lies.
It feels like hours before my body gives up, too weary to sob any longer. My muscles feel like jelly, and I slump against the first slave to work in Versailles in centuries and somehow, impossibly, the least bitter human being I know. I feel a light tugging at the back of my dress and dimly realize that Saber is unhooking my sodden gown. Slowly, I straighten to give him better access. My arm muscles are sore; I wonder just how hard I’ve been clutching him.
Once the fastenings at my back are undone, Saber pulls me to my feet. His deft hands peel the soaked bodice down my arms and ribs to my waist, untie my panniers, then wrench the whole mess past my wet underskirt until it crumples to the floor. He strips away my damp layers, even though he knows he could ask for mechanical assistance. Soon I’m standing in a silk shift and my stays and stockings. Saber pivots to stand behind me, and I feel him start to untie my laces. “Don’t,” I say, turning to put my hand on his.
“You need to sleep.”
“I sleep in my stays.”
“I know, but they’re too tight.”
Tighter than ever. And still it doesn’t help. I thought I was too weary to cry, but tears slide soundlessly down my face. “They have to be,” I whisper. “Everything feels wrong when they aren’t tight enough.”
He gives me a probing look, but after the first few seconds I can’t meet his eyes any longer and I close mine. “At least let me loosen them,” he whispers.
I can’t speak; I just hang my head in defeat.
His fingers are quick and nimble, and it occurs to me to wonder where he learned the intricacies of a woman’s corset; then I decide I don’t want to know. At first the loosening is a relief, but he keeps going, and soon the corset hangs and I fight the urge to vomit and faint. Gasping, I lean forward and reach for the edge of the bed.
“Are you okay?”
I shake my head, not ready to speak.
“Don’t move.”
I can’t tell where he’s gone; I don’t have the strength to focus on anything beyond staying conscious. A few more breaths and I’m able to stand upright again, albeit with one hand on the edge of the bed to support me.
Saber emerges from my dressing room with a stack of dry white linen. But I also catch sight of one of my pastel-blue embroidered corsets. “Here,” he says. He reaches for the busk in the front of the sodden one and unfastens the six pins. It drops to the ground with a weighty thud, and I know I’ll never be able to bring myself to wear it again. “I’ll be fast,” Saber says, holding the clean, dry shift ready to cast over my head.
I’m not ashamed. I peel the wet cap sleeves off my arms and let the shift drop, the wide décolletage easily skimming past my hips. Saber’s ready with the new slip, but as he works it over my head, his eyes drop and then widen.
“What happened?” he asks, one finger touching the dark bruising around my ribs, striped with indentations from the wet boning that has pressed against them for hours.
I reach for the dry shift and he seems to snap back into caretaker mode, settling the garment around my hips and covering me up again. He grabs for the blue stays but hesitates. “Can’t you take a break?”
After the punishing tightness I subjected myself to last night, I probably ought to. It’s never hurt so badly to come out of my corset.
When I hesitate, Saber adds, “I’ll hold you tight,” and all I can do is nod.
Soon Saber and I are spooned in the bed, me under the comforter getting warm and him on top of it, his arm tight around my waist like he promised. I gave particular orders to M.A.R.I.E. not to let anyone in, but even these few stolen minutes in the middle of the day are risky. M.A.R.I.E. is always watching. After a fit like the one I just threw, I can imagine amused security workers paying particular attention to this room. But I can’t bring myself to care. Slowly, haltingly, I tell Saber about Molli. I don’t tell him about the King last night. Or that I chose him over revenge; tried to, anyway.
It can hardly matter now.
“Danica,” Saber says hesitantly, “your mother died yesterday. The woman who raised you. I know you were close to Molli, but I’m worried that you’re in denial about your mother.”
I’m already shaking my head. “I ceased to be a person to my mother years ago. I was a thing. A tool. A road like that goes both ways. Eventually, I stopped thinking of her as a person too.”
“But—”
“Saber, do you hate your parents?”
“No,” he says instantly and with a vehemence that assures me his words are true.
“Why not?”
“They had no choice,” Saber says, emotion making his voice husky, and if this conversation weren’t so serious, I’d find it incredibly appealing. “They had to sacrifice one child to save four others. If I—” He takes a long breath. “If I’d been in their shoes I’d have made the same choice.”
“That’s the difference.” I turn now so I can see his face—our lips only a few centimeters apart, though I don’t lean closer. Not now. “My mother’s been grooming me as a tool for years. Since I was about fourteen.”
“Because she dressed you so pretty and made sure you had all of your…poise lessons?”
I smirk. “That as well. This isn’t the nose I was born with, Saber.”
His eyes widen. “Really?”
“At fifteen.” My amusement fades and I meet his eyes. “I became a thing. A thing to help launch her into social and political success. Every aspect of my life was shaped for the sole purpose of luring the King. And then she put my life in danger for the prestige of being the Queen’s mother. She didn’t do it for me; she did it for her. And if I’d been in her place, I would never have made the same decision.”
“But—”
“I tried, Saber. I tried to remember good things, to feel a spark of the love I know I used to have. What child wants to give up on her mother? But…all I can see is the way she looked that night as she bargained me away to the King.” I clamp my jaw down as my throat begins to burn. “I hate that I stood by and didn’t make a decision at all.”
“You were powerless, though.”
I shake my head. “I could have done something. I should have done something. If I had, Molli would still be alive.”
“Maybe. But
where would you be?”
“It doesn’t matter. Molli was innocent. So innocent.” The tears leak down my temple. “I’ll never forgive myself.”
“Never is a long time.”
“I’ll never deserve it.”
Saber kisses my skin, right where the path of my tears runs. Tucking my head into the space just below his chin, I curl against his warmth and try to let it seep into me.
I doubt I’ll ever feel warm again.
IT DOESN’T TAKE warmth to sell Glitter. Which is fortunate, as I seem to have lost my ability to feel anything at all. I smile, I curtsy, and I peddle my illicit cosmetics as though my life depended on it—which was, of course, always the point. I approve wedding plans and have a final fitting for my amazing dress, which can no longer ignite within me even the smallest spark of pleasure. And when the day’s whirl is over, I tuck myself into my rooms with Saber and imagine it all away.
It’s the last Thursday before my wedding, and Saber and I climb into our carefully watched sedan for my final trip into Paris—my final “dancing lesson.” His Highness tried to get me to fob it off, what with the wedding in two days, but I’ve scarcely spoken to him since that awful night in his private office, and have used clipped, careful tones whenever conversation has become unavoidable. The language I used to reply to this particular suggestion was probably more vulgar than I should have allowed myself. Still, it’s the clearest way to decline a suggestion in two words.
Saber’s messenger bag is round with just over half a million in euros, and each of my pannier pockets is similarly lined. Almost a million and a half between us—the biggest take I’ve ever delivered to Giovanni, and my nerves are clanging at the prospect of being caught. Of having it all taken away, when I’m so close.
Once we add this to the pile, I’ll have four and a half million euros. With two more days until my wedding, though, sales have gotten…complicated. Cash is increasingly scarce in Sonoman-Versailles, and unwanted jewels are going out the doors with personal servants in a river of trade that has devolved quickly from gray market to black. Orders didn’t drop off this week, but neither did they grow. It’s a carefully balanced pile of stones waiting to collapse at the slightest provocation.