“She’ll sleep for at least four hours with this sedative,” he said. “When the nurse gets here, I’d like to consult with him about what just happened. My observations are from a clinical standpoint, so they might be more useful—”
“Than mine,” Persis finished. “I understand.” Like it or not, Justen knew how to care for Heloise far better than Persis did. “Excuse me while I see how soon my father can be expected.” She also needed to send in a maid to clean up the room before her father returned. It would upset him far more than necessary.
Torin Blake always put on a brave face, but his wife’s bad spells were destroying him, and there was nothing, absolutely nothing that Persis could do to help. If anything, he would rather not see her whenever things got bad, as if dreading the day Persis followed the same path.
Secretly, Persis wondered if that was why her father had let her drop out of school and was indulging what he called her current “phase” of parties and dresses and silly court intrigue. After all, the prospect of losing one’s intellectual capacity hurt somewhat less if you’d spent your life wasting it anyway.
Her mother, on her better days, was less understanding. “Fashion is certainly art, Persis,” she’d told her the last time they’d discussed her sudden apathy toward intellectual pursuits, “and worthy of your time. But I always thought you were more interested in politics. I’d hoped, someday, you could finally become the female voice we need on the Council.”
Persis couldn’t pursue politics. At least not until she was done being the Wild Poppy. But she could hardly explain that to either of her parents. If Papa wouldn’t let her go to Galatea on shopping trips, he’d flip if he learned she was risking life and mind every time she crossed the sea. No, they’d just have to spend a little while longer being utterly baffled that their previously book-ravenous daughter refused to talk about anything in public except her ever-expanding wardrobe.
Lies upon lies. She lied to her enemies as the Wild Poppy and to her friends who didn’t know her secret identity. She lied to her parents when they asked her why she no longer wanted to join Albion’s intellectual salons or continue her studies at school, and to Isla when she explained away her mother’s absences from court. She lied when she pretended to the public that she was in love with Justen Helo, and to Justen when she pretended that she didn’t know exactly what he’d done to his countrymen. There was almost no one left now who Persis could tell the truth to.
The night breeze blew across her heated face, bringing with it the scent of sea spray and frangipani. She heard a few playful barks and Slipstream darted up the stone path threading down the pali. His coat was wet from the sea as she scooped him into her arms.
“You know it all, though, Slippy.” His big otter eyes shone in the starlight, his fish-scented whiskers tickled her cheeks as she nuzzled him. “Now tell me what to do.”
Instead he stretched out his long neck to sniff at the golden flutter that had halted above their heads and was drifting slowly downward. An orchid. Persis opened her palm.
Dearest Persis,
I have decided that tomorrow would be an excellent opportunity for you to throw a small party for our friends on the Daydream. It’s been quite a while since you have used the yacht for any social events, which apparently seems strange to some of the courtiers. I believe you shall invite me, the Finches, Lord and Lady Blocking, Councilman Shift’s nephew Dwyer, and of course your darling Justen must attend.
It would please me very much if you were to pick us all up at the docks near the court tomorrow morning. Perhaps a sail out to Remembrance Island is in order?
Princess Isla, Regent of Albion
Persis grimaced, imagining Isla composing this flutter under duress from Councilman Shift. Its tone was so stiff and formal she wondered if Shift had made Isla type it out in front of him on a wallport. Setting the flutter to her usual Blake frangipani, she thought out her reply.
Of course, if you insist, I’d be happy to throw a boating party tomorrow. However, I feel as if there may be a better way to spend our time at the moment. I have very important news about Justen and me.
The princess fluttered back in record time.
I insist.
Twenty
BY THE TIME VANIA got back to Halahou, she’d reviewed every bit of information she could find on the prison break-in. She’d also gotten sick over the side of the boat. In a single burst, the Wild Poppy had managed to destroy not only her long campaign against the Fords but also the week she’d spent rearranging the troops according to General Gawnt’s orders, which she knew he’d somehow manage to blame on her. And the spy had done it all while Vania had been off in Albion, failing to talk sense into a clearly lunatic Justen Helo.
How was she ever going to explain this to her father?
She was surprised to find Remy waiting for her on the docks, her short black hair mussed in the breeze.
“What are you doing here?” Vania snapped at her foster sister, disembarking before the sailors finished setting the nanoropes. “It’s not safe in this neighborhood so late.”
Remy pouted. “Moral support, of course. Do you have any idea what they’re saying about this fiasco at the palace?”
Vania wasn’t sure she wanted to know, but then again, forewarned was forearmed. “Thanks, squirt.” She ruffled the girl’s hair a little as they headed for a waiting skimmer. “I imagine it’s not particularly good.”
At first, no one seemed to know how the Poppy had pulled it off. After they discovered the Fords’ prison cells were empty, troops had been sent after all deliveries and repairmen who’d entered the palace that day. One guard recalled a suspicious salter whose skimmer had broken down right at the gate, but though he’d been located, detained, and thoroughly searched along with his skimmer, there was no sign that anything was amiss. With a lack of any evidence and the clearly innocent and distraught salt miner beginning to draw a crowd on the public road, the guards let him go. All the other visitors to the prison that day had been similarly cleared.
It was all so mysterious.
It wasn’t until the guards reconvened at the prison to review the records of all comings and goings that they’d noticed the exodus of a crew of military personnel without any movement orders to match.
Vania groaned. “So no one recognized the guards as prisoners? No one thought, ‘Well, I haven’t seen these people before’?”
Remy shrugged. “Apparently, with all the staffing changes, as well as the influx of soldiers who’d previously been assigned to the Ford estate barricades . . . I was down there today looking for Uncle Damos and I barely recognized anyone.”
“I told Gawnt increased staffing wouldn’t help,” Vania muttered, mostly to herself. “If anything, it’s backfired.” She looked at Remy. “You have no idea how frustrating it is not to be taken seriously.”
“I can’t imagine,” Remy replied, and for a second, Vania was almost positive she heard an edge in the girl’s voice. “Did you find anything worthwhile in Albion?”
Vania remained silent. How much should she say about Justen’s behavior? She didn’t want to upset the girl, but it would be better for Remy to hear it from Vania than get shocked if things went bad for Justen later on. Vania couldn’t quite picture her father being kind if Justen’s treasonous ravings made it across the sea.
Stupid Justen. If he really felt so guilty about all of this, then he shouldn’t have gone to Albion. He should have simply joined those weird Peccants and spent the rest of his life whipping himself and combing the beach on Remembrance Island. At least then everyone would have just written him off as crazy.