The Hall wasn’t as cold as it could have been, packed with people as it was, but Mina’s teeth still chattered. “Clever girl,” her father said softly. He had sensibly dressed for the cold, and though he had mocked her at first for her thin dress, his eyes now shone with understanding. His clothing marked him as an outsider.
Gregory led her by the elbow to one of the long tables at the back of the Hall. “Most of these people are only visiting the castle for the banquet tonight,” he whispered, “so this may be your one chance to make an impression. Try to be charming.”
Mina put on her most dazzling smile as she took her seat, but it was difficult to be charming when she was a stranger among friends. Even here at the back of the Hall, among the lesser nobility and friends of the castle, Mina wasn’t important enough to warrant any attention. People talked over both her and Gregory, craning their necks to continue conversations from the last time they’d seen one another. Gregory ignored them in turn—it was Mina who needed to please them, not him. But Mina’s smile was beginning to falter.
At home, when she walked through the marketplace, she knew that the villagers were observing her every movement, watching her out of the corners of their eyes like she was a coiled snake about to strike, and so she had become used to scrutiny, to being jeered at and mocked for the slightest misstep. But now that no one was watching, she finally stopped trying to smile at everyone, and the muscles in her cheeks were grateful to her for that. She stopped trying to make eye contact in a hopeless bid for attention, stopped sitting quite so straight, stopped taking tiny bites of her bread and meat so she wouldn’t be caught with her mouth full. She simply observed the people around her and enjoyed being invisible.
And as the night wore on and Mina became more relaxed, something changed. The guests started to grow bored with one another, and their curious eyes began following her movements. The lady beside her struck up a conversation with her, and the old man opposite called her a “real beauty.” She laughed with them, holding her head at angles she knew would flatter her, because she’d studied them so long in the mirror. It was a fair trade: she gave them something pleasing to stare at, and they gave her approval, acceptance, even affection.
If they love you for anything, it will be for your beauty.
Beside her, Gregory was observing Mina’s victory with what looked like something between relief and resentment. This was what he’d wanted for her, after all, this was why he needed her, but Mina knew that he must hate having to need her in the first place. Still, he knew better than to interfere and possibly ruin whatever strange magic Mina’s beauty was working, so he kept silent, and Mina ignored him as best she could. Tonight, she was not the magician’s daughter, but an anonymous beauty.
Every so often, she scanned the crowded room, hunting for one face in particular. As she searched, it occurred to her that her stranger might already be married, but that only made her more desperate to find him and know for certain.
“A toast!” called a voice from the high table.
Mina hadn’t paid much attention to the high table, all the way at the other end of the Hall, but she looked up now—and nearly jumped out of her seat when she saw the king.
No wonder she hadn’t found her sad stranger when she searched the room; she had never thought to look for him seated on a king’s throne.
When the crowd fell silent, King Nicholas stood. “A toast,” he said, “to my daughter and to your princess. May she grow to be as beautiful as her mother, and may you all love her as you loved her mother, the queen.”
The Hall drank to the princess, but the princess didn’t matter to Mina. It was kings and queens she was thinking of, especially the dead queen who inspired such devotion in the people around her. There was genuine feeling in their faces, love for a woman who was dead and unable to return their love ever again. Queen Emilia could not have plausibly loved every person in the room, and yet they all loved her, unconditionally, unrequitedly.
Her ear caught a single word from across the banquet table, and she listened closely to single out the thread of conversation. Yes, there it was again—remarry.
“But will he remarry, do you think? He was so devoted to her,” a sharp-jawed woman was saying to the man sitting opposite her.
“Oh, he must, he must. Not in the next year, maybe not the year after that, but soon enough. The people will want a queen, and the man will want a wife.”
“And the poor princess, without a mother…”
Mina stopped listening; she’d heard what she wanted to hear. The people will want a queen, and the man will want a wife. Her sudden desire was a collision, and it left her shaking. With her beauty, she had made people pay attention to her, to notice her without mocking her. But a queen—
A queen had the power to make people love her.
7
LYNET
Lynet didn’t remain lying in the snow too long—she didn’t want anyone to come passing by and find her there, especially not Nadia. She knew Nadia had nothing to do with her birth—her creation—but Nadia was the one who had told her, and so Lynet blamed her for it anyway.
At that moment, rising from the snow that had made her, she hated everyone who had known what she was before she did—her father, Gregory, Nadia …
And Mina.
Part of her still wanted to believe that Mina hadn’t known, but the doubt would remain until she asked. Before she could back down, Lynet allowed her indignation to lead her up to the queen’s chambers. But when Lynet reached them, the queen wasn’t there. The fire was burning, though, and so Lynet knew that Mina would return soon. She walked around the room, thinking of all the times she had come here before, night after night—all those years, all those confidences she’d shared, all those opportunities for Mina to tell her the secret of her creation.