Page 72 of Grave Flowers
“Madness may grip you, and I care not, so long as you do what you must.” Prince Lambert’s voice reached me from afar. “If you dare cross me or try to raise Radix against me, I’ll send you to a closed order until the end of your days. Do you understand?” He gripped my shoulders and shook me. My teeth clicked together, and the world jostled around me, as though I’d been sent tumbling even though I sat on the bench. “By the Family, look at me.” I struggled to focus. “Tell me. Do you understand?”
I nodded, speech stolen, riddled with shock.
“Well, then.” He settled onto the bench next to me. “You may go.”
I sprang up, hurrying to the round door. Suddenly, I sensed Prince Lambert behind me, his breath on my neck, his fingers brushing my dress. My hands lifted to defend myself. I spun around. I’d been mistaken.
Prince Lambert still sat on the bench. He looked down to his right, searching, once again, for the woman he’d never see again.
I stumbled back out to the main halls of the palace. Frenzied horror washed over me. I’d just been commanded to wed Prince Lambert and learned Yorick was dead. Prince Lambert had accused me of being mad, and I believed it. I felt mad. The halls were a blur of tangled funnels. My mind couldn’t focus long enough to remember which way was which. Faces spun around me, murmurs growing loud in my ears and dying away as servants and nobles stared. I hardly registered them. Dizziness made me list. My hands groped for furnishings that lurked just ahead, yet they found only empty air.
Somehow, I found my way back to the theater. I burst into it.
“Yorick!” I screamed, then clamped my hands over my mouth. He was dead. I remembered him saying he had plans. What might they even be? Hurt spread through me. He’d betrayed me. Never had I ever protected anyone at such risk to myself, and now that I had, I’d been stabbed in the back. I crashed against the curving theater wall, imbalanced and lost. Blood welled on my lips. I staggered backstage.
The door to Yorick’s room was shut.
I threw it open.
Emptiness yawned behind it.
There was no bed, no actress’s vanity, no glowing flowers, no silken fabric draped across the ceiling. It was all gone. Only two things remained: his black cloak on a hook and an object in the middle of the floor—Mother’s plaque. I grabbed it and held it tight. I sank to the ground and pulled my knees to my chin.
I whispered to Yorick and Inessa, but neither came.
My ghosts, it seemed, had abandoned me.
ACT III
Exeunt Scene
“And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain, To tell my story.”—Hamlet
MADMINDS
Grave Flower
Experiment Nine Appearance
Mad minds have exquisite symmetry. Eight rounded petals sit amid a green leaf frill. Their centers are hard and as white as bone. If you slice it with a knife, it reveals a soft, wiggly pink substance, and if you poke it with said knife, it weeps a clear liquid that induces a person to reveal their wrongdoings.
Today was different. I didn’t bother with the invocation. I poured the mad minds into his water and had the guards call me once he drank. My wife begged me not to, but it must be done. He raved. Oh, how he raved. But it was useless. He confessed all manner of trivial things going all the way back to his childhood. Apparently he wasn’t very good at sharing his toys.
I realized I must direct his confession. I sent a guard to fetch a portrait of myself so the Fely prisoner might see it and speak freely about me. Theidiotic guard brought a wedding painting, depicting my wife and me. However, it worked.
My Fely prisoner talked about how he’d kissed my wife when she’d secretly visited him in his cell and hated himself for doing so because it might put his family at risk should it be revealed. He says he must be strong because I wish to make myself immortal and he will never reveal how. I slipped away before the poison wore off and called for my wife. She wasn’t anywhere. Then I heard footsteps in the walls. She was in the hidden passages, trying to escape. But I know them well. I caught up with her in the grave flower garden just as she reached the gate. Desperately, she begged me to forgive her, but she knew I wouldn’t. I strangled her there and then with my belt.
But I didn’t tell the Fely prisoner.
Not yet.
Chapter
TWENTY-ONE
The next day, Sindony wasn’t among my ladies-in-waiting, which was just as well. I would’ve had to dismiss her like Decima—only it would’ve been with good cause this time. I stared distrustfully at the remaining girls. No longer did their chatter and laughter sound innocent. Now it seemed like bubbling froth meant to hide secrets. I lurked in my bedchamber while they remained in the parlor, sewing as they waited for me to call for assistance.
There was a knock at the door, and one of them, Evi, jumped to answer it. She spoke to whoever was there and came over to my bedchamber.
