Page 73 of The Thirteenth Child
“Well?” he said, testy with impatience. “I asked you a question. Aren’t you going to answer?”
I paused, trying to remember exactly what he’d said to wake me.
“Are you deaf? My father has been into all sorts of oddities lately, but this is a first. Why aren’t you in there, with him?” He overenunciated his last phrase, gesturing broadly to the closed doors.
“I’m not deaf,” I snapped. “Your Majesty,” I added feebly.
Was I supposed to curtsy? Or was that just for the king?
I ended up ducking into a short bob that could be a mark of reverence. I suspected it only looked as though I needed to relieve myself. Which I did, truth be told.
“Your Royal Highness,” he corrected me, though he didn’t seem bothered by my lack of accuracy.
He honestly didn’t seem bothered by much of anything at all.
His pupils were dilated enough to render his irises completely black, and he squinted, as if the candlelight pained him. His skin looked damp and clammy, as if he were running a low-grade fever, but I had no doubt what was causing his heated flush.
After a surreptitious glance down the hall, the prince took out a gold-plated case of cigarettes. He offered one to me before lighting it for himself when I declined.
“My mother’s favorite. I found myself missing her tonight,” he admitted, taking a long drag. When he exhaled, the smoke was astrange shade of green and didn’t smell of tobacco at all. “So if you’re not my father’s new whore, whatareyou doing outside his rooms?”
I flushed myself, feeling the same shock he’d given me that day in the marketplace. “I’m a healer. They summoned me to—”
“Oh yes.” Leopold breathed out another puff of smoke. This time it was a deep shade of purple. “The Dreaded End’s girl.” His eyes wandered up and down my face, appraising. “Are you really any good? You look awfully young.”
I stared at him, trying to decide the best way to answer.
He slid down the wall, sprawling his lanky legs at angles across the plush wool carpet. The cigarette ended in a puff of dark blue. “These are terrible, you know. You were right to turn it down.”
“If they’re so terrible, why do you smoke them?”
He shrugged. “I was feeling wistful, I suppose. Wistful and stupidly sentimental. I thought it might cheer me up.”
“Has it?”
He chuckled, then patted the floor, indicating that I should join him. “Of course not.”
I eased myself down, my body recalling every bump in the road it had ridden earlier. “I was sorry to hear of her passing.”
He made a sound of deflecting acknowledgment. “Yes, yes. The whole of the kingdom is terribly sad. They’re always going on and on about it, foisting their sadness upon us, the ones who actually knew her.”
I studied him, unsure of what to make of this new version of Leopold. It was easy to assume that he was still the same dreadful boy, overindulged, forever getting his way in a palace that catered exclusively to just that. But the cigarettes—for all their foulness—gave me pause.
He was grieving, of that I had no doubt, and I knew better than anyone how strong a hold grief could have on a person.
“So, little healer,” he went on, his head lolling toward me. “What do you think? Will I be taking on the crown anytime soon?”
“I…I honestly don’t know.” I hadn’t had a moment alone with the king to see if this sickness was curable or if he was already too far gone.
Leopold took out another cigarette but didn’t light it. “You willtryto save him, though, won’t you? All the others who’ve paraded in promised us the world—cures and full restoration and boundless health and wealth—but the second they saw what they were up against, they turned tail and ran. Every single one of them.”
I swallowed, gathering my courage. “I can understand that. I’ve never seen anything like it. Not in books or stories, certainly not in person. But I will heal him, if there’s a way. I won’t run from this—from him. I promise.”
His black eyes roamed over my face. “You don’t look like very much…but you do look brave.”
He reached out to touch my chin, and a long moment, slow and strange, passed between us before I tilted away.
“Where did you say you were from?”
