Lynet was glad he screamed, because she had let out a small yelp herself. She ran her tongue over her own teeth, reassuring herself that they were still in place.
A surgeon. The young woman must be a surgeon. Though the answer should have satisfied her, Lynet only grew more curious. She had never seen a woman surgeon before.
Lynet remained perched on her ledge until the surgeon had cleaned Tobias up and given him some herbs for the pain. When Lynet heard her leave, she abandoned her post and went back around the ledge, listening for footsteps inside. Her heart was thumping; where would the surgeon go next? What would she do?
When the surgeon had gone down the hall, Lynet slipped back inside through the window just in time to see her turn a corner. Lynet silently followed, but as she rounded the same corner, she ran into the Pigeons.
“Princess Lynet!” one of the women cried, and then they were all around her, and it was too late to escape.
She called them the Pigeons because of their gray hair and their constant cooing, and because they always traveled in flocks. Unlike most of the nobility, who preferred to live in their own private estates in clusters throughout the North, the Pigeons lived in Whitespring permanently, having made their nests here long before Lynet was born. They were Whitespring’s oldest residents, and so they always seemed so surprised to see how much Lynet had grown, even if they had only seen her yesterday.
“Her mother would be so proud,” one of them was saying now.
From behind her, another of the women said, “Look at this hair. So much like the queen’s.”
When she was a child, Lynet had thought they’d meant she looked like Mina when they said she looked like the queen, and she had swelled with pride at resembling her stepmother. But now she understood that when they talked of the queen, they always meant the late queen, Emilia. And the worst part was that they were right: Mina’s hair was a dark auburn, her eyes light brown, while Lynet had her mother’s thick black hair and nearly black eyes. Mina’s face was angular and defined, her skin golden-brown, while Lynet had her mother’s round face and muted olive-brown coloring. Lynet’s cheeks, her nose, her lips, and everything else she possessed belonged to a dead woman who she didn’t even remember.
The unofficial leader of this little band, a gray-haired, long-necked woman named Xenia who served on the king’s council, bent down a little—out of habit, mostly, since Lynet was now taller than her—and took Lynet’s face in her hand. “So lovely. King Nicholas must be so proud of you, my lady. You’ll be such a splendid queen, just like your mother.” Even in the shadows of the dim hallway, Xenia’s eyes shone with a suspicious gleam—she always squinted at people like she thought that they were lying to her.
Lynet smiled and nodded and thanked them until the Pigeons were finished. Perhaps it was flattering to be fussed over, but she knew their fondness wasn’t for her own sake. They loved her mother, and Lynet looked like her mother, so they thought that they loved her, too.
Once the Pigeons continued down the hall in a cloud of gray, Lynet wandered through a few corridors before she had to admit that she’d lost the surgeon. Still, Lynet was sure she would see her again soon enough. The castle had been without a court surgeon since the prior one had left several months ago, so the new surgeon would be in high demand for a while. Lynet would keep watch, and next time she wouldn’t lose track of her.
Lynet dragged her feet down the hall until she reached the music room, where her tutor was waiting for her, seated at his harp. He was mid-yawn when she walked in, and as soon as he saw her, he straightened, swallowing the rest of the yawn with a startled chirp. “There you are, my lady!” he said. “A little late, perhaps, but that’s no trouble.” His lined face stretched into a smile. She was more than an hour late, but he wouldn’t scold her. None of her tutors ever scolded her for anything.
Lynet had once liked the idea of playing the harp. But the actual lessons were long and tiresome, and she never seemed to improve, so she didn’t see any harm in skipping them when she could. She felt less bitter about the tedious hour to follow now that she had a new project, but as she sat down at her harp, she knew she would play even worse than usual today, her mind still following the new surgeon even when her feet couldn’t.
*
When her lesson was finished (miserably, as expected), dusk was falling. Without even thinking, Lynet flew up the stairs to the royal apartments. Sometimes she felt that her entire day was only a prelude for her nightly visit with Mina, a tradition that had begun so long ago, Lynet couldn’t remember exactly how it had started.
The fire was blazing high when Lynet stepped quietly through to her stepmother’s bedchamber. Even though Mina had come to Whitespring from the South nearly sixteen years ago—around the same time Lynet was born—she had never become accustomed to their constant winter, and so she was always cold. Lynet, having been born in Whitespring, was never cold.
A maidservant braided Mina’s hair in front of the mirror. Lynet could see her stepmother’s reflection, serene and regal, her head held high, her back straight.
When Mina saw Lynet’s reflection behind hers in the mirror, she held her hand up to signal the maid to stop. “That’ll be all for now,” she said, and the maid dipped a curtsy before hurrying away, managing a quick smile for Lynet before she left.
Mina stood to let Lynet take her place on the low chair in front of the mirror. As soon as Lynet sat, Mina smiled. “You have snow in your hair.”
Embarrassed, Lynet reached up to brush it away. She supposed one day, when she was queen, she would have to appear as effortlessly composed as Mina did, but that day was years away.
Mina started to comb through Lynet’s hair with her fingers. Combs and brushes were useless on Lynet’s hair; they only snagged and caught in her curls, while Mina’s hands deftly unsnarled and untangled them. They’d done this every night since Lynet was a child, and neither of them ever mentioned that Lynet was old enough to untangle her own hair by now.
Mina asked her about her day, and Lynet told her how useless she was at playing the harp, how she’d already been through three music tutors. “I never get any better, so they all give up on me in the end,” she said.
“It’s not you,” Mina reassured her. “Whitespring is too gloomy and isolated for most people.” Lynet knew she was right. It wasn’t just the music tutors who all left. The only people, noble or not, who stayed at Whitespring permanently were those who had been here so long that they couldn’t be troubled to leave. Lynet wondered about her new surgeon, how long she would stay.…
“You’ve left me behind,” Mina said softly after Lynet had lapsed into silent thought for too long. “Where did you go?”
“There’s a new surgeon,” Lynet said without thinking.
“I’m glad to hear it. Whitespring has been without one for long enough.”
“She’s quite young,” Lynet said.