Everyone in the hallway turned to stare. The princess’s attendants seemed to gasp in unison, and an alarming tinkling of bells ensued as they scuttled to the opposite wall. “I’m sorry?” Sophia said, more meekly than she intended to.
“In your ears,” the princess demanded.
Sophia’s hand flew up to her right ear. “Oh,” she said. “My earrings.” She looked at Veressa anxiously and was alarmed to see her vexed expression.
“Silver, if I’m not mistaken,” the princess said. She was smiling, but there was no mirth in her smile.
“Yes,” Sophia admitted.
The princess looked coldly at Veressa. “We are surprised at the guests you choose to bring into the palace,” she said. “If we did not know you better, we would ask you to answer for your intentions. This royal family has been relentlessly persecuted, our own mother a victim of the iron conspiracy, and we continue to survive only by the strictest vigilance. Is it your wish to expose us to danger?”
“Do not doubt my intentions, Highness. She is only a child—and a foreigner,” Veressa said respectfully, without looking up. “She meant nothing by it.”
A long pause ensued, while the waiting women fussed and their many bells tinkled. “We will trust your judgment in this matter,” Justa said finally, “but consider this a warning. Clearly you must be reminded that the Mark of Iron are baseless creatures. The dungeons of this palace are filled with cowards who have attempted to destroy us, from without and from within. Sending a child to do their work is precisely the kind of attack they would attempt.”
Veressa murmured an apology. The princess lifted her head, took a step forward, and moved on, the glassy tinkling fading as the procession disappeared around the corner.
All five of them rose to their feet. “I’m so sorry, Veressa!” Sophia cried. “I didn’t think!”
“My dear, you’ve done nothing wrong,” Martin told her.
“Of course she hasn’t! It is absolutely absurd,” said Veressa, as she strode down the corridor. “The level of fanaticism and intolerance that has taken hold of this royal family. Imagine objecting to a pair of silver earrings.”
“Good thing we’ve kept our swords and revolvers hidden,” Calixta said cheerfully.
Veressa and Martin stopped in their tracks. “You didn’t!” Veressa asked in a whisper. Martin glanced in either direction, as if the walls might have overheard.
“We never leave them behind,” Burr said firmly. “And they are very well-hidden.”
“You would certainly be arrested if the guards discovered them! My father and I would be unable to intervene. Indeed, they might well arrest us as well, and we would all be joining those poor fools in the dungeons.”
“I’m sorry, Veressa,” Calixta put in. “But we’ve always brought them when we come to see you. Why should it be any different now?”
“I had no idea,” Veressa said, her voice tense and quiet. “You’ve been running an extraordinary risk. The palace is even more guarded than usual because of the eclipse festivities in two days and the weirwind that is moving north.”
The pirates exchanged glances. “We should leave,” Burr said. “Our apologies for having placed you in danger.”
Veressa sighed. “No, I’m sorry,” she said regretfully. “The situation is ridiculous, and I am embarrassed on behalf of the princess—embarrassed that we make ourselves so inhospitable. Please stay at least until tomorrow. For your own sakes, I won’t urge you to stay through the eclipse, but it’s much too late to leave today.”
Martin shook his head with exasperation. “They shouldn’t have to leave at all. But I agree that it will be safer if you do,” he had to admit.
Sophia silently removed her earrings as they returned to the royal botanist’s apartments. Justa’s suspiciousness worked through the five of them like a poison—they could not seem to agree on what to do next. They agreed that finding Shadrack was essential and discussed how to handle Montaigne and the Sandmen, but formulating a plan without any real knowledge of who and where they were proved impossible. They were stymied.
Sophia listened, but her mind kept drifting to the four maps. Something about them unsettled her, demanding her concentration like a riddle, worming this way and that, elusive and urgent. Their memories were so detailed and so real that she could have sworn they were her own—but, of course, that was how memory maps worked. As the others talked around and around in circles, Sophia tried to work out the riddle by drawing in her notebook. She found no solution.
Her thoughts continued through dinner—maize cakes and squash flower—and later, in bed, she searched Shadrack’s atlas for something that would help. But the more she read, the more obscure the riddle seemed, and nothing explained why the memories from the four maps seemed so strangely familiar. She finally turned to the bedroom bookshelf for distraction and saw a volume titled Lives of the Nochtland Royals.
There was little about Princess Justa’s early years. By contrast, the story Mazapán had told of the princess’s death took up several pages—especially because he had not described the terrible consequences.
THE EMPEROR DISCOVERED, BY THE vital assistance of his advisors, that a pair of brothers with the Mark of Iron had cunningly disguised their metal and risen to positions of prestige. Elad and Olin Spore would not confess, no matter how rigorous the interrogation, but it was speculated that they had placed the orchids on purpose to poison the empress and then prey upon the weakened emperor. If this was their plan, they were sorely disappointed. Far from weakening, the emperor sentenced them both to death. Then he scoured the court for any others with the Mark of Iron, and he finally sought comfort in the Religion of the Cross, though he had never before been a believer. The court was reduced to only a few close advisors, and the emperor ordered greater and greater penalties for those who wore or used metal of any kind. And yet it was never known for certain who had poisoned the empress. Some months after her death, the emperor began his prolonged and noble quest to conquer the far reaches of his territory.
Sophia sighed. It was no wonder, she reflected, that Princess Justa showed such intolerance.
—19-Hour 27—
SOPHIA AWOKE LATE in the night to find the room entirely dark. She could hear Calixta breathing from the other bed, but that had not awoken her. It was her dream, she realized. She had been dreaming about the four maps. They had all returned to the library as soon as the moon had risen, and though considering the four maps together had yielded no new answers, something about them had stayed with her and worked its way into her dreams. She bolted upright and fumbled for her pack, which was lying beside her pillow; then she thrust the atlas into it and strapped it over her shoulder before scurrying down the short ladder. She stepped into her slippers and hurried out of the bedroom, quietly opening and closing the door behind her.
As she shuffled along the dark corridor she became aware of the night noises around her: crickets in the patio; the murmuring of the garden’s fountains from beyond the walls; the quiet tinkling of the wind chimes, delicate and high-pitched or thrumming and deep. Sophia was surprised to see the door of Martin’s workroom open and light streaming out of it. Perhaps it is not as late as I think, she considered, reaching for her pocket watch. It was past nineteen-hour. Curious, she peered into the laboratory.
Plants crowded the wooden work surfaces and hung from every inch of the ceiling. Glass canisters filled with soil were clustered beside tall flasks of blue water and tiny green dropper bottles. Martin was on a stool, examining something through his enormous spectacles. Sophia was astonished to see on the table what looked like a wooden leg with Martin’s sock and shoe at the end of it. His left pant leg was entirely empty from the knee down. “Martin?” she asked tentatively.