Liyotte recognized Ineso’s footsteps on the hardwood walkway, forceful and fast, echoing across the reflective pools on either side and then back down from the glass viewing windows overhead. She did not look up from her desk. In her hand was a quillpen—a deep blue one that had been a gift from her brother Charle for her last birthday. Ineso had mocked it, but Charle had always known the importance of a good pen with a steady flow. This is from a male darillion that lives in Ovec’o. Their feathers are said to bring good fortune. I hope this good fortune will extend to everything you write.

Liyotte ignored her husband. He would expect her to, of course. This was nothing new. She did her best to ignore him, quite as much as he did his best to ignore her. It was the only way they could stand to be around each other at this point. And he would only have ventured into the stellarium because of something important. It would only frustrate him more if she continued to ignore him, which was why she did it.

Indeed, he was already tapping his toe.

She leaned away from her great bronze stellascope, tinkered with the silver measury that stood on the desk with its many orbiting ovals, and scratched a note to herself on her piece of paper. Five by nine by eighteen. Four by twelve by the cosine of—

“The stars won’t move that quickly,” he snapped at her when she returned to the stellascope.

She did not look at him as she stood up straighter. “Husband, you did not announce yourself. I didn’t realize you were there.”

She knew without looking that he was giving her a withering stare. She made a show of cleaning her pen and putting it on its stand before turning to him at last.

Ineso was a bull of a man. He had thick dark hair on his head and on his wide chest, and he charged when he got angry, and he always seemed to be angry. A bull in a stellarium made of glass.

She sighed and turned to him.

The last thing she wanted right now was for her husband to break every stellascope and measury in her stellarium.

“What is it? Is something the matter?” she asked him.

“The Infanta is coming to visit,” he announced.

Liyotte’s breath caught in her throat. The Infanta ruled all of the Milagrimos System with a firm and severe hand. This was the last thing she needed. “When?”

“In two moons.”

She froze, counting the days in her head. “That is very soon,” she said slowly.

“Yes, of course it is,” Ineso snapped at her. “I trust you will prepare something extravagant for her arrival?”

“She is your cousin, why must I be the one to set preparations?” Liyotte flared, but of course, he would expect her to flare. That was why he had come to her stellarium, to watch her grow angry. It always made him feel powerful to watch her grow angry at something he said or did. She knew this; but knowing it was not enough to stop her from getting angry sometimes.

“Because you are the gem of Andiroux, and she will be expecting a Miriana shine as bright as the sun upon our festivities, I would imagine.”

Liyotte tightened her jaw to keep a scowl from crossing her face. The Infanta had long had an obsession with Andiroux. To hear the merchants at the portsides tell it, half of the stars did too. Glad to know you got what you wanted, father. They all orbit around you as though you were truly the sun.

Nine by eight by sixteen.

And then the thought hit her.

“And how much gold will you allot me?”

Ineso glared at her.

“Why is it always about gold with you?” he demanded.

“Because your silver will not get me what I need, and if the Infanta is coming and you want her entertained with a Mirianais—” she accentuated her own accent when she said the word—her tongue, her culture, her people, and not her husband’s, “—shine, I will need coin. Or did you expect all the fireworks and wine and decorations to materialize from thin air as though I were a magicienne?”

“God cursed me with a spendthrift wife.”

“You should be sure to complain of it to the Infanta when she arrives as she was God’s agent in the matter.”

He glared at her. “Watch that smart mouth of yours.”

“I’m in my stellarium, where I go to be smart. You’re the one who came here to test my smart mouth.”

She wondered, as she watched his face, if she had gone too far. Would this be the time he broke and hit her the way she knew he longed to? Would she have a black eye that she’d lie and explain away—I tripped and fell against a railing, can you believe it?—and everyone would know what really happened?

But he contained himself. He always managed to with her. She never understood why, and had stopped trying to. Once she had thought it was because he knew she would write her father and perhaps he would have to answer to the Sun King of the Mirian System for his actions. But now, she was not so sure.

Her husband turned on his heel and left without another word and Liyotte held her breath until she heard him slam the door at the other end of the walkway. Then she dove to her notebook and, though the date had been seared into her mind for six years, she needed to check it again.

One moon, fifteen days, a window of six hours.

With any luck, the Infanta would not have left for Carbalda yet when the news reached her ears that Ineso de la Rosa had died most suddenly and unexpectedly, and his treasured wife had returned to Andiroux in grief.

—

Liyotte waited six years for the stars to align—six years for the rare moment that only happened every four hundred and twelve years when their respective orbits made it such that one could travel between Carbalda and Randose with a dauphin and not starve from how long it took them to swim the distance.

Ineso thought it was an eccentricity. He had married a princess, and she was likely bored so far from Andiroux and her father’s golden halls; even if they went to the Infanta’s silver palace twice a cycle, everyone knew that nothing could compare with Andiroux when it came to entertainment. What other purpose could she have looking at star charts and practicing mathematical equations—equations!—for years on end? Liyotte was a pretty thing, and not a thinker, had never shown interest in being one. Her half-sister Carline was the one who had fancied herself a student before she’d been given to the Church. Liyotte, though… Liyotte was a pawn of peace after how many years of strife with Randose and greater Mirian.

Liyotte had named Inès for her husband on the day she’d been born. She had been named for her father, after all, so it was a family tradition. At least, that was what she’d told Ineso.

She didn’t know if he had sensed a lie, or if he had just never liked how Mirianais his wife was, with the lovers she took as readily as buying a new dress, and suspected the truth that he was not his third child’s father. But it had not stopped him hitting Inès, all of three, so hard that her baby teeth were knocked from her skull.

So Liyotte waited six years.

—

She spoke of money next with Mergildo. Ineso’s cousin was ten years her husband’s senior, and he had bad knees. He was going bald, as well, but had grown his remaining hair as long as he could, tying it in in a thin braid at the back of his head.

If she hated her husband, she really hated Mergildo, who looked at her with a blank gaze and always asked for a bill of sale for every little thing she would spend money on.

“The Duke has already budgeted for your dauphin’s feeding,” Mergildo told her when she asked for money for more fish guts and seaflora to feed the creature.

“Yes, but if we intend to take the Infanta to the stars—”

“The Infanta has her own conveyance,” Mergildo cut her off.

“And you would deny her a chance to fly within a dauphin of Tebragne? She has always so enjoyed what tastes of my father’s court that she could manage.”

Mergildo looked down his long nose, through his silver-lined church-cut glasses, so like and yet so unlike the ones her brother Charle had worn for most of her life, to the list she’d presented him with her anticipated needs.

“And what do you need mercurio for?”

Perfume was the lie that Liyotte had prepared before coming into Mergildo’s office, for she knew he would ask. He always asked after the things that he deemed excessive and her luck would mean he would deem the mercurio excessive. But instead, she heard herself say, “I was going to make her a necklace that represents the way I see all of Milagrimos in my stellarium. A liquid silver realm for the Silver Lady.”

Mergildo’s eyes narrowed. “And where will the beading come from?”

“The Church’s glassblowers are more than capable of making the right beads,” she said, flaring at the implication that they couldn’t, even if they would never be tasked with it before now.

But Mergildo looked unconvinced. “I hope you will show me your progress,” he said. “I should hate to give her majesty a poisoned necklace.”

Liyotte pulled her face into a smile. “But of course,” she said, trying not to grit her teeth. “Fear not, cousin, you shall see it in advance of her arrival.”

Mergildo found no further issue with her list and unlocked a chest full of gold that he kept under his desk and counted out fifty gold pieces.

“Not a peso more,” he told her.

“My mother never knew such restrictions at my father’s hand,” Liyotte snapped. Fifty would be enough for her needs, but Mergildo would suspect something if she seemed content with the sum. Liyotte was never content with the sum.

“I would hope that after twelve years in Milagrimos, you’d remember you are no longer in Andiroux.” He waved her away as though she were a servant, and she huffed loudly at the gesture as she disappeared from the room.

The sun was bright as she made her way from the courtyard of the great stone castle to the narrow stairs that wound down the sea cliff to the wooden docks below. That was where she found Fabrice, who was shelling seapods to feed the dauphin, his uniform coat slung over the back of his chair and his white linen shirt unbuttoned to midway down his chest.

“Your Highness,” he said, getting to his feet and bowing. How refreshing it was to hear Mirianais spoken. Fabrice had been at the castle for no more than six months, sent to her from her father’s court when the previous navigétoile had taken ill and given himself to the Church for healing. Fabrice was a year or two younger than her, tall, and lean, and tanned from all his time in the seaside sun. Her husband could not stand him, but that was because her husband hated any man Liyotte smiled at, and how could she not smile at the navigétoile from home who only ever spoke to her with deference? Indeed—the deference he showed her made her wonder just how little from her husband’s household she had come to expect. Fabrice alone of anyone in Carbalda called her Your Highness.

“Monsieur,” she replied easily. “The day finds you well?”

Fabrice looked up, squinting at the sky overhead. “Not a sign of rain,” he said, before turning back to her and grinning. “So yes, the day finds me well.”

“And are you still planning on making the Randose run?” she asked him, looking out at sea.

The dauphin was lazing on the surface of the water, just past the breakwave where the water went deep, rolling and bobbing with the motions of the ocean, its eyes closed as it enjoyed the sunshine. Its scales were a deep, translucent green that only seemed darker because the sky was so brilliantly blue today, and a sharp, dark fin protruded from along its curved spine. It was not so large as the great gestating baleine that lived outside her father’s waters that was near the size of a mountain, but Liyotte knew that she shouldn’t be fooled by what little she could see above the water. The dauphin was as large as the keep of her husband’s castle, and when it opened its great mouth, it could house two dozen people comfortably when it leapt from waves to stars.

Fabrice grinned a crooked grin that caused his left cheek to dimple. “But naturally, Your Highness,” he said, just as she’d known he would. Fabrice had talked of little else since he had arrived, after all. “I shall make the run faster than any has made it before.”

She liked the way his eyes shone. She liked his confidence. If she were staying longer, and weren’t planning on murdering her husband and embroiling Fabrice in an effort for her to escape justice, she’d probably have tried to pull him into bed with her before now.

She pressed four gold pieces into his palm. “To make sure she is strong and that you have enough food for the trip there and back,” she said.

His face changed.

“Your Highness, I can’t,” he protested.

“I insist. For my mother’s honor, and mine,” she said before letting her eyes drop suggestively to his chest. She found that worked on men—glancing at them like this when you didn’t want pushback. And besides, it was a smooth lie. If he were able to make the Randose run faster than any other navigétoile, all on his own, it would bring honor to Carbalda, yes, but it would also bring honor to her mother’s house for theirs was the origin of the dauphin in question.

“For my queen, my princess, and all of Mirian,” he said bowing again, holding the gold close to his heart. He was still bent double as Liyotte made her way back down the dock.

—

“Why did the Infanta not come today?” Michel asked as they walked the winding dirt road from the city’s reliquary back up to the castle. Today was the feast of Sainte Antoinne, and there were colored strips of fabric hanging from windows to bring light and color to the city in celebration. The feast of Sainte Antoinne at her father’s court was full of flowers for it fell in springtime, but in Carbalda it was nearly autumn and there wasn’t a flower to be found.

“Why would she come today?” Liyotte asked when it was clear that Ineso had no intention of replying. He was deep in conversation with Mergildo, whose bad knees set their pace.

“Because it is a celebration,” Michel said. She smiled down at her second son. He was a sweet boy, and gentle. He always had his nose in a book and when he’d been little nothing had given him greater joy than reading to Inès before she’d learned her letters.

“I imagine she had something prepared at her own palace,” said Luís, glancing back over his shoulder. Her eldest walked in front of them, between his father and Mergildo and his mother and his two younger siblings.

“Yes, I imagine so,” Liyotte said. “My father always threw great feasts for such days, and I’m sure the Infanta would also like to do so.”

“Your father sneezes and he throws a party to celebrate it,” Ineso said loudly from up ahead.

“And then snuff sellers would earn their weight in gold,” Liyotte sniffed. “What happens when the Infanta sneezes?”

Ineso ignored her. The great beauty of being in public was that he had to ignore her, for it was unbecoming of the Duke de la Rosa to be found screaming at his wife.

Lunch was a private affair. For dinner, they would host musicians and soldiers and the pretty daughters of wealthy merchants, but for lunch, it was just the six of them at table. Ineso sat flanked by his boys and Liyotte sat between Mergildo and Inès across the table from them. “Careful, my love, you don’t want to spill on yourself,” she said, pretending to clean a droplet of soup off of Inès’ bodice and angling herself away from Mergildo so she wouldn’t have to look at him except when turning her head.

It seemed that Ineso had not forgotten the dig she’d made on the walk back up the hill because as they finished their soup, he looked her dead in the eye—a rare thing to begin with—and said, “But poor Liyotte, so far from the finery of Andiroux on such a holy day. I hope that your husband’s meager table is sufficient, even if it is not your father’s.”

It was all she could do not to grimace, and at her husband’s side, Michel and Luís looked at one another.

“What matters most is if the food is good, husband,” she said. “And it is.”

“Tell that to my coffers, which never seem enough for your tastes,” he snapped at her. “You will bankrupt my castle.”

“I have made no undue requests of late,” Liyotte said.

“Fifty pieces of gold from Mergildo?” demanded Ineso angrily.

“If it were my father’s hall, I would have asked for five thousand,” Liyotte snapped. She refused to glare at Mergildo. The sum had been more than reasonable for what he expected of her—even if she wasn’t planning on using it the way he thought.

“Yes, I know, I shall never be as wealthy or extravagant as the great Léo Bournault,” Ineso said.

“And how is the necklace coming along?” Mergildo asked coolly next to her and Liyotte tilted her head so she could see him out of the corner of her eye.

“The glass setters have not yet returned it,” Liyotte said calmly. The little vial of quicksilver sat in a wooden box on the desk in her stellarium, along with the spores of a norée mushroom and the paste made from the stamen of cinthesus flowers. A little oil, a little water, a little heat—and a mask, so she would be sure as not to inhale the pungent fumes—and she should have a fast acting poison that would blend perfectly with wine.

“You told them it was for the Infanta?” Mergildo asked.

“I did,” Liyotte lied.

“And?”

“Do you think that the Holy Mother Church wouldn’t make sure that the Infanta had her gift well in time? My mother never once doubted that she would get what she asked for when she turned to the Church for glass. Why should I? Why do you?”

And Mergildo’s beady dark eyes hardened. “I don’t doubt the Church, I doubt you.” His voice cracked like a whip. “You are fickle and faithless like your wretched father, and I will see that necklace before you present it to the Infanta or you will return the gold given for it from your own pocket.” He spat the last words and she saw spittle flying from his lips as he did.

“It must be so sad to be you, Mergildo,” she replied after a pause. “To think of everything in terms of its value in coin, even on a holy day.”

“Better me than you, who only looks at people for how she can use them,” he retorted and Liyotte stiffened. “I have seen you speaking with the new navegestrella. You can pose your faith as much as you like, but we both know you’re a sinner and a liar.”

Liyotte kept her face smooth as church glass. “So quick to assume all I do,” she said at last. Perhaps he hadn’t said as much, but she knew from the way that her husband was swelling in the corner of her eye that Mergildo’s implication at her infidelity had not been too subtle for his cousin.

“Aren’t you? You’ve fucked every other one sent from your father’s court,” Mergildo spat at her.

Liyotte couldn’t help herself. That he would say this in front of her husband was one thing, but in front of her children? “You sound almost jealous.”

Mergildo purpled and sputtered at her, a combination of stunned and insulted and caught. Caught. Were they not at table, were it not Sainte Antoinne’s day, she would leer at him for suddenly everything fell into place. How had she missed it for years and years? Mergildo always hounding her about the gold she spent. She’d known how to recognize shackles and chains in metaphor but this… “And likely just as bitter that you aren’t lord of the castle and—”

“Enough,” bellowed her husband and Liyotte’s head snapped around to look at him. He was livid and his gaze was on her. “Enough of all this. Faithless bitch, do you really think I can’t see what you’re doing? Trying to distract from how much money you’ve taken for all this, trying to drive a wedge between me and my cousin so that we’ll blame one another instead of you for all your lies and sins?”

Oh I will have to do something to protect Fabrice. They will be after him if he’s not careful and I need him.

I don’t want him harmed.

“But Father, surely if it was for hosting the Infanta, no sum of money is too small?” Michel piped up nervously before his mother could think of a response. He did not like it when his parents fought. He did not like it when his father was angry because he knew that when his father was angry, he would inevitably vent his ire on Inès.

What he did not expect was for his father to round on him. “You should spend less time suckling at your mother’s teat,” Ineso yelled in his face and she saw Michel, poor Michel who was small for his age and quiet and sweet, recoil in his chair. “If losing all our gold throws the family into disgrace and destitution where we must beg the Infanta the coin we spent on her visit, what matter does it make if we spared no expense?”

“Surely fifty gold pieces won’t throw us into destitution,” Luís said loudly and there was something on his face that Liyotte had never seen before. There was a shade of a man in his expression, fully grown and thoughtful and strong. But not the shade of the great bull of Carbalda—only the sun could cast a shade like that and her heart stopped.

And it was still stopped when her husband sent his hand backwards to crack Luís fully across the face, and the echo of strike filled her mind for far longer than it filled the room.

Luís’ face was no longer the shadow of a man’s. He looked like a boy as he brought his hand to his face as if hoping to take away the sting.

Never before had his father hit him. He was the heir, the one who looked the most like Ineso. When he defied his father, sometimes his father would shout, and call him stupid, but he had never once been struck until today.

His eyes were bright, his lips drawn back and she could tell he was trying so very hard not to cry. Across the table from him, Inès sat so very still, her gaze on her eldest brother. In this and this alone, she had more experience than him and Liyotte felt rage burning in her like it had never burned before.

“You make my sons weak,” Ineso snarled at her.

No. They are strong when they stand up to you, when they stand up for one another.

She could not help herself. Let him hit me too.

“I’m quite sure that if we fear destitution when entertaining the Infanta, my father will send me gold. I am sure he will spare a few sous in the name of honoring her if you will not. I am no longer hungry.” She stood and took Inès’ hand. “Come,” she said to her boys who both rose at once.

“No,” Ineso barked. “You will stay and feast in the name of Sainte Antoinne.”

Antoinne will curse you. You will suffer for this. You and your wretched cousin.

She sat back down and reached for her glass of wine with her free hand.

The other was still holding Inès’. Inès’ grip was so tight she thought she might lose all feeling in her fingers soon but she would not let go. Oh, she would never let go.

—

The waves were lapping against the rocky cliffside the next time Liyotte descended to the docks, her heart in her throat. She wore a nightgown, and a dark cloak over it, and she was sure that if there was anyone on the quai, she would be unrecognizable in the misty night, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t nervous.

Never in all her life had she felt more on edge, but of course, this wasn’t a seduction. If she were trying to get him into her bed, that would be quite a different matter. She wouldn’t be wearing the nightgown, for one. Men were easy to get into bed because it wasn’t a matter of responsibility. They could forget their responsibilities between her legs, and that was a temptation far greater than the rest of her body. But this—

“Your Highness?”

He was so handsome, Fabrice with his waving brown hair. He was in his own shirtsleeves on the dock, and seemed to be loading buckets of fish into a dinghy to row out to the dauphin.

“I’m glad I caught you,” she said. She wished she could smile. This would all go over more easily if she could smile, wouldn’t it? She’d never been in a situation like this before. Usually it was trying to convince someone to bed her and stay quiet, not to warn someone that her husband thought they were bedding down and it may cause him harm.

And then, of course, she had to tell him what she was planning.

She should have tried much sooner, but she hadn’t been able to decide—would it be better to have him as an ally, waiting for her, or to spring everything upon him the night of their flight when he could not refuse?

If it had not been for their lunch table on Sainte Antoinne’s day, it would have beenthe golden gowns she had ordered for her father’s court that had decided it for her. She wanted them safely inside the dauphin, along with the fireworks for her father, along with the perfumes for her mother. She wanted to be sure of his loyalty. She wanted to be sure of his safety.

But she’d never be sure of it—not until they had left Carbalda behind them. A leap of faith, she supposed.

“How may I serve you?” he asked and she realized she was standing on the balls of her feet, as though preparing herself to leap for the stars, or perhaps the sea.

“I—” she paused, unsure which to start with. Even to her own ears, her voice sounded like a little girl’s—except not like the little girl she had been, all brute force and confidence.

She sounded frightened.

She sounded like Inès.

“I need your help,” she said at last, “And your loyalty.”

“Both are yours,” he said at once. Oh, how she wanted to believe him. But her husband had sworn before God that he would love, cherish, protect her family. He had proven himself a liar. Inès’ father had sworn he would never leave her, would always love her, and yet he was long gone by now.

“My children and I should like to join you on the Randose run.”

And she saw the shadow cross his face in the bright light of the full moon. “I don’t think I could have you back in time for the Infanta’s arrival,” he said slowly.

“I won’t be here for the Infanta’s arrival. From Randose, you will bring us to Andiroux.”

His eyebrows shot up. He opened his mouth, and then closed it.

I have gold with which to bribe you, she thought. I have my cunt if you’d prefer that. But I will make you a duke if you take me. Richer than a king, richer than my husband. You will be an admiral, you will have my father’s favor.

You will know my daughter’s smile.

“Is it so bad?” he asked her, his voice quiet.

“What?”

He looked towards the castle, then back at her and his eyes were too knowing. They were kinder than she knew what to do with.

Liyotte wasn’t used to kindness.

Her mother had always referred to Andiroux as a viper’s den, where there was no such thing as true friendship. Her father had said that kindness was for those who did not hold power. Perhaps Liyotte held no power, if she was reduced to begging a navigétoile on a waterlogged dock to help her and her children flee. She didn’t know what to do with kindness. She’d never learned.

“It is no worse than it has ever been,” she said quietly, and her voice was thicker than she wanted it to be. Because how could she have denied that it was only a matter of time before he struck his sons too? “But I think he suspects that you and I are…more than we are. And I worry for your safety. Please be careful, monsieur.”

And she saw anger mar his face. No—she thought but his gaze was on the castle. “You have my loyalty and my help,” he said. “If I thought I could, I would make him pay for it, Princess.”

I’ll take care of that.

I’ll keep you safe too.

—

“What do you think of it?” Liyotte asked as she finished tying the stays on Inès’ new gown. Inès looked at herself in the mirror. Her daughter was so lovely, with big blue eyes and hair that curled naturally on its own.

“It is very golden, Maman,” Inès said, biting her lip. Liyotte knew why.

“You must never be ashamed of gold,” she told her daughter firmly.

“Will Papa think that it is an insult to the Infanta?” Inès, all of nine, was cleverer than Liyotte had been at fifteen. But Liyotte had never had a father who hit her.

“We must be brave in all things,” she said. “Never forget that you are a child of the sun, even if you are far from Andiroux.”

Inès looked unconvinced.

“One day, you will see it. You will meet your grandpapa, and he will love you—and your gold dress,” Liyotte told her, taking each of her hands. It is for him, not the Infanta.

So long as the Infanta did not arrive early, spring a visit on them, it would work. 

“Will Michel and Luís also be wearing gold?” asked Inès nervously.

“I have doublets for them, yes,” Liyotte replied. “And myself.”

“And Papa?”

“Will wear black, as is his habit,” Liyotte said. “But when the sun burns bright, it casts a deep shadow.”

Inès looked unconvinced. She looked rather like she thought her mother a fool. And Liyotte couldn’t blame her at all. I seem to be tempting the fists.

Little did he think that his fists would tempt me.

—

Liyotte did not sleep a wink the night before it was to happen. Adrenaline had always been like that for her. The first night she’d forsaken her husband’s bed for another man, the first night she’d thought she’d kill Ineso, the first night she’d thought of ways to do it, ways to escape. The Infanta was infamous for not being lenient with those who broke her laws. She’d had her own brother torn apart by raging bulls for not paying his gambling debts. Surely this was madness. Madness. Especially when the Infanta was so close to her doors.

She had spent the past few days bringing things down to the docks by cover of night where Fabrice had put them in his dinghy and, under the guise of feeding the dauphin extra in order to prepare it for its voyage to Randose, had brought them out covered in fish guts. Gowns and doublets of gold, firecrackers that would burn like silver rivers, perfumes made from the oils she’d used to hide the mercurio.

Fabrice never said a word. He would just take the items she brought and offer her a steady smile. Once, she thought he might even have brushed her hand with his, but it was only a moment. She thought it must be kindness, that knowing look in his eye. She was so used to people doing things for her out of their own ambition that it disarmed her enough to ask, one night, “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you being so kind?”

“My father hit my mother and if I’d been older I’d have killed him for it.”

She swallowed. It was a relief, in a way. She wondered what she would have done if he had been smitten with her. “He never hit me.” She didn’t want to lie to him. What a horrible repayment for his kindness—if she lied to him.

He shrugged. “Perhaps not,” he said. “But he would cut off your wings if you had them. And I have seen the bruises on your son’s eye.”

She looked down at her hands.

“My father is no saint, but he never hit us,” she said quietly.

Fabrice’s laugh was gentle. “Your father is the farthest cry from a saint, but it makes no matter for he is a king. Your husband…” he let his voice trail away and he looked up at the castle with a black look and said nothing more. It was enough.

Enough for her to trust him, but not even trust would help her sleep this night, so she didn’t even bother going to bed. Instead of lying there, tossing and turning, remembering that someone had tried and failed to poison both her mother and her eldest brother Philippe and that it had not been successful, she went up to the stellarium. She aligned her stellascope to look up at the stars, measuring the distance between each one as carefully as she could. She found Randose. She found Igralda, the home of the Infanta who was perhaps already inside one of her reguins, making her way to Carbalda. And it was only after she’d calculated, and recalculated, measured and remeasured that she adjusted the lens once again, and moved the nose of the stellascope until—

There it was.

She did not look so golden as Liyotte knew her to be. From this far away, she had no color at all, not even the blue of the seas reflected outward towards the void. But there was Solère, the center of all of the Mirian System, whose golden crown of Andiroux…

She blinked. Her eyes were dry from fatigue, but now that it was all so close, she wished it were all already over more than she ever had before. Somehow, in her six years, she had never thought so much of home as that Ineso was already dead. Now, though—now that she was staring at Solère, she could will herself into believing that there was a dot that shone a little brighter than the rest of the star, that her father would somehow know that she was watching him, that the gaze through this stellascope wasn’t someone who wished to be him, wished to achieve all he had achieved, but a daughter who wanted to be safe in her father’s home once again.

Something Inès would never know.

At least she won’t have to fear her father’s house again.

She looked for Tebragne, where Charle would be next. She looked for Reloie, though her father never spoke of it, and Orée, and Locre, and all of them. Every planet her father ruled—each one which would keep her safe in a heartbeat so long as she could get to Randose.

I will get to Randose.

I am going to kill my husband and then I will never have to set foot in this castle ever again.

—

She did not expect it to be easy. It had not been easy for the past six years, why should it be easy now? But she had at least expected it to work.

They dined alone that night. Usually they dined separately but ever since he had hit Luís, she made excuses for them to eat together. Surely it will save even the slightest coin, she had said, trying to sound nervous, conciliatory, as though she had done something wrong. He would be far more agreeable if she seemed to think she had done something wrong.

And she was right about it.

Her husband drank more and more of the wine, right out of the glass she’d poisoned. According to the book she’d bought five years before—A curiosity, my love! You know my brother once was poisoned!—it should cause him to feel dizzy within twenty minutes of first ingestion. But he was on his third glass of wine now, and he hardly seemed affected as he droned on and on, increasingly drunkenly, about the Infanta’s arrival.

“You’ve hired the musicians?” Ineso slurred at her. His face was nearer purple than she’d ever seen it before—a sign of the poison? But no, he didn’t seem dizzy. Or did he, but she was mistaking it for drunkenness?

“Of course, my love,” she replied evenly, trying to sound bored as she usually did. Ineso liked to hold her hostage over these dinners she made them share. She could not excuse herself until he excused himself, for he was the lord of the castle, even if she was a princess. No one did anything without his leave. She would obey him, for she was his wife. There were, of course, no musicians hired.

“Someone to play the guitarra. She likes guitarra.”

“Yes, my love. I have three hired.”

“Three?” he asked. “Mergildo said you hadn’t even contracted one?”

“How would Mergildo know whose hand receives my gold?” she asked.

“Your gold?”

“Your gold from my hand,” Liyotte replied. Don’t make him angry.

But she was reckless tonight. She’d never had her father’s control, nor her mother’s grace and he saw in his drunkenness the way that her lips curled more in sneer than smile.

“You’ve been stealing from me, haven’t you?” he hissed at her. “For your little lover. The navegestrella.” She stiffened. “Mergildo was right about that. He’s seen you sneaking down there at night. Well, he had better stay in Randose if he knows what’s good for him.”

Liyotte widened her eyes—in false horror or in true she was too on edge to know. If there was one thing she was sure of, it was that the Infanta had little patience for anyone who broke wedlock, and even if she and Fabrice had only ever exchanged words, it would be her husband’s accusation and Liyotte already had a daughter with another man’s eyes.

He laughed. “Didn’t think I’d take it seriously? Not used to consequence?” Oh, I am far too used to consequence, my lord. I’d be as free of it as a bird if I could be. “Well, perhaps you will learn—”

But whatever it was that Liyotte was supposed to learn, she did not know because when her husband stood, he burped, and frowned, and stumbled.

“Ineso?” she asked, breathless.

He held up a hand. “Too much wine,” he said. “You may go.”

But instead she walked with him. He was supposed to get dizzy, and an hour later would breathe his last breath. Except it had been an hour to get him dizzy where it was supposed to take twenty minutes and Liyotte knew that she would not leave his side until his soul went to the Void.

I will be cursed with it until I die, she thought as she got to her feet. Somehow, in six years, that had never occurred to her. Too much her father’s daughter, with less interest in scripture and souls, than her mother’s. I’ll be damned before I let him have his final rites. Ineso was stumbling towards the door and she grabbed his arm.

“I can do it,” he snarled at her.

“Don’t drink this much when the Infanta is here,” Liyotte snapped. “Don’t you dare ruin my preparations by being a drunk. Or do, for all I care. You’re worried about what our house will look like if we run out of gold, but you’ll happily bring shame upon us by—”

“I can get myself to bed.” His gaze was unfocused and his breathing was shallow. He looked like he was about to—

She stepped out of the way enough such that the vomit missed her face but it did get down the front of her dress.

No.

Philippe had lived because he had vomited.

“You,” she practically screamed at him. “You ruin everything!” And she dragged him off towards his bedroom, stinking of vomit and trembling with fear. No, no, no, we must get out, we must—

I haven’t prepared anything for the Infanta at all.

“I will buy you a new one,” Ineso was slurring. “I will give you gold for it. I had too much, you are right.”

“I don’t care for your apologies!” she shrieked. It was far too late for apologies. No apology in the world would be enough for this. “You drunk!” Let the whole castle hear how drunk he was. It didn’t matter anyway. She was fleeing to Mirian tonight, they would immediately suspect her when they found him dead and it would be only through her father’s grace that she would survive it. But at least if she screamed about how drunk he was, perhaps they would leave him to sleep it off for longer, give her more minutes, precious more minutes in the stars’ fastest dauphin to make her way to Randose.

She hauled him into his bedroom, helped him strip off his shoes, and trousers, and shirt and shoved him onto the bed. He looked up at her with hazy, drunken eyes.

“You never loved me,” he said, sounding on the verge of tears. “Why do you give yourself to a navegestrella so readily, but you never gave yourself to me ever?”

And a rage unlike anything she’d ever known filled her. She felt like a giant, like a monster, like the sun of Mirian about to burn away the eyes and flesh and soul of the prisoners in La Migrandelle, whose skin would bubble and burst as mirrors directed light at them from all sides.

“Because he never hit my children,” she said and she grabbed one of the feather-fluffed pillows from beside Ineso’s head and shoved it down over his face.

He fought. He was strong, that bull of a husband, but he was also drunk and she had her full weight to press onto him as well as the element her uncle Maxence, the Grand General of her father’s armies, had always told her was the best in war: surprise.

For all his years of rage and hatred, for all the countless times he’d hit poor defenseless Inès, he had never once thought that his own wife might murder him in his bed. Perhaps if he had, it wouldn’t be happening now.

The pillow muffled his yells as his fingers scrabbled and scratched along her arms. His nails dug enough to break the flesh of her forearms and she knew she’d have to throw this pillow in the fire to hide the blood. She pressed her knee, hard, onto his groin, both to keep him from kicking and to pain him more. Let this hurt him as much as he ever hurt Inès.

It was the most joy she had ever taken in his bed, and for all his yells and flailings, for all the blood dripping down her arms, the pained pinchings as he tried to stretch her fingers apart, release her grip on the pillow, she had the upper hand and soon he was not fighting so much as twitching, not yelling so much as clearly gasping.

And then there was nothing.

Everything was different, and yet it all felt the same. The room smelled like him, the fire still crackled in her ears. On the other side of his windows, she could see the same stars she saw through the glass of her stellarium. It could be any evening. And yet she was kneeling on her husband’s bed, holding a pillow over his corpse.

She waited a full five minutes, counting each second, before taking the pillow off his face. His eyes were closed, his mouth open. Using the fabric case of the pillow, she wiped her hands, then closed his mouth, adjusted the pillows on the bed underneath him, and the bedding around him.

Then she went to the fireplace and burned the pillow.

She watched the fire grow bright and strong with something new to consume, then looked back at Ineso’s bed. He could just be sleeping, except that he was not breathing. He usually snored when he slept. It had always kept her awake on the nights he’d deigned to join her.

She crossed to him one last time and pressed her fingers to the pulse point in his neck. He is truly dead, then.

She could laugh. She could dance. She could fly with how light, how alive she felt.

Instead, she turned and ran.

Ran, because there wasn’t a second to lose. Every second was one she could have taken to the stars with her children and Fabrice. There was nothing to stop her now, nothing at all.

She returned to her chambers and stripped out of her gown. It, too, went in the fire, if only because she wasn’t going to take it with her and it was the last thing that Ineso had touched. She grabbed every single one of her jewels and shoved them into a bag. They were the only thing she needed that she had not already brought down to Fabrice. She’d feared that if a serving girl had noticed all her gems were gone, then all would have been lost. She would sell them if she needed to, use them as bribes, or wear them in her father’s court when she arrived at Andiroux. She didn’t care. She dressed herself in a simple gown and threw on a cape and then hurried to her children’s bedchambers. She found Inès and Michel playing cards as they always did before bed.

“Where is Luís?” she asked. Usually he was stretched on the floor before the fire, reading some book or another.

“Mother?” Michel asked, looking at her. “Why are you—”

“Where is he?” she practically shouted.

“He’s with Mergildo, I think,” Inès piped up. Liyotte’s blood went cold. “He’s been learning about father’s accounts.”

Because her son would inherit one day. Because he was a precocious boy who had a facility with numbers, just like his mother when she applied herself. Because he liked his father’s cousin well enough, even though Mergildo was horrible to her, and because his father had hit him when he had seemed not to understand the family finances well enough.

She looked between her two children. “Find the things you cannot live without and put them in a bag,” she says. “Have them ready by the time I have returned. If you can find the same for your brother, do it.”

“Maman?” Inès began but Liyotte was already out the door, praying that her two younger children would be obedient. They were the more obedient of the three, after all. Luís was the one who could be hotheaded, the one who might fight back the next time his father hit him. Not something you’ll have to worry about again, mon chou.

When all this was done, when she was safe at Andiroux and—she prayed—safe in the light of her father’s court, untouched by whatever the Infanta might throw at her, she would broach what on earth would happen with Luís’ inheritance. Perhaps the Infanta would disinherit him to punish the King of Mirian who—Liyotte prayed, Liyotte was relying on—would not hand over his only daughter to stand trial for the murder of her husband. There were worse things than her son never returning to this place. Then father will wish to find a good match for him to stud, and it will be this all over again.

But no. She wouldn’t think of that now. Now was for figuring out how to get Luís away from Mergildo. It grows late, she thought, he should be readying for bed. But her oldest son wasn’t a child. He was growing hair on his face and chest and he was taller than her now. An early bedtime, perhaps, for Inès who was still very much a child, but her brother was six years older. His brother wants to play cards before bed. So why would his mother come to fetch him and not Michel?

She found them as Inès had predicted: in Mergildo’s study, leaning over a ledger. Mergildo’s hand was on Luís’ back and he looked softer than she’d ever seen him. Fond. He has no sons of his own.

“Mother?” Luís was looking up at her, his head cocked in curiosity, as Mergildo looked up.

“My lady,” Mergildo asked. “Can I help you?”

“Luís,” she said. If she said more than that, it would give it all away, she knew. She would tremble, fumble for her words. So she just extended her hand and gestured her son towards the door. Luís glanced at his uncle, then got to his feet.

“What is happening?” Mergildo asked as he watched his nephew round the desk. “Why have you come to fetch him?”

“It doesn’t concern you,” Liyotte said, doing her best to summon her usual disdain when she spoke with him. It was hard, with her heart in her throat.

“And why are you wearing a cape? Going somewhere?”

Time froze around her. Overhead, the stars were turning, inching closer and closer to the right alignment. And she saw Mergildo’s eyes harden, and she didn’t think. She grabbed Luís’ hand and dragged him out the door, making to run but—

The clasp of her cloak tightened around her throat as Mergildo grabbed the fabric and tugged it back.

“Mother!” Luís yelled as Liyotte’s fingers clutched helplessly at the clasp that was now drawn too tight to loosen and was biting into the soft flesh of her throat. If I should be strangled and him suffocated, what would happen?

At least her children would be safe from him.

“Stop it!” Luís was shouting. “Stop it, you’re strangling her!”

And she missed what happened next as her legs began to shake underneath her and the clasp bit harder. But suddenly she was falling forward onto her hands and knees, choking and she heard a thunking sound and then silence.

“Luís,” she croaked, forcing herself to her feet now that her lungs were flooding, once again, with air. I could have stepped back to loosen the clasp, she thought as her heart pounded stronger in her chest.

“Maman.” Her son sounded so young. “Maman.”

He was standing over Mergildo, whom he seemed to have charged to get him to loosen his grip on Liyotte’s cloak. Mergildo’s head was at an odd angle and there was blood dripping down the side of his neck from where his skull had connected with the desk behind him. Liyotte stepped forward and crouched down and for the second time that night, checked a pulse and found nothing.

She looked up at Luís who, for all he was taller than her, for all there were wisps of hair on his chin that he was so proud of, was still a boy and was bursting into tears at the expression she could not keep off her face.

“Let’s go,” she said.

“We can’t leave him like this,” he sobbed as he looked down at Mergildo.

“We can and we must,” Liyotte said.

“I didn’t mean to—to—I just wanted him to stop.”

“It’s all right,” she said. I wanted to make your father stop, so I killed him too.

“The Infanta will have my head,” moaned Luís.

“She won’t,” Liyotte said and then froze and turned towards the great chest of gold in the corner. Would it be too heavy to carry? They could at least take some of the gold. For Fabrice. To thank him.

She dug into Mergildo’s coat pocket and found the heavy golden key he used to lock the thing, then went to the corner and looked at her son. “Come on, then,” she told him, and her stunned and heartbroken boy grabbed the other half and together they lugged it out of Mergildo’s study. Liyotte kicked the door closed behind her.

“Where are we going?” Luís asked her quietly. His whisper seemed to echo louder than any whisper had ever echoed in the history of the stars.

“Andiroux,” she said as clipped as she can.

“But—”

“No buts, your grandfather will protect us,” she said. God, let it be so.

“But—”

“You didn’t kill Mergildo. I did, all right? And say nothing of it to your brother and sister.”

“But—”

“Luís, now is not the time for buts. Have faith in me and your grandfather. The Infanta won’t risk war with him, and he will not turn as away.” You have never denied me anything, Father. Please don’t deny me this.

“What about Father?”

And Liyotte gave him a long look. “You know the answer to that as well as I.”

Luís looked down at his hands, then back at his mother. “I think I can carry it on my own, Mother.”

“You will tire.”

“I am strong.”

So she let him.

When they returned to the sitting room, it was to find Michel and Inès standing there, bags in hands and carrying cloaks of their own. Michel even had one for Luís. A lump lodged in Liyotte’s throat. Everything tonight had not gone to plan but God beyond, Michel had a cloak for his brother.

“Let’s go,” she said as Michel helped Luís into his cloak. There were still tear stains on his face and he didn’t even ask the question that should have been in his mind. Why were they ready before I killed Mergildo? “Quietly.”

They did not need to be told and were quieter than risoux as they followed Liyotte through the hallways as carefully as they could. After the night she’d had, she half expected every servant in Ineso’s household to find them but no—no, the route outside was unfettered and they slipped out of the garden and down to the cliffside stairs. Inès took Michel’s bag so that he could help Luís carry the trunk into the darkness below, but everything was smooth, and silent but for the lapping of waves.

The moment they were at little harbor, Liyotte lengthened her stride, hurrying towards Fabrice and the beautiful Tebragne dauphin her mother had given Ineso as part of her dowry. The great creature sat very close to the long dock, its maw wide as Fabrice hovered by it. The moment her footsteps touched wood, he turned and she saw his whole body relax as he began to hurry towards her. “I was worried, Your Highness,” he said in Mirianais and oh, to hear the sound of home.

“We haven’t a moment to lose,” she said.

It would likely be morning before anyone found Ineso, but Mergildo? And his missing chest of gold? Hopefully they would look out to the castle’s gates and the roads beyond, rather to the walled harbor at the base of the cliff.

The children caught up to her and Fabrice took one look at her boys lugging the chest between them and stepped forward to help them carry it down the dock. “It won’t make her cargo too heavy?” Inès asked.

Fabrice gave her a smile that made Liyotte feel like she could breathe again. “She’s stronger than you, or I, or ten thousand ships. A little extra weight won’t starve us.”

“In,” Liyotte said to her children. Her boys obeyed immediately, stepping into the dauphin’s gaping maw, but Inès held back. She looked up at her mother.

“Something happened to father, didn’t it?” she said quietly.

Liyotte inhaled sharply. “In,” she repeated and this time, her daughter stepped into the creature without another word.

The inside smelled as a living thing would, and Fabrice had lit mirror lamps inside her so that they were not stepping into pitch black. There were some tapestries that hung on the inside of the dauphin’s gullet to make it more comfortable, and beautiful as well, and Liyotte ran a hand along one of them. It was new to her eyes, but there was the great golden sun, the great white lily of Andiroux, coupled with the seashells and waves and dauphins of Tebragne. They were going home.

Fabrice directed the children into a chamber that was hung with more tapestries. There were wooden floorboards under their feet, placed there to make it easier to walk inside the dauphin, but it was almost invisible, buried as it was beneath a wide variety of plush cushions. At least for takeoff, it was easiest not to be in a seat, and at least her children would be comfortable. “Rest,” Fabrice whispered to her as the children settled onto the ground and out of the corner of her eye, she saw Michel eyeing them, undoubtedly remembering Mergildo’s accusation from Sainte Antoinne’s day. It doesn’t matter now. Not any more.

“No,” she said. “I would see the stars before I can rest.”

He gave her a long look that understood too much and then stepped aside so that she was back out in the dauphin’s gullet. He led her through another series of wooden walkways lined with finely woven rugs until she was in the captain’s pouch at the fore of the dauphin, looking out through the translucent skin at the cliff face in front of her. It was a small enough space, but there was a chair there, and many hanging velvet ropes that she knew Fabrice would use to guide the creature into the air. There was also a little wooden balcony that, if you looked over it, would drop you down into the arbor that served as the creature’s lungs.

“What must we do?” she asked him. And Fabrice reached across in front of her to pull a rope. Then a second and a third. Beneath her feet, the floor—the dauphin—moved. She nearly fell sideways except Fabrice’s hand was there around her waist.

“Careful, Princess. Perhaps it would do you well to sit?” He pointed to the chair that should be the captain’s—should be his.

But she did not question him as he continued to pull on ropes and the dauphin swam backwards then submerged itself between the water and swam to a deeper sea. Liyotte gripped the armrests as the dauphin tilted downwards, downwards. Deeper to soar higher. She remembered from when she had sailed in her father’s baleine to come here to be wed. And now Maman is bringing me home.

She would not cry until they took to the sky.

The dauphin leveled out and seemed to go very still for a long moment. And then it shot upwards and Liyotte heard herself shouting, “Sacred blue!” in surprise as the angle shifted.

“And now Rando—” Fabrice began but he was toppling sideways with a curse, hitting the wooden railing with a heavy thunk. The dauphin had lurched hard to the side unexpectedly, and Liyotte heard a strange hissing noise, but it was done as soon as it had happened.

“Fabrice?” Liyotte got to her feet, holding out a hand. Fabrice took it and leaned forward over the railing to look down. Then he looked back over his shoulder as though expecting to see something.

“I think that was the Infanta,” he said quietly, looking at Liyotte.

Four by twelve by the cosine of—

But her mind was trembling and it was as though numbers had never existed, not just that they didn’t come easily to her mind. She couldn’t even begin to calculate—

Fabrice was pulling the velvet cords again, making sure, she knew, that the beast was back on the correct trajectory and that they wouldn’t starve in the middle of the void. “She’s early.” A whole two days early. There was supposed to have been enough time to send a reguin to her silver halls to tell her not to come at all.

“The stars must have aligned for her,” Fabrice said.

“Can she catch us?”

Fabrice frowned for a moment, considering.

“She’ll need to rest her reguin,” he said. “Even a shorter journey will tire. It won’t be ready to fly for another day, at which point it may as well not because the window for Randose will have closed.”

And Liyotte did burst into tears. She pressed her face into her hands as relief and fear and every other feeling she hadn’t known she was feeling flooded her at once. They’ll find them tonight, not tomorrow.

But it won’t matter.

It won’t matter.

Fabrice’s arms were around her and he was pulling her to his chest, stroking her hair, pressing a kiss to her temple. He didn’t say a word. Kindness again, she wondered as she pressed her face into the crook of his neck and let herself tremble and shake.

She was free.