It was the eve of their departure from Pothes Mar. Mouse was eager to be gone from the place, to be out from under the General, who had done everything he could to inconvenience and insult her, to be out from under the shrewd, watchful eyes of Lady Signy. The weight of pretending had grown ever heavier, and Mouse found herself longing for the familiar torments of home. There was much she might endure if at the end of the day she was able to look into the glass and feel that the person looking back at her was herself.

  Cedric and his men had concluded their search for the missing knights, adding to their numbers some five dozen men, and though Mouse knew that the General had succeeded in at least some instances to thwart their investigation, Mouse could not but feel as though they were taking back with them some small victory.

  Mouse had never been able to make out whether the General had known her, whether his hostile behavior toward her had been the result of his knowing who she was—or was not—or was merely a product of his seeming abhorrence of the Empress, or perhaps women in general.

  But that did not matter now. Mouse would wrap her guilt up in a dyed chemise, bind her frustrations with a yellow ribbon and give them to someone else. What passed within the walls of Pothes Mar was no longer her concern, no longer her problem to fix. Besides, she had troubles enough of her own waiting for her when she returned to the capital.

  As far as Mouse understood it, both the Chatti delegation and Lord Marius had arrived while she was away, no doubt causing grief to the Council. Meanwhile, Johannes and Alfric were like as not still prowling the halls of Kriftel, while Jasper remained imprisoned for a crime he did not commit.

  As far as the mallows were concerned, well, that was the one direction in which she refused to turn her thoughts. She had made up her mind days ago that once she was back in the capital, she would go to Ludger and tell him she was no longer interested in playing the part he had chosen for her, the part of the girl in the story, the Empress’s second daughter, conveniently stowed away in case the first should fall. No, she would keep playing the role of the dutiful handmaiden, bound by duty to the one person who delighted most in her misery.

  Though Mouse was not certain how much help she was being to the maids, she was in such a state of agitated distraction that she could not bring herself to sit still. She bustled about the room, collecting up scarves and stockings, and all those dropped objects that had been strewn about the place. One pink stocking she unwound from the leg of a chair, while the other had fallen beneath the bed. A pair of sleeves so long they might drag across the floor had been balled up and shoved into a drawer.

  “Has no one seen Agatha this morning?” Mouse asked, tripping over a pair of shoes nearly long enough to be poulaines. But it seemed that no one had.

  Mouse dug through the bed covers, retrieving three varied lengths of ribbon and adding them to the collection, before turning over a pillow and finding a crimson scarf. She had been wondering where Agatha had come up with such an odd assortment of things, things that were in no way familiar to her, but she now realized that the items must be those borrowed from Lady Signy and never yet returned.

  It was a task she would have to see to herself, given that she had no notion of when Agatha, whom she had not seen leave, might return.

  But just then, as Mouse was wringing out a pair of gloves left in the window to collect dew, the girl herself walked into the room, and before Mouse could bid her help, made a most unexpected announcement, namely, that she would not be returning to Kriftel.

  Mouse blinked dumbly at the girl for a few moments, trying to decide whether or not this were some sort of jape.

  “What do you mean, you are not going back?” she asked.

  “I mean just that,” said Agatha. “I am not going back to Kriftel.” She lifted her chin. “I am going to run away and marry Sir Frederick.”

  A laugh of disbelief might have escaped Mouse’s lips, were she the sort of person to laugh at such things, but as it was, she was little amused by the girl’s proclamation. In fact, she was startled by how serious Agatha seemed.

  “Lette,” she said, turning to the most senior of the maids, “will you not give us a few moments alone?”

  The maid bowed and, with the rest, went out into the hall.

  Mouse now took Agatha by the hand and led her to the bed where she sat down beside her. She wanted to sigh in exasperation, to shake sense into the girl, but she knew that would be the surest way of securing her rebellion.

  “Help me understand, Agatha,” she said, trying as best she could to maintain her forbearance. “Help me understand what it is you mean to do and to what end.”

  It seemed that Agatha had decided, in all the wisdom of her seventeen years, that it was better to run away and marry Sir Frederick than to return to the capital and risk losing him forever. And though Mouse, in all the wisdom of her nineteen years, could see that this was a very foolish idea, she could not hope to sway the girl toward reason without first hearing her side of things.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Sir Frederick, as it turned out, was one of the General’s household knights. Agatha had met him in the first few days of their stay at Pothes Mar while she was out riding with Lady Signy. He had taken her shoe, and she had given him her necklace, and Mouse supposed that was meant to signify something.

  Sir Frederick was a skilled swordsman, a decent shot, and the faster swimmer of all the men at Pothes Mar. He had been knighted at one and twenty by Sir Strauss of Kenbruck and had won his first melee that same year. He could read, write, and even composed poetry from time to time. He was the oldest child of Lord Agneu, had no brothers and two sisters, both of whom were eager to wed, and would one day inherit all his father’s lands and titles. However, all of this naturally paled in comparison to the fact that he was terribly handsome.

  Mouse regretted now more than ever that she had failed to keep a watchful eye over Agatha, and she could not help but feel that all of this was her fault. She should have been more careful. Why had she so readily entrusted Agatha to Lady Signy’s care, a girl whom she hardly knew and who had demonstrated deceit?

  “That is all very good,” said Mouse once Agatha had concluded her speech, “and I should like you to know that I have no reason to wish for anything apart from your happiness and well-being any more than I have reason to believe Sir Frederick undeserving of your fondness.” Here, she paused. “But have you perhaps forgotten that you are already engaged to be wed?”

  Of course, this was not what Agatha had wanted to hear. She protested, saying that someone as solitary and brooding as Mouse would never understand, and though Mouse could not pretend that she was not a little wounded by this, she persisted in trying to help the girl see reason.

  “Even if you cannot think of your own future,” she said, “I would urge you to think of Sir Frederick’s. For if you indeed decide to go through with this folly, you will be defying the Empress’s will, and Sir Frederick will be made complicit in the thing. The Empress may see his knighthood revoked, and what’s more, she might choose to seize his family’s lands and holdings so that he will have nothing to inherit. Do you really think that fair?”

  Upon such arguments did Agatha at last relent to reconsider her decision, and it was with a conscience only partially obstructed that Mouse departed, leaving Agatha to think while she returned the borrowed items to Lady Signy.

  The last task before Mouse that day, the final task of her stay at Pothes Mar, was to attend the General’s supper. But rather than the simple affair that she had imagined, a gloomy room full of glowering men and smelling of cooked meats, she was surprised to find that a large banquet had been prepared in the great hall. It was a grand affair with much music and gaiety. Every candle had been lit, and the tables were decorated with subtleties for the first time during her stay.

  This was no send off, thought Mouse as she looked about the place; it was a celebration, the General’s rejoice that he would at long last be rid of her.

  Nevertheless, Mouse did not intend to waste a perfectly good evening. She ate to her stomach’s content and spared every kind word to those who had made her stay tolerable. Sir Conrad had been gracious in accepting her apologies, and Lord Batton, despite being a friend of the General had made himself amenable to Mouse at every opportunity. For this, Mouse was grateful, and she reminded herself to invite him to the capital, were she ever given leave to.

  When at last she returned to her rooms, Mouse was greeted by a maid who had been waiting outside her door.

  “Your Majesty,” the girl said, bowing to Mouse, “my lady sends a gift for you.” She held out a small parcel wrapped in red linen.

  Mouse lifted her eyebrows in surprise as she took the parcel from the girl. With little hesitation, she unwrapped it and inside found a small wooden box that fit easily into her hand. Within the box, Mouse found, was a small glass vial filled with a dark glossy liquid.

  “It is a beauty tincture, Your Majesty,” the maid explained. “Nightshade it is called.”

  Mouse took the vial from the box, holding it to the light of the braziers to study it.

  “How lovely,” she murmured.

  “A drop in the eyes improves their allure,” explained the maid, “and a drop on the cheeks is said to give one a fetching glow.”

  Mouse turned the vial, fascinated by the way it seemed to change color from dark violet to black.

  “Do give Lady Signy my thanks,” she said, returning the vial to the box.

  “Certainly, Your Majesty,” the girl smiled, and with a bow she departed.

  Mouse watched the maid go before taking the vial back out of the box to admire it once again. She was thoroughly mesmerized by it, and even if she did not think herself like to use it, it might make a pretty decoration for her table.

  Mouse went inside and set the box upon her desk. She was tired, she realized now, and ready for sleep. But as she climbed into bed, she once again began to get that same strange feeling she had felt before. She could not explain what it was, but it was very much like the feeling she had had the first time she had watched a man fall from his horse. It was the aching in her bones the day before she caught a chill, the moment before a dog unexpectedly turned and bit the hand that was stroking it.

  For hours, she tossed and turned, the funny feeling niggling at her and making it difficult to sleep. Agatha was once again late to return, and Mouse wondered whether part of her upset was due to some fear that the girl might disappear in the night and abscond with Sir Frederick. Eventually, however, she drifted off, having strange dreams once again of mountains and moons and men being thrown into rivers.

  At one point she woke up suddenly, unsure of what had roused her, and found that she had thrown her blankets off. She grabbed at them and pulled them up to her chin, shivering in cold of her drafty rooms.

  It was still dark out, she could tell even from behind the bed hangings, but she had the most unsettling sensation that someone was there in the room with her on the other side of the curtains. The hair on her arms stood up, as though alerting her to some foreign presence lingering nearby. Mouse pulled the blankets up over her head and squeezed her eyes tightly shut, curling herself into a ball and willing herself back to sleep.

  When at last the morning came, Mouse found that that same funny feeling had followed her all the way into tomorrow. She lay quietly for a few minutes, hoping that the feeling would pass, but when it did not, decided she must rise nonetheless. She pushed aside the bed curtains and climbed from her feathers, something squishing against her foot as she did so.

  Mouse looked across the room, her eyes wide in wonder. Scattered all across the floor were some thousand small white flowers. Mouse blinked, uncertain whether what she was seeing was real or the remnants of some dream. She lifted her foot and peeled off a stem from the bottom of it. Five delicate round petals trimmed in pink looked back at her. It was a mallow.