Ama lost connection to the places where her body intersected with the world: where her feet touched the ground, where her head existed in relation to the rest of the room. Jolted from her skin, that was the sensation—and the queen mother’s words—practicing ease in this body of yours—screeched loudly not in her ears, for she had no ears, not in her head, for her head was gone, but in the wide great darkness of everything that was not that one bright point of light.
She caught herself before she fell, and the queen mother’s chambers rushed back in with a whoosh—the fire, the cats, the queen mother herself—and without a word to excuse herself, Ama ran for the door, fumbled with the handle, jerked the door open, and stumbled across the threshold.
He wouldn’t, Ama told herself, skirts bunched in her fists as she ran quick as she could down the halls.
He couldn’t, Ama prayed, rounding a corner and rushing up a set of stairs.
She tried to remember the route that Tillie had taken, tried to retrace her steps back to her room, back to Sorrow, but the castle felt infinitely labyrinthine, almost as if it were alive and mocked her by moving its doors and twisting its hallways.
She would find the room. Through force of will, she would make the hallway take her where she needed to go. On and on she ran, panicked, undone. A painful stitch burned Ama’s side, just below her left breast, but she did not slow. A stone in the cobbled floor—just a hair higher than its brothers—caught the tip of Ama’s toe, and down she fell, her palms scraping against the rough grout that held the stones in place.
She pulled herself back to her feet and pushed back her hair, spilling now from her braid. Where was she? Which direction was she facing? Was she a story too high, or too low?
She would never find her way back. She was too late, she felt in her bones, too late, and too far away, and anyway, too powerless to save the lynx kitten. She hadn’t saved the kitten’s mother; if anything, she had been the cause of her death. And now the kitten would die too, because Ama had showed it too much affection.
Everything was her blame. Too stupid to find her way back to her room. Too effusive with her emotions. Too inquisitive with the kitchen girl. She was too much and not enough, both in the same instant. Too big and too small; too bright and too dull; too affectionate and not affectionate enough.
I’ll be less, Ama promised, though to whom, she didn’t know. Just spare Sorrow, let me keep her, and I will be as small as you want me to be.
Was she praying to a god? To Emory? Ama did not know, and, in any case, she did not think anyone was listening.
She was alone in a hallway in a castle that was not her home. She was alone in the world, in a body that did not belong to her.
A boy no older than ten came around the corner just then, carrying a large stack of linens, too heavy for his thin arms. His eyes barely peered over the top of the stack, but they widened when they spied Ama.
“Milady,” he said, and he bowed, as he had surely been taught to do, causing the mountain of linens to spill from his arms in an avalanche of fabric. “Oh!” he cried. “Oh no!”
“Please,” said Ama as the boy dropped to his knees and began frantically repiling his spilled linens, “I am the queen-in-waiting, and I must return to my room, at once. I have lost my way. Can you take me there?”
The boy looked up, his eyes wide with panic as he scanned the hallway, searching, no doubt, for someone who might help him, and also someone who might punish him. But there was no one other than him and Ama. She could see the boy fighting a silent battle—weighing his duty to the linens against his duty to his future queen—and it took not more than a moment before he stood, abandoning the linens and his lesser duty to them, and said obediently, “Of course, milady. I shall take you there.”
Perhaps there would be a cost to the boy, Ama thought with a stab of guilt as sharp as the cramp in her side. But she could speak for him later, after she had found her Sorrow safe in her room. She would send word with Tillie that the boy was not to be punished for abandoning his chores, she promised herself.
The boy navigated the castle’s hallways with the practiced surety of one who had spent a lifetime among them, and Ama followed close at his heels. It was but minutes before he had led her directly to her chamber, gesturing to her door with an elaborate flourish that could have been funny, had circumstances been different than this.
“Thank you,” Ama gasped, still grasping the pain in her side. She pushed open her door. “Sorrow,” she called, and she scanned the chamber within—there, her fire, nearly dead; there, her bed, neatly made, curtains tied open, bolsters fluffed; there, her cloak and gowns and other finery; there, the ovular mirror and her own horror-struck reflection—
For, save for her mirror image, Ama was alone, alone, entirely alone.
She dropped to the floor as the linens had, just as shapeless and just as white, and her lips parted in a keening wail.
Behind her, frightened, the serving boy backed quietly away, and then he turned and ran.
The Bird’s Creance
Minutes passed, and nothing changed, save for Ama. She quelled her cries and willed her hands to steady. Perhaps it was not yet too late. Maybe if she went to Emory and pleaded with him, perhaps then he would spare the lynx. Maybe if she gave him something he wanted—and here she remembered how he had come to her, in her bed—maybe, then, he would give her back her Sorrow.
Ama stumbled to her feet. She was at the door to her room before she realized that she had no idea where Emory slept, or how to find him. This realization weakened her legs afresh, and Ama may have dropped to her knees again but for her hand on the doorknob.
She heard the rustle of skirts and the soft, fast footfalls of a woman running, and then Tillie appeared.
“Lady,” said Tillie, breathless, dropping a curtsy in the hallway outside Ama’s chamber door. “Lady, forgive me.”
“Where is she?” Ama asked. Her voice trembled like her knees.
“Lady, the king himself came to take her. Please, lady, let us go into your room. Let me make you some barley tea, let me loosen your stays—”
“Where is my Sorrow?” Ama forced herself to keep her voice steady. She wiped her hand angrily across her cheeks to dry them.
“Lady,” said Tillie, “perhaps it is for the best. That animal would soon have grown much too large to keep as a pet. She was no lap cat, lady. She was a wild beast.”
Tillie was speaking as if Sorrow were dead. She could not be dead.
“Where is the king?” Ama said. “Tell me where the king has taken her.”
“I do not know, lady,” Tillie said, her voice going higher and higher. “Please, lady, come inside your room.” Tillie blocked the doorway, preventing Ama’s leaving.
“Move,” Ama said, but Tillie did not.
Ama raised her hands and pushed, hard, on Tillie’s chest, knocking her backward and into the hall. Tillie made a little sound, a surprised oof, as she stumbled out of the doorway. Her path now free, Ama yearned to run, but she knew not if she should turn up the hall or down it. Neither choice was better than the other; she had no notion of where the king might be. She did not know where his chambers were. She did not know where he might have taken the lynx. She did not know anything.