

Wintergreen

YA Historical Fantasy

By Kristin Burchell

Copyright (C)2017 by Kristin Burchell

Published 2017 by Kristin Burchell

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission, except for brief quotations to books and critical reviews. This story is a work of fiction. Characters and events are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

**Wintergreen**

By Kristin Burchell
**Table of Contents**

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

About the Author

**Chapter 1**

A howl pierces the room's stillness from the forest outside. The book falls from my hands to the stone floor. Cursing, I lean over to pick it up.

"Still not used to it?" Celena asks, without looking up from her cards.

I should be. Every afternoon in the winter the wolves gather. And it's always winter here.

Though a fire roars in the hearth, the air in the room is cold and still. The candles all around the room burn with blue flames, which only deepen the shadows pooling in the corners. Celena sits on her knees before her low table, her cards spread before her.

More howls fill the air, as if the wolves are waiting just outside, at the base of our tower. It's sure to mean the ghosts are restless and roaming the forest.

I leap from my chair and stride to the hearth, to the loose stone where Caroline hid the treasure she brought with her from Versailles. From beneath it I take two coins, hesitate, return one. The treasure is dwindling and might be gone within the year.

I take the heavy cloak, too fine for the forest, from the peg on the wall and wrap myself in it.

"Watch out for the wolves," Celena says.

It's not the wolves I fear. It's what their howling portends that should frighten me. But I can't spend another afternoon in silence, waiting for nightfall, with only Celena for company.

"How long will you be gone?" Celena asks. I glance at the cards laid before her: Death, the Tower, the Hermit. Always the same.

"I don't know." The thick scars across her cheek and neck are black in the dim light. "You could come with me."

"You know I can't."

"I know you won't."

She keeps her eyes on the cards.

"How many more times will you try to read your fortune? You know it's always the--"

"Just go," she says.

I kick aside the rug that hides the round door in the floor and tug it open by the round iron handle. Cold air rushes up through it, narrow steps leading into gloom below. Shivering, I hurry down the first few steps, then pull the door closed behind me.

The blackness presses in on me, but my feet are sure on the stairs. I follow them in a spiral until I reach the door at the bottom.

I must use my shoulder to push open the door. The frigid air tightens around me like a fist, stopping my breath for a moment. I pull my cloak closed and step out into the snow, pushing the door closed.

There is no sign of the wolves, though I see their tracks around the base of the tower.

Just look straight ahead, I tell myself. Don't look up. I set off into the woods.

I know if I turn to look at the tower I will see the woman falling silently, the sleeves of her gown fluttering bout her like wings, that she will disappear before she hits the ground. I push forward, counting each breath as it puffs from my mouth in clouds, my eyes on my feet as they crunch in the snow.

The village is perhaps a half hour's walk from the tower. The trees in this part of the forest grow close together so densely that the sunlight cannot penetrate them. The snow is crusted in ice. The blanket of snow muffles all the sound.

It should be Spring. But the crisp snow on the ground refuses to melt, the wind never abating. Winter seems to have settled itself over this forest like an evil enchantment.

It is sure to be a Wolf Moon tonight. At nightfall the wolves will gather at the edge of the village and howl, and the villagers will barricade their doors and huddle in their houses. For anyplace else, the Wolf Moon comes only once a year. But here in the forest, it comes nearly every month.

The trees grow thinner the farther I walk, and thin sunlight manages to filter through the forest. My cheeks sting with the cold, my breath puffing in clouds. But I feel lighter away from the shadows and gloom of the Tower.

At last I see the first houses huddled among the trees. Their walls are washed gray by the wind and cold, but bright colored curtains hang at the windows and white smoke whisping from chimneys hints at warm fires within.

I pull my hood low over my face, as Caroline always warned me to do. "The villagers believe us to be witches," she said.

"Why?" I asked.

"My grandmother fell in love with a man from the village. He died soon after they argued. The fools believe she cursed him."

"Did she?"

Caroline's lips tightened. "They haven't forgotten. They think us all dead. Do not let them know where you've come from."

In the forest some of the trees bear burn marks; some of the stones in the rubble of the castle walls are scorched, remnants of the night the villagers came to take revenge on my great grandmother and her family. Of course the stone couldn't be set on fire, but they'd tied her to a tree and set it afire.

So I take care to wear the cloak low over my face, to speak to no one. But there are times when the cold of the forest presses too closely, when I long to hear voices of the living, to hear their laughter and arguments, going about their tedious chores, thinking their menial thoughts, with no thought of murder or death or madness.

And besides that, I have no stomach for setting traps for the little creatures in the woods, or for fishing, but I need to eat.

The wind rises as I approach the center of the village, where a handful of market stalls are set up in a clearing in the center of the houses. From one table wafts a sweet scent: pastries, gleaming gold in the sun. I stop there first, using one of the golden coins to purchase a warm loaf of bread. The woman's eyes flick to mine curiously but she asks no questions.

At the next table soaps are laid out, likely scented with the forest's winter offerings: pine needles, holly berries. My neck prickles at the scent of wintergreen.

I turn away toward another stall, from which an odor rises pungent enough to overpower the wintergreen. Fish are piled into baskets, their scales gleaming silver in he sunlight. A great man with white hair flying in the breeze is loading some of the baskets into a cart as a woman with a pinched face argues with him. "I don't see why you have to take so many."

"I'm not going to deny the Queen. She ordered them for her dinner."

The woman snorts. "She and her silly friends will eat a few dainty bites and waste the rest."

"I don't care what she does with it, as long as she pays us."

A girl with eyes too large in her thin face, her hands red and chapped, says, "Bring back news of the court."

The man grunts as he loads another basket. "Gossip, more like."

"Is it true she has a lover?" the girl whispers. The man turns on her, scowling.

"That's none of our business. If you don't have enough to do besides think of the Queen, I will find you something to keep you busy."

The wind rises, sending an empty basket skittering across the ground, a small boy in pursuit.

The girl crosses her arms, her face sullen. "I wish I could go with you. I'd love to see the inside of the palace."

"You don't want to go near that place," the fisherman snaps. "That palace will fall to ruins, the people inside nothing to ghosts. Just like the d'Vies."

The three turn their faces in the direction of the tower. I pull my hood closer and stroll away as casually as I am able.

I don't see the dog race across my path until I've stumbled over it.

A hand closes on my arm, steadying me. I look up into the face of a young man, a year or two older than myself. His light hair blows about his face, his cheeks are smooth and not roughened from months in the wind and cold. His cloak is a plain gray color, like those of the villagers, but I can tell the fabric is thick, and free of patches.

"Steady, there," he says, one side of his mouth lifting in a smile. His blue eyes are bright in the sunlight.

I start to thank him, but the words die on my lips. I've met him before. Perhaps I've seen him here in the village. But he clearly doesn't belong here.

"Are you all right?" he asks, and I feel my cheeks heat. I've been staring at him like a foolish child.

"I'm fine, thank you."

I feel a chill, a warning that the ghosts are hungrier than I thought. They love to come out in the wind. I don't know what will happen when they catch up to me, talking to this stranger, and I don't want to find out.

His brow furrows, and he opens his mouth to speak. Oh, no Perhaps he's recognized me. I turn and rush off into the trees, weaving a crooked path among them.

When the air darkens and the trees have thickened, I pause to look behind me. He hasn't followed. I let out a long breath, feeling the warmth of his hand on my arm as he steadied me, the brightness in his eyes.

There is no sense standing in the forest, shrouded in loneliness like one of the ghosts.

I turn and come face to face with a tall, spindly man. He is more shadow than solid, though a great wound is torn through his middle.

"Move, Lionel," I tell him as firmly as I am able. But he stands resolutely in my path. I take a step to the side and he steps with me. I reverse course and he follows. I turn around and there he is in front of me again.

I don't like to step through them but this one never gives me a choice. Bracing myself I step forward. The cold is piercing. The grief he felt, the pain in his middle when he died. He fell from his roof and was impaled on a stake. Bad fortune; he'd had it his whole life.

In a moment it is over and he has vanished. But the coldness lingers. It will take hours standing next to the fire to banish it.

I draw my cloak closer and quicken my step. It will be dark soon.

As the tower comes into view I realize I should have brought something for Celena, an apology for leaving her behind. At the foot of the tower a clump of red berries, bright as rubies, gleam against the snow. They are poison, I know, but they might brighten the tower room, since there are no flowers. I pick a dozen or so of them and hold them carefully as I take the heavy iron key from my cloak and unlock the hidden door.

Celena glances up from her cards as I clamber up into the room. The candle flame casts blue shadows across her face. "Lionel?"

I don't bother to answer, standing in front of the fire, letting the heat wash over me.

"What did you bring?" she asks.

"Bread."

"No fish?"

I shake my head. "But I brought you something. For you hair."

"You never give up, do you?"

"Never." I show her the berries.

"Those look like blood," she says, eyeing them.

"I was thinking rubies. They'd look pretty."

"How will you put them in my hair?"

I show her the tiny stems. "I'll pin them." Crossing to the vanity, I pull out the stool for her. Slowly she rises from the floor and settles herself on the stool.

I begin running the heavy brush, the one Caroline brought from court, through her hair.

"I wish I'd found buttercups."

"You'll never find them in this forest."

"They bring riches."

Celena snorts. "And then we could ride to Paris in a fine coach."

"We have a coach."

Celena's mouth twitches into a near smile. The ruins of a coach rest among the trees, its wheels gone, its seats torn to bits and home now to tiny woodland creatures.

My heart lifts a bit. It is hard to make Celena smile now. She was once the more beautiful of us. She is still, if you don't see the angry red scars crossing her neck and cheek. The skin on the right side of her face is still white and smooth. Her hair is light, like mine, but hers is like silk, falling in delicate curls around her shoulders.

Her hair smells like Caroline, flowery and sweet, the way it smelled when she leaned over my pillow as I drifted off to sleep, humming a sad lullaby.

A shining lock of Celena's hair falls into my hand. My hand freezes.

"What is it?" she asks.

"Nothing." I force myself to smile and let the hair drop from my fingers to the floor. I will try to retrieve it before she notices, and hide it with the others, in the sack in the wardrobe. Perhaps I can slip outside with it and give it to the birds for their nests.

I open the carved box sits with all of the hair ornaments Caroline brought with her from Versailles, searching the jumble of jeweled pins and ribbons until I find a tiny pin shaped like a butterfly.

"Not that one," Celena says flatly.

"Why not?"

"It's too much like Spring."

"Spring will be here soon," I lie.

She shakes her head. "Not for me, it won't."

I refuse to be pulled into her self pity, not today. I drop the pin back inside the box and find a plain one. I tuck the stem of a berry into it, then slide the pin into her hair. Then I take up another, and another. The berries gleam like jewels in her hair. She frown softens as she looks at her reflection.

As I pin the last berry, another lock of hair falls into my hand. There is no hiding it this time. Celena turns to stare at it, her scars dark and red against her skin. Without a word she stands and stalks to her bed, disappearing into the shadows.

"I'm sorry." She does not reply. I stoop to retrieve the first lock that fell from her head, and tuck them both into my sleeve.

A sliver of frigid air forces its way inside as I open the shutters a crack. The moon, full and white, shines in, casting light onto the floor, almost like a path. I can just make out the shining rooftops of Versailles.

I remember only snippets of my life there, for Caroline brought me here when I was only a few years old, before Celena was born. I remember a great hall, with mirrors reflecting the candles burning in crystal chandeliers, and the smell of oranges. I remember the weight of velvet curtains as I crouched behind them, a blue eyed boy laughing in delight as he pulled them aside, exposing my hiding place. "Found you!"

The same blue eyes of the man in the marketplace.

The wind tugs Celena's hair from my fingers, carrying it off.

I shake my head. The madness must be taking hold. Why would the playmate from my childhood in Versailles be in the forest where winter never ends?

I cast a wish to the stars, scattered across the black sky. It is the same wish as always: _To escape the tower, the ghosts, the winter. To feel warmth and sunlight. To see only the living.._ From far away a wolf howls. I close the shutter with a snap.

In the darkness Celena hums the lullaby Caroline sang when we were children.

_It 's raining, it's raining, shepherdess,_

_Hurry your white sheep,_

_I hear on the leaves_

_The water falling very noisily,_

_Here, here is the storm,_

_There is the lightning flashing ..._

My eyes fall on the cards on the table. It's been a long time since I've read my fortune. I grew tired of the Tower card appearing, time after time. But now, I wonder if my future is different.

I slide the Tower, Death, the Hermit, into the deck and shuffle it, shuffle again. Taking a deep breath, I turn over the first card.

The Tower.

I crumple it in my hand and carry it to the fire. When I throw it into the flames they hiss and turn blue, greedily devouring it. In a moment the card is only ashes.

"The tower is not my future," I mutter, and go to bed.

**Chapter 2**

I lie staring at the ceiling, sensing the nightmares awaiting me in my sleep. "Daisies for loyalty," I murmur, as I have since I was a child, to ward them off. "Red poppies for consolation, white poppies for sleep. Gardenias for secret love." Caroline had taught me this lore before she'd left. "Buttercups for riches. Violets for fortune. Marigolds for grief. Dahlias for warnings and betrayal but also for travel..."

My throat begins to burn, my lungs blaze. The scent of wintergreen fills the air. I open my eyes and Caroline leans over my bed, her tears dripping onto my pillow. She smoothes my hair from my forehead and begins to hum a lullaby full of heartbreak. I scramble up the bed, away from her. A lock of my hair has come loose in her hand. Dropping it to the floor, she begins stroking my hair again, and another lock falls out.

"Mother, stop," I try to tell her, but the wintergreen is so thick in the air that my throat is too raw to speak. I am choking...

My eyes fly open. My heart pounds as I take in great breaths of air, now laced with only a hint of wintergreen. Caroline has disappeared. _She was never here,_ I tell myself. _She was only a nightmare._

Celena lies still and silent in her own bed. I pat my hair frantically but there are no bald patches.

I lie back down. "It wasn't real, it wasn't real," I chant to myself until my heart slows.

I know if I close my eyes I will see her, Caroline, falling through the air, her red hair dancing like fire, her arms spread like wings that won't save her. I lie with my eyes wide open through the long dark hours. When at last the shutters are lined with light, I rise, my legs shaky from the nightmares. My sister is still and silent in her bed. I can't hear her breathe.

I think of returning to the village, to catch a glimpse of the man from my days in Versailles. But it would be too great a risk. Someone might follow me and discover us here in the tower.

I must leave the tower, though, even if I don't go to the village. Perhaps the cold air will scour out the memory of the nightmare. I change my clothes, pulling on two pairs of leggings and two dresses, and plait my hair firmly. I wrap myself in my warmest cloak and wrap a scarf about my head. I take the pail from the peg on the wall. Finally I pull on my boots and roll up the heavy rug, exposing the trap door beneath it.

I heave it open, revealing the stone stairs spiraling into the darkness. It is lucky that I know them so well, for a candle will not pierce this darkness, especially when its flame burns blue.

I descend the stairs, thankful the air is only dank, devoid of the smell of wintergreen.

I reach the bottom in a minute and twist the key in the lock. The door swings open.

Fresh, cold air and bright sunlight greet me. I step into the snow and pull the door closed behind me, locking it and tucking the key into my pocket.

The wooden eyes of the wolf follow me as I walk toward the stream. The wind has died down today, and a bit of light has diluted the dimness.

Before Caroline became a fine lady courtier of Versailles, she lived in these woods, a wild creature, who knew how to break the neck of a rabbit to end its life quickly. She taught me which plants and berries are edible and which are poisonous, and how to stand so silently in a stream that the fish swim close before they realize the danger. She showed me how to climb to nests to gather eggs.

I have no stomach for killing small creatures and no patience for standing in an icy stream to catch a fish, so I go to the village when we need meat or bread. But since I didn't buy fish yesterday perhaps I might find some eggs.

As we walked in the forest she told me which flowers would draw a man nearer, and which could ease heartbreak. She knew which moss to rub on her skin to keep her youth, and the leaves that made a poultice to make her hair shine.

I stop to look aback at the Tower, its tall moss covered stones all that remains of a wild, grand palace that stood among the trees. From here Caroline's family once ruled the forest. As the minds of her ancestors decayed so did the walls of the palace until only this battlement remained.

Madness runs wild in the women in Caroline's family. They kept to themselves in this odd palace in the forest, either fleeing or slowly driven mad within the cold stone walls, where spring never reached.

The madness manifested itself in different ways. One of my great great aunts saw spiders crawling down the walls, spinning webs that stretched like traps across the halls. She was forever brushing invisible cobwebs from her hair or scratching at imaginary bites until her skin bled.

A cousin of hers heard a constant singing in her ear. She was sure it was the voice of the man she'd been destined to marry but had never met, singing a love song to her. She tried to leave the safety of the castle more than once but each time the voice faded. She fled back to the castle in a panic, relieved when she could hear him once again.

She spent her days at the window, weeping and waiting for him to appear.

Usually the ghosts appeared to them. Ghosts of dead husbands, children. The ghosts of the ancestors who'd died before them, walking the halls, drinking wine, dancing, sitting at the great table and eating. Sometimes strangers who'd perhaps died in the forest, seeking refuge among other spirits.

When only Caroline and her father remained, he brought her to Versailles, to present her to the Queen. Marie Antoinette fell in love with her wildness and appointed her one of her most trusted ladies.

Only desperation could have made Caroline return to the tower. Surely she knew the ghosts would overcome her. What would make her choose that over living?

I'd been immune from the visions. Though I sometimes sensed icy breath at my neck or the caught the scent of flowery perfume that didn't belong to any of us, I never saw a ghost. Not until the night of the wintergreen.

Perhaps it is not too late for me. Perhaps, if I leave the forest, I can still escape the madness that overtook the women in Caroline's family, one by one. Perhaps Caroline could have escaped it too, if only she hadn't returned.

On the blackest nights, when the wind howls around our tower and the shutters rattle, Celena begs me to remember the way Caroline was in Versailles. I have nearly forgotten. I was so young, and the wintergreen has stolen some of my memories. But Celena persists until I remember Caroline's laugh, bright as crystal, and the scent of champagne on her breath when she came to kiss me good night. I recall the smell of her perfume, like blossoms from some far away place, and the rustle of the heavy silk of her dress, the brush of her slippers against the floor, and her voice humming the latest composition from court as she practiced the most daring dance steps. I remember the way she sobbed into her scented pillows after the man in the blue coat had gone, the door clicking firmly shut behind him. I don't tell Celena about him.

In my memory I see them again, Caroline weeping before the auburn haired lady in my memory. The Queen. She takes my mother's hands. _Caroline. I 've helped you once already. Please don't ask this of me._ She'd pulled away and swept from the room, her heels clicking against the floor. I'd gone to Caroline and put my arms around her, trying to comfort her. But she pushed me aside and took out a trunk, tossing her fine gowns into it, her jewels carelessly on top of them. She picked up the cage that contained a white songbird. A gift from the man in the blue coat.

A man with a face tan from the sun had carried the trunk as we left the palace and walked deep into the forest, Caroline following with the cage, the bird's chirp the only sound. With every step the air grew colder. Snow appeared on the ground and soaked my slippers. The man scooped me up and carried both me and the trunk. I fell asleep on his shoulder, breathing in his scent of earth. When I woke we stood at the foot of the tower.

The man set me and the trunk down and turned to Caroline. He opened his mouth to speak.

"Never tell," Caroline said.

Closing his mouth, he nodded. He rested his hand on my head for a long moment, then turned and walked into the forest.

Caroline opened the door of the cage, and the little bird hopped forward, cocking its head.

"Go," Caroline said. "A cage is hot a home."

The bird stepped into the snow. With a whisper of feathers it flew off and disappeared into the trees.

"Come." Caroline led me toward the Tower.

Caroline never laughed once we came to the forest. One night, I'd buried myself in the blankets, pressing my hands to my ears to block my mother's screams. Hours later I'd heard the cry of a baby. _Your sister. Celena_ , my mother said, brushing her lips across her forehead as I stared in astonishment.

As the years passed, Caroline sat herself before the mirror each morning, instructing us in the hairstyles she'd created in Versailles, envied and imitated by all the ladies of the court. She taught us to weave gems into the plaits and curls. Amethysts, she told us, would protect against betrayal. And rubies, because they would remind everyone of the life coursing through their hearts.

Each evening she would instruct us in the dances from court. Celena's steps were lighter than mine, her turns more graceful. As I watched I thought my sister was more beautiful than even Caroline. Once, I caught Caroline watching, eyes alight with envy, and knew she thought so, as well.

Later, she sat at the table without speaking, the whisper of the cards as she turned them over, one by one, peering into them for her fortune.

Each night she would tuck is into bed. In her soft, sad voice she would sing us the lullaby she'd sung to me in Versailles:

_It 's raining, it's raining, shepherdess,_

_Hurry your white sheep,.._

As Celena grew, Caroline grew more and more mad. She would laugh at an empty chair as though it had just said something hilarious.

"Why is Mama speaking to the chair?" Celena whispered to me.

"Perhaps it's more interesting than we are," I told her, trying to make her smile, though I was frightened, too.

But she began to argue with the mirror. "How dare you," she should snarl at it, "how _dare_ you..." Once she threw her tin of pomade at it, leaving a crack across its surface.

She would stand on the rug in the center of the room and dance to music only she could hear, smiling into the air and laughing as if someone spoke to her.

The worst was when she stared at Celena, tears raining down her cheeks, silent sobs shaking her thin shoulders. Nothing I did made her feel better. Not hot tea, nor soup, nor a blanket about her shoulders.

The next night Caroline argued with the hearth, with the mirror, with the table. "I _know,_ " she'd snap. "But I can't, I just can't..."

Her eyes settled on me. "When I was in Versailles, we'd put rubies in our hair, as if they were baubles," she said. "We thought nothing of it. If we lost one while we danced, it was nothing. If we lost none, 'Toinette would chastise us for not dancing enough."

Her gaze fell on Celena, who knelt at her table playing a game of solitaire, and sat up a little straighter. "But, I can still put diamonds in my hair. Celena, bring me those cards."

Celena rolled her eyes, pushing her mouth into a pretty pout. But she obeyed, sliding her cards into a pile and bringing them grudgingly to Caroline.

"Find the diamonds in this deck," Caroline said, handing me the cards.

And so I obeyed, sorting through the cards and pulling out the diamonds. "What do you want me to do with them?"

Caroline's eyes twinkled. "Spread in a fan, child, like a game of fortune."

I pressed their edges into her hair, securing them with pins, until she had a hand of cards in the suit of diamonds standing up in her pouf.

"If only I'd thought of this before that game with Axl," she murmured, and the shine in her eyes dimmed.

Her gaze caught Celena's in the mirror, and her mouth twisted. She cocked her head as if listening, though neither my sister nor I spoke.

"She does have his eyes," she murmured. Then she pressed her hands to her ears. "Stop, stop!" she moaned.

"Celena, help me with the fire," I said.

She began to protest, but I cut her off. "Celena."

With a sigh she joined me and helped to douse the fire. The tower room would be cold tonight but I wanted the room dim, so that Caroline couldn't see Celena's face so well.

But Caroline's gaze rested relentlessly on Celena. The moment Celena looked her way Caroline cried out and covered her face with her hands.

"What is the matter with her?" Celena hissed.

"I don't know," I replied in a low voice, "but try not to look at her."

"Of course. I'll just avert my eyes whenever she looks my way," Celena huffed. "You know we can't stay here."

My stomach twisted. "But how can we leave? Where will we go?"

"Anywhere." If only I'd listened to Celena. If only we'd left at that moment.

I jump as something bursts from the snow at my feet. It streaks away then halts after a few feet, looking over its shoulder. A fox, its eyes quick and bright, its fur gleaming in the winter sun.

I take a deep breath, the frigid air filling my lungs, and will my heart to stop pounding. The fox startles then scampers away through the trees.

I look back in the direction from which it came. There is someone there, behind the trees. I sense them rather than see them. I sense their warm breath, the rush of blood beneath their skin, different from the cold despairing void that accompanies the ghosts.

"Hello?" I call. The snow mutes the sound of my voice. There is no reply.

The villagers, spying. They realize I'm living here. They'll come with their torches and rope, as Caroline warned.

I back away toward the ruins of the palace, toward the Tower, peering into the forest. I hear the nicker of a horse and turn and nearly run for the door.

That night a storm settles itself over the Tower. The wind howls against the stone and rattles the shutters. The fire flickers in the hearth and threatens to extinguish.

I dare not style Celena's hair. Instead I brush my own, plait it, pin it into fanciful styles.

I pile it into a grand pouf and wind ribbon around it, the way I remember decorated trees in Versailles.

I pin it up then allow some to tumble down like a waterfall. I weave jewels into it as if droplets of water were catching sunlight.

On a shelf stands the empty cage. I imagine I hear its song among the trees, though I know that it's most likely been caught and eaten by some larger bird by now.

I comb my hair into sections and plait them. Then I set the cage atop my head and wind the plaits through its bars, anchoring it in place. I turn my head from side to side, admiring it.

"And what do you plan to imprison in your grand coiffe?" Celena asks.

"Nothing," I tell her, exasperated. "It's only for fun. Something to do."

She shakes her head. "The madness is settling in."

The cage presses against my skull, threatening a headache. I unpin the braids and remove it, setting it back in its place. Celena turns back to her cards.

On the third night I drop into the chair opposite Celena. My hair is like a great cake topped with unlit candles. My temples ache from combing and pulling, and the pomade Caroline brought with her from Versailles is nearly gone.

Celena glances up. "What are you celebrating?"

"Our third night trapped inside during the storm, of course. Woulnd't you rather play cards?"

"You know I don't like games of chance."

"Isn't it depressing to stare at those cards all the time?"

"Perhaps if you read my fortune it would change."

An icy finger trails its way down my neck. "I'm not good at telling fortunes, you know that. Caroline was the one--"

"Why do you call her that?"

"Call her what?"

"Caroline. She was our Mother. Call her Mother."

"She didn't deserve to be our Mother."

"Read my fortune." Celena's voice hardens.

I sigh. "It will be the same."

"Read my fortune." She shuffles the cards and thrusts them at me.

With a great sigh I take them. The first card is The Lovers, reversed, followed by The Ten of Swords.

"You face great danger from someone you trust deeply. I suppose you'd better not turn your back on me."

Neither of us smile.

"But what about the Lovers?" she persists.

"There are many possibilities." But they will never come true. We both know this.

She nods toward the cards. "The next one."

I turn it over. The Tower.

My throat closes. How? How is it back, smooth and whole, with only a singe mark in the corner?

Caroline holds my gaze. I can read nothing in her blue eyes.

The madness is setting in.

I sweep the cards to the floor. My voice echoes off the stone walls, rising above the wind outside. "When will you stop trying to change what's happened by staring at those cards? What good did it do Caroline, what good has it done you?"

Around us stands the wreckage of Caroline's fortune telling: the tarot cards scattered on the floor, the half burnt candles she used for divination. Dried wildflowers hang from the wall, their blossoms brown and shredded, their stems like the bones of skeletons.

Celena kneels beside the cards and begins gathering them, her face hidden. Her shoulders are shaking.

"Celena, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have--"

She turns her back on me. I might as well be alone in the Tower, with only the sound of the wind to keep me company.

Finally, at dawn the wind hushes.

It's been less than a week since I visited the village, but I can't stay in this tower room in the silence and soot any longer. Let them recognize me, I think. At least I'll have someone to talk to.

Celena has resumed her position, her cards before her, The Tower at their center. I don't bother to speak to her as I leave, nor does she ask where I am going.

The air feels fresh and sharp, scoured by the storm. Broken tree branches litter the ground. They remind me of bones.

As I approach I realize someone is squatting next to one. She stands, and I see that she is a child, dressed in rags, her eyes huge in her thin, pale face. She holds out her hands, begging, and I see that her limbs are wasted, her fingers gnawed away.

I stand transfixed, staring into her fathomless dark eyes. I want to turn and race away from her, but I can't leave her. She's only a child.

"What happened to you?"

"You know."

In a flash she has caught my hand and I see her, curled up on the forest floor, her gaze skyward, though she doesn't see the stars spinning in their frozen orbits.

She lets go and I am on my knees, gasping. "I'm sorry!'

The sunlight swallows her.

Groaning, I close my eyes. I don't need another ghostly companion.

**Chapter 3**

I hear laughter hanging on the wind, voices calling to one another, long before I reach the village. The dread that's weighed on my like a heavy cloak lightens at last. I quicken my step, glad to be among the living.

At the edge of the village a spot of color catches my eye. Wild roses, blooming from a vine that's wrapped itself around a tree. I stoop and pluck them, tuck them behind my ear.

The smell of bread, of pastries, of fish fills the cold air. Chickens peck their way across my path, scattering at the bark of a dog. Children chase each other, their breath puffing in clouds from their mouths. I think of the child I saw outside of the Tower and wonder if her parents are here or if they're at home grieving their loss.

I stop to inspect some eggs. They might lift Celena's spirits, even if she won't eat them. A buy a few.

At another stall bright colored ribbons are laid out. A dark green one would look pretty in Celena's hair. I pay for it and tuck it into the pocket of my cloak, and then follow a pungent odor to the fisherman's stall.

His daughter sits on a stool next to a basket of strong smelling fish. Someone knocks against my shoulder. I turn to see a boy our age tumble up to the girl and yank at her braid, then trot off, laughing.

"Jaiman, you stop that," she calls, her eyes lighting and cheeks turning pink. Her mouth turns up in a small smile.

She looks up and notices me, and her smile fades. "Can I help you?"

"I'll take that one," I tell her, pointing at a great silver fish. I pay her with one of Caroline's coins.

"I've not seen you before," she says, taking the coin. "Where do you come from?"

I should give a quick answer, then pull up my hood and hurry off. But the sun is so bright, and she is waiting for my answer, her face curious and friendly rather than suspicious.

And so I take off my hood. "I'm visiting here from Versailles."

Her eyes widen. "Versailles? Why would you leave the palace to come here?"

I shake my head. "Not the palace. The village."

"Oh." She looks a bit disappointed. "Have you heard any gossip?"

I remember the words I'd overheard from her father on my last visit. "Only that the Queen throws lavish parties."

The girl rolls her eyes. "I know. My father complains incessantly about it."

She looks at something over my shoulder, and her face falls I turn to see the boy who'd pulled at her braid a short time ago now strolling along with a girl whose laughter trails behind her as she gazes up at him.

The fisherman's daughter sighs. She could be pretty, if only she'd smile. But her pale face is pinched and drawn.

I take one of the roses from behind my ear and hole them out to her. "Take this. It brings luck."

Her eyes widen. "I don't believe in magic."

"Of course not," I agree quickly. "But it'll look lovely against your dark hair."After a moment's hesitation, she takes it. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." I should go, but I am not ready.

"Can you tell me more about Versailles?" Her voice is full of longing.

I scour my memory. The Queen and Caroline, and two other ladies, playing cards as I'd crawled beneath the table. "The Queen loves to gamble."

Her eyes widen. "Oh, I've heard! Is it true that she's lost so many bets to the Comte d'Orsay that he's making her pay singing to him each night?"

I have no idea.

Before I can say anything, the red faced woman appears behind her daughter, a basket on her shoulder. She sets it down with a huff. "I don't want to hear a word about that woman. She's powdering her hair with flour while the rest of us starve."

"Yes, Mama."

"Come help me with the rest of these baskets."

"Yes, Mama." The light is gone from the girl's eyes. She gets up and follows her mother.

I sigh. I have lingered here too long, spoken too much. Reluctantly I turn my back on the market and start toward the forest.

A voice comes from beside me. "That was a nice thing to do."

I turn to see the young man in his falsely homespun cloak, his boots new but for a thin layer of mud on the soles. He cocks his head, his eyes twinkling. I am sure I've met him before.

Warmth radiates from him. He smells of onion. Not a ghost. For the second time in a quarter hour I make the unwise decision to have a conversation with a near stranger.

"What do you mean?"

"The flowers. It's amazing that you found them blooming in this snow at all. You certainly cheered her up."

I shrug. "She needed cheering."

He holds up a pastry. "Will you share it with me?"

I should say no. What good will come of this? I'll only have to run off and hide, before he realizes where I've come from. Before the ghosts catch up to me.

He breaks a piece from the pastry and holds it out to me. A breeze gusts around us, warm and sweet smelling, and for a moment I swear it smells like Spring.

I take the bit of tart and bite into it. The fruit runs sweet and hot over my tongue. He, too, takes a bite, and he grins, a smear of fruit on his chin. I can't help but laugh.

And then, over his shoulder, I see the child, her bony arms wrapped around her sunken middle.

"Is something wrong?"

His voice comes from far away.

"Not at all." My voice is choked, but I try to smile as though I have not seen the ghost of a starved child.

His face falls. "Already? But it's such a lovely day."

"It's a long way."

"To where?"

"Versailles. The village." My voice is choked.

"Versailles? That's where I am going as well. Let me walk with you."

"No!" My voice rings out in the cold air.

His eyes widen. "Will I see you again?"

I feel my cheeks warm. "Yes. Thank you for the tart," I add belatedly as I hurry off, in the opposite direction of Versailles.

The shadows grow long as I hurry through the forest, the temperature falling the closer I come to the Tower. But I taste the sweetness of the pastry on my tongue, hear the warmth of the young man's voice as he offered to walk with me. I think of the gleam in the girl's eyes as we gossiped about the Queen. For a moment I'd known what it would be like to have a friend.

The ghosts blur at the edges of my vision but I refuse to look at them. I still have a piece of the tart left in my pocket.

I find Celena in the same place I left her. I wonder if she moved at all while I was gone.

"Here." I pull the tart from my cloak and offer it to her.

She looks up from her cards. "Where did you get that?"

"I bought it for us. At the market."

Her eyes narrow.

"And I've brought you something else." I search my pocket for the ribbon, but find only crumbs.

"What did you bring?"

I turn the pocket inside out. "A ribbon. I thought we could style your hair."

Perhaps I put it in the basket instead.I dig through it, then upend it. The fish slides onto the table, staring sightlessly up at me, its sharp scent filling the air. I groan. "I bought it, I swear..."

"It's all right. There's no one to see it, anyway." Celena returns to her cards.

Huffing, I go back to the trapdoor, throw it open, clamber down the stairs, slamming the door shut behind me.

I search the snow for a sign of the green ribbon, but I don't see it. I hope some forest creature hasn't stolen it, or worse, a ghost. That's the last thing I need to see, the ribbon in the hair of the starving child, or tied around Lionel's throat.

"Hello."

I spin, lungs filling with frigid air.

He is there, the young man from the village. I stumble backward a few steps. He's followed me. All the years of caution and secrecy, undone in one afternoon's foolish conversation.

He holds out a hand. "Wait! You dropped this." He holds up the green ribbon.

"Thank you," I manage, but I make no move to come closer to him.

"Um. Shall I leave it here, on this rock?"

I nod. "Yes. Yes, thank you."

His brows lift and only then do I realize he was joking. Still he bends and sets the ribbon on a nearby rock, never taking his eyes from mine, as if I am a skittish forest creature he is trying to approach.

"Is this your home?" he asks.

I sense Celena at the window. "No. No, it's just a place I like to visit."

"Really? I've heard many things about this place, but never that it was a particularly nice place to visit. Especially if you're from Versailles."

"What have you heard?"

"That a noble family lived here once, that they went mad, one by one, until the place rotted away, until no one remained but a beautiful woman and her daughter." He cocks his head. "That it's impossible to find, unless you've visited it before."

My pulse quickens. "Really. What an interesting story."

The forest is growing dark, the ghosts gathering. But I can't go inside the tower and reveal that I'm one of the mad family. He shows no sign of leaving.

"You don't remember me, do you?" he asks.

"No," I lie.

"We used to play hide and seek in the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles, when we were children."

His blue eyes, lit with laughter, peering between heavy curtains. "Found you!"

"Aleron," I breathe.

"My father sold oranges to the Queen."

I would smell the oranges and race to the Queen's chamber to find Aleron and his father and a great basket of oranges. I would grab his hand and we would be off, sliding on the glossy floors of Versailles, our laughter ringing in the grand hallways, courtiers leaping out of our way, no one daring to chastise the children of two of the Queen's favorites.

My chest aches for the lightness of those days.

"I've searched for you for years," he says. "You and your mother."

"My mother is dead." My voice is flat in the forest air.

His face falls. "I'm sorry to hear that. How long ago?"

"A year."

"You've been here alone all that time?"

"Yes." I feel Celena's eyes burning into my neck from the tower window.

"Would you ever consider returning?"

"To Versailles? What would I do there?"

"You're the daughter of Caroline d'Vie. One of the Queen's greatest friends. She will find you a place in her household."

The palace, where it was always light and smelled of oranges and flowers, where everyone smiled and music echoed through the halls. And Spring would come when it was supposed to.

Surely neither Lionel, nor Hyacinth, nor any of the other ghosts would dare follow me there.

Nor would Celena.

From somewhere in the trees the howl of a wolf rises. Aleron flinches and glances over his shoulder.

I should invite him into the tower. But then he'd meet Celena, and he'd know the truth about our family. He'd never want to speak to me again.

Or, worse, he'd return leading the villagers with their torches, and they'd finish what they'd started years ago.

"You should go," I tell him. "The wolves are gathering. You'll be all right if you return before dark."

He nods. "Then I'll return tomorrow to see if you've decided."

But he won't find it again, not by himself. "Yes," I agree, a knot forming in my throat. "Come tomorrow."

He offers a bow then straightens as another howl sounds from the woods. He turns and strides off into the trees. I watch until he has disappeared, until I can no longer hear his footsteps in the snow, until the shadows lengthen even more.

A little breeze rises, knocking a bit of snow from a nearby branch. I turn back to the tower.

Celena has torn herself from her cards and stands at the window as I clamber through the trap door. "You're alone here?"

"I'm sorry."

"I understand." Her voice is dull and flat. "I would say I was alone here, too, if it were me."

But it isn't her, and it never will be.

"Beware the handsome men with sweet words and laughing eyes," Celena intones. "They will take your heart, and break it. They will leave you without so much as a backward glance, as you lay sobbing, not caring whether you live or die."

Caroline's words. She murmured them to us as she combed our hair and wove windflowers and amethysts into it, to protect against betrayal.

"Don't worry," I tell her. "He'll never return." I pluck the rose from behind my ear and shred it, tossing its petals into the fire.

The next day there is a hum in the forest, in the whisper of the wind through the trees, in the sharp scent of the evergreen needles.

I've been standing at the window, idly plaiting some sections of hair, twisting others, the wind playfully tangling the loose ends. It sighs a promise in my ear that I can't hear before it flutters away.

Celena shuffles and reshuffles the cards.

I watch the birds circle in the hard blue winter sky. The forest stretches for miles, the sharp needled trees black and green against the snow.

A horse nickers from somewhere in the trees, its footsteps heavy in the snow. A glimpse of red against the white.

It can't be. How could he have found us again?

Aleron appears at the foot of the tower, astride a great horse. His homespun cloak is replaced with a fine red one, that of a soldier. He brushes his light brown hair from his eyes, peering up at the window.

I dart out of his sight, pressing my back against the wall.

"Hello?" His voice echoes on the clear air. I squeeze my eyes closed.

"He's seen you, you know. You're acting like an idiot." Celena doesn't bother to lower her voice. I glare at her.

"Hello? Helene? Can you hear me?"

Taking a deep breath, I step into the window. His smile is all it takes for my mother's warnings and my own fears to vanish like smoke on the winter air.

"Didn't think I could find you again, did you?" he calls.

I pinch the fragile skin of my wrist, to be sure that I'm not dreaming, that he's not a ghost. But he is there, his breath forming warm clouds on the air, grinning.

"How did you?" I manage.

"It isn't hard, once you know where it is."

"Liar," Celena growls.

"So, will you let me take you back to Versailles?"

"As if you couldn't get there yourself," Celena mutters.

"It is a merry place, a happy place. Warm, and light. The Queen and her ladies dance until dawn. I will introduce you to the Queen. She will be thrilled to see you. You will outshine all her ladies."

"And they'll turn on you like a pit of vipers," Celena says.

I shake my head. "How could I outshine the Queen's ladies?" But already my mind is whirling, imagining myself spinning in Aleron's arms.

"Just a visit," Aleron says. "Then I can bring you back and you can disappear back into your tower, if you wish."

Just a visit.

The wind blows through the evergreens and the forest hushes, waiting.

I don't want to leave Celena here, alone.

But if leave, I will never have to lie to her about her fortune again. I will never have to pretend not to see her scars, or feel her reproachful gaze from the shadows.

I wouldn't have to sidestep Hyacinth, or feel the brush of the starving child's wasted fingertips. I would never have to sidestep Lionel, or watch Caroline tumble from the tower.

"Are you trapped? Shall I climb up to help you?"

Celena snorts. "Of course he imagines you helpless."

"No," I tell him, "I'm not trapped. Don't come up. I'll come down to you."

Celena lets out great, long sigh. A chill falls over the tower room.

My mind is racing, thinking what to bring. "I'll only be a moment."

I rush to the battered trunk in the corner, the one that the man with the lined face carried from Versailles.

Celena follows, her words tumbling over one another in a venomous stream. "Our mother was betrayed by that court, she was exiled, chased away like a dog, forced to hide in this tower until she went mad--"

Her scars are dark and red, slashed across her pale skin, her eyes shadowed and sunken.

I barely hear her over the clamor of thoughts in my head. _He 'll be gone before I descend. He doesn't really mean to wait._

Kneeling, I pry open the loose stone and gather half the gleaming coins that are left. Celena won't use the rest, but I feel guilty taking all of them.

Beneath my bed lie a pair of slippers that once belonged to Caroline. They are worn from dancing. I haven't needed them before, but now I might. As I reach for them my hand brushes a dusty wooden box, the one that contains Caroline's braid, all that she left behind. I push it farther away.

"Why are you even speaking to him? Why would you want to return there, do you want to end up like her?"

I straighten and face Celena. "I won't make the same mistakes she did." Opening the wardrobe, I take one of Caroline's gowns. It still smells of sweet blossoms, but it is worn and faded. Still, I will need something to wear at court besides my own tattered dresses.

A bitter smile twists Celena's mouth, her scars stretching across her cheeks. "You'll die there."

"I'll die here, if I stay. And wind up like you."

She goes still, her mouth hanging open. I should beg her forgiveness, but I don't. Instead I feel a wild elation, my skin tingling with it.

She steps into the light, and I see her for how she truly is. Her hair has half fallen from her head, leaving great patches of baldness in her pale skull. Her face is pallid, her cheeks sunken, her eyes mere sockets. The skin around her mouth has receded so badly that her teeth grin out at me in a bitter grimace.

I stumble away, bumping into the table and knocking the candle to the ground in my haste. I snatch it up before it can ignite the rug but I avoid looking at my sister.

"You wouldn't leave before, when I begged you. But now you will."

"You wouldn't leave before. But now you will?"

I should have left before. And now, much as it pains me to leave her, I can't make that mistake again.

"It's your fault I can never leave, you know," she presses.

"I can't stay, Celena, I can't become a ghost. I'm sorry."

She stands rooted in her place in the center of the room for a long terrible moment. Then she strides to the vanity and thrusts open Caroline's box of trinkets. She pulls out a pair of amethyst pins and holds them out to me. "Take them. They did nothing for me."

Her barb catches at my heart, as she meant it to. I take them, for she is right, I will need them at court.

"And the candles," she adds. "I have no use for them." She holds the white tapers out to me. Skin hangs from her bony arm in strips.

I turn away and slam the lid shut on the trunk.

"Good bye, Sister," she says, and her voice is no more than a raspy whisper.

"Good bye." I throw open the door and hurry down the stairs, dragging the trunk behind me. The door closes with a slam above me.

The staircase has never seemed longer, or darker. A cold breeze breathes up the stairs, chilling the back of my neck.

I nearly lose my footing. For a sickening moment my foot misses the stair that I know so well and I lurch forward. I reach forward into the darkness, scrabbling for the wall that isn't there. I'm going to fall, I think wildly, and be trapped in the tower forever, like Celena.

But my foot cracks against the edge of a stair, and the other plants itself a few steps down. I allow myself only a breath to press my hand against the solid wall before I speed down the stairs, imagining Caroline just at my back, hoping to catch me and hold me here forever.

When I reach the bottom I burst outside, blinded by the sunlight.

Aleron is there, his arms steadying me. "What is it?"

I shake my head, forcing my breath to slow. He could still leave me here, if he thinks me mad. "I stumbled on the stairs."

He reaches for the trunk and hefts it onto his shoulder. "Who were you talking to?"

"What?"

"I heard you. It sounded as if you were arguing with someone."

I cannot meet his eye. "It must have been the wind."

"The wind," he repeats.

I hide the key beneath a stone. I will have no more use for it, I hope. Then I hurry forward toward his horse. To my relief I hear him follow.

**Chapter 4**

We walk, Aleron leading his horse, my trunk tied to the saddle. Warmed by his smile, I hardly notice the cold air that bites at my face and makes my eyes water. The brilliant sunlight offers no warmth.

Somewhere in the trees I hear sobbing. Hyacinth. I glance at Aleron, but he doesn't seem to notice it. "Do you remember anything about court?" he asks.

I shake my head. "Only that people were always laughing. It was light, and there were a lot of places to hide." He grins.

A wind twists through the trees, and the snow whispers against the ground. "We should move quickly," I tell him. The wolves will start howling in a few hours.

We quicken our pace. "Weren't you ever frightened, by yourself?" he asks.

I imagine Celena alone in the tower for all time. "No." Which is mostly the truth. "I can't believe you kept looking for me for all that time."

"I've never stopped wondering about you."

I feel my cheeks heat against the frigid air.

"And then everyone told the story at court. The tragic beauty who fled court when her heart was broken. The daughter she kept locked in a tower in the center of the forest." trapped until she was rescued by a gallant."

"It sounds like a fairy tale," I say wryly.

"She was even rescued by a handsome gallant." He glances at me, one side of his mouth lifted in a smile.

The part of the fairy tale no one saw was Caroline's mad pacing, her frenetic whispers to empty space, the screams the night she gave me wintergreen to drink...

"So when I was appointed a guard, I began exploring the forest. Not that the horses have been too happy."

"How did you become a guard?"

"You mean because my father was a mere orange seller?"

"I didn't mean...."

He smiles. "No, it's a strange story. The Queen loves oranges, and she took a liking to my father. He wanted to secure a fortune for me so he asked her to take me into her household. It was a great favor, since I have no royal blood."

"Do you enjoy being a guard?"

"It would make my father happy."

"Is he..."

"Dead, yes. Several years ago."

"I'm sorry."

"But I am indebted to the Queen. She has a kind heart." He sighs. "She will be very sad to hear of your mother. The Queen needs friends. Her enemies threaten to overrun the court. But she can't tell ally from foe. And, her son the Dauphin is quite ill, though the doctors can find nothing wrong."

The child steps from the wood and stands in the path. She reaches bony arms toward us. Her eyes are dark and hungry, her lips trembling. Her hair hangs in tangles about her face, clods of dirt and the gleam of an insect in its strands. Holes are worn through her dress; a length of dirty lace hangs from her sleeve.

Aleron passes her as if he doesn't see her, which of course he doesn't.

"I'm so cold," she moans, her bony arms wrapping around her middle. "Cold." She steps toward me.

"Helene?" Aleron turns back.

I step around her, determined not to meet her eye, to acknowledge her. But the air stirs, and she is in front of me. I will have to walk through her.

"Cold," she moans in my ear. I close my eyes and my entire body turns to ice. I cannot breathe, as if someone has pressed cloth over my face. Sadness fills me, and regret.

Then I have stepped free, and I draw a deep breath of evergreen scented air. The cold stings my throat. She disappears into the trees.

Aleron is staring at me. He frowns. "You are pale as a ghost."

No one who's seen a ghost would ever say that. "I'm all right."

He will turn and take me back to the tower and ride off, never to return. Or worse, he will leave me here in the woods, in the snow. But I won't return to the tower. I'd rather starve, or freeze, or be eaten by wolves. Or ghosts.

Then, to my relief, he holds out his hand. "It's getting dark quickly. Here." He takes me by the waist and helps me onto his horse. He swings up behind me, the trunk at his back, and we trot away through the evergreens, leaving the child in the shadows.

"The King is a good man, too," Aleron says. Gooselflesh rises along my arms at his breath, so close to my ear. "But perhaps a bit dull witted."

"Should you say that about the King?" I ask.

"Well, the Queen once ordered the clocks in her rooms set ahead by a few hours so he would think it time for bed and leave her alone to play cards with her ladies," Aleron says. "King or not, you must admit he is easily fooled." He chatters about the different courtiers and their liasons and scandal, his voice like a comforting stream.

Without warning the first wolf's cry echoes behind us, from deep in the forest, and I can't suppress a shiver.

His arms tighten around me, and I catch my breath. "We're almost there."

But I don't try to explain my real fear. I've always believed that once I left the tower, I would be free of the ghosts and their complaints and grief. But I begin to wonder if I will ever be free of them. There are ghosts everywhere. Do they wait for me in Versailles?

No, I tell myself. There are no ghosts in Versailles. Only in the forest. And I've left Celena alone with them.

I think of her sitting alone in the dark staring at her cards. Will she even light a fire?

I'm sorry for leaving her. But I want to live.

**Chapter 5**

The trees begin to thin, and earth shows from beneath the snow. Warm sunlight washes over us. I tilt my head back and drink it in.

"If I'd known how happy it would make you to leave the forest, I'd have found you sooner."

I open my eyes to see Aleron watching me, one corner of his mouth turned up. I've been acting as mad as Caroline.

"It's nice to be in the sun," I reply stiffly.

"I agree. How can it still be winter in those woods, when it's spring in Versailles?"

I shrug and shake my head, pretending I don't suspect it's because of the curse of my family.

"Look." Aleron gestures forward, and I see Versailles, spread before us at the foot of the hill, the gleaming rooftops that I'd tried to see from the tower now so close. Gardens wind around them like a maze, dotted with fountains, water sparkling in the sunlight. And sunlight pours down on them. There is no hint of snow.

"Are you ready?" Aleron asks.

Swallowing, I glance back at the forest. The child stands just at its edge.

Ha! She can't follow. None of them can.

The child watches me sadly. What was her name, what name did her parents call when they couldn't find her, when they realized she was lost?

Emilie. Emilie suits her.

I turn my back on her, on all of the spirits lurking in the forest, before they can drag me back in with them.

He urges the horse forward.

The warm air blows against my face, Aleron's strong arms circling me as he holds the reins, Versailles growing ever closer. _I am never going back,_ I tell myself giddily.

Courtyard opens onto courtyard, each harboring a surprise: fanciful fountain or exotic garden. A great dragon spouts a geyser of water toward the spring sky, surrounded by putti.

"I fell into that fountain." I laugh, the memory sharp in my mind. Caroline had scolded me, but the Queen had wrapped me in her shawl.

A stable boy races forward to take the reins, and Aleron dismounts, then takes me by the waist to help me down. Despite his aid I slide awkwardly and must catch at his arms so I don't topple over.

Another boy hurriedly unties my trunk and hefts it onto his bony back.

Aleron leads me to a grand staircase into a cavernous hall, the servant boy following at our heels despite the weight he carries.

I'd raced up and down these steps, with a dark haired girl, who gave orders in a voice that rang from the walls.

Aleron has taken me by the elbow and leads me into a labyrinth of corridors. From every ceiling hang crystal chandeliers blazing with candles. Goddesses and cherubs gaze down at us, smiling as though hiding secrets. Doors on either side of the hall stand open to reveal elegantly furnished rooms beyond. In one a man leans forward to whisper into a lady's ear; both laugh. They turn to watch us as we pass, their faces powdered so white that they appeared to be ghosts.

_But they 're not,_ I remind myself. _The ghosts are all in the forest._

Courtiers move past in pairs, the ladies seeming to glide, the men's high red heels clicking on the floor. One pair, a lady and gentleman, speak earnestly to one another in voices too quiet to hear; another pair laughs with abandon.

We enter an enormous hall. Crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling, from which dozens of candles blaze. One wall is lined with windows. Opposite each stands a mirror that caught the light and reflects it back into the room. Through the windows I see the gardens with bushes trimmed in fantastical shapes.

We'd played here, I remember. This is the hall where Aleron and I had played hide and seek.

Two young women glide toward us. One is pale, her hair only a few shades darker than her skin. The other has sharp, dark eyes that are locked on Aleron. He offers them his charming smile. Not ghosts, then.

"Aleron," says the dark eyes woman, her gaze flickering over my gown, "what have you brought?" I feel my face heat.

"Madame Levron, Mademoiselle Brionne," he replies with a bow, "may I present Mademoiselle d'Vie."

The light haired woman raises her fan to her face and whispers behind it. "Will she reside her at court?" asks her companion.

"Yes. In fact, I hope to present her to the Queen."

The light haired woman's eyes widen behind her fan. "Do you think that wise?" asks the other. She sounds as though something is caught in her throat.

I realize, mortified, that my hair is full of twists and plaits and probably pine needles from the forest.

Aleron smiles. "Yes, I think it is quite wise."

"Ah. Well, then we shall see you again soon."

"I hope not," murmurs the lighter haired lady with a glance at my gown, and they move off, smiling.

I look down at my gown. The cloth is heavy, perhaps even a bit faded, compared to the light, floating material of their dresses.

"Pay them no mind. They are envious," Aleron says.

"I should have worn a different dress," I mutter.

"It suits you," he tells me, and my chest lightens a little.

He leads the way through the bright hall to another that is narrower and less ornate, to another narrower and dimmer, until I am sure we are caught in a maze.

The air begins to smell more of wool than perfume. The walls are smudged with soot. These are not the grand halls in which I remember dwelling with my mother.

As if reading my thoughts Aleron offers a rueful smile. "I'm afraid there aren't many rooms available in the palace at the moment. I'm sure once the Queen is reacquainted with you she will find you a more comfortable chamber."

He turns into a doorway that leads to a narrow staircase. I follow him up. At the top is a narrow corridor, the ceiling low. I can hear the wind blowing just above us. He stops before a door midway down the corridor. Raising his hand, he raps at it.

"Yes?" comes a lilting voice from inside.

"It's Aleron."

The door swings open. A girl stands in the doorway, with shining dark hair tied with a ribbon and falling over her shoulder. She is slight, taller than me, and wears a simple muslin dress.

Her eyes widen. "Who have you brought?"

"This is Helene. Helene, may I present Juliette."

Her gaze slides over me, her mouth pursed, in much the same manner as the two women in the hall. "Where will she stay?"

"With you. For now."

She gives a short laugh. "There is hardly room."

"I believe the Queen will see to it that she has a place of her own, once Helene is presented."

Juliette's eyes narrow. "And why is that?"

"This is Helene d'Vie."

"Why should that matter?"

"You'll just have to trust me."

"Trust you?" Her mouth twists in a bitter smile.

"At least let this poor boy put down the trunk."

With a sigh Juliette steps away from the door. The servant boy hefts the trunk from his back and sets it down. Aleron flicks his wrist and a coin gleams in the air before the boy snatches it and disappears down the corridor.

"Be kind," Aleron says to Juliette.

"I'm always kind."

I think of asking Aleron to stay. He is my only connection to my home, however much I longed to escape it.

"I'll find you later," he promises, his eyes crinkling at the corners. And then he is gone.

I look around the room. The walls are dingy, the ceiling low. There is scarcely room for two narrow beds with a table between. A battered wardrobe with a mirror attached to its door stands next to the door.

"So," Juliette says. She goes to the mirror on the wall and inspects her reflection. "I see Aleron's charmed you."

My face goes hot. "He's a friend. From childhood."

She raises her eyebrows. "How can that be? He grew up here."

"So did I."

"Then how have I never seen you?"

"My mother left with me. We lived in a village, near the forest."

"Why on earth would anyone leave Versailles for the forest?"

_Because she went mad,_ I imagine telling her. _Because she spoke to the table and chairs._ "She wasn't happy here," I say instead.

"Well." Juliette turns back to her reflection. "Be careful around Aleron. He enchants everyone he meets. All the women, and some of the men, too."

"You don't seem to like him much."

"And you seem to like him quite a bit."

"I've only just met him."

"And yet he persuaded you leave your home and come here. Granted, you lived in the forest, but still."

I can't think of an argument to this.

Small as the room is, it is still better than the Tower. At least there are living people here, and not only ghosts. If I return, I will surely go mad. Here, I might not.

I sink onto one of the beds. "No!" Her voice sends me back to my feet. "Don't sit anywhere until you've changed."

"Is there somewhere you would like me to stand, in particular?" I glare at her.

"Just there, is fine." She takes a delicate sniff of the air, wrinkling her nose. "You smell like mud."

She moves to the small wardrobe and opens it, revealing a row of several gowns. Over her shoulder I catch a glimpse of fine fabric and brilliant colors. "Here." She thrusts one of the dresses at me. It is only an ordinary lawn. Probably her plainest one.

"Well, you couldn't expect me to give you one of my best, could you? Besides, this is the latest style. It is all the Queen wears."

"Thank you," I tell her grudgingly. I undress, self conscious under her intense gaze. She yanks my old gown from my hands as soon as I have stepped from it, opens the door, and throws it into the hallway. "We'll have a page remove that later." She waves her hand in front of her nose as if to clear the bad odor.

I bite my lip. That dress had been my mother's. I'd worn it when I practiced dance steps with Celena...

"And the shift," Juliette says briskly.

"What?"

"You'll need to change your shift, as well."

I look down at it. It is threadbare, the fabric nearly worn through in places.

"We're nearly the same size. You can borrow one of mine. If Aleron is correct, you'll have your own wardrobe soon. You can pay me back then." She hands me a shift, the cloth much richer and finer than my own.

I turn my back and pull the old one over my head, then slide hers on as quickly as I am able. Meanwhile she takes mine and thrusts it into the hall with my gown.

My cheeks heat at the thought of it lying in the hall for anyone to see. She rolls her eyes, reading my expression. "No one in Versailles cares about a shift in the hall. The Queen herself wears them to dine."

"That can't be true."

Juliette clicks her fingers at me. "Hurry. The less time I have to look at you in my shift, the better."

She watches me struggle into her dress and ties the bow up in the back. She turns me about again and eyes me critically. "Well, you look better." Her gaze rests on my hair. "Did you style it yourself?"

"Yes. I was practicing." I brace myself for another insult.

"Hm." She pours water from a pitcher into a bowl and directs me to rest my hands in them. The water is scented with flowers, perhaps roses. Still my knuckles remain swollen and red, my palms rough, from their labor in the forest. And the scent of the forest still hangs in the room.

"Well," she sighs at last, "that's all I can do." Turning back to the table, she takes up a little jar, unscrews the lid, and dips her fingertip in. She rubs the contents over her lips until they are shiny and a bit swollen. Venom, perhaps?

Replacing the lid, she puts the jar under pillow.

"I won't take any," I tell her but she doesn't answer. She leaves the room without another word.

The meager light seeping in through the small window has grown dim. I open my trunk and find the white candles. Cringing, I think of Celena's face as she tossed them at me furiously.

Taking up a matchstick, I strike it, holding my breath as I touch the flame to the wick. To my relief it burns amber rather than blue.

I set it in its holder beside the table and stretch out on the bed. No wind whips at the window, no wolves howl from the trees. Though so far, the company isn't much better than Celena.

I close my eyes and sink into sleep.

I am awakened by a pillow hitting my face. I sit up to see Juliette standing beside my bed. Sunlight streams through the window.

"You snore," she says crossly.

She is wearing the same dress I last saw her in. Dark circles pool beneath her eyes. I wonder if she was out all night.

She glares at me. "I hope you don't have nightmares every night. I'll never get any sleep at all."

"I'm sorry," I say, my voice hoarse.

"And I need as much sleep as I can get, entertaining Madame."

"Who is Madame?"

"Madame Marie Therese. The Queen's daughter. She is a bit demanding," Juliette says dryly. "You'd better get up. They'll be looking for you any moment."

She throws open the wardrobe and takes out another dress. "I'd get up if I were you. It sounds as though Aleron has great plans for you." Her voice drips with sarcasm.

I rise and she gives an indignant squeak. "Did you sleep in my dress?"

Looking down I smooth it out. "I must have. I'm sorry.'

She turns away with a huff. "I'm not loaning you another."

Eying my trunk, I wonder whether I should put on one of Caroline's old gowns from a decade ago. I decide I am better off in one that's at least fashionable, even if I've slept in it.

I take the silver hairbrush and box of pins from the trunk. With Juliette blocking the mirror, there is no where else to sit but the bed. I begin undoing the twists and braids from the night before and combing out my hair.

Replaiting it, I wind it in coils around my crown, leaving curls to hang about my shoulders.

I look up to see Juliette watching. "You are good with hair, I'll give you that."

"Would you like me to style yours?" If I am to share a chamber with her, I could at least try to befriend her.

"Nothing mad," she warns, though her eyes light.

"Sit down," I tell her, nodding at the other bed.

Her hair is rich and wavy, and reminds me of the waves on the ocean in a book my mother brought with her from court. My thoughts drift, lost in possibility. I wonder if I could make her hair the ocean?

I comb and twist and pin, and as I work I nearly forget where I am. I forget that I've left my sister in the Tower, forever, and that I am in Versailles. Gradually her hair becomes the ocean. It ripples and waves, starting low over the crown of her head, like waves breaking on the beach, and growing until the back of her head is like the ocean's depths.

Her voice breaks into my thoughts. "If you think that you'll get the next room that opens, you're wrong. I've been here much longer. I help to care for the royal children."

"Of course." Even this dim, crowded little room is better than the Tower.

I hand her the mirror, and wait, holding my breath. She studies herself for a long moment. I can't read her expression.

There is a knock at the door. "Who is it?" she calls.

"Aleron."

"Let him in," Juliette says to me.

When I open the door I find Aleron on the other side, holding my discarded gown and shift. I suddenly feel light headed.

"I found these outside," he says, raising an eyebrow. I can't meet his eye.

He looks past me to Juliette, and his mouth falls open. "Your hair looks...magnificent."

She lifts her hand toward her hair, then lets it fall. "Doesn't the Queen need you?"

"She is with the Dauphin. I thought I'd see whether Helene was settled."

Juliette rolls her eyes. "Did you think I'd eat your precious pet? Make yourself useful, at least. Dispose of those," she nods toward the gown and shift.

"Oh, I will take them--" I begin, but Juliette cuts me off.

"And find us a ship."

"A ship," he repeats.

"For my hair."

"Ah. Of course." He offers me a crooked smile and closes the door.

Silence falls over the room as Juliette inspects her reflection.

After an eternity there is a knock at the door. I open it to see Aleron, a toy ship in his hand. My old clothing is nowhere to be seen.

"I borrowed it from the Dauphin. I hope he won't miss it," he says with a wink.

"Why does the Dauphin need it? He has thousands of other toys," Juliette says, taking the ship and handing it to me. She settles back onto the bed. Aleron steps inside and closes the door behind him.

I feel stiff and self conscious, my previous elation gone under his eye. Forcing myself to concentrate on my task, I use my hand to press a place in the deepest part of her hair and rest the ship in it. Then I anchor it the best I can manage with the pins. Finally I hold the mirror up before her.

She stares at reflection, then turns to Aleron. "You may have been right about her. She will surely win the Queen's favor."

Aleron eyes me appraisingly. Something in his gaze makes me uneasy. I wonder if he had another reason to find me, other than the memory of our childhood friendship.

"Why do I need to win the Queen's favor?"

"Yes, Aleron," Juliette says, "why don't you explain?" Her dark eyes gleam.

Aleron draws a deep breath. "The Queen has many enemies. And because she does, so does the King, and her children. There are those who are calling for her throne, at best. For her head, at worst. France is a disaster. The crops have failed for years, and people are starving. It would take nothing, nothing, for them to rise against the royal family and tear them apart. A rumor, of war, of scandal. A rumor is all it would take."

I nod. He's told me all this.

He lifts the candle from the table and fiddles idly with it. "She trusted no one more than your mother. She confided everything in her. All the court knew the way the Queen mourned for Caroline d'Vie after she fled Versailles and hid herself in a tower in the forest, but she refused to call her back. But then the days became bleak. And so I searched for her truest friend, Caroline, and her daughter."

"But what can I do? I don't even know her."

"The Queen will trust you. There are so few she has left." He sets the candle down and leans toward me. "Learn her secrets. We must know them before her enemies do, so we can protect her. Find out if she is truly plotting with Austria. If she is, we must intercept those messages and make sure they never fall into the wrong hands. Find out if she has a lover. If she does, we must warn them before they are discovered."

I look from Aleron to Juliette, for signs that they are jesting, playing a trick on me. But neither smiles. "Are those things true? Would she betray France? Her husband?"

"Of course it's true," Juliette says.

"If it is, we must never let the wrong people discover it," Aleron says quietly.

"You mean the people who wish for a better France."

"Juliette, do you honestly believe France is better off under the rule of the Revolutionaries? You know better than anyone the blood they're willing to shed, the lies they're willing to tell."

Her jaw tightens.

Aleron sighs. "Yes, we need to rid ourselves of the monarchy. But not until we have a better system in place. And to bring the Queen down in this way will only feed the bloodshed. Her children are innocent."

We sit in silence for several long moments. I think of the Queen I remember as a child, her light laughter, her warm hands wrapping her shawl around my dripping shoulders. How could this Queen betray her own husband, her own country?

Aleron leans toward me. His expression is earnest, entreating. The same one that made me trust him enough to leave the Tower.

"Please, Helene," he says, his voice soft as the wind sighing through the forest. "Help us. Stay for a week. And then you can go. I'll take you back to the forest myself. But don't you at least want see the Queen again? To live in this splendor, instead of the forest?"

My other choice, I think, is to return to the Tower. The choice that Caroline made, to live among the dead.

I nod.

A smile spreads across his face. "The Queen is receiving in her chamber. Let us go and present you." He stands and holds out his arm.

I fall back in horror. "What, now?"

"You look lovely. And you are charming. She will be enchanted."

"She smells like mud," Juliette said.

"She smells of trees." Aleron holds out his arm.

I glance back at Juliette. The ship bobs upon the waves of her hair, the jewels winking amid her tresses, as she closes the door behind us.

**Chapter 6**

Once we've descended the stairs from the dingy servants' corridor the ceilings vault overhead, heroes and gods gazing down at us. Again Aleron leads me into the labyrinth of halls and corridors. The air is perfumed with the scent of oranges, as I remember it, though beneath it lies an unfamiliar foul odor, of sweat, or dirt.

As we pass through the Hall of Mirrors, a man steps from behind a pillar, adjusting his breeches.

Aleron gives him a cold glare, and the man offers a rueful smile in return. "I'm sorry," he says with a quick bow, "but there is simply no where else."

Aleron strides past without replying. "A foul practice," he mutters. I realize that the man was relieving himself behind the pillar, and judging from the strength of the stench, he was not the only one.

As we reach the far end of the hall another man enters, tall and golden haired. My steps falter at the sight of his light blue eyes. They remind me of someone. I am sure I have met him before.

"Comte," Aleron says, stopping and bowing. I curtsy belatedly as the man offers a shallow bow. He moves on, his back straight as a soldier's.

"The Comte von Fersen," Aleron tells me. "He is familiar to you?"

"I think I met him as a child."

Aleron raises an eyebrow but says nothing else.

We arrive at a chamber, its door thrown open, a man dressed in a red uniform like Aleron standing guard. He nods to Aleron as we pass.

The room is crowded with people. A woman's strained laughter rings over the crowd. A man dressed in red heels mutters angrily under his breath. Next to him two women stand talking. "Of course she'll agree," one says, her voice light and merry, while the other twists the ring at her finger. "How can you pay a debt when you don't have money?" The second woman hushes her as we pass.

Aleron leads me through the throng to another door, where yet another guard stands. This man, too, nods to Aleron and opens the door. An angry murmur ripples through the waiting crowd behind me.

We step into a room in which several women sit on stools. Before them, in an ornate chair, rests Queen Marie Antoinette.

Her face is more lined than I remember, and the laughter is gone from her eyes. She has grown more plump. She wears a simple muslin dress, like mine, tied with a yellow ribbon. Her powdered hair is loose about her shoulders. And there is a bloody wound about her neck.

My heart jumps to my throat, before I realize she is wearing a string of rubies.

I curtsy, staring at the toes of my borrowed slippers.

"Aleron," says the Queen. Her eyes flicker to me, then back to him. "A new friend?"

Aleron bows. "I thought Helene might be an interesting addition to our court, Your Majesty. Perhaps even an interesting companion for you."

"Oh?" the Queen says, raising her eyebrows. Her cold blue eyes slide away.

" I found her in the forest," Aleron continues. "In a tower."

The Queen rises and takes a step, her gaze locked on me. My heart pounds and my knees tremble as she approaches. I can see that emotion shimmers in her eyes. The lines around her mouth deepen.

"You look just like her," she breathes, and then looks over my shoulder. "But where is Caroline?"

The words catch in my throat. "She is dead, Your Majesty."

The Queen's face pales. Tears fill her eyes. "How?"

"She went mad." The memory of her screams, of Celena's, echo in my mind. There is a rustle among the ladies.

The Queen presses her hand to her mouth. Tears spill down her cheeks, leaving tracks in the powder on her face. "Why do those I love meet such horrible fates," she whispers. The ladies at their stools go still.

"You are right, Aleron," she snuffles. "She will be a companion to me. She will style my hair, but she will be my friend, like her mother. She will live here at court. Did your mother teach you her secrets?" she asks, turning to me.

_Which secrets?_ But then I see the Queen is eying my hair. "Yes, Your Majesty. She taught me how to style hair."

"Then you shall be one of my stylists."

More whispers rise from the ladies behind her, quickly stifled.

"Does she have a chamber?" the Queen asks Aleron.

"A small one, that she is sharing, Your Majesty."

"You will have your own chamber. Perhaps your mother's."

"Not my mother's," I blurt without thinking.

Aleron clears his throat. The Queen frowns. "Does that not please you?"

It does not. What if the Caroline's ghost is there, waiting for me?

But I must not act as mad as my ancestors, as mad as Caroline. "I'm sorry, Your Majesty," I manage, "This is all such an unexpected honor."

"That chamber is occupied by the Princesse de Lamballe, Your Majesty," Aleron says, and I suppress a sigh of relief.

"I will speak to her." Aleron bows in assent.

"'Toinette," murmurs one of the ladies, stepping forward. "Your carriage waits."

"Thank heavens," she sighs. "I can escape the crowd outside." Turning back to me, she smiles. "I hope you will be happy here. We will talk more when I return." Aleron bows. I curtsy belatedly.

One of her ladies opens yet another door, set opposite from the one we'd entered. It reveals a narrow, dimly lit corridor. The Queen slips into it, her ladies following in a whisper of silks and slippers. This palace is filled with secrets.

Aleron turns to me, smiling broadly. "Well, you won her over, as I knew you would."

We enter the Hall of Mirrors. A man marches past and nods briskly to Aleron. Aleron returns the nod.

"Think what it will mean to be a favorite of the Queen." His breath at my ear has made me dizzy, though I try not to show it. "You will never have to return to your tower, or the forest. You could have your own apartment here, or perhaps even a house. In Paris. You could style the hair of the noblesse. They will fight over you. And you will be free."

My head spins, my thoughts confused by the sensation of his breath at my ear, at the possibilities opening before me. _I would never have to return to the tower. I would never have to see Caroline fall to her death again. I will never have to walk through Lionel again, nor hear the pleas of the starved child. _

He offers his arm and I take it. He leads me deeper into the heart of Versailles.

**Chapter 7**

Aleron leads me back up the stairs to Juliette's chamber. At the door he turns to me, his brow creased. "You must be starving. I will have a meal sent to you."

He bows deeply over my hand, brushing his lips to it. Before I can catch my breath he saunters away down the corridor.

Juliette stands before the mirror, turning her head side to side, admiring the ruby pins set in the waves of her hair like buried sea treasure.

Caoline's ruby pins.

"Where did you get those?" I ask.

She gives a start, swinging around to look at me, but she recovers quickly, narrowing her eyes and lifting her chin. "I was only borrowing them. You would think, since I'm allowing you to share my chamber, that you'd be less selfish."

There is a knock at the door. She opens it. "Juliette, you simply must tell me what happened after you left last night, we were all wondering--"

A girl enters in a swirl of chatter and perfume. "Oh," she says, looking at her hair. "Are those rubies?"

"Yes," Juliette says, pulling them from her hair and setting them back on the dresser with a clatter. "But they're only cheap stones."

The girl's eyes fall on me. "Oh," she says. "Hello."

"Come, Pauline," Juliette says, "let's take a stroll through the palace before we're summoned again." She loops her arm through Pauline's and they move to the door.

I feel a twinge of loneliness, watching them go. I envy their ease, their lightness, as they leave the room together, not looking back.

"How can you stand her?" Pauline asks in a loud whisper. "She reeks of the forest." The door closes behind them.

The room feels even smaller and lonelier when I am alone in it. I almost find myself wishing for the sound of the wind through the evergreens, for the shuffle of Celena's cards.

Almost.

To ward off loneliness, comb your hair seventy seven times. Think of your happiest memories as you do it. Then rub chrysanthemums over the roots.

I have no chrysanthemums. But I am sure I could find any kind of flower that I wanted or needed in the gardens of the palace.

I unwind the plait I'd created earlier, then begin brushing. One, two, three...

Happy memories.

I think of holding my baby sister for the first time, the way she quieted when I held her, squinting at me through one eye.

Thirteen, fourteen...

Dancing with Celena and our mother, before she'd begun speaking to the air. How I'd tripped and fallen and our stomachs ached from laughter.

Twenty five, twenty six, twenty seven...

Mother brushing a bit of powder over my cheeks. "You are becoming quite beautiful," she told me, though I knew I'd never be as lovely as her or Celena.

Thirty nine, forty...

"Found you!" Aleron's face lit with triumph, shining above where I hid behind the curtains in the brilliant hall. And the happiness I felt at being found, and by him.

Fifty seven, fifty eight...

His warm hand on my arm steadying me when I'd seen him in the village.

Sixty five...

His smile when he found me again at the tower.

Seventy five, seventy six, seventy seven.

I coil and twist my hair until it rises in a soft hill over my crown, then I secure it with Caroline's pins, leaving a few tresses to curl over my shoulders. Turning my head side to side, I study myself in the mirror. My coiffure would look much better with flowers. Perhaps I could walk to the gardens to look for chrysanthemums.

Someone knocks at the door. My pulse quickens. Aleron? But when I open it I find a servant boy carrying a tray of food.

"Thank you," I tell the boy, swallowing my disappointment that Aleron did not brought it himself.

I breathe in the scent of the still steaming bread. There are slices of cheese and meat, daintily sliced, and a little bowl of jelly.

I close the door and sit on the bed, the tray on my lap. It is awkward, but I am so hungry I am prepared to eat like a dog, if I must, without utensils.

Someone knocks at the door. I consider ignoring it.

"The Queen requests the presence of Mademoiselle Helene," someone calls through the door. At the words my stomach shrinks and I set the tray next to me on the bed. Rising, I open the door to find a young servant boy on the other side. "Mademoiselle Helene?"

"Yes," I reply, smoothing my dress. "Might I eat first?"

"The Queen wishes that you attend her right away," the servant says solemnly.

I sigh. "One moment." I dig in the trunk for a pair of slippers, so worn that my big toe threatens to push through the fabric. Hopefully my dress is long enough to hide them. With a last look over my shoulder at the tray of food sitting on the bed, I close the door and follow him.

We descend the narrow staircase and step out into a hall filled with people. The servant leads me to an ornate doorway, speaking in a low voice to a girl, perhaps my age, with shining eyes. When he sees me he bows. "Louise, may I present Helene," he says, straightening. "The Queen has requested her presence."

Louise's eyes travel from my toes to my hair. Her mouth twists, but when she turns back to Aleron she is smiling again. "Remember, our game the other night. Your debt to me."

"How can I forget?" he grins. She laughs, her hand brushing her sleeve.

He turns to me. "You look lovely."

"Thank you." Even if he is only courteous, his words make me stand a bit straighter, and risk a glance at Louise. Her smile hardens.

"I must see to the Queen's horse." He bows to Louise, then leans close to me. "She will love you," he breathes.

_But what if she doesn 't? _Before I can ask he is gone, striding down the hall.

"This way." Louise has turned on her heel and leads me through the ornate doors and into the Queen's bedchamber.

I brace myself to see the Queen, perhaps surrounded by her ladies, laughing or dancing or carrying on a grand conversation. Instead I find the room is empty of people. The walls seem to be gilt in gold; grand chandeliers hang from the ceiling. A large bed, hung with a canopy, sits in the center.

A heavy tapestry hangs on the wall, next to her bed. Louise sweeps it aside, revealing another door, this one much smaller and narrower than the entrance to the bedchamber.

I hesitate and glance at Louise, wondering if she is pulling a prank. She holds a delicate hand to her nose. "Didn't you think to bathe?" she asks. She gives me a little push into the narrow corridor, then closes the door behind me.

I sniff my shoulder, my hair, and smell the sharp scent of the evergreen. Will I never rid myself of the forest?

I consider shoving my way back through the little door, but Louise is no doubt on the other side, waiting to ridicule me. Taking a breath, I start down the corridor. I can hear my breath, quick and uneven, my worn slippers sliding against the floor.

Finally I reach another little door. I stand staring at it. I could slip back down the corridor, through the first door. I could evade Louise; she didn't seem difficult to elude. I could sneak back to my chamber to the food. Perhaps the bread is still warm.

The door swings open. Another tirewoman stands in its entrance. She is much older and solemn than Louise. Inclining her head, she steps from the doorway, allowing me to pass.

The Queen is alone, sitting before an ornate mirror. The scent of orange blossoms fills the room, and vanilla.

Suddenly I am a child again, lying on my stomach, my chin propped in my hands, watching the Queen at her vanity, Caroline behind her.

Caroline bends, her face close to the Queen's. _Your husband is a fair dancer, if only one could bear to get close to him._ The Queen's hands fly to her mouth, covering her shocked laughter.

"Helene?"

The Queen has risen from her stool.

"Yes, Your Majesty." I sink into a low curtsy.

Her skirts rustle as she rises and approaches. "Rise, my dear," she says, touching my shoulders. I look up, and the room seems to tilt.

"My dear!" The Queen catches my arm to steady me.

"I'm sorry, Your Majesty," I stammer.

The Queen peers at me. "When is the last time you've eaten?"

I try to remember. "Yesterday, in the morning, perhaps?"

The Queen gives a little cry. "That Aleron! He never thought to feed you."

"He did, Your Majesty, but..." my words fall away. It feels disrespectful to tell the Queen her summons took me from my meal.

"You must share my breakfast. Princesse?"

For the first time I notice another woman in the room, slight and blonde, with great blue eyes. She crosses to her table and takes up a plate. "Helene," says the Queen, "may I present the Princesse de Lamballe." The Princesse nods and holds the plate out to me. On the dish rests a crescent shaped piece of bread. "Please," says the Queen. "Sit."

"Thank you." I take the plate and sit at the table, the Queen perching across from me. The Princesse settles nearby. I feel their eyes on me as I eat, but the bread is warm, and soft, and I must force myself not to devour it.

When I am finished I long to slide my finger along the plate to gather the crumbs.

"Ah, Princesse, I must ask you a favor," the Queen says.

The Princesse's pale eyes light. "Anything, "Toinette."

"Poor Helene must share a tiny room in the servants' quarters. I thought perhaps--"

The Princesse's face falls. "Of course if you insist, 'Toinette."

"It's all right, Your Majesty." Both women look at me. I swallow, realizing I should not have interrupted. But the thought of moving into Caroline's old room, ad mine, is intolerable. "I like sharing a room with Juliette."

"Juliette who, my dear?" the Queen asks blankly.

How does the Queen not know the name of the servant charged with caring for her children?

Without warning her eyes fill with tears. She snuffles and takes the handkerchief the Princesse offers. "I'm sorry. It's just that, you're so like your mother. I can't help thinking how different things might be if, if..."

If Caroline hadn't gone mad and fled with us into the forest.

"I remember you as a child," she sighs, "already so lovely, so graceful. But a bit wild, like her..."

She falls silent. The window is open, allowing the cool morning air inside.

"Did she teach you her secrets?" the Queen asks. Her tone is light, but her eyes are eager, pleading.

_Which secrets?_

"Did she show you how to style hair?" the Queen presses.

Ah, those. "Yes, Your Majesty."

"Ah." She touches her hand to her heart. "I know I sound foolish. But whenever she styled my hair, I felt luckier. As if fate were turning in my favor. As if something wonderful were about to happen."

I do not know how to answer. Whatever Caroline taught me, whatever charms I learned from her, I am not at all certain that my skills bring good luck.

The Queen's face falls slightly, as if she's read my thoughts. "Let's try. If you've had enough to eat, that is." My stomach still twists on itself, but I don't dare ask for more.

"I have had enough, thank you." The Queen smiles and settles herself on her stool.

I take up a heavy silver hairbrush. "How would Your Majesty like your hair styled?" I try to sound confident. I could weave jewels into it. Perhaps make it into the ocean's, like Juliette's.

"What do you think, Princesse?" the Queen asks.

"You look loveliest when your hair is simple, 'Toinette." The Princesse's voice is soft.

"Simple, then," the Queen says.

I move the brush through her thinning red hair.

Through the open window floats the sounds leaves rustling in the breeze, the cry of a bird. I think I hear soft laughter. I falter, imagining a ghost.

No. The laughter is merely a couple in the garden. Perhaps meeting for a secret rendezvous, as Aleron had hinted the Queen likes to do.

The Queen's hair is brittle. I try comb it gently, fearful of pulling out a lock, as with Celena. It's fortunate she didn't ask for jewels; their weight might further damage her hair.

What to do instead? My eyes fall on a vase of violets, spilling riotously from their container in contrast to the orderliness of the rest of the chamber.

Her eyes follow mine. "They are lovely, aren't they? I've had them brought from Petit Trianon, my secret garden."

Petit Trianon. A snippet of memory flits through my mind, of chasing Aleron across the grass, in a game of hide and seek, Caroline's laughter floating after us. I remember finding the entrance to a little cave and tip toeing into it, certain I would find him inside. The scent of jasmine floated on the cool air. I heard a sigh, and soft laughter, and peered around a corner to see a woman and man locked in an embrace. The woman turned to look at me, and I saw she was the Queen. Caroline's voice, angry now, at the mouth of the cave, ordering me to come out at once. "I saw the Queen and King, Mama," I told her, but she'd gripped my arm roughly, tears coursing down her face.

I wonder now if it was the King I saw.

_Violets are for secrets_. I reach toward the flowers and look askance at the Queen.

"Lovely!" she says rapturously. "You're so like your mother!" She presses her hands to her heart. "I always thought of Caroline as the princess in the story. The one who was locked in the tower by the evil witch, whose only connection to the world outside was her long hair."

_It turns out she was more of the witch than the princess._ I begin weaving blossoms into her hair.

"I tried to keep her from going," the Queen sighs, "but she wouldn't stay..."

Behind us the door flies open. "'Toinette!" cries a musical voice.

The Queen's face lights. "Jules!"

A woman dances into the room in a cloud of perfume. Her golden hair floats about her head in careful curls, tied with a lovely ribbon, as if she were a girl, though she must be the Queen's age.

She drops into a chair. "I must win my money back from that scoundrel Artois tonight! I am sure that you'd like to take revenge on his mousy little wife for her gossip!"

The Princesse rises. "I must go, 'Toinette."

"Don't go, Louise. We can't play cards without you." The Princesse sinks reluctantly back to her chair.

The golden haired woman looks around. "We can't play anyway. There aren't enough of us."

"We have Helene."

I look up sharply. "Surely your mother taught you to play, Helene?" the Queen says.

"She did, Your Majesty, but..."

"Who is this?" The golden haired woman's sharp blue eyes measure me.

"Jules, this is Helene. The daughter of my dear friend Caroline."

"The madwoman in the tower?" Now the woman's voice is distinctly unfriendly. I look down to hide my reddening face.

The Queen sighs. "I brought her here in the hopes that her skill with styling hair might cheer me. As her mother's once did."

The woman's eyes rake over the violets in the Queen's hair. "They are lovely, 'Toinette." Even I can hear the false note in her voice. "But surely Leonard will be furious."

"Leonard shall style my hair for balls and fetes. Helene shall do my hair on ordinary days." I will stay well away from Leonard, whoever he is. I do not wish to incur his fury.

The woman turns to me. "I am the Duchesse de Polignac, and you may address me as such."

I sink into a low curtsy.

"Louise, the cards," says the Queen. "Come, let's play." She rises and moves to a round table set with four chairs, where the Princesse waits with a deck of cards. "Your mother was the most talented gambler. Did she teach you her tricks?"

Many chilly nights in the tower, I'd sat across from Caroline as she smiled wickedly, outplaying me at every hand, as if she knew what cards I held. As if someone were standing behind me and telling her, though when I turned no one was there.

"You must learn to lose with grace. It's part of life," Caroline would say, her smile fading as she scooped the pebbles for which we'd gambled into her own pile.

The Queen is speaking. "She was so convincingly giddy sometimes, I was sure she had the best hand, and I would surrender. Only to find out that she would win on the poorest of cards. Then at other times she would seem so morose, pouting, that I would take a huge risk and lose it all!" A smile flits across her face.

"And you? Are you the actress that she was?"

_You 're so easy to beat. Anyone can see what you're feeling. You must learn to hide your emotions._

"Come. Let's try."

The Duchesse raises her eyebrows. "But with what shall Helene gamble? The poor thing doesn't have a penny to her name."

"I shall loan her money."

"And if she loses?"

I am worried about the same thing. "Shuffle the cards, Jules," says the Queen.

Pursing her lips, the Duchesse sits at the table and begins to shuffle the cards.

"Oh, this will be such fun!" the Princesse says in her breathy voice, settling herself next to the Duchesse. "We haven't played in so long!"

"My mother taught me to play, when I was a child in Austria," the Queen tells me as the Duchesse deals. "She said I must master my facial expressions. So that no one can read my emotions. I didn't know it then, but she was preparing me to become the Queen."

I pick up my cards and study them. A spade, a diamond, a heart.

"I bid my gold ring," the Duchesse says boldly.

"Really?" the Princesse says.

"You give yourself away, Louise," the Queen says. "What will you bid?"

The Princesse rubs her chin. "My bracelet."

"Helene?"

The Duchesse smirks. "I have nothing to bid, Your Majesty."

The Queen eyes my hair. "Your lovely ribbon."

I feel my cheeks heat as the Duchesse's smile widens and the Princesse titters.

"Show your cards, then," the Duchesse says.

The Queen and Princesse lay out their cards. The Queen has a pair of diamonds the Princesse three clubs.

"Helene."

I lay out my cards. "Ha!" the Duchesse lays out hers: two spades and three diamonds. She claps her hands, the jewels on her fingers winking. The Queen groans, the Princesse presses her fingers over her eyes. "Your debt to me is ever larger, Louise," the Duchesse says.

"Don't gloat, Jules," the Queen protests.

"Again," the Duchesse says, and deals the cards.

This time I hold four spades. I glance around at the other women. The Princesse is again biting her lip, her brow furrowed. The Queen wears a smooth mask, impossible to read. The Duchesse is glaring at me over her cards.

"I surrender," I say quickly, laying down my cards. A smile breaks over the face of the Duchesse as the Queen and Princesse reveal their hands.

"Well done, Jules!" the Queen exclaims.

"Yes, well done," the Princesse says faintly.

"Congratulations, Your Grace," I tell her.

Outside bells chime. "I have promised to meet Louis," the Queen sighs.

"One more hand," the Duchesse says. "And this time the victor shall take all the winnings."

The Princesse squeaks, but the Queen's eyes spark. "Such a risk! Deal the cards."

The cards swim before my eyes. Two threes, and two fours. Too low.

My stomach lurches. I have only been at court a day, and already I am in debt.

Over the Duchesse's shoulder stands a girl. I give a start. Where did she come from? She smiles impishly and flashes her fingers. A two, then a three.

I glance around at the faces of the other women, but they are intent on their cards. None of them seem to notice her.

The girl shows me a two, then a three again. She lays her fingers to her lips, winks, then vanishes.

I clasp my hands in my lap to hide their trembling.

So I am to see ghosts in Versailles, as well.

"Helene?" the Queen's voice breaks into my thoughts. "It is your bid."

I consider excusing myself, telling them that I am suddenly not well.

The Princesse stares at her hand, biting her lip. The Queen's brows are raised. A smile stretches across the Duchesse's face, as smug as any cat's.

At this I announce, "I call." The Duchesse's smile slips.

The Princesse sighs and lays down her cards, and the Queen blinks. "All right then. Show us your hands. Jules?"

"No, I must insist that Helene go first."

I lay down my cards and show them. I know before the Duchesse shows her cards that there will be a two and a three.

The Queen's laughter rings through the room. "She has taken your money, Jules."

"She has taken your money, as well, Your Majesty," the Duchesse replies sourly.

"Oh, no, it was only money you loaned me," I tell the Queen. But I would be happy to take the Duchesses's.

"That is true. But it only seems fair that you receive a prize, as you've outplayed us."

I do not want to further incur the wrath of the Duchesse, especially since my manner of winning wasn't as fair as the Queen thinks. "Really, Your Majesty, I can't accept--"

"I know!" The Queen's face brightens. "Louise, fetch my mules, please."

"Your favorites?" the Princesse breathes.

The Quee nods. The Duchesse frowns as the Princesse leaps to her feet and hurries to the Queen's armoire, returning with a pair of purple mules, covered in silk.

Taking them from the Princesse, the Queen offers them to me. "Here, Helene, take them. Now you won't have to wear your old worn ones."

"Your Majesty--"

"Take them." Her voice is firm.

"How nice. It is like a child playing dress up with her mother's cast off clothes."

"Jules. You must learn to lose with grace."

The Duchesse's voice changes. "Oh, of course, 'Toinette. You know I was only jesting."

But I am caught by the Queen's words. Caroline spoke them to me, on a dark winter evening in the tower, the air thick with smoke from the fireplace.

"Thank you, Your Majesty." My voice is thick and stilted.

The chime rings again. The Queen looks up with alarm. "Oh, dear, I must not keep the King waiting any longer."

"I shall come with you," the Comtesse says. "I will tell him it's my fault you're late."

"That would be nice. He loves you." She rises, and the rest of us rise with her. She and the Comtesse move toward the door, the Princesse trailing behind.

"Clean up for us, will you?" the Comtesse calls over her shoulder to me.

"Thank you, dear Helene," the Queen says, and they are gone.

I stare at the mules for another moment. Dare I accept them? They are made of a vibrant purple silk, the borrowed pair I wear worn and dull in comparison.

I slip out of the worn slippers, and slide the purple mules on my own feet. Lifting myself onto my toes, I give an experimental spin. The soles whisper against the floor. They are the loveliest things I have ever owned.

Gathering the cards into a pile, I look over my shoulder for the girl. She is so different from the ghosts in the forest. Cheerful, rather than desperate. Playful, not sad.

I move to the vanity and straighten the pins, place the discarded violets back in their vase, lay the comb and brush side by side. With a last look over my shoulder, I leave the room.

As I walk through the halls of the palace I understand why everyone here glides. The mules are so light I practically prance, the heels clicking musically against the marble floor.

I pass statues of nymphs holding great trumpets, windows as tall as my tower, paintings of angels.

I am enjoying myself so much that I do not return to my chamber right away.

"Don't those shoes belong to the Queen?" The voice cuts into my reverie. I turn to face Louise. She appraises me with narrowed eyes.

I am tired of people here looking at me that way. "They did. She gave them to me as a prize. I won at cards." I feel a prick of shame; I'd actually cheated to win. But I feel no regret as her eyes widen. "Do you like them?" I lift the hem of my dress to show them off.

"You still smell of mud." She turns on her heel and marches off.

She's only jealous.

Still, I decide it is time to return to my chamber.

**Chapter 8**

I find Juliette standing before the mirror. Her hair is still piled atop her head like the ocean, but some of the strands have loosed themselves from their pins.

I groan when I see the tray on my bed, now empty.

One of Caroline's candles is alight on the dresser before her.

"Have you gone through my things?" I sputter.

"You don't have much. At least you brought candles. We always need more. It's so dark here in the servants' quarters."

"These are not for regular burning."

Her eyes narrow. "What are they for, then?"

"They were my mother's."

"And she didn't use them for light?"

I don't want to tell her their true purpose. Her eyes narrow. "Were they for spells?" My silence is her answer. I should have left the cursed things in the tower. What if they attract ghosts?

She leans forward. "Do you know any? Love spells? Can you draw love nearer?"

I think of Caroline, studying the flames of the candles intently, whispering under her breath, Celena sitting across form her, her skin as yet unmarred, watching with wide eyes as Caroline read her fortune in love. I remember how the flame flared, burning brightly, sighing. Even I, watching from Celena's shoulder, could tell that she was to be lucky in love. Caroline's face darkened. She'd blown the candle out, smoke swirling in the air where the flame had been. Extinguishing her daughter's fortune.

"Um, I suppose."

"Light one!" she urges. She snatches a box of matches from the table and presses it on me.

I choose the candle infused with rose petals, fragrant and lovely, and set it in its silver fitting, already covered in cold wax from past predictions, then place it on the table. Juliette settles herself on the stool, looking at me expectantly.

"Say the name of one of your admirers. The flame will flare when you say the name of someone who is thinking of you."

Juliette laughs, the sound high and false. "My admirers? Hm. Where to start."

I force myself not to roll my eyes.

"All right, then. His Majesty King Louis."

The flame continues to burn steadily. "I was only jesting," she says with a huff that nearly extinguishes the candle.

"Careful," I warn her. "You'll bring bad luck if you blow it out yourself."

She doesn't seem to hear me as she studies the candle. "The Comte von Fersen." Again, the candle burns an even amber.

Juliette laughs. "Well, naturally. He is known to be smitten with the Queen. But this is silly, anyway. Forest lore."

Stung by her sneer, I retort, "You have to take it seriously. Name someone you're serious about."

To my surprise Juliette looks back to the flame. "Marc Sanson."

The candle flickers, then flares, its flame reaching several inches into the air.

She laughs delightedly. The candle sputters and goes out, extinguished by her breath. _Bad luck._ We both go still.

Then she strikes another match, lighting it. "We make our own luck," she declares. "Now, what about you?"

"Me?"

"Why don't you try saying the name of one of you admirers?"

"I don't have any admirers."

"Oh? What do you think would happen if you said Aleron's name?"

I feel the color rise in my cheeks, my heart begin to beat faster. She watches me shrewdly.

"What's the matter? Afraid of what the candle will tell you?" Her lips curl in a smile. "He spent months searching the forest for you. He can't stay away from you now that you're here. What doubts can you have?"

His name at my lips, I stare at the golden flame. Then I lean forward and blow it out.

"It's only a candle," I tell Juliette.

The door flies open and Pauline storm inside. "She's done it again."

"Done what again?"

"Left him a gift."

Juliette stands and peers into the mirror. Turning her back, she gives her reflection a coquettish smile. "What was it?"

"Flowers. Roses."

"How sweet."

"Not when she's trying to steal him away!'

Juliette faces the mirror again, leaning close to inspect her eyes. "How, when he's never seen her? How do you know it's a she, for that matter? It could be the stable boy. I've seen the way he looks at Steffan."

She turns her back to the mirror, leans close, lowers her voice. "Or it could be a ghost."

"A ghost?" Pauline stops her pacing and spins around. Gooseflesh rises on my arms.

Juliette nods. "The ghost of the Queen's chambermaid. She died of a fever but was so devoted to the Queen that she haunts her chambers still." Juliette holds our gaze.

The red haired girl in the Queen's chamber.

"Have you seen her?" Pauline breathes.

Juliette breaks into laughter. "Of course not! It's only a story. You should see your faces." She returns to the mirror.

Picking up a pillow, Pauline hurls it at Juliette. "Can't you be serious, for a moment? What am I going to do?"

"Is Stefan really such a catch?"

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Don't you think you can do better?"

"You know I can't!"

Juliette laughs as Pauline plunks down on the bed with a huff. "Why don't you ask Helene to do your hair?"

Pauline glances doubtfully up at me. "Would that help?"

"She's the Queen's secret hairdresser, you know."

Pauline glares at her. "Is this another trick?"

"I know, it seems mad. But it's true."

Both regard me.

"She'll pay you," Juliette says.

"I will?" Pauline twists to glare at Juliette. "With what?"

Juliette taps her chin. "She could certainly use some soap."

Pauline turns to study me again. "Will you style my hair? If I bring you soap?"

"You don't have to give me soap."

"Of course she does. Sandalwood."

Pauline nods. "All right."

I tilt my head, studying her hair. It is long and wavy, thick. "How would you like your hair styled?"

"I don't know. What do you think?"

Piled atop her head, with curls dangling down, as if she's just come from a walk in the garden. Carefree. But with blossoms to keep her lover near.

"Can you get sweet peas?"

"They grow in the garden," Juliette says. "I can go and get some."

"Are we allowed to cut them?" I ask.

She slips from the room without answering.

I nod toward the vanity, and Pauline sits down before the mirror. I take up the brush and begin sweeping her hair upward. "Hand me that pin."

She takes one from the table and holds it up. "Did you truly live alone in the forest?"

"Most of the time." I tuck the pin in her hair and hold out my hand for another.

"Didn't you ever want to leave?"

"No," I lie.

"Not until you met Aleron," she says with a knowing smile.

"I wanted to see Versailles, when he told me about it." I brush and pin, brush and pin.

"Do you think this will work?" she asks after a few minutes of silence.

"Work to do what?"

"To keep Steffan from falling in love with someone else."

"What is it that you love so much about Steffan?"

"He makes me laugh. He knows the most amusing stories! He told me that he once saw the King fall asleep in the middle of his dinner and snore all through dessert."

The door opens and Juliette slips back inside. "Here." She thrusts a handful of sweet pea toward me.

I tuck the flowers into the pins and weave them among the tendrils of hair. "There."

Her hair is woven in plaits and twists atop her head, sweet peas tucked among them.

She stares at her reflection, her eyes wide. Juliette cups her chin in her hand, her lips pursed.

"I don't look like myself," Pauline breathes. "It's a bit...wild.'

"You look quite lovely," Juliette says. "Perhaps wild is what you need." She straightens. "I just passed Steffan grooming the King's favorite horse, on my way to the gardens. I'm sure he'd be happy for the company."

Pauline rises and clasps my hands. "Thank you, Helene. Thank you, thank you, thank you! I shall bring your soap soon." She rushes from the room.

Next time I will use oleander in her hair instead. For caution.

Later that evening Pauline returns, bearing a plate heaped with slices of meat, cheese, and bread. My stomach begins to growl as soon as she enters. The last thing I ate was the bread in the Queen's chamber. She sets the tray on the dresser, in front of Juliette, who pokes at a slice of meat with her fingertip.

"It's cold," she says.

"It's a long way from the kitchen. And these were what was left over."

I stare at the pile of food, more than enough to feed Caroline, Celena, and me, for several meals.

Juliette sandwiches met and cheese between the bread and takes a dainty bite. "And here," Pauline says to me, handing me a little package. A cake of soap, sandalwood.

"Thank you," I tell her, but she doesn't seem to hear, seating herself on my bed, gazing into space. Her hair has come loose from its pins, the flowers hanging by their stems. Her cheeks are flushed.

"So. You managed to persuade Steffan of your charms?" Juliette asks.

A smile breaks over her face. Clutching a pillow to her chest, she gives a squeal and flops backward, smiling at the ceiling.

"Aren't you going to eat, Helene? You must be starving," Juliette says.

I look up at her, wondering if this is a trick.

"Pauline's aunt is one of the cooks. She always makes sure to set some food aside for us. Come on, it's not that bad."

So I rise and make myself a sandwich, which I devour in a few bites.

"You really have been away from civilization for a while," Juliette notes, but I ignore her as I help myself to more.

When I have finished eating I scrub at my skin until I can detect no more wintergreen. Nor mud.

In my dreams I have returned to the forest. The wind carries the voices of the spirits. Suddenly a cry pierces the air. I whirl to see Celena clutching at her face, kneeling. Blood drips onto the snow. I race toward her but Caroline steps into my path, the scent of wintergreen so strong my throat burns. Her blue eyes burn into mine. "I have to help her," I cry, but each time I try to step around her she pushes me away with her strong, bony arms. Celena's screams grow more and more desperate.

I startle awake, choking.

"Snoring again," Juliette growls in the dark.

**Chapter 9**

When I wake it is light, and Juliette is gone.

I dress, then brush my hair, my thoughts wandering as I run the brush through my hair seventy seven times.

I don't know whether the Queen will summon me. Am I to sit and wait in this dingy room?

I still want to find oleander, for Pauline. I could try to find my way to the garden.

And perhaps I will find Aleron.

I rise and leave the room. The corridor is empty and silent. I descend the stairs to the first floor, then cross the Hall of Mirrors, hoping to catch sight of Aleron. But he is nowhere to be found. So I follow the winding marble staircase to the ground floor and out to the gardens.

The edges of the gardens are manicured hedges, a gravel path winding among them. I remember walking with Caroline deep into the garden with scissors and a basket. It seemed like we wandered forever into its heart until Caroline found what she wanted.

I follow the path now, the blooms growing more and more wild. I slow, looking more closely around me, in search of the oleander.

A man with light brown hair lifting in the breeze kneels beside a flowering bush, pulling weeds from the base. He glances up at me, then pushes his hat back. His eyes are the color of the sky in his dark, lined skin. Slowly he stands. His apron is stained with grass and dirt.

"Are you lost, mademoiselle?"

"I am looking for oleander."

"Oleander?"

"Yes. Is something wrong with that?"

He rubs the back of his neck. "No. It's only that most young women request daisies, or roses. Not many ask for oleander."

Taking a kerchief from his pocket, he mops at his face. "Over here." He leads the way to a bush with twisted brown limbs from which grow vibrant blue blossoms. Taking a pair of shears from the pocket of his apron, he snips off several blossoms **.** They release a scent into the air, sweet and light. "Here you are. Tell her to be careful with these, and not to use too many. If they are too powerful they can cause madness."

"I know."

He glances at me. "Do you mind if I ask your name, Mademoiselle?"

"It's Helene."

"Helene?"

Helene d'Vie."

He closes his eyes tightly.

"Do I know you, Monsieur?"

He shakes his head, his eyes still closed. "No. You don't know me at all. Only, I once knew your mother."

Pity washes through me. This man is exactly the kind that would have adored Caroline, and who she would have dismissed without a second thought.

"I heard she died," he murmurs. "I'm sorry." He turns his back, kneeling in the shade of the flowering tree, and pulls savagely at the weeds. "I hope those flowers help you get what you need."

"Thank you." I stare at his back as he works, questions on my tongue. How does he know Caroline? What was she to him, he to her?

He glances over his shoulder, then stands and gathers his tools, walking away, down the path, into the flowers. After another moment's hesitation I move the opposite direction, toward the palace, the buzzing of bees the only sound.

****

"Where have you been? The Queen has been asking after you!"

I have just entered the palace. Adela, the Queen's tirewoman, rushes up and takes me by the arm. She tows me through the palace to the Queen's apartments. I stumble after her, barely able to keep up.

Ignoring the people who have gathered to seek audience with the Queen, Adela steers me to the tapestry. Pulling it aside, she nudges me through the doorway and into the little corridor.

I find the Queen alone in her secret room, sitting at before her vanity. Her hair is unpowdered, tied in rags.

"Helene!" the Queen's voice is laced with irritation. "I've been waiting. I need my hair styled before my ride."

So I am expected to wait in my room for the Queen's pleasure. Tamping down my own annoyance, I ask, "How would you like it styled, Your Majesty?"

"Simply. I only need it out of my face." Her eyes flicker to the oleander in my hand. "Oh, lovely. You've brought flowers. Though you'll have to use extra pins to hold those in place."

I suppose I'll have to return to the garden later for more.

Taking up the heavy brush, I begin to comb it through her hair, gently. It seems as though it might break easily. Her scalp shows through in one place in the back.

I twist strands of hair, weaving and pinning them into a great coil on the back of her head. Then I begin pinning the oleander blossoms in.

The door opens and the Duchesse bursts in. "'Toinette, I have a message. Oh." Her smile falters when she sees me.

A flush spreads over the Queen's cheeks. "What is it?"

The Duchesse's eyes flicker to me. "Excuse us, please. The Queen needs privacy."

"She can't go. My hair isn't finished."

"'Toinette, I really don't think..."

"Helene is trustworthy. Read it to me, Jules."

I feel the Duchesse's gaze sweep across me. I keep my eyes on the Queen's hair, through I wonder, what kind of message the Queen has received.

The Duchesse glares at me and steps close to the Queen. She begins to read, her voice hushed, as though she hopes I won't be able to hear. " _' My heart, soon I will be with you. Although the days are few, they stretch before me like an eternity. But soon we will rule our kingdom of magic, you and I, if only for a few hours_...'" The Duchesse's voice fades. She glances at me.

My breath is caught in my throat. This letter was not written by the King.

"Our kingdom," the Queen sighs.

From outside the window, a hoarse cry shatters the peace of the evening. "Whore! Our children starve because of you!"

The Queen gasps as if she has been struck. The crosses swiftly to the window. She pulls it shut, nearly silencing the jeering voice, but not quite.

"Helene, you are so quick!" she cries, her voice too loud. "And 'Toinette, look how lovely you are! It is time to go show off your coiffure. Come help me win my money back from the Duc d'Oreleans."

"I am going for a ride, Jules."

I no longer regret using the oleander in the Queen's hair. She could use the protection.

I slide the last flower into place, as the Duchesse carries the letter to a little desk. She takes a little key from her sleeve and turns a lock. Opening the lid, she sets the letter inside then closes it with a snap. She turns the key in the lock and slides the key back into her sleeve.

The Queen continues to stare at her reflection. "Why?"

"Your Majesty?"

"Why do the people hate me so?"

"'Toinette?"The Duchesse steps toward us.

But the Queen ignores her, waiting for my reply, her eyes bewildered and sad.

"How could they hate you?" My voice wavers slightly. "You are their Queen."

The Duchesse snorts. "Of course they don't hate you."

"There are many spies in my court," she whispers, "people who claim to want to help me. But who would betray me. But you're not one of those, are you, Helene? You would never betray me. Just as your mother would never betray me. There are so few I can trust." Her chin trembles.

"Of course you can trust me, Your Majesty."

"Surely you know you can trust me, 'Toinette?" The Duchesse's voice is sweet, but the look she casts me is hard.

The Queen turns back around to look at her reflection. She raises her chin. In the mirror she meets my eyes and smiles, but her eyes are dark, haunted. Like Caroline's, near the end.

" _Merci_ ," she whispers. She rises from her chair and holds out her hands. The Duchesse takes up a pair of gloves from the top of the desk, the scent of jasmine wafting from them. She slides them expertly onto the Queen's hands.

With the gloves the Queen seems to regain her regality. She stands tall, all trace of tears gone from her eyes.

"I have a gift for you, Helene." The Queen takes a little bottle from her vanity. The light gleams from its sharp edges. "It's a scent that brings me much happiness."

An instant later her face hardens into an icy mask, remote and closed.

She gives me a mere nod as she glides through the door, the oleander bright against her auburn hair.

The Duchesse smiles broadly. "How kind of the Queen, Helene. Perhaps this is her way of warning that you smell of mud." She leans so close that I can feel her cold breath on my cheek. "Remember that you a trusted _servant_ of the Queen," she hisses. Then she turns and sweeps from the room.

Just before I open the door to my chamber I wrap my hand around the delicate bottle and make sure that it's out of sight. Opening door, I find Juliette and Pauline sitting on my bed. A third girl I don't recognize sits on Juliette's bed, opposite them. Juliette is shuffling a deck of cards.

"Finally!" she says as I enter. "Now we can play."

"What are we playing?" I ask uncertainly.

"Cards."

"What are the stakes?"

"We make them up as we go. Sit." She jerks her chin at the other bed. I sit down next to the girl, tucking the bottle under my skirt, as Juliette hands the cards to Pauline. "Deal."

"This is Therese," Pauline says as she flicks the cards at us. The dark haired girl nods at me. "She wants you to style her hair, too."

"Um, all right," I tell her.

"Aleron was asking after you," says Pauline, picking up her cards and inspecting her hand.

"Aleron?"

"She has a bit of a crush on him," Juliette says.

"I don't have a crush on him!"

"He is quite handsome," Therese says.

"He thinks so, anyway," says Juliette.

"And tall."

"Do you think so?"

"What did he ask?" I interrupt through gritted teeth.

"Ha! Not so indifferent as you pretend, now are you?"

"He wanted to know if you were happy here," Pauline says.

"And what did you say?"

"I said that you are gaining quite a reputation for styling hair."

"What did he say?"

"That he can't live without you any longer, that he wants you all to himself and wants to carry you off into the woods and ravish you."

"Therese!" Pauline hits her arm.

I lay down my cards, revealing my winning hand. They fall silent, gaping at the cards.

"What!" Pauline shrieks.

Therese glares at Juliette. "I thought you said she'd be an easy mark."

Now it is my turn to glare at Juliette, but she grins back. "What do you want, Helene?"

"What do you mean, what do I want?"

"The winner gets to pick something that belongs to one of the losers."

Therese casually covers her wrist, hiding the bracelet she wears. Pauline curls her hand around the silver band on her index finger.

It would be nice to have friends here. Besides, the Queen's gift rests against my thigh. "I don't want anything."

"What!" Juliette exclaims, while the other two sigh. "You fool! At least make Therese pay you for styling your hair."

"I would have," Therese protests.

"Let's play again," Juliette says. Pauline hands the cards to Therese, who shuffles. "You know," Juliette continues, "Aleron's not as wonderful as he seems."

"He's certainly not as handsome as Steffan," Pauline says, and the other two groan, Therese throwing a pillow at her.

I've never had a friend. It's been years since I've even spoken to someone besides Celena. Our laughter fills the room, cries of triumph and indignation. And through it all Pauline's words repeat themselves over and over in my mind: _He wanted to know if you were happy here ..._

In the time that follows, Therese loses her bracelet to Pauline, only to recover it and Pauline's silver ring in the next hand. It is easy to read in Pauline's face when she has a good hand. I fold immediately, sacrificing one of Caroline's ruby pins. It is worth it, for this newfound friendship.

When at last Pauline and Therese rise to leave, Juliette turns to me. "All jests aside. You really do need to be cautious of Aleron."

"Why?"

She leans forward. "I confided in him. And he betrayed me. And his friend."

"Why would he do that?"

"Envy, I suppose. Revenge. Because he once loved me, and I didn't return his affection."

I think of Aleron, the first time I'd seen him, his cheeks red with cold, the pastry steaming in the frigid air.

"I told him that Jean told me he loved me. And the next day Aleron accused him of betraying the Queen and had him exiled from Versailles." She shuffles the cards, shuffles them again.

"And where is Jean now?"

A bitter smile twists her mouth. "Haven't you been listening? One must be very careful in whom she confides in Versailles."

**Chapter 10**

In the days that follow, many a knock comes at the door. A maid, a tirewoman, a cook, asking if I'll style their hair.

I always ask them what it is they desire. Often it is love. Sometimes money. One woman wants revenge on the man who abandoned her, by becoming irresistible.

When I am not with the Queen I am styling other women's hair. They whisper their troubles to me I try to remember what Caroline taught me about different charms and flowers. But when I can't I make up my own charms.

I tuck a lotus behind the ear of the assistant to the cook. She plans revenge on the maid who purposely splashed boiling water on her out of envy.

I pin peonies into the curls of the young Comtesse, who needs courage to tell her father she wishes to wed the guardsman and not the nobleman he's chosen for her.

I pin yellow rose petals in the coiffure of the frail princesse who wishes to show her lover she is envious of the attention he pays her sister.

In return they bring me offerings: the girl who works in the kitchen slips me sweets from the Queen's own dessert tray. The girl who aids the seamstress brings fragile buttons fashioned from glass, which I in turn weave into poufs. The stern faced tirewoman presses a deck of cards into my hand, and Juliette, Pauline and I play cards together the evenings I am free.

"Have you never thought to ask for money?" Juliette asks.

"Does anyone have any?"

"Not much. But if they want you to do their hair badly enough, they'll find it."

"And what would I buy?"

Juliette chokes. "You can't be serious. Why not save for a house of your own? In Paris?"

"Paris?" I laugh.

"You can't possibly want to stay in Versailles, forever. Or perhaps you'd rather return to the forest?"

I could. I could live in Paris, and never have to return to the forest. Buttons and ribbons will not buy me a house, but money will.

"If you like, I can find you customers. For a bit of your earnings, of course."

"I can find my own customers."

"Not at first, you couldn't. Who got you started?"

"Let's see if I make any money. Then we'll talk about sharing my earnings."

Each time someone knocks at the door my heart leaps, hoping it is Aleron. But he never comes. Sometimes I think I see him, at the other end of a long hall. But before I can catch up to him he has disappeared around a corner. Other times I hear his voice, smooth, laced with laughter. But I can never find him.

Spring turns to summer. The air grows warmer. A smell, rich and sweet, has begun to fill the palace. It is a relief from the usual sour stench.

The Queen summons me nearly every day. I weave bits of magic into her hair to cheer her: honeysuckle for luck, buttercups for happiness, jasmine for sweet dreams. She tells me that Leonard scoffs when she requests the same from him. "He tells me I will look like a superstitious peasant," she sniffs.

And so it is me the Queen summons when she is feeling afraid, unlucky. I use all the tricks I know to erase the sadness from the Queen's eyes. I send a page to the garden to collect some lavender and rub it at her temples. I set some it in a vase so she can breathe in their scent and lighten her spirit.

One Saturday morning I watch Juliette turn her head side to side, frowning at a beauty patch she wears at her eye. She peels it off and sets it onto the dresser.

She sees me watching her in the reflection in the mirror. "Won't the Queen be summoning you today?" she asks, her tone slightly mocking.

"She's gone to Petit Trianon. As you know, because she's taken her children with her."

"Then you have the whole day free as well."

I nod. I'd been thinking of going to the garden, in search of roses. And perhaps I might encounter Aleron.

"You could come to the market with me."

"Really?" We've played many games of cards, and gossiped together. But Juliette has never invited me to go anywhere with her.

"Unless you'd rather wait here for Aleron to call on you."

I force a laugh but get to my feet and look at my reflection. I look presentable, my hair tied at the nape of my neck, the gown that Pauline loaned me bringing out color in my cheeks.

"Are you going to bring any money?" Juliette's gaze is sharp. "You must have some by now, with all the requests you've been getting."

I do have some money. But I hide it when Juliette is not in the room, not wanting her to help herself to it, as she has before. The cook just paid me to coax her graying hair into ringlets that made her look much younger. I tucked the coins she gave me beneath my pillow; the bulk of my earnings is between the mattress and the wall. I make a show of lifting the pillow and sliding the coins into my little purse.

We descend from the corridor tucked beneath the roof, the warm air thinning, smelling sweeter.

A figure flits across the hall just in front of us: Mahtilde, slipping from one room to the next. I often see her in the Meridienne, stepping through the walls of the Meridienne to tidy the vanity as I style the Queen's hair. Sometimes she will stand at the Duchesse's shoulder as we play cards, holding up fingers to show her hand. Then, laying her finger to her lips, she vanishes.

For the first time I do not feel dread when I see a ghost. Seeing her is nearly like seeing a friend.

A voice echoes around a corner. I look behind us, searching.

"Who are you looking for?" Juliette asks.

"No one."

She smiles. "He's out riding."

"Who?" I feel a flush rising in my cheeks.

"Aleron."

I affect a laugh, careless and tinkling, like that of the Duchesse. "I hardly care what Aleron does."

"All right. Perhaps the tuberoses are affecting you."

"What are you talking about?"

"The tuberoses have come into bloom in the gardens. They're the Queen's favorites. Can't you smell them?"

So that's what the sweet smell is.

Juliette snaps open the fan she won from Pauline at our last card game. "Their scent lures young women down dangerous paths. Into forbidden liasons," she breathes, then rolls her eyes. "But to be honest, it makes me feel a little sick."

I feel a bit light headed myself.

Juliette lowers her fan. "Oh, look. He's back from his ride."

I look up to see Aleron striding toward us, one side of his mouth lifted in a smile. I stumble a little and catch Juliette's shoulder to steady myself. "Idiot," she mutters.

"Mademoiselles," he says, bowing. We curtsy in return.

"It's been a long time," he says to me. "You look like quite the lady of Versailles."

"Thank you," is all I can think of to reply.

"Her wit has not improved," Juliette says.

Aleron offers his arm. "Will you walk with me, Helene? If you are not otherwise occupied?"

"I'm not occupied."

"Neither am I," says Juliette, "but I see I'm not invited." She turns and walks away.

"Cards tonight?" I call after her, but she does not reply.

"She can be difficult," Aleron says. "But she'll be all right. I've known her a long time. She doesn't stay angry for long."

I hope not. She is the closest thing I have to a friend in Versailles.

"I haven't seen you in some time. How are you finding life at court?"

"It's interesting," I reply. He laughs.

We have reached the top of the marble staircase.

"I hardly recognize you as the girl I found in the forest."

"Thank heavens." My laugh is breathy, anxious.

"From what I hear, you're a skilled card player. Winning from the Queen herself."

I lift the hem of my dress, revealing the purple mules the Queen gave me. He raises an eyebrow. "She is giving you her personal possessions. And is that her scent I detect on you?" He sniffs delicately at my ear, where I dabbed the Queen's perfume this morning. Gooseflesh rises along my neck.

"It's better than the forest."

"Some people might say so."

I want to ask if he thinks so, but before I muster my courage the Comtesse de Brionne rounds the corner. She is dressed all in black, her hair rising in a pouf high off her forehead, a false bird perched at the top, her hair wound with shiny beads, bits of glass, diamonds. She deigns to nod at me as she passes, the bird bobbing. I curtsy in return, Aleron bowing.

"One of your creations?" he asks.

I nod. She'd summoned me to her quarters this morning, asking me to style her hair. Her eyes had filled with tears as I combed, and she whispered how much she missed her husband, who'd died a few weeks before.

Her dark hair, her grief, reminded me of the time I'd seen murder of magpies in the forest, grouped around one of their dead. One by one they'd flown off, then returned with something in their beaks: pine needles, a stone, a shiny bit of glass. They'd laid their offerings beside the body and kept vigil beside it for hours. And that is what I thought of as I styled her hair.

"And was she pleased with the fact that you made her hair into the nest of a magpie?"

"She was." She'd pressed a heavy ruby ring into my hand as I left. I'd hidden it with my earnings, between my mattress and the wall.

"You're becoming more sought after than Leonard."

"I doubt that."

"Don't worry. He won't hear it from me. Though it's becoming hard to ignore. I've seen several of your creations around the palace."

"Have you?"

"Everyone swears by them. They're supposed to bring magic. Some say that grant wishes."

I force a laugh. "I think the ladies believe what they want to believe."

He squeezes my arm. "I knew you'd become the Queen's favorite in no time. But I must admit, I had no idea you'd have such influence here."

"Do you really think I have influence?" I ask, returning the wave of Lady Amelia, a visitor from England. Blue feathers erupt from her pouf, the imitation of a fountain.

"But most importantly," he says, "you are winning the trust of the Queen."

"Perhaps," I muse. "She is very concerned about her son."

"She should be." I look up at him and see his smile has vanished. "You cheer her. She trusts you above almost anyone else here."

He draws me to a quiet alcove, in the shadow of a nymph with a vase at her hip. "I imagine she confides some of her secrets to you."

There is a gleam in his eyes I have not seen before. "She hasn't confided anything in me."

His eyes lock on mine and I force myself to meet his gaze. He is no longer the laughing, teasing boy from the market.

"Her enemies are waiting to tear her down, along with her family, and the monarchy of France. Some of her secrets could lead to her ruin. It is my duty to protect her. The Queen can be reckless. At times she is willfully blind to what is going on around her. She has no idea of the danger of her actions. If I know what trouble she is about to cause for herself, I can keep her enemies from finding out. I can shield her from them. Shield her, and her children."

I think of the letter from the Queen's lover. That would be enough to bring about her ruin.

He leans closer, his jaw set, and I change my mind.

I smile the close lipped way I've learned, when I want to hide the hand I hold in cards. "I will warn you if I hear anything dangerous."

He hovers close to me for a long moment, and I force my face to remain blank.

Finally he sighs. "You must have saved quite a lot of money by now. But not quite enough for a house in Paris, I imagine. They are very expensive."

I feel the smile slide from my face. "Secrets are expensive," he says. "Especially the secrets of the Queen. You could make quite a bit of money with the sale of just one."

He steps away from me, out of the alcove. "Enjoy the market," he says, and bows. Turning on his heel, he strides away, more like a soldier than a courtier.

I stay in the alcove, leaning against the window sill for support.

Just one, he'd said. I could tell him of the letter, collect my reward, and be gone to Pairs.

But I can't betray the Queen. Not now, when she's so worried, and afraid. Not even for money.

Not even for Aleron.

How could he ask this of me? What must he think of me?

He sees me as someone that would betray another, for money.

And why not? Aren't I considering it, now? Didn't I betray Celena?

I hear the click of footsteps just a few feet away, hear whispers, then low laughter. Looking up, I see a couple staring at me.

I raise my chin and step from my hiding place with a haughty smile worthy of the Queen. I do not know where I am going as I march down the hall. My thoughts tumble over one another.

Does Aleron truly intend to use the secret to protect the Queen?

We played in the halls of this palace together as children. His father sold oranges to the Queen, he was a great favorite of hers.He is sworn to protect her.

The fresh air is welcome after the underlying stink in the palace. I tilt back my head and allow the sun to wash over my face. The coins of the cook jingle in my hand. I am loathe to spend it; I must save it for my house in Paris. But it is safer with me than left behind in my room, where Juliette might decide to take it as payment for her "help."

The market is teeming. Vendors call out their wares, chickens squawk, cart wheels rumble against the stone.

I see a man hoist a basket to his shoulder, and my heart leaps. It is the man from the market in the forest, the fish seller. He glances up but his eyes slide past me. He does not know me. I look around for his daughter but I don't see her.

A familiar scent wafts through the air. My stomach rumbles when I see the pastries in a pile at a table. The sweet bread filled with fruit, my favorite from the market in the forest. Nothing so coarse would be served in Versailles, nothing that could stain gowns so easily.

"Twenty sous," she says, her eyes glittering as she eyes my gown.

I hold out one of the coins, and her eyes widen. "I have no change for you."

_Stupid_ , I tell myself. How could I have already forgotten what life is like outside of Versailles?

I begin to tell her that of course she should take the coin anyway, when someone jostles my shoulder. "Take the whole amount from her," a voice growls. "She can afford it."

A man stands at my shoulder, scowling. He wears a red coat. Beside him stands a woman who is also glaring. She wears a red, white, and blue rosette at her waist.

The woman snatches the coin from my hand as the couple saunters away.

"You're from the palace," says the market woman.

I look down at the lawn dress I wear, at the slippers on my feet. It is clear where I've come from. I cross my arms over my middle.

"Tell the Queen that we have children, too." Her voice softens. "And tell her that I'm sorry about her boy. Don't forget your pastry."

I don't want a pastry anymore. I am sure it will taste like sawdust now. But I've given away one of my precious coins for it. Perhaps I can trade with another servant.

Many of the people in the crowd are dressed in some combination of red, white, or blue. Most of the men are wearing trousers rather than breeches.

I want to be far from this market, far from the angry eyes of the peasants, measuring me, angry. Things are better in Paris, I tell myself. They have to be.

What if I told Aleron one small secret, one that would not hurt the Queen? She has so many. Surely one would not hurt her, not if I chose it carefully.

But I will make it expensive.

A voice roars above the crowd. I turn to see a man has climbed atop a barrel. "Citoyens!'

Many in the crowd pause and turn toward him. The sun gleams from his gold hair.

"Citoyens!" he calls again. This time an answering cry rises from those gathered nearby.

"You have come here to buy bread for your families, but you find you cannot! Why? Because the Queen and her friends take all the flour to powder their faces and hair! Their _hair_!"

Thank heavens I simply pulled my hair back in a ribbon rather than trying an elaborate style.

"The Queen cares nothing for us here in the village, for any of us in France! Our children are starving while she dances!"

Cheers rise, angry and exuberant.

She does care, I want to reply. She just doesn't know how bad things are outside of the palace.

But shouldn't she? Shouldn't she know that when she uses flour on her hair that it means that the people in the village won't have bread?

I push my way through the crowd, my eyes on my feet, and breathe deeply from the cool air when I reach the edge of the market.

At the side of the road leading to the palace stands a child. As I near her an icy finger traces a path down my neck.

Her arms are thin as sticks, poking from a tattered dress that is much too large for her. Her dirty feet are scratched and bare. She is the starved child from the forest.

No. I left her there. She can't have followed me.

Our eyes meet. Her sadness, desperation, envelope me in a wave, as she disappears.

The man's voice follows me from the center of the market. "A Revolution is coming. She shall not sit long upon her throne! Soon it will be she who must watch her children die!"

The crowd roars behind me.

I can see how the Queen knows little of her people's plight. It is easier to lose oneself in music, and dancing, and gossip, and gambling, than to face the pain of reality.

But these people have no such distractions. There is not even food to fill the bellies of their children, to quiet their cries.

She has to know. Someone must tell her. And once she does, she will make things better for these people. I am sure of it.

**Chapter 11**

I am summoned by the Queen almost immediately upon my return to the palace.

"I thought she was at Petit Trianon," I tell the page.

"Her son is ill," the boy replies.

I find her in the Meridienne, her secret room, the Princesse fluttering about her like a moth, the Duchesse pouring wine.

Deep lines circle the Queen's mouth. Her eyes are rimmed in red. Her lip is raw, as though she's been chewing it.

"How is your son, Your Majesty?"

"He has grown weaker over the last few days. He only sleeps. He hardly plays at all anymore." Her ringed fingers tap on the arm of her chair.

"Perhaps you shouldn't attend tonight's gala," the Princesse says timidly. "You look like you need some rest."

"Marie Louise! What an awful thing to say!" the Duchesse cries. "'Toinette looks lovely as ever. She needs to dance, and laugh. Not hide in her chambers worrying."

The Queen bites her lip.

"I heard the Comte von Fersen plans to come," the Duchesse adds.

"Does he?" The Queen's eyes dart to the Duchesse.

"He always makes you laugh, doesn't he, 'Toinette?"

"He does," the Queen sighs. She straightens slightly. "Well, Helene, help me to look less tired." She smiles at the Princesse, who wrings her hands.

"Oh, 'Toinette, I only meant..."

"What ideas do you have tonight, Helene?"

"I do have an idea, Your Majesty. What if you left your hair unpowdered?"

"Unpowdered?" She tilts her head.

"Its natural color is so lovely. And you would look more youthful, I think."

She taps her chin, studying her reflection.

"And where," the Duchesse asks, "did you get such an idea?"

I do not like the sharpness in her tone. "It seemed a way to highlight the Queen's natural beauty."

"Ah. And perhaps because it is fashionable among the peasants in the marketplace?"

I force myself to meet her eye. "When have the common people ever powdered their hair, whether it is in fashion or not?"

"So you want your Queen to appear as a commoner."

"Jules." The Queen's voice is gentle, but the Comtesse falls silent.

"I apologize if I am too bold, Your Majesty. It's only that bread has become so expensive. Too expensive for the poor."

"Has it?" she asks vaguely.

"Because the price of flour is so high."

"I shall talk to my husband."

"And, perhaps, if you encouraged your ladies to follow your lead. To show their natural beauty of their hair."

The Duchesse snorts.

"You cannot let them see your weakness, 'Toinette."

"It would be compassionate, Your Majesty. Not weak."

The Queen regards her reflection in the mirror. "Their children are starving, you say?" she asks softly.

How can she not know? "Yes, Your Majesty. I fear so."

"'Toinette, if children are starving, it is not because of a bit of powder," the Duchesse says.

"But I won't let them blame me for this. Not for this," says the Queen. "Tonight, we shall all wear our hair unpowdered."

The Duchesse's smile is bright and sharp. "As you wish, 'Toinette."

I spend the hours until six in the garden, searching for flowers to brighten the Queen's spirits. I gather forsythia, gardenias, magnolias.

Though I hear whispered conversations of couples stealing a moment in the maze of paths, I do not see the gardener.

I return to the Meridienne at six to find the Queen pale and quaking, her hands twisting in her lap. The Princesse stands, drinking from a glass of wine, as the Duchesse prattles from a chair nearby.

"...will be interesting to see how she hides her feelings for him in front of her husband..."

"Come and face your people, you coward!" The shout rings through the open window.

Glass shatters. The Princesse has dropped her wine. She stares at the floor, where the wine spreads like blood. Mathilde appears, kneeling beside the stain, dabbing uselessly at it with a cloth.

Leaping to her feet, the Duchesse strides over and slams the window shut. A moment later something splatters against the glass. The Queen gives a little gasp as laughter echoes from outside.

The Duchesse curses under breath, her jaw clenching, before she turns away. A calm smile spreads over her face, though there her cheeks are red.

"Ah, look!" she cries, her voice far too bright. "Here is Helene, 'Toinette, come to do your hair!" Catching the Queen by the arm, she steers her to the vanity, then moves over to the table where she pours herself a glass of wine.

"I've brought some flowers, Your Majsty," I tell the Queen, showing her the flowers. "They will look much more lovely than powder." Her lips stretch into a wavering smile.

I comb her hair, curl it about my fingers, pin it, then begin pinning the flowers about her crown. Her hair is so thin I can see the scalp in some places. I take extra care to pin the blossoms there.

"Jules?"

"Yes, 'Toiette?"

"Will you go and fetch more wine?"

"Of course. I shall ring for a page."

"No, Jules. I need you to go and find my favorite. The page will bring the wrong kind."

In the mirror I see the Duchesse's eyes flick to mine. "Why don't you send Helene?"

"She is styling my hair." The Queen's voice hardens. "I've asked you to fetch me my favorite wine, Jules. And take Marie Louise with you."

The Duchesse's voice is cold as the forest air. "Yes, Your Majesty." She rises and marches from the room, the sound of her heels cracking against the floor. The Princesse trails after her. The door shuts forcefully behind them.

The Queen smiles sadly. "Jules will sulk for days."

I dread what petty revenge she will take on me.

"I have a favor I must ask," the Queen says.

"Your Majesty?"

"I need you to deliver a message," she says.

"Would you not rather entrust your message to one of your ladies in waiting?"

She shakes her head. "No, this is a task for you."

"What sort of message?"

She turns on her stool to face me. She grips my hands, her eyes blazing. "Please, Helene," she whispers. "I can trust only you. The others spy on me, wait for me to make a mistake so they can report my every action to the traitors."

My stomach roils; I feel color rise in my own face. How can she not suspect that I, too, might betray her?

"Your mother was the only one I could ever trust," she says, as if she's read my thoughts. "And you are truly your mother's daughter. I can tell."

Then the Queen is truly a terrible reader of people.

"I know it is wrong, to love him," she murmurs, her voice choked with tears. "But he is the only person who truly understands me. I need him..." her voice trails off.

The Queen takes a locket from around her neck and presses it into my hands. It is heavy and cold, her initials etched into it.

"Please, Helene," she whispers. "The Comte von Fersen will pass through the inner courtyard in one hour on his way to the stables. He will be alone. You must slip this to him. You do know who he is, don't you?"

The man I'd met in the Hall of Mirrors. The man I was sure I'd seen before. "Yes, Your Majesty."

"Helene, you must do this for me. His love is all that sustains me."

For an instant I see what life is like for the Queen. Ghosts circle her, waiting to claim her son, spirits she can't see but can surely sense, as people shout threats through her window. Truly, she is alone.

"Will you?" she presses.

"Yes, Your Majesty," I murmur, closing my hand around the locket.

She clasps her hands together, her eyes shining with tears. "Thank you," she whispers.

She turns on her stool and looks at her reflection, turning her head side to side. "Lovely, Helene," she says in her usual, regal voice. "I was right; you have brightened my future. As your mother always did."

I curtsy deeply.

"You may go," says the Queen.

Just before I step into the corridor I turn to see the Queen, staring at her reflection, smiling through the tears coursing down her face.

This is a secret that could buy me enough to leave Versailles tonight, find my own place in Paris. All I must do is find Aleron to show him the note. Or let him find me.

I open the clasp of the locket. Folded inside is a piece of paper, scented with jasmine. I pluck it out and slide it into my sleeve. Snapping the locket closed, I draw a deep breath.

As I return to my chamber I pass perfumed ladies in dresses that look like frosted cakes on the arms of men who move like dancers, all rushing to the ball. I think of the dismay they will feel when they realize the powder in their hair is no longer fashionable.

Someone steps into my path, and I nearly scream.

"It's only me," says Aleron. Pressing my hand to my chest, I try to smile as I catch my breath. "You seem troubled. What is it?"

"Nothing. Nothing at all. Only, I've suggested a new style for the Queen," I improvise. "I hope it is well received."

"If the Queen is modeling it, then it will be."

I force a laugh that I intend to be airy, but it sounds like a gasp.

"Are you quite sure you're all right?" he asks.

Catching his arm, I draw him behind the statue of a nymph. "I have a secret," I murmur.

His face closes, his jaw setting. Opening my hand, I show him the locket. "The Queen asked me to give this to the Comte von Fersen. To pay for the debt she owes him from cards."

I compose my face, determined that he will not read the lie there.

But it is the locket at which he stares. For several long seconds I imagine I can hear my heart beat.

Taking the locket, he pries it open. There is nothing inside. Slowly he looks back up at me.

I stare back, my eyes wide. "Was this the kind of secret you were looking for?"

He hands the locket back to me. "You know the answer to that. You'll find the Comte in the outer courtyard." He presses something into my hands. "Your payment." Leaning over, he brushes a kiss against my knuckles, then spins around and walks away.

I open my hand to find a coin. It burns unpleasantly against my palm.

I feel the eyes of the statues on me, boring into my back, as I hurry through the palace to the doors that will lead to the outer courtyard.

As I pass the great staircase I remember a contest, long ago. Aleron and I had dared each other to see who would jump from the highest step. We'd taken turns leaping, the smack of our feet against the floor echoing from the walls. When we reached the fifth stair, I watched as Aleron tightened his fists, grimacing. Then, he looked up at me, smiled and winked, and launched himself.

His ankle buckled as he landed. Even from where I stood I could see he'd gone white. I raced down the stairs to his side but he was already on his feet, grinning, though his eyes shone with tears. "Beat you," he managed, then limped away.

Just before I exit through the doors I turn in a full circle, looking for him. But I see no one.

Taking a breath, I step outside.

Three soldiers astride horses trot into the inner courtyard. They call good natured insults to each other above the crunching of the hooves on the gravel, and pay no attention to me as I stride past.

I slip the letter, perfumed with jasmine, from my sleeve. Prying open the locket, I slip the letter inside and snap it shut again.

The Comte marches across the courtyard, his expression stern. It is hard to believe this is the man with whom the Queen has fallen in love, she who is so fun loving and prone to laughter. Or, at least she was, once.

At his shoulder there is another soldier, younger than he. He keeps pace with the Comte, though he is much more pale, and his face is twisted in pain.

The Comte will reach me within a few moments and has not even glanced in my direction. In a moment my chance will have passed.

The gaze of the second soldier has fallen on me, and I catch my breath. There is a raw red gash across his throat, a wound too deep and horrifying to survive. I realize he hasn't.

Sorrow storms in the ghostly soldier's eyes. I close my eyes against the pain that wafts from him. He wishes that he hadn't quarreled with his father before he'd left for battle; he regrets that he'd not been true to his fiancee who waited for him at home.

When I open my eyes the Comte is nearly in front of me.

I take my chance in that instant, stepping into his path when his head is turned so that he collides with me, knocking me to the ground.

He exclaims with surprise and annoyance, reaching a hand to pull me to my feet. I press the locket into his palm as he assists me. Dusting off my dress I hurry off as he marches away. It is as if nothing had happened.

The ghostly soldier casts a last glance from his place at the Comte's shoulder, then vanishes in the sunlight.

I rub my elbow where it has hit the ground. Turning, I recross the courtyard, return to the palace, too the staircase. And there Aleron waits.

I draw near. "I delivered the locket."

He nods, then leans close, so close his breath brushes my ear. Gooseflesh rises along my arms. "I remember when you smelled of the forest." He winks, then turns and strolls off, his whistle echoing from the stairs.

**Chapter 12**

In the next few days, courtiers begin appearing with their hair unpowdered.

"Who would have thought that a girl like you could persuade the Queen to wear her hair unpowdered," Juliette muses one afternoon as she tries on the Queen's mules. "How very progressive of you."

"She would have thought of it herself. I just suggested it." I pin another sprig of oleander into Pauline's hair.

"You know," Juliette says shrewdly, "You could ask the Queen to pay you to run her errands for her."

The stem breaks in my fingers. "What errands?"

"What errands?" Juliette mimics my voice, pressing a hand to her chest, and Pauline snickers.

I take up another flower. "I don't do anything for the Queen besides style her hair."

"Really? So you're in love with Axl von Fersen, the same as any of the other simpering fools around this palace?" She raised her eyebrows at Pauline.

"I'm in love with Steffan!" she retorts. Juliette laughs.

My chest tightens. How does she know about the locket?

"If you don't want to ask the Queen to pay you, I'm sure there are others who would pay you even more for the Queen's secrets."

"I don't know any of the Queen's secrets." Another flower snaps in my fingers.

"Loyal Helene," Juliette sighs, "just like your mother. And look where her loyalty got her. Do you want to wind up like her? Mad, in the forest? Or would you rather have your own house in Paris? Free from the forest, from Versailles?"

"I told you, the Queen confides nothing in me."

Juliette takes the flower from my hand, nudges me aside, and tucks it into Pauline's hair herself. "Your loyalty is admirable. But she won't return it. She'll discard you, like she does everyone she professes to love. Suddenly you'll remember some of those secrets, when you're faced with the Tower again."

That night my sleep is fitful.

I dream that I am back in the Tower, in my bed, that the Queen sits beside me. She begins whispering secrets that pour from her mouth, turning into spiders that run all over me, nibbling at my flesh...

I wake with a shriek.

"Shut it," Juliette mumbles.

I lay in the dark, breathing in gulps of warm thick air.

Just as I'm drifting back to sleep a voice speaks at my ear. "You knew you couldn't run from us."

Celena. I bolt upright and search the dark. The shadows have thickened into the shape of a girl at the side of my bed.

"You didn't truly think you could leave me behind, did you? I've been here all along. I just chose not to let you know I was here."

"You're not really here. It's the madness." I pull the pillow over my head. But I hear her voice anyway.

"I've spoken with your friend, Mathilde. She's quite fond of you. But I warned her that you are not always so kind to those of us who are not alive. One minute you love us, the next you're abandoning us."

"I didn't abandon you!" I throw the pillow at her. It bounces from Juliette's bed. Celena's laughter hangs in the air.

"What is wrong with you?" Juliette demands.

"Nothing. A bad dream." I force my breath to slow, squeeze my eyes shut, open them again. It was only a nightmare. She wasn't really here.

I do not sleep the rest of the night.

The Queen summons me early, and I wonder if her sleep was beset with nightmares, as mine was.

I have just descended the stairs from the servants' quarters when someone clears his throat, just at my shoulder. I jump and shriek.

"Mademoiselle?"

I whirl to see the Comte von Fersen himself, tall and golden. I drop into a curtsy. "You dropped this," he says, offering a handkerchief that I have never before seen in my life.

I open my mouth to tell him so but he has pressed it into my hand before I can speak, bowed quickly, and turned on his heel, his boots clicking against the floor as he marches away.

I look down at the handkerchief. The Comte has entrusted a message for the Queen, to me. I will give them both away if I am not more careful. I tuck it into my sleeve.

Pauline is waiting in the doorway to the Queen's rooms, no trace of smile on her face today. Without a word she turns and moves swiftly across the room to the tapestry beside the Queen's bed. She pulls it aside and bids me pass through with a sharp nod of her head.

The Duchesse de Polignac waits inside the meridienne.

"Good, you're here," she says, her voice clipped. "The Queen has been waiting."

"I'm sorry, I came as soon as I was--"

"The Queen has received a letter that threatens her life," the Duchesse cuts me off. Her blue eyes study me coldly. "She suspects there are spies among her staff."

Of course there are, you fool. But the Duchesse is no fool. I force myself to meet her gaze. "Oh?"

"For some reason she is still confident in you."

From within rings a shriek and some cries. The Duchesse bursts through the door. "What's wrong?" she demands.

I follow her into the room. The Queen sits in an alcove, gasping and gripping the hand of the Princesse de Lamballe. Behind them stands a huge mirror.

"Oh Jules," the Queen sobbed, "I saw myself--" but her words are lost in her tears.

"Princesse?" the Duchesse says tensely.

"Her Majesty looked into the mirrors behind her, and thought she saw herself," the Princesse swallows, then finishes, "beheaded."

"But that's ridiculous!" the Duchesse retorts with a laugh, though her voice has a hysterical edge to it. "Come, 'Toinette, these silly riots are beginning to affect your nerves."

"I saw it, Jules," she whispers. I notice suddenly how thin the Queen's arms have become, how sunken her chest.

"Well, no wonder," the Duchesse scoffs, turning to her own reflection. "These mirrors are completely uneven! Look, I too, am missing my head!"

I peer at her reflection, elegant and whole, including every hair on her elaborate coiffure.

Beside her in the mirror floats the reflection of the Queen's severed head, her blank like glass, blood streaming from her neck.

I gasp and fall away.

As suddenly as the vision appears, it vanishes. The Queen's head rests on her neck once more, her eyes wide and frightened, her face pale, as she stares at me.

"Helene? What is it? What did you see?"

I cannot tell the Queen what I've seen, it will unhinge her. And, the Duchesse will waste no time accusing me of treason, if not witchcraft.

I force myself to straighten, to smile at the Queen. "Madame, I saw myself styling your hair in a most exquisite new fashion! I simply cannot wait to recreate what I saw!" I am gushing. But relief washes over the Queen. She smiles wanly.

The Duchesse, too, smiles, though it is edged in venom. "Yes, Helene, you can fashion the Queen's hair in the magnificent style you saw in the mirror!"

My mind goes blank. I have no idea what to do with the Queen's hair.

Her smile widens. "We are all waiting anxiously to see it, considering the way you reacted when you saw it."

_Rubies,_ comes a voice at my ear. Suspiciously like Celena's.

I raise my chin. "I will need rubies, Your Majesty."

"Rubies?" the Duchesse echoes.

"Won't they seem like blood?" the Queen's voice wavers.

"For strength and life, Your Majesty," I replied. "And love."

The Queen's eyes fill with tears. She nods. "Marie Therese, my rubies."

The Princesse moves to the ornate chest containing the Queen's jewels. My heart drums in my ears at the thought of handling the rubies, but the Queen's next words make it stop beating altogether for a moment. "So you saw blood in your vision."

"It was only a trick of the mirrors," I tell her swiftly.

The Queen shakes her head. "No," she says. "I saw your face. You believed it to be more than a trick."

If only I could offer her the handkerchief in my sleeve. It would cheer her, I have no doubt. But how can I give it to her now, in front of the Duchesse?

"Is it too late for me?" the Queen asks, her voice a ragged whisper. Her blue eyes hold mine, desperate.

I catch my breath at the need in her eyes. What can I offer her? She will read the lie in my face, of that I am sure. Then I think of her son, sick at the palace, and her daughter, who needs her. I must offer her hope, if only for her children.

"It's not too late, Your Majesty."

Tears slip from the Queen's eyes and trail down her cheeks. A sob escapes her. She takes my hand and squeezes it with surprising strength.

Never have I spent so much time styling a coiffuree; each ruby must be perfectly placed. I want to transform her terrifying vision into something beautiful, stylish, even. Something not to be feared.

The rubies become a chain of droplets of blood, coiled at her temple in the rough shape of a heart. When I finish, the Queen gazes speechlessly at her reflection.

"Why the heart?" the Princesse whispers.

"Because the Queen wears her heart for all those close to her to see."

The Queen's eyes shine. "Thank you, Helene," she murmurs. I curtsy, and sink into a chair.

"Come, Your Majesty," the Duchesse chirps, "a trip to Petit Trianon will be just the thing to raise your spirits."

"I can't leave my son," the Queen protests, her face falling.

"We've been over this. The doctors have told you, he seems better. It's only for one night," says the Duchesse. "'Toinette, you simply must get out of this palace, it's like a prison! How can you help the Dauphin, in the state you're in?"

After a long moment the Queen nods.

The Duchesse signals to the Princesse and they rise and curtsy, then hurry off.

We are alone. But for how long? "Your Majesty," I murmur urgently, "I have a message for you." I slide the handkerchief from my sleeve and offer it to her.

Her eyes widen. Slowly she reaches for it, picks it up gingerly, as if afraid it might melt away. Bringing it to her face, she breathes deeply of its scent.

She bursts into sobs, covering her face with the handkerchief. I look at the door, terrified that someone will come through it and catch her sobbing into the handkerchief of her lover. Finally she raises her face to mine.

"Helene," she says, her voice thick with tears, "I need you with me in Petit Trianon. You will be such a comfort to me there." She leans toward me. "You are the image of your mother," she murmured, "in appearance and demeanor. I miss her so..."

My words leave me. Demeanor? I am nothing like my mother.

There is a knock at the door and it swings open.

"'Toinette, shall we take guards?" It is the Princesse.

"Yes," the Queen replies faintly, "oh, yes."

She turns back to me and squeezes my hand once more. "Go and pack your things," she tells me, and tries to smile.

**Chapter 13**

The road between the palace and Petit Trianon is busy. Our carriage is forced to slow for the many people crowding the way.

A man trudges along, the dust swirling about his knees. He is bowed under the weight of his cart, which is only half full of withered fruit. As we pass, he raises his face, and I see his eyes narrow. A woman keeps her gaze trained on her feet, her hands held humbly before her, two dark haired children clinging to her skirt. I cannot tell whether they are living or ghosts.

A woman, a bundle of kindling on her back, screeches, "Witch! You've called ice from the sky to destroy our crops!"

The coachman, a burly man with a scar across his forehead, shouts at her to move aside and shut her mouth.

The Princesse presses a trembling hand to her lips as the Queen shudders and closes her eyes. The Duchesse leans forward and slams the shade closed, muttering in disgust.

"How can they blame me for the weather?" the Queen whispers, her eyes still closed.

Along side us rides Aleron, horseback.

"Did you see Yolande du Thierry at cards last night?" the Duchesse asks, her voice too bright and shrill for the carriage. "She could not keep her eyes off the Duc d'Arnot. Really, she's making a fool of herself."

From outside comes a shout, harsh and angry. The Princesse gives a little cry. The Duchesse flinches, then resumes her chatter as if she's heard nothing. The Queen goes paler.

The carriage slows, then stops. The scarred coachman throws open the door, and a slight breeze alleviates the hot, still air inside the carriage.

The coachman steps aside, and in his place appears the Comte von Ferson, his blue eyes on the Queen. He holds his hand out to her and she takes it, shaking. Gently he assists her from the carriage.

The Duchesse alights from the carriage, and I follow.

Outside, the Queen has thrown herself into the arms of the Comte, for anyone to see. The Duchesse shifts uncomfortably. Aleron stands nearby, his face unreadable.

Finally the Queen regains her composure. She steps away from him, and he bows low. She takes his arm. Together they walk toward the house.

The rest of us, the servants and guards, stand awkwardly.

Finally the Duchesse snaps, "Why are you all standing here? Why don't you walk around the grounds, make sure they're ready for Her Majesty?"

And how, I wonder, will my walking the grounds prepare them for the Queen?

I feel Aleron's eyes on me. He will want me to tell him why the Queen was panicking in the Meridienne, what she saw in the mirror. He will read in my face that I saw it, too.

I walk without paying attention to where I am going. To my relief I hear no footsteps behind me.

I wind my way through trees with broad green leaves, shadows dappling the path. Vines wind around the trunks, dotted with sweet smelling blossoms, purple and blue. I know I cannot be far from the house but the only sound I hear is the whisper of the breeze.

After a while I hear the gurgle of water and follow it to a brook, clear water tumbling over round stones. With a sigh I sit beside it, brushing my palm over the soft grass.

In this quiet place my thoughts wash through my mind as riotously as the brook over the rocks.

Celena followed me to Versailles, after all. I should have known better than to leave her behind. I wondered if she would stay forever, perhaps follow me to Paris. And if she could, maybe the other spirits could, as well.

And what of my vision of the Queen? Was it merely a trick of the glass? Or perhaps it was it a vestige of the nightmare I'd had the night before.

Or perhaps it was a premonition.

The melody of the water is lulling, the scent of the blossoms thick and musky. My eyes grow heavy. Wearily I lie back in the cool grass and let them close.

I am not sure how long I sleep before the sting of wintergreen at my nose jars me awake. I sit up to see a woman sitting beside me. She reaches up and pulls pins from her hair, one after the other, until her hair tumbles down her back.

"Mother?" I breathe. She does not seem to hear me.

She is not the Caroline I remember. Her face is smooth and unlined, her eyes alight rather than flat and empty.

There are footsteps from behind us. A man emerges from the trees. He wears a blue coat, his golden hair falling across his eyes. The Comte von Fersen. But his Comte is younger, his gait light and eager. I catch my breath, realizing at last why his eyes look so familiar. They are Celena's eyes.

A smile touches Caroline's lips. She leaps to her feet and throws herself into his arms. "My love," he murmurs. Taking her hand, he pulls her into the trees. They vanish.

I sit motionless, staring after them, remembering the way Caroline had sobbed into her pillow the last time he'd left, closing the door behind him.

_Don 't ask this of me_, the Queen had told her. And now the Comte was the Queen's great love.

The Comte was the man who betrayed Caroline, the one who'd driven her mad.

She would have gone mad anyway, I tell myself.

But this betrayal made her mad enough to do what she did to Celena.

I'd always wondered why she'd turned the force of her anger on Celena, and not me. Now I understand. Whenever Caroline looked at Celena, it must have reminded her of the man who'd chosen the Queen over her.

"So you finally see the truth."

Celena settles herself beside me. I keep my eyes on the water.

"Celena, I'm so sorry, I didn't know..."

"At least I know who my father was."

"Why are you here?" I burst out. "I didn't invite you! I left you in the tower!"

"I know you didn't invite me. You remind me all the time. But I must warn you. Even if you did abandon me."

"Warn me of what?" Fear dances over my skin.

"Why do you think Caroline showed you this, now? When she hasn't tried to speak to you for years?" Celena leans closer, the scars stark against her skin. "You are destined to be betrayed. As I was. As our mother was. It's a curse in our family, to be betrayed by those we love for as long as we live."

"Caroline already betrayed me."

"Yes, but you're still alive." She smiles slightly. "For once I'm not envious of you."

"Who will betray me?" I demand.

"I'll tell you if you let me stay."

If she stays with me, I will never escape her, or any other spirit. I'll never be free of the madness. I shake my head. "No. You must go."

She lifts her chin, as she did when she skinned her knee when we were children, or after Caroline scolded her. Rising, she steps backward into the shadows and disappears.

Alone, I breathe deeply of the cool air. Evening has fallen. Tipping my head back, I can see the dark sky between the branches. Stars are scattered across the heavens like diamonds from the Queen's jewelry chest. I stare up them, willing my mind to go blank. But of course it won't.

"Helene?"

It is Aleron. I compose my face, try to smile as he approaches and kneels beside me. "Are you all right?"

"Yes, I'm fine."

He frowns as he peers into my face. "You look upset."

I want to tell him. I would love to see his lopsided smile as he assures me that everything will be all right.

But Celena's warning rings through my mind, as clearly as if she stood at my shoulder: _You will be betrayed._

"Let me help," he says, his voice soft. "Tell me what's wrong."

My lips stretch over my teeth in a smile as sepulchral as any ghost's. "I'm not upset." My voice is faint, like husks rattling in the wind. Like a spirit's.

With that I force myself to my feet, despite my wobbling legs. He moves to steady me, but I pull away. "I'm fine," I tell him, my voice ringing sharply in the night air. More sharply than I intend.

He nods, dropping his hands. "Very well. Everyone has arrived, and the court is performing a play, at the Queen's requests. We are to assemble in the grotto."

"How pleasant." My voice is as polite as his.

"She has specifically asked for you." He offers his arm, all propriety, and I take it, because it would be rude to ignore it. And I must not refuse the Queen.

We do not speak as we follow the path to the grotto.

The trees are hung with lanterns, and the laughter of the ladies and gentlemen echo in the country night.

The light scent of azaleas fills the air. Azaleas for forbearance. Caroline once told me they were planted as a warning to secret lovers. From the shadows nearby I hear whispers and the occasional soft laughter. Either these lovers pay no heed to the warning, or they don't care.

The clearing is overhung with flowering branches. Light blazes from candlesticks, perched on stones around the clearing, cast shadows across the grass.

The smell of roasted meat fills the air, and my stomach rumbles as I see a table set with food. "You should take some," Aleron says. I take a plate and choose some bread, and cheese, and meat. I find a place to stand in the shadows to eat. Aleron does not follow.

The Queen appears. In the light of the lanterns the lines on her face have disappeared, and her eyes shine with happiness. Only a slight tightness around her mouth hints at the son who lies sick at home.

At her side is her Comte, his eyes the same shade of blue as Celena's. He never takes his eyes from the Queen. If he'd chosen Caroline he wouldn't have to hide his love.

The rubies in her hair look even more like blood, in the enchanted light of the clearing, and the heart at her temple glows. But her cheeks shine with color, and her mirth is infectious. Soon all her ladies and their men join her until the clearing rings with laughter. Still, from time to time a shadow crosses her face.

"Here now," the Queen calls, clapping her hands. "Let's perform Beaumarchais' play."

"Oh, yes!" cries the Princesse de Lamballe. "Comte von Fersen will be perfect in the role of the noble King. And I think the Queen would agree."

"Sh!" The Duchesse nods toward me.

"It's all right, Jules," the Queen calls. "Helene is trustworthy."

The Duchesse shoots me a look full of poison.

"It's a wonderful play," the Queen continues. "A King becomes lost while hunting, and comes to the house of a farmer. To entertain him, his family performs imitations of the courtiers! We simply must try it."

Everyone agrees enthusiastically.

"Very well, then, now for parts," says the Queen. "First, the King! He must be noble and brave, as well as wise and prudent."

Next to me the Comte d'Artois, a round pompous little man, snickers and murmurs to his female companion, "Wiser, I hope, than the real King. Last week I set the clock a full two hours ahead, and the idiot left early, thinking it was time for his hunt!"

He snorts with laughter, his companion tittering along with him. Behind him stands a man with empty eyes, what hair he has left hanging in straggles from his skull. The fat little man shudders, the smile sliding from his face, and looks over his shoulder. Apparently seeing nothing, he turns away, his smile gone. I hope the specter stays at his shoulder for the rest of the evening.

"No, Madame," comes the voice of Comte von Fersen. "First we must choose the most important part, that of the Queen." He bows low over her hand.

She gazes down upon him for some moments, her love written on her face for all to see. The Duchesse clears her throat and the Queen comes to herself, glancing around the grotto, peering at each face, then pausing on mine.

"Helene!" she cries.

What? What does she want? My heart quickens as everyone's eyes rest on me. "You are to play the Queen!" she says happily.

A peal of laughter rings through the clearing. The Queen stretches her hands toward me. "Helene, come forth and be crowned." The laughter dies abruptly.

My knees shake as I step forward and curtsy, allowing the Queen to place a paper crown on my head. Heat rises in my face, but I try to smile.

I hear the voice of the Comtesse de Artois. "What is 'Toinette's attachment to that girl?" she muses, not troubling to lower her voice.

I force myself to breathe deeply. I am the Queen, I tell myself, not a jest for the court. I am regal and haughty, oblivious to petty cuts.

"And Aleron," says the Queen, "who better to play the King?"

This time murmurs of accord ripple among the courtiers. Aleron, tall and handsome, steps forward and bows deeply, smiling crookedly as the Queen places a paper crown on his head. .

He moves before me and bows over my hand, touching his lips to it. "Your Majesty," he says, looking up at me and cocking an eyebrow.

The grotto echoes with laughter, the shrill peals of The Duchesse the loudest of all. I am sure my face must be glowing in the darkness. I glare at him; how dare he mock me?

"Don't worry, Helene," the Queen calls. "Here in Petit Trianon we are all simply friends gathered to make merry. No one pays any attention to rank." The laughter dies away. Aleron squeezes my hand gently.

"And who," the Queen continues, "shall play the noble body guard, who finds the King at last?" She looks about.

"The Comte von Fersen," calls The Duchesse, as if on cue. Everyone around her nods and murmurs in agreement.

The Queen turns to the Comte, who bows deeply to her. He straightens, and the two of them gaze into the other's face a long moment...too long. The Queen must try harder to hide her emotions. Aleron watches them. I shiver at his expression. She is making it too easy for him.

"What of your part, Your Majesty?" The Comtesse calls.

"My part?" the Queen echoes. "Why, the half witted maid, of course!"

The courtiers go still. The Comte von Fersen smiles down at her.

"And the other parts?" asks Duchesse.

"Ah, yes," the Queen said, returning the Comte's gaze, "you assign them, Jules."

The Duchesse moves among the courtiers, bestowing a role on each until everyone is satisfied. Through it all the Queen and her Comte whisper and laugh together. Aleron stands silently at my side. I sense him watching them.

The Comtesse clears her throat delicately. "We are ready, Your Majesty."

The Queen tears her gaze from the Comte's. "Let us begin!"

She nods to me.

What does she want? I look around the clearing to see everyone looking at me expectantly. Surely they don't' expect me to begin the play? What am I supposed to say? Why don't I have a script?

Aleron clears his throat. "Farewell, my Queen," he says, his voice comically regal. "I am off to hunt in the forest. But I shall return before supper."

He cocks an eyebrow at me. I find my voice.

"Very well," I reply, my voice shaking. Someone snickers in the crowd. I straighten my spine and say louder, "But have a care, for there is a jackal about. You can hear her laughter now."

Silence falls over the clearing, and I imagine I can hear my heart pounding. I have gone too far.

But then I see the sparkle in Aleron's eyes. A moment later I hear the Queen burst into laughter, the Comte laughing with her, and then the clearing rings with mirth. Aleron smiles in surprise. My heart lifts; The Duchesse is not infallible, after all. Still, I cannot help thinking she is already plotting her revenge. I do not dare to look at her.

Aleron as the King departs on his fateful ride, and I retreat to the shadows to watch.

The courtiers, so glittering and elegant at Versailles, stumble about like buffoons, trying to make the Queen laugh as much as she did at my performance. Even the Duchesse, as the wife of a peasant, plays the fool.

The Queen speaks with the thick accent of a fishwife. Her face falls into a scowl, her words biting. I find myself joining the laughter. She is a talented actress.

Of course, the King's bodyguard, played by Comte von Fersen, falls madly in love with her, and she is forced to constantly fend off his advances.

Aleron delivers his lines in a droll voice, his gestures exaggerated, as if he were parodying a king. I look nervously to the Queen, but her eyes are lit with delight.

I turn back to Aleron, watching him with growing admiration. He is amusing, I must admit. He is not all he seems.

A brittle voice whispers at my ear. "He is quite handsome, no?" I turn to see the Princesse de Lamballe, smiling knowingly.

"I suppose." Her smile grows and I turn away. The flames of the candles have begun to burn blue.

I jump as a man laughs beside me, a loud braying sound that echoes through the grotto. I turn to see a man who is so thin his skin is stretched over his bones, his rotting lips stretched over yellow teeth. Beside him stands a woman. She pulls a blossom from her hair and tosses it toward the stage but it disappears into the lantern light.

They circle the courtiers, unnoticed, keeping to the shadows, out of the lantern light. Once in a while the Comte d'Artois will turn and peer into the darkness behind him, and the Princesse d'Lambelle shudders and pulls her wrap more tightly about her shoulders.

I don't see Celena, though I sense her in the shadows.

My head jerks around at a great shout. The Comte d'Artois, followed by a band of his cronies, rush the stage. "The Queen!" they shout. "She is left unprotected!" They race straight for me as I stand frozen.

The Queen leaps in front of me. "I shall save Her Majesty!" She swings a candlestick at the little man as he bounds toward me. The blue flame sputters out as the candlestick cracks the Comte across the shoulder. The courtiers burst into shocked laughter. The Comte grits his teeth, his face crimson, but laughs with everyone else, rubbing his shoulder and slinking off the stage.

From the darkness call a voice: "What, something is amiss! I must return to protect my beloved!" It is Aleron.

The Queen melts into the background, followed by the other courtiers. I stand alone in the clearing as he strides to me.

But instead his arms circle me, pulling me close, and he kisses me. I freeze in his arms. His lips are soft, much softer than I expected...and warm...I close my eyes, leaning into him, as his arms tighten around me.

"Ah," I hear the Queen's voice, thick with the accent of a fishwife, "and here I'd hoped the King's heart would be mine!"

I pull away. But he doesn't release me. His arrogant smile is gone. His face mirrors my own emotions. In his eyes I read uncertainty, and hope. And fear.

"Your Majesty," he says, his voice deeper than usual, and he steps away from me, sinking into a low bow.

The clearing is silent. I can't even look at the courtiers, imagining the Duchesse smirking, the Princesse de Lamballe whispering behind her hand to the duc d'Artois.

And then the Queen sweeps into the scene. "The heart knows what it wants, does it not, Your Majesty?" She sinks into a low curtsy, as if I truly were royal. There is a soft rustle as the rest of the courtiers follow suit. They all bow or curtsy, to me.

I stare about, my mouth hanging open like a fool's. The Queen looks up at me and gives me a swift wink.

At that moment I forget the vision I'd seen in the Meridienne, the memory of Caroline and the Comte beside the stream, the shade of my sister's eyes. All I can think of is the feeling of Aleron's lips on mine, of his arms around me, of the Queen and her court now bowing to me.

What a strange place Petit Trianon is, I think vaguely.

"Might I rise, Your Majesty?" the Queen whispers loudly.

"Oh!" I cry. "Yes, rise, rise!" The Queen smiles as she straightens. She begins to applaud, and her court joins her until the grotto rings with calls of "Bravo, bravo!"

The Queen reaches for my hand and nods to me to curtsy to the audience as well. The applause grows even louder.

"Now you know," she says to me over the tumult, "why people take the risks they do. Why they betray their friends."

I look sharply at her and see the gleam of tears standing in her eyes. But then she has turned away, back to her court, and curtsied again.

Suddenly the light catches the string of rubies around her throat. The jewels glitter red in the lamplight like wet blood. I see her again, the woman pulling her head from her neck.

The world spins, everything blurs: the faces of the courtiers, the lanterns in the trees, the jewels of the ladies. All I see is the disembodied head of the Queen, tears trickling from her eyes as blood drips from her neck.

The world steadies and the Queen becomes whole again, laughing gaily, surrounded by her adoring court. None of them seem to notice my reaction.

I pull my hand from hers, perhaps too forcefully, for she turns to look at me with a frown.

I force a smile to my face. "I am having so much fun," I announce, my words too bright.

For a long moment she studies me. I hope desperately that she doesn't ask me what is wrong, here in front of everyone.

Then the Duchesse de Polignac calls, "Let us dance!"

As if on cue music fills the grotto. For a moment I think the grotto must be enchanted. The Comte steps forward and bows before the Queen, and with a smile she steps into his arms.

I turn quickly and walk away, before she can notice.

The ground seems to undulate before me as I stumble from the clearing. The scent of wintergreen rises around me, so strong I can't breathe.

I hear a voice as if from far away. "Helene?"

Aleron is at my side. Beyond him, in the clearing, the Queen is laughing, her court laughing with her, none of them noticing me or Aleron.

I must not let him think his kiss would cause me to swoon. I take a breath to clear my head, though the trees whirl sickeningly. "I don't want to dance," I call over my shoulder.

I feel hands at my shoulders, steadying me. "Let me assist you to the chateau."

Celena's words echo through my mind. _Why do you think Caroline showed you this, now? You are destined to be betrayed. It 's a curse in our family, to be betrayed by those we love for as long as we live._

But of course I already knew that. Knew it, even when I let him kiss me, when I returned his kiss.

I draw another breath, willing the world to steady. Then I turn to him, the smile I have learned at court at my lips. "Thank you, Aleron," I say, my voice as smooth as his. "I will return to the house alone."

He opens his mouth, then closes it, his hands falling away. I feel a surge of relief, a burn of regret.

Celena moves to my side as I turn away and walk toward the house. I hear only my own footsteps on the path.

When I am sure he is not following I turn on Celena. "Didn't you hear me?" I demand. "I didn't invite you."

Anger flashes in her blue eyes, the Comte's eyes. "You can't make me go."

"I can." I turn my back on her and walk away.

"You'll be back," she calls. "Back in the tower with me. Sooner than you think."

I don't answer, and she does not speak again.

There. I have succeeded in pushing them both away.

My legs hold me until I stumble into the house, searching until I find a small room that can only belong to a servant. I can only hope the Queen is too distracted by the Comte to notice my absence.

I fall across the bed and lie with my eyes wide open, too afraid that my visions will return to risk sleep. But too afraid to light a candle, to see the flame burning blue, knowing the spirits are waiting in the shadows, whether I've invited them or not.

**Chapter 14**

I wake to a scream.

I bolt upright, tangled in the sheets as if they were ropes binding me, and look wildly around, my heart pounding in my ears.

But the chateau is silent. I realize I must have heard the scream in my dream. I sit in the bed, willing my heart to slow, trying to catch my breath.

Perhaps this is how the madness starts.

I press the heel of my hand into my forehead. Memories of the night crowd my mind: Caroline's ghost, confined to the shadows with the man she imagined loved her, her daughter's father. Aleron's lips on mine, as the world spun, and Celena's warning that someone would betray me. That he would betray me.

There is a knock. "Mademoiselle Helene?" I stare at the door.

The knock comes again. "Mademoiselle?"

"Yes?"

"The Queen wishes that you come to style her hair. She plans to return to Versailles early this morning."

I fall back onto the bed and close my eyes.

The knock comes again. "Mademoiselle?"

I cannot assist the Queen. Not this morning. I cannot face the games of the court right now, not after last night.

"Please tell the Queen I am not well."

There is a silence. "I'm not sure I can do that."

"Tell her my illness is contagious."

I hear footsteps retreating down the hall.

I have pushed fate's hand, I realize. I will be dismissed, and I have nowhere to go but back to the Tower. I should get up and begin packing.

But I don't move, thinking of how miserable Celena will be sure my life there is

There is another knock, this one heavier, and I hold my breath. Then I hear the turn of the key in the lock. The door swings open, then closed.

"It is unwise to refuse the Queen."

I yank the covers from my head to see Aleron standing at the foot of the bed. He is holding a plate of food.

I sit up. "How dare you break into my room?"

"I hardly broke in. I used a key."

What do you want?" My voice rises to a shout.

"I have only come to see what could have possessed you to refuse to serve the Queen. I thought it might be that you are hungry. Since you hardly ate last night."

"Were you listening at the door?" I demand incredulously.

"I cannot help but think it must be because of something that happened last night."

"It wasn't your kiss, if that's what you mean."

A smile flashes over his face. "No, I hope that my kiss would not cause you to become ill enough to faint."

"I didn't faint."

"All right. It is only that I read fear in your expression last night. As though something frightened you."

"What could have frightened me?"

There is yet another knock at the door. "Mademoiselle Helene?"

"What?" I call, my voice thick.

"The Queen is not concerned about taking ill, and requests that you join her with all possible speed."

I could still go, I think. But then I am disobeying a request from the Queen, which is much different than slipping away.

"All right," I reply faintly.

"Mademoiselle?"

"All right!" I glare at Aleron. "If you will excuse me, I must dress. The Queen is waiting."

His brown eyes hold mine. "Very well. You musn't keep the Queen waiting." He rises and leaves the room.

I stare after him, not drawing a breath until the door has closed behind him.

I can hardly dress, I am shaking so badly, and have time to do no more than drag a comb through my own hair and tie it back with a ribbon before I leave the chamber and hurry to the Queen's, my legs like lead.

The Queen greets me with a bright smile. "Ah, Helene," she says as I curtsy. "You look well."

"I am sorry, Your Majesty, that I didn't come sooner. I feared I'd taken ill from the chilly air, and I did not want to sicken you, as well."

She waves away my words. "Wasn't it a lovely evening?"

"It was, Your Majesty. How shall I style your hair?"

She sighs. "As we are returning to court, I suppose something more becoming to a Queen." The lines in her face deepen, and I know she is thinking of her son.

I see she holds the lily with which the Comte presented her during the play, twisting it in her fingers.

"But perhaps a remembrance of last night, to ease the disappointment of returning?"

She looks at the flower. "Is it not too daring?"

"Only those of us who were with you last night will know."

The shine returns to her eyes. "Very well then." She hands me the flower and I begin to brush her hair. I can't help noticing that her hair seems thinner than the last time I styled it, only the day before.

"You've caught the eye of Aleron," she says suddenly. I nearly drop the brush.

"Your Majesty?" She smiles at me.

"He is obviously smitten with you."

My heart quickens. "I don't know, Your Majesty."

"Why don't you know?"

I hesitate. "I think he has convinced many girls that he is smitten with them."

"You must give him your heart."

"But I hardly know him."

"Nonsense. You've known each other since you were children."

"A great deal has changed since then, Your Majesty."

"I saw the way he looked at you last night, in the grotto. And they way he kissed you."

I want to believe her, want to believe that his kiss was sincere. But I can't forget Celena's warning.

"What if he betrays me?" The words burst from me before I can stop them.

"I know love," the Queen says softly. "And I know betrayal. He will not betray you." She turns to face me, touching her fingers to my cheek. "Dear Helene. Find happiness in love. As your mother never did."

My mother never found happiness because it was stolen from her. By her best friend. Does the Queen have any idea of the role she played in Caroline's fate, and ours? I hold the brush, forgotten, in my fingertips, my hand full of rubies.

"Toinette!" The silence of the room is broken as the Duchesse de Polignac tumbles in. "Oh." She eyes me, a malicious smile at her lips. "I didn't expect to find your servant here. I heard she had a man in her room, and was too busy to come."

She waits, perhaps for the Queen to question, even reprimand me. I try to think of words to explain the truth. But the Queen merely raises her eyebrows. "Is that so?"

The Duchesse mutters something too low for me to hear, but I imagine I hear the word 'slut.'

Heat rises to my cheeks. "He wanted to know why I..." my words break off; I do not want to announce that I'd refused the Queen's summons. "He wanted to hurry me along."

The Duchesse opens her mouth to speak, but the Queen speaks over her.

"Helene, I want you to style my hair. But no rubies," she adds with a shudder. "Something light."

The Duchesse prattles about court gossip as I brush the Queen's hair until it shines, and then pin the lily into it, just behind her ear.

"Jules," the Queen interrupts her chatter, "will you go and see if my blue silk gloves are among your things? I'm missing them."

The Duchesse's eyes darken, but she rises. "Of course," she says with a curtsy. She exits, the scent of oranges leaving a sharp, acidic scent in her wake.

The Queen waits for the door to close, then turns to me. She pulls a paper from her sleeve, creased and worn, and soft, as though it had been caressed. The smell of roses rises from it. I know who has written it.

"Keep this for me," she whispers.

"Your Majesty," I say, shaking my head. "This is dangerous. If someone finds it..."

"That is why I am entrusting it to you," she says. "He told me to burn it, after I read it. He tells me to destroy all of his letters, and I have. But I cannot burn this one."

Her blue eyes hold mine, and I understand. Sometimes to stay grounded in the world one needs more than whispers and memories.

I take the letter from her and slide it into my own sleeve.

"Hide it for me," she implores, "and when this is all over..." her voice trails off. "Take this. As a token of my appreciation." She slides a bracelet from her wrist and presses it into my hand.

The bracelet is heavy and warm. This will go a long way to help pay for a place in Paris.

"Now," she says more loudly, and a touch too brightly, "a game of cards?"

**Chapter 15**

I keep a few coins beneath my pillow, so that if Juliette searches my things she will find them, and perhaps be appeased. The bulk of the earnings I've accumulated styling hair I keep hidden between my mattress and the wall. It is here that I hide the Queen's letter.

One afternoon when Juliette has left our room I gather my earnings. With the pile of coins, the ring, and the bracelet, I have nearly enough to leave for Paris.

There is a knock at the door, and I sweep my treasure beneath my pillow. "Who is it?"

"Pauline." Her voice sounds thick and wavering. She falls through the door as soon as I open it, her face streaked with tears.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

"Close the door." When I do she sinks onto my bed. "I need your help."

"What is it?"

"Is there something I can take...to rid myself of something I don't want?" She covers her face with her hands.

"Oh. Steffan...?"

"He doesn't know."

"Should you tell him?"

She pulls her hands away. "And then I've trapped him. He'll have to stay with me, he'll feel obligated. And we'll be servants here forever."

I know how it feels to be trapped. "Are you sure you don't want it?"

"My mother was sixteen when she had me. And she couldn't stand the sight of me. She finally abandoned me here when I was ten." She shakes her head. "I don't want to end up like her."

I think of Caroline, the way she looked at Celena toward the end.

"Give me a few hours," I tell Pauline. "Meet me back here." She draws a breath, brushing the last of her tears away, and leaves.

Sweeping my treasure into a shawl, I wrap it tightly and tuck it between the mattress and the wall. I purposely leave out a coin and a few pins I've seen Juliette eying; hopefully those will appease her and she won't look too closely for the rest. Then I begin the long walk down the stairs and through the palace to the gardens.

It is a warm day, the threat of storms hanging in the air. The Sphinx watches me with blank eyes as I step onto the gravel path. Glancing around for the yellow blossoms, I realize they might not be grown here. They look far too much like weeds.

"Can I help you, mademoiselle?"

I turn to see the gardener, clippers in his hand. He takes off his hat, replaces it.

"Yes. I'm looking for rue."

"For rue?" He rubs the back of his neck. "I have some back here. I keep some on hand. Every once in a while someone comes asking for it." He leads me off the gravel path, to a narrow one. The flowers here are more wild, stretching across the path, catching at my sleeves.

I glance back over my shoulder, but I can no longer see the main path, nor the palace. I can't even hear the fountains.

"I think I'll return..." I begin.

"Here they are." The gardener kneels next to a clump of yellow flowers. The rue for which I've been searching.

"Oh."

"Shall I cut some for you?"

"Yes, thank you."

He cuts a handful of stems, then stands to face me.

"If you don't mind my asking. Are they for you?"

"For me? No." I eye the flowers in his hand, wishing he would give them to me so I can go.

"You're helping a friend."

"Yes." I hope he doesn't ask who.

"If you don't mind my saying, mademoiselle, this is a dangerous place. And it's getting worse. Do you have anywhere else to go?"

"Nowhere I want to."

"No family?"

"No."

He sighs and looks at the ground. "You should be very, very careful."

I should go. But something in the slump of his shoulders makes me ask, "The last time I was here, you said you knew my mother. Caroline."

"Yes. I knew her."

"How?"

"I taught her a lot about the flowers. She used them to style the Queen's hair. Created charms from them, for luck, and love. Like you do, I imagine."

"Do you know of anything to keep one from..." I nearly say seeing ghosts, but instead ask, "to keep one from having nightmares?"

He looks up. "You're having nightmares?"

I nod miserably.

He turns and moves further down the path and stops before a bush with needles studded with small purple blossoms. He clips several sprigs and hands them to me.

"Rosemary. Keep it close by your bed. Breathe it in deeply before you go to sleep and if you wake in the night." He stares at the rosemary, though his gaze seems far away. "I used to advise Caroline--Mademoiselle d'Vie to do the same."

"We didn't have rosemary in the forest."

His mouth tightens. "I suppose not."

An insect, its iridescent wings whirring, flies past.

"I should go. Thank you," I say, turning and hurrying up the path. He does not follow.

The air inside the palace is as heavy and ominous as the air outside. The halls are empty, as if everyone has left, or is hiding in their apartements.

Outside the Dauphin's chamber stands a girl, her back to me. My steps slow. She is dressed in rags, her arms and legs bony and pale. Emilie.

She turns slowly to face me. "Cold," she whispers, and then opens her mouth and shrieks.

I clap my hands to my ears against the sound. It echoes from the glass. A rotting stench fills the air. Cold wraps itself around me. A fist of grief grips my chest. So this is death, I think, as I fall into darkness.

I wake on the floor, Aleron's face over me.

"Where is she?" I try to raise my head. The room spins.

"Who?" Aleron's brow furrows.

The room steadies and sharpens. Oh, no. I've revealed the secret, my family's secret. They will all know, now.

Worse, I know that I haven't left the madness in the forest. The madness does not reside in the forest. It resides in me.

Bile rises, thick and sour, into my throat, and I fear I will be sick.

"Let me help you to your rooms. Can you stand?"

Aleron steadies me with an arm at my back. Sitting up, I swallow.

I see my reflection in one of the grand mirrors. Pale, my hair loose from its ribbon, the tuberoses all hanging about my face, crumpled and wilted. My eyes, shadowed and wild, my mouth a red slash, like a wound. The rue and rosemary are scattered across the floor beside me.

Mad. Mad as Caroline, as all of our ancestors.

He holds out a hand to help me to my feet, but I shake my head. "I'm all right." I scramble, not very gracefully, to my feet, and find the room is steady.

"Are you all right, mademoiselle?"

I turn to see the woman I met my first day here. Madame Levron. Though her tone is all concern, she barely conceals a smile. Beside her stands her friend, but in her expression I read fear.

Aleron has taken my elbow, but I step away from him, trying to smile. "How foolish I am! I should have eaten something. Thank you for you concern, but I will be fine." My teeth are chattering as I turn and move away, as quickly as I dare.

Aleron catches up to me after a few strides. He holds the flowers. Removing his coat, he sets it on my shoulders. "I'm all right," I protest.

"You're shivering. As though you've seen a ghost."

I choke out a laugh that rings shrilly against the glass in the Hall of Mirrors. "A ghost? Do you think me mad?"

I stumble, and Aleron takes my arm, steering me from the hall.

We do not speak as he steers me through the halls, to a corridor I've never seen before. We stop before a door.

"Where are we?" I ask.

"My chamber. There is no one inside. You can be alone here."

I balk. "Really, Aleron, I'm fine--"

But he opens the door and nudges me inside.

It is larger than the room I share with Juliette, but there is even less furniture inside, only a narrow bed, neatly made, and a table. It smells vaguely of oranges.

I turn to face him, drawing his coat closely around my shoulders. "Would it not be better for me to return to my own chamber? If the Queen summons me..."

"Do you really want Juliette to ask you a hundred questions? Do you think she'll be able to keep herself from gossiping about your state to Therese and Pauline, who will then tell everyone in Versailles?"

I sink onto the chair. He pours me a glass of water from a pitcher on a table and thrusts it at me. "Drink this."

What good will a glass of water do? But I take it and touch my lips to the rim, taking a sip.

He paces, running a hand through his hair, scowling at the floor, before he finally turns back to me. "I know you see ghosts."

I freeze, then set the glass on the table with a bang. "What?"

"I know about your family, that many are afflicted with madness. That you can communicate with ghosts."

I shake my head. "You know nothing about me or my family."

"I see them, too."

I search his expression. There are hollows around his eyes and mouth, reminding me of someone who's just woken from a nightmare.

"I doubt that we're talking about the same thing."

"You remember my father."

The orange seller, singing, offering an orange to the Queen on bended knee as though he were courting her. The way she'd laughed, and Caroline, too, as he peeled one for her and offered it to her, slice by slice.

"He insisted on bringing the Queen her oranges, even after he became ill. Each time he came he was thinner, more wasted, until he was nearly a skeleton. The Queen didn't see it. I was furious that she didn't see what was happening, right before her eyes. How could she not notice?

"On his deathbed, he told me not to hate her. Told me to watch over her. That she's a child."

"And you see his ghost," I guess.

He smiles sadly. "Every time I cross the Hall of Mirrors. There he is, offering me an orange. And when I go to take it, he reminds me. 'Take care of her.'"

"He loved her."

"He loved my mother too. But there is something about the Queen. Something that makes some men love her.

His smile fades. "And then I dreamt my mother died."

"It came true," I guess.

His eyes are filled with a faraway sadness, and suddenly he looks much younger, like a lost child. I realize his charm is like a mask he wears to ward off his sadness.

"I'm sorry," I tell him.

"You asked me how I found you in the forest. Because an enchantment hides the tower. I was led there. By a child. Sometimes I could see her, and other times I couldn't. When I lost sight of her she would reappear beside a tree waiting for me to catch up. She was very thin. And her fingers..." he shudders.

Emilie. Emilie had led him to me.

"I saw her," I tell him, my voice choked. "She was standing outside the Dauphin's apartments. As if she were waiting. And then she..." I hesitate, unsure how to describe what she'd done, how she'd shown me death. "Why would she help me one moment, and terrorize me the next?"

"Perhaps she's just very lonely. Perhaps she felt you were ignoring her, and had to get your attention."

"Does it frighten you when you see them?" I ask.

"At first. It's better now."

"What did you do?" My voice is barely a whisper.

He offers a smile tinged in sadness, and hands me the plants. "Rosemary helps."

I shake my head. "Rosemary will not help with this."

"Perhaps talking would."

Maybe it would.

"Why do you think they haunt you?" he asks.

"Do they have a reason?" My voice is sharper than I intended.

"The traditional reasons are guilt, or unfinished business," he says, as if ticking off a list. "Or a warning."

I consider his words. Perhaps Emilie is warning us of the Dauphin's fate, how close he is to death.

"The physicians working on the Dauphin are the best in the land," Aleron says.

"Of course." But it won't be enough.

"I lied to you in the forest," I tell him. He lifts his eyebrows. "I wasn't alone in the tower. My sister was there, too."

His face creases, and I wish I could call back the words. But it's too late now, and the story tumbles from me.

"My sister was always more beautiful than me. As beautiful as Caroline. I was always jealous, even though she was so much younger. Then, one night, my mother poured me a cup of tea and told me that if I drank it, I would be beautiful . But as soon as my lips touched it my throat burned, and my eyes and nose stung. I told her I didn't want to drink it, but she said, 'Don't you want to look like me? Like your sister?' Of course I did. So I forced myself to take drink. This time my whole chest burned. She told me I had to drink the whole thing for the magic to work. So I did, though I could barely swallow."

I stare down at the rosemary, unable to look at him.

"I didn't see Celena anywhere. My head ached and I couldn't swallow. When the whole cup was gone she helped me to bed. She kissed my forehead and I fell asleep.

"In my dreams I heard my sister's shouts, then screams. I dreamt that Caroline slashed at Celena's face, that Celena begged her to stop but finally went silent. She fell to the floor and didn't get up. And then I dreamt that Caroline went to the window and leaped from it." My voice sounds odd, not like my own. "And then I woke. And it wasn't a dream."

"So Celena and your mother..."

"They died."

Aleron has gone white. "Why did she do it?"

"Celena was too great a reminder of everything she lost, I suppose."

"But you survived."

"Yes. I survived."

A thousand more questions swim in his eyes. But even if he asked them, I couldn't answer. I remember nothing of what happened in the days that followed, only that each time I saw Celena after that her face was crossed with scars, a bloody wound at her throat. I never saw Caroline again.

I stare at the glass of water, avoiding his gaze. _Now he will run from the room,_ I think _, and I 'll never see him again. Juliette will force me to leave, and I'll go back to the forest, with only the spirits for company._

But he doesn't go. "Poor Helene," he murmurs. "I never imagined...." He shakes his head. "I wish I would have come sooner."

So do I. But at least he came.

"Perhaps the spirits aren't haunting you. What if they're trying to tell you something?" He takes my hand. "Maybe I can help you."

I want to let him help me. But how can I truly believe him? Hadn't my own mother tried to poison me? Perhaps I am doomed to be betrayed by those I am foolish enough to love.

Like the Queen.

Still, I've told him my worst secret, and he hasn't rushed from the room in horror. I feel an unfamiliar lightness in my chest.

"I should go."

"No. Lie down. Rest."

"I need to take the rue to Pauline."

"I'll take it. You can stay here and sleep."

My eyes are heavy. It would be nice to rest here, just for a moment. I am still a bit cold.

I lie back and Aleron sets the rosemary on the pillow beside me. I breathe in its sharp scent as he pulls a blanket over me. Leaning over, he presses his lips gently to my forehead. My eyes are already closed when I hear the door shut. Just before I drift off to sleep I hear Celena murmur, _My, my, you 've divulged a lot of secrets to a man you barely trust_.

**Chapter 16**

In my dreams I wander the garden. Aleron steps from the flowers. He kneels and offers me an orange.

I wake slowly, reluctantly, and look over to see the flowers still set by the pillow. It is true, they do keep nightmares at bay.

I sit up and look around, and see that I am still alone in the room, the blanket covering me. The light at the window has dimmed. I wonder where Aleron has gone. Cringing, I wonder what he must think of me now. Perhaps he will avoid me.

At this thought I rise and fold the blanket neatly at the foot of the bed, then gather the rosemary.

As I step through the door another guard is leaving his room. "Mademoiselle," he says with a bow, but he doesn't bother to hide a smirk. My cheeks burn.

I encounter neither Aleron nor spirits as I blunder through corridors narrow and musty, light halls filled with the scent of oranges, paintings of gods and demons grimacing at me from above.

As I enter our chamber Juliette whirls from her place at the mirror, her hands behind her back, like a child's. "Oh, it's only you." She turns back to the mirror and lifts her hands to her neck, a string of pearls dangling there. She turns her head side to side, admiring her reflection.

"Where did those come from?" I ask.

"They were a gift. From an admirer. And where have you been?" She cocks an eyebrow.

"The gardens," I reply, showing her the rosemary.

She snorts. "By the looks of those, it must have taken you hours to return."

I busy myself pouring water from the pitcher into a glass and setting the flowers inside.

"So, I can't help but notice Aleron is paying you a lot of attention."

I concentrate on arranging the blossoms. "He is a good friend."

"Oh, yes, he is. He was a good friend to me, once, you know."

I turn and face her with a polite smile. "Oh?"

"He thought, as a subgoverness to the Duchesse de Polignac, that I could learn the Queen's secrets. That if I told her secrets to him, he could protect her. Sound familiar?"

This time there is no hiding my reaction. She laughs.

"He was all charm, flirting with me, bringing me flowers. But of course, I did not prove important enough to the Duchesse to become her confidante. It did not take long for him to lose interest in me. I thought my heart was broken for a while, but I met someone else. Only Aleron wasn't finished with me yet. For once he found out that we were in love, Aleron falsely accused him of treason and had him thrown out of the palace."

"You've told me this before."

"You didn't heed my warning."

"Perhaps the accusation wasn't false."

Juliette studies me a long moment. She nods pityingly, and turns back to the mirror, admiring the pearls. "I understand how you feel. I didn't want to believe he'd used me, either. I didn't know how duplicitous he could be, not until he betrayed Jean. I only wanted to spare you the pain I went through. But perhaps you'll have to experience it for yourself.

"I'd ask you to style my hair, but I don't think you'd agree, would you?"

I don't bother to answer.

"We'll talk again later. Perhaps over cards?" With a last look at her reflection, she leaves the room.

Once she is gone I sink to the bed, staring at the rosemary. She's only jealous, I tell myself.

But the story she told, of how he'd asked her to discover the Queen's secrets, was nearly the same request he'd made of me.

Celena's voice echoes through my mind. _You are destined to be betrayed. As I was. As our mother was. It 's a curse in our family, to be betrayed by those we love for as long as we live._

__

I sleep with the rosemary tucked beneath my pillow. I wake to the sound of the door opening and see Juliette slip out. She must have returned after I went to sleep. I sit up, relieved to not have to speak to her.

But once I am awake my thoughts crowd my mind again. At last I decide I can't stay any longer. The Queen has gone to Paris today, and so she won't summon me until later.

I dress and style my hair, tucking a sprig of rosemary behind my ear. I do not want to return to my chamber. I turn instead to the gardens, determined to lose myself along the path. My thoughts chase each other riotously through my mind.

I can't stop thinking of Aleron's strong arms around me, the featherlight touch of his fingertips on my face. I wish I could forget Juliette's words, that I could truly believe his concern for me is sincere.

I walk to the garden, hoping to lose myself in the paths. But my thoughts refuse to leave me, no matter how deeply I wander, no matter how fast I walk.

White camellias spill from a bush deep in the garden. I remember walking with Caroline, singing, her hand delicate in mine. She picked a camellia and tucked it behind my ear. Once, we heard a voice somewhere on the other side of a hedge, and I recognized it as the Queen's. I pulled Caroline toward her, but Caroline gripped my hand and steered me away, the opposite direction. Her eyes were full of tears.

Sunlight spills across the path. I sit at the lip of a fountain. In the center of the pool rests the statue of a woman crowned with flowers. Cherubs encircle her.

A girl seats herself next to me. Her blue velvet gown is soaked, and her wet hair is plastered to her face. Her sleeve is ripped. _He wouldn 't let me go, and I couldn't breathe. _Cold emanates from her.

I leap to my feet and back away. "I'm sorry, I can't help you."

She sighs. _No one can._

I can't find refuge, even in the garden.

I race along the paths, nearly running, my breath loud in my ears, until I find the main path again. I pause near the sphinx. She stares down at me with her secret smile.

I begin walking again, my back to the palace, toward the village of Versailles.

The wind whips my skirt around my ankles as I walk.

The streets of the village teem with people who stroll past, eyeing the wares. Men and women dressed in white, and wearing red caps, stride among the crowd. Some passersby give them a wide berth; others watch them with admiration.

The smell of fresh bread envelops me. I pause before a stall filled with pastries. The seller, a thin woman with a young face, despite her grey hair, eyes me hopefully.

Another woman approaches the stall, her eyes widening. "Fourteen sous?"

"It's been a bad year for grain," the seller replies sharply. "And the Queen powdering her hair with flour we could all use."

"I've heard she's not powdering her hair anymore," I say, but the women ignore me.

"It will all change soon, Citoyenne," the first woman tells the seller, and she moves off, her mouth set in a grim line.

Shouts rise from nearby. The crowd around me is like a river, carrying me with them as they push toward the noise. I can hardly breathe, thanks to someone in the crowd who smells as though they've bathed in onions and manure. Beside me someone lets out a blood curdling shout that leaves my ear ringing. I turn to see a tall youth, grinning joyously.

The crowd halts before a makeshift platform. A young man, tall, the sun gleaming from his golden hair as if it were a hero's helm, paces. He is the same man I saw here before.

"Citoyens," he cries, and the throng erupts in screams. A smile flashes across his face. "Citoyens!" he begins again. This time everyone quiets. "Our silk merchants go out of business while _La Austrienne_ buys her precious cloth from England, enemy of France!" The mob grumbles in agreement.

"Our people starve while _La Austrienne_ buys expensive jewelry. Our children cry for bread while she stuffs herself!" he bellows.

"Make them eat the rotten bread we eat!" a man roars.

"Let them watch their children starve, as we watch ours!" cries a woman.

"Better yet, let us roast the children like little piglets!" screams another man.

My stomach turns as the crowd roars. Surely these people aren't threatening to murder children.

At that moment my eyes fall on Juliette, standing directly in front of the podium. Her face is ablaze as she screams along with the crowd. Agreeing with them.

And beside her stands Aleron.

He is not screaming or shouting, but his eyes are trained on the speaker. He no longer wears the scarlet coat of the guard.

"Citoyens, the time has come for the people to rule!"

The roars that rise around us ring against my ears. He raises his arm in acknowledgement as people reach toward him, anxious to clasp his hand.

Juliette turns to Aleron and embraces him, presses her mouth to his. I watch as his arms wrap around her, draw her close.

I stare at them, unable to look away. My fists clench and unclench, blood pounding through my brain. I'd confessed my darkest secret, my family's darkest secrets, like a fool. I'd allowed myself to trust him, without knowing who he truly was.

I'd allowed myself to believe he could care for me. I'd ignored Celena's warning when I knew in my bones that I could never escape my family's fate, no matter where I go.

I push blindly through the crowd as voices raise in a loud, patriotic song.

A shot rings out against the hard blue sky. The crowd pauses, almost comically. Then, from even closer, the sound of another cracks against our ears.

Screams erupt around all around, the songs turn to cries. People surge past, their faces terrified. I am knocked to the ground. I feel the skin on my hands scrape away, the stones bite into my legs.

I stumble to my feet, but now a man falls across my legs. I cry out in pain and frustration and try to shove him off me. His head lolls senselessly, leaving a streak of crimson across my skirt. Blood pours from a wound in his head; his eyes roll insensibly. I try to scream but my throat has closed. I am frozen in panic.

I look up in search of help to a woman swing a club at another man. I hear a sickening thud, even over the screaming, and the man slumps to the ground. "Traitors!" the woman screams at the unconscious man. "How dare you threaten the royal family!"

Again I try to shove the bleeding man off of me, but he is too heavy. Someone trips over me, their knees banging into my head. _I 'm going to be trampled_, I realize frantically. _I 'm going to die here in this square_. Bodies swarm around, fighting, fleeing, falling. In the chaos I can't tell which are living and which are ghosts.

Someone grabs me by the shoulders, dragging me from beneath the wounded man. I leap to my feet, trying to tear away from my attacker, but he only grips me more tightly. Blind with terror, I swing my elbow backward with all my strength and hear a grunt of pain. His arms fall away. I whirl around and pull my arm back, preparing to hit him with all my strength, but I never swing. My attacker is Aleron, doubled over from my blow, I see with satisfaction.

He curses. "Stop fighting!" he shouts. "Or you'll get us both killed!"

Several bruises bloom on his face, and blood drips from a wound at his temple. Cursing again, he grips my arm and hauls me into the crowd, weaving among them.

I follow him blindly, no longer caring where I end up.

The noise abates; the light dims. Aleron relinquishes his grip on my arm, and I realize we've entered a narrow alley. I sink against a wall, sliding to the stones. Aleron stands at the mouth of the alley, watching the crowd surge past.

I catch my breath when I see the blood smeared across my skirt, before I realize it must belong to the wounded man.

I force myself to breathe the warm air, thick with gunpowder and sweat and something metallic.

"What," Aleron demands from his post, "were you doing at the marketplace?"

I am grateful for his words, because the anger I feel chases my fear away. "I could ask you the same," I retort. "Where is Juliette?"

A shout erupts at the mouth of our alley as a man wearing a bloody shirt grips the throat of another man and clouts him about the head with his fist. The victim breaks away and races off, his tormentor in pursuit.

"She was already on her way back to the palace when the riot broke out. She should be safe."

"That's good." I hear the bitterness in my voice.

He sighs. "Juliette is an old friend."

Obviously she's a bit more than that. I press my knuckles to the stone. "I don't care about your feelings for her. I want to know how you can guard the Queen when you want to betray her!"

He runs a hand over his face. "I don't want to betray her."

"Then what were you doing here?"

"I came with Juliette. I know how these things turn out. I was worried she would get herself into trouble."

"So you don't believe we should roast the royal children like pigs?"

"Helene. The poor are angry. You can't tell me you don't see the waste every day, that the Queen is insensitive to the plight of her people. Didn't you yourself convince her to stop powdering her hair?

"The monarchy is coming to an end. There is no stopping it. All I can do is try to anticipate what violence is to come and to try to keep the Queen and her family safe from it."

"I'm not sure what to believe."

He runs his hand through his hair. "What did Juliette tell you?"

"She said not to trust you."

"You shouldn't."

"Why? Because you agree with the Queen's enemies? Because your intentions are not so noble as you led me to believe?"

He gives a mirthless laugh. "No one's intentions are as noble as they want you to believe."

"Because I saw you kissing Juliette?"

He stops laughing. "You saw her kiss me. Juliette is lonely. She mistook my friendship for something more."

I shake my head. "It doesn't matter."

"Doesn't it? I hoped it did, a little."

"She said you had her lover thrown out of the palace."

"And why did I do this, does she say?"

"Because she told you she loved him."

He nods. "That's true."

"Well. Then perhaps her mistrust in you is warranted."

"He had promised to run away with another servant. Juliette didn't know. They were to run off and join the Revolution together. She left with him, as far as I know, and are in love, still. It's better that Juliette blame me than have her heart broken."

His voice has softened, and he gazes out of the alley with a far away look. He did care for her once, I realize. And perhaps he still does.

The air in the alley is thick with the smell of blood. My stomach lurches. I can't stay here any longer.

"Where are you going?" Aleron asks as I rise.

"Away from here." As I approach the mouth of the alley a shot echoes across the walls, followed closely by a bellow of pain. I leap away and retreat back to my place against the wall.

I shiver. Pulling his coat off, he holds it out to me. When I don't take it he drapes it around my shoulders. Despite myself, I am glad for its warmth.

I press myself against the bricks, leaning my head back and trying to gulp in cooler air. The sounds of shots, of blows, of cries and screams ring against my ears.

I just have to wait for the crowds to thin. Then I can return to the palace and concentrate on earning enough money to escape to Paris.

The crowds rushing past have thinned, the shouts fading. I wonder if Juliette will join the throng screaming insults into the Queen's windows.

I am not sure how much time passes when he clears his throat. "I think it's safe to return to the palace," he says. He rises and offers his hand. I allow him to help me to my feet.

The afternoon sun touches my shoulders. The wounds on my hands begin to throb and my legs ache where I'd fallen.

We walk slowly along the street, wounded people scattered around us. A woman kneels by a man who holds a white cloth to his head. "Look, Lisette," he says, holding the bloodied cloth out to her, "the colors of the Revolution!"

Nearby a youth curses roundly as he pats his legs, shouting, "My purse! They've stolen my purse!"

At the entrance to the palace he stops me. "Juliette is right. You should trust no one."

Before I can answer, someone bellows.

"Aleron!" A red coated guard strides toward us. "We need you! Where have you been?" The man's eyes flicker to the coat I wear wrapped about my shoulders, then back to Aleron.

I take off the coat and hold it out to Aleron. He turns and follows his comrade without a backward glance, leaving his last words to me hanging in the air.

**Chapter 17**

I find Juliette standing before the vanity in our chamber. She whirls, hiding her hands behind her back like a child.

"Where have you been?" she asks. Her eyes travel from my blood stained skirt to my disheveled hair.

"The market."

"The market?" comes a squeak from the bed. Pauline sits up. "I heard there was a riot there."

"There was. But you'd know that, wouldn't you?" I say to Juliette.

She stares at me blankly. "I really wouldn't. I met Aleron there earlier but I left before anything happened."

She holds up her arms, admiring a pair of long, blue silk gloves she wears.

"Whose are those?"

"Mine, of course."

A scent rises from the silk. Jasmine and rose, which the Queen's perfumer sprays painstakingly onto her gloves. "They're the Queen's, aren't they?"

"No." She looks me in the eye.

"Why would you want them, when you hate the Queen?"

"What makes you say that?"

"I saw you at the riot."

"Are you going to tell the Queen about me?" Her eyes hold mine, challenging.

"Why wouldn't I?"

"Really, Helene, I don't understand where this anger is coming from. Unless..." Her mouth stretches into a smile. "Oh. You saw us."

"Saw what?" Pauline asks.

"Aleron and me. Together. I warned you that he is duplicitous. But as I said, you had to learn that for yourself." Pauline stares from one of us to the other.

"But before you run off to tattle to the Queen, you should think about this. You were at the riot, too. It would break the Queen's heart to learn that her favorite was involved in a demonstration against her and her family."

"That's not what happened."

"And perhaps it was you who took the gloves. You tried them on, after all. You'd best return them."

"She wouldn't believe that I took them."

"Wouldn't she? When everyone knows how mad your mother was, when you come from the forest wearing nothing but rags? When you were seen at a demonstration against the royal family that turned violent?" A smile stretches across her lips.

There is a roaring in my ears. My fists are clenched so tightly my nails are digging into my palms.

The Queen trusts me, but enough to withstand the accusations of thievery?

She leans so close to me that I can smell something sweet on her breath. "Just remember, when she falls, you will fall with her. And don't say I didn't warn you.

"Come, Pauline, it's getting a bit hostile in here."

"Be careful, Juliette," I tell her as they reach the door. "One day you'll go too far." Juliette ignores me, but Pauline casts a fearful look over her shoulder as the door clicks shut behind them, leaving the scent of the stolen gloves behind.

I pick up a pillow and hurl it against the wall, sweep the pins- my pins, that Juliette "borrowed"--from the vanity.

"I'm sorry, but you really shouldn't have ignored my warning." Celena's voice comes from a place near the window. I can just see her red hair in the light.

"Go away," I tell her. "I left you in the tower for a reason."

"You should return."

"I'm not coming back."

"Because things are going so well for you here?"

Someone knocks. I freeze, staring at the door. "Mademoiselle Helene? I have a gift and a request. From the Queen."

"She's heard you talking in here," Celena says. "You'd better answer."

When I open the door I see a servant teetering under the weight of a gown, yards of blue silk. "From the Queen," she says breathlessly. "For the ball."

"What ball?"

"The Queen has decided to hold a ball this evening."

A ball? When there's just been a riot? Perhaps the Queen hasn't heard of it. Or perhaps the ball is in defiance of the rebellion.

"Might I put this down somewhere?"

"Oh. Of course." The girl sighs with relief as I shift her burden into my arms.

"Please express my gratitude to the Queen." The servant curtsies and hurries off.

I lay the dress across my bed and stare at it. The last thing I want to do tonight is go to a ball.

I consider pleading illness.

"It's a lovely dress," Celena notes. It is, the silk the color of the summer sky. "Opals would look beautiful with it. Didn't Caroline have some?"

She did. They are in a little red bag among the other hair ornaments I brought with me from the Tower. When I go to retrieve it I find Caroline's tarot cards.

"Why not go to the ball, and dance, and wear a beautiful gown, while you can?"

A hard edge creeps into Celena's voice. "You might never have another chance."

She is right. At any moment the mob might attack. Aleron or Juliette could turn on me. Before I return to the Tower, or face whatever fate awaits me, I want to wear the dress, and go to the ball. I want to dance beneath the light of the candles. I

I look at the dress. It makes me think of the ocean, or at least the way I imagine it, blue and smooth, shimmering. Setting the cards on the table, I stand and slip from my dress, then struggle into the gown. "I wish you could help me," I grumble to Celena.

When at last I have smoothed and buttoned and tied it, I look into the mirror. It is as I imagined, the silk moving like liquid around my body, whispering a little, like the wind on waves.

"Though your hair needs work," Celena observes.

I sit before the vanity and brush my hair, then pin some of Caroline's opals among the strands. For courage.

"You look like her."

"No, I don't." But my face, normally gaunt, instead looks delicate, as Caroline had been. My eyes are the blue gray of the sea, like hers.

"It's going to start," Celena says.

I hear the faint strains of music, though the ballroom must be far away from this little room.

The cards sit face down in a pile on the table, their message hidden, as I cross the room, open the door, and exit.

The music from the ball floats through the passage, like a siren's song.

I feel as though I am walking against a heavy tide. How do the ladies here glide so gracefully? The opals don't give me much courage.

I hover in the doorway of the ballroom and peer inside. Crystal chandeliers hang from the arched ceiling, lit with hundreds of candles. Dancers swirl, the ladies gowns swishing, the heels of the men clicking. Everyone laughs, as if in ignorance of the desperate people just outside the palace gates with murder in their hearts.

I glance over my shoulder. I could slip away; surely the Queen will not notice my absence?

"May I escort you, Mademoiselle?"

Aleron stands before me. I catch my breath. His brown hair is combed away and tied back with a ribbon, and he is wearing his red uniform, pinned with medals. He glances down at my gown and then to my face, raising an eyebrow. "You look lovely," he says with a bow.

I take a step away. "Actually, I'm not feeling well..."

"Wait," he says. "Dance with me." He holds out a hand.

I hesitate.

"One dance," he murmurs. He grasps my hand and is pulling me into the ballroom. I try to pull away but he will not release my hand. Unless I wrestle away and create a scene, there is no escaping.

The light notes of a minuet fill the ballroom. Aleron leads me to the lady's line and with a smile takes his place opposite me.

I look anywhere but at him. Perhaps I can slip away during the dance.

Next to me Madame Levron. I can see she is already trying to catch Aleron's eye. He offers her a polite smile, then turns his gaze back to me. Feeling my cheeks burn, I study the other dancers. Next to Aleron stands a nobleman I do not recognize, looking slightly bored. I sense someone's eyes piercing me and look to see the Duchesse de Polignac frowning. I imagine she wants to come to tell me that this is no place for servants. But, I am a current favorite of the Queen's, and even the Duchesse would not dare to dismiss me.

Suddenly there is no question that I must stay and finish the dance. I cannot let the Duchesse think she has driven me away.

My eyes fall on Aleron. He raises an eyebrow and smiles, as if he knows what I am thinking.

So when the dance begins the lightness returns to my feet, and I remember each turn, each point, that I practiced with Caroline and Celena in the tower. I imagine Aleron's smile is sincere, and not mere flattery.

We join hands and dance after the others. The music and light fill me, blocking all else. I forget the gloves, forget Juliette's resentment, even Celena's warning. Fool that I am.

Aleron and I part and I turn in a graceful circle, returning to the head of the line. I feel a rush of cold air as a woman whirls past from me, her head thrown back in laughter, but she makes no sound. I realize I can see the other dancers through her chest. A ghost.

I look to see who her partner is, and realize she is dancing alone.

But why shouldn't she be here? Why shouldn't everyone come and dance, alive or dead?

She meets my eye and winks, her face beautiful despite the pox scars that have eaten away at her cheeks. I find myself smiling in return.

Aleron is there to meet me, bowing and reaching for my hand. I am light headed. The scent of tuberoses hangs over all.

We begin the next pass, and Aleron's gaze holds mine. He is smiling the boyish smile he wears when he is with the Dauphin. I can't help but laugh a little.

And then, at the next turn, Juliette is there. She wears the Queen's gloves. My amethysts gleam in her hair. She holds my gaze and smiles, but her eyes are cold and empty.

I stumble. Aleron's steady grip keeps me from falling, never missing a step. I look over my shoulder, trying to catch a glimpse of Juliette, but she is lost among the dancers.

The lightness, the grace, I felt before has dissipated. I try to concentrate on the dance, but I can't stop wondering about her. How could she be such a fool, to wear the gloves to the Queen's ball? The air becomes close and hot.

When I reach Aleron again his smile is gone. "Are you all right?" he asks.

I notice suddenly that every candle in the chandeliers blaze a bright blue. I gasp and stumble away from Aleron, pushing through the dancers to the entry, caring nothing for etiquette, nor propriety. I know why I saw Juliette here.

Aleron is at my heels as I push my way through the dancers, living and dead. I race through the corridors, the scent of jasmine and rose filling the air, suffocating me. My heels click wildly against the marble as long ago gods and vanquished heroes look sorrowfully down at me.

I halt before the door to my chamber, reluctant to find what's inside, despite my urgency to get here.

Aleron steps in front of me and opens the door, blocking my view from what's inside. He pauses a moment, then strides in.

"Juliette?"

My suspicions are confirmed. It hadn't been Juliette I'd seen in the ballroom, twirling in the arms of a courtier. It had been her ghost. Juliette's body lies on the bed, stiff already, her brown eyes wide open, staring up at the ceiling. Tracks from dried tears run from the corners of her eyes through her powder. My amethysts are pinned in her hair, though some have come loose. They didn't protect her very well.

"We must get a physician!" My voice echoes hysterically from the walls.

"No." His voice cracks like a whip. Rising, he moves swiftly to the door and closes it.

I stare at him in astonishment. "What do you mean?"

He points at the gloves. "Whose are those?"

I moan, sinking to my knees beside the bed. Stupid, stupid girl.

"Whose gloves are those?" he demands.

I press my forehead into the bed. "The Queen's."

"What was Juliette doing with them?"

My silence is his answer. He exhales, a furious, frustrated sound.

"They were poisoned, weren't they?" I ask, my face still pressed into the mattress.

"How did you know something was wrong?"

"I saw her in the ballroom."

"How?"

I sit up. "We must go for a physician."

"It's too late."

Too late. I can hardly breathe. I stare at her face, terrified even in death. Did it hurt? Did she know she would die?

"I didn't know the gloves were poisoned." He does not answer.

"Aleron, I would never hurt Juliette!"

He remains silent.

"Or the Queen," I add. But of course he would suspect me. Because of what Caroline did when the Queen won the heart of the Comte von Fersen. Because I am her daughter. His unspoken words hang in the air.

I don't take a breath for a long moment. He paces, his hair standing wildly about his head. Now it is he who does not trust me, I realize miserably. What can I do to prove my innocence, to wipe the suspicion from his face?

"Here is what we will tell them," he says, stopping suddenly. "We found her this way, after the ball. Her mother died young, of a heart ailment."

"Is that true?"

He hardly spares me a glance. "It is."

"Do you believe me?"

He scowls. "Helene, you need to understand how urgent this is. This was an attempt on the Queen's life. And you could easily be blamed. The Duchesse de Polignac is no great admirer of yours."

I nod numbly. He crosses the room two, three, more times, then draws a deep breath. "Helene. Listen carefully. Keep to your chamber. Don't leave."

Again, I nod, and he goes to the door.

"Wait," I call. He pauses, his hand on the knob. "Who do you think did this?"

Slowly he turns to face me. "I don't know." He turns and leaves the room, the door clicking shut behind him, and I am left alone with Juliette.

**Chapter 18**

The ball gown feels like a prison, weighing me down. It is difficult to breathe. I struggle out of it and put on the lighter lawn dress, though the evening is cold.

I have just finished changing when there is a brisk knock at the door. Two servants enter, stony faced. Without looking at me they wrap Juliette in a sheet and disappear with her.

Though Juliette's body is gone, I can sense her spirit in the corners, watching, waiting.

Despite Aleron's warning, I can't stay here, alone in the dark with her ghost. Let them come after me. I pull my trunk from beneath my bed. I won't be able to haul this with me. Instead I go to the armoire and find a smaller valise, of Juliette's. I tumble my few possessions into it, then dig my treasure from its hiding place.

Nestled among the jewels and coins is the letter the Queen entrusted to me. I study it. I could simply leave it here. It might never be found, I tell myself. But then, it might.

I think of the joy in the Queen's eyes as she heard the words, of the lines in her face when she speaks of her son, or at the sound of jeering from outside her windows. I remember the screams in the marketplace: _Let us roast the children like little piglets!_ I can't leave the letter.

There is no time to return it to her. I will take it with me, I decide, and burn it, the first chance I get.

Just as I step through the door, I hear a voice at my shoulder. "Aren't you even going to try to find who murdered me?"

I whirl around. There is slight thickening of shadows before me. "Juliette?"

"I realize we were never the best of friends, but I thought you'd at least be curious."

Swallowing, I step back into the room and close the door behind me. The darkness deepens.

"Who?" I ask, my voice shaking. "Who murdered you?"

"Oh, they meant to kill the Queen. I should have listened to your warning."

"Who was it?"

"Oh, you are becoming quite shrill. Are you afraid he believes you murdered me? That you attempted to murder the Queen?"

"Of course he doesn't, because it's not true!"

"He's been surprisingly accepting of your family's history. But things are getting quite dangerous now, aren't they? He might fear you now. Avoid you. Be repelled by you. Just as you've always feared. Shunned. Just like your mother. You might as well return to the tower now."

I snatch up a hairbrush from the table next to the door and hurl it at her. I hear the crack of glass, the brush clattering to the floor.

"You must know that can't hurt me."

"Who, Juliette? Who killed you?"

"You think I'll tell you now? Why should I? After all, you still get to live. At least for now."

Fumbling with the door knob, I throw open the door and tumble into the hall, pulling the door closed on her laughter.

The corridors are deserted; from far away I hear the echoes of music. The Queen's letter pricks against the skin of my wrist.

A knot of girls together beneath a painting of some ancient hero, who watches them solemnly from the ceiling. Among them I recognize Pauline.

My steps falter as they all turn to stare at me. I consider turning back, finding another way out of the palace. But then Pauline speaks, her voice echoing from the glass.

"Of course she is responsible. She and Juliette shared a chamber, didn't they? And now poor Juliette's dead." She eyes the valise I hold. "You're taking her things, as well?"

Fury boils through me, sharp as acid. I stride toward her, and she takes a step backward. "Why would I murder her?"

"Envy," she says, raising her chin. Her face is streaked with tears.

My laugh is high pitched, mad. "Of what? Her chamber? Her lovely disposition?"

She narrows her eyes. "Aleron."

My laughter dies.

She leans toward me. "He loved her first, and more. You were threatened. You wanted him to yourself."

"I don't care about him."

"I heard you threaten her myself."

"When I told her she'd go too far? It seems she did."

Her eyes flick to my trunk. "If you're so innocent, then why are you fleeing? you're fleeing? It doesn't matter. You can be imprisoned here, or die out there." She turns and glides away, the others following. I am alone under the scrutiny of the painted hero.

But then Celena steps from her place beside the window. "Well, you certainly didn't inherit our mother's charm." She tilts her face so that her scars gleam in the early morning light. "Her madness, perhaps, but not her charm."

Turning my back on her, I wind my way through shadowed corridors smelling of urine and dirt, until I reach the door to the gardens. Just beyond the gates I can hear the shouts of the peasants, the shrill cries of women, the roars of men, even the shouts of children, though dawn has just broken. All of them call for the Queen's head. I try to lose myself among the labyrinth of hedges, hoping the walls of greenery will block the sounds, but the voices echo overhead.

The thought of fumbling my way through the dark, to the forest, dodging the hostile crowd, fills me with terror. I decide to hide myself in the gardens. I plunge into them, losing myself in the paths, until I come to a small stone fountain. I sit on its edge, the cold biting through my thin dress.

The shouts of the protesters ring out in the clear night air, despite the high hedges.

To calm myself I whisper the instructions Caroline taught me for styling hair.

To draw money: Comb the hair into three sections, then plait each section. Be sure to tuck a gold coin into each. Then wind the plaits into a tower at the crown of the head. If you have an ostrich feather, pin it to the center. If not, the feather of a swan will do.

To draw luck: brush the hair seventy seven times, then separate it into seven sections. Twist each and tie it with a blue ribbon. Pin the feather of a dove into each section.

To draw a man near...I swallow. To draw a man near, allow the hair to fall over the shoulders, tied only with a red ribbon. Wash your hair in water scented with jasmine and rose petals.

The stars burn brighter, seeming to spin in the black sky. The shouts become slurred, as if the protesters are now drunk. The threats become more violent, more explicit. One man bellows his plans for the Queen's decapitated body, to the laughter of his comrades.

My stomach lurches. How can these men be allowed to shout these things? Why doesn't anyone arrest them? But the threats continue.

"You shouldn't be here."

I stumble backward as someone rises from the shrubs.

"It's all right!" I force my breath to slow as I recognize the gardener In one hand he holds his clippers, in the other some star shaped blossoms.

"I'm sorry. I don't mean to intrude. It's just--"

"You should go back inside. Where it's safe."

I give a short laugh. "I don't think it's very safe inside the palace."

"It's safer than being outside. But when day breaks, when things are more calm, then you should leave. Take the money you've saved and go far away from here."

How does he know?

"I will make arrangements for a man to take you to Paris. A good man, someone I trust. Come back tomorrow afternoon and find me."

I cross my arms against the cold. "And what should I do, when I get to Paris?"

He shakes his head. "I've never been. That's up to you."

He holds out the star shaped blossoms. "I used to give these to your mother. To help calm her mind."

"I don't think it helped."

"Oh, it did. While she was here. But these don't grow in the forest."

And so I return to the palace. I have nowhere to go but the chamber I shared with Juliette. I clutch at the star shaped blossoms like a talisman. Perhaps they will keep her ghost at bay.

I creep into the chamber and lock the door behind me. I hold my breath as I light Caroline's candle, then let it out gently when it burns only amber. I lie down in the bed, still wearing my dress, and pull the covers over my head, allowing only a small window from which to keep watch.

I must sleep, for I startle awake at a knock at the door. I open my eyes to see the ball gown pooled on the floor, the candle burnt to a stub. "The Queen requests your presence undressing after the ball," a cold voice calls through the door, and I hear their footprints striding away before I can answer.

I sit up, my stomach swooping. The Queen might see my refusal to attend her as an admission of guilt. Or someone else might.

So I rise in my wrinkled gown, its hem edged in dirt, and tie my hair at the nape of my neck. Tucking a star shaped blossom behind my ear, I go to meet the Queen.

**Chapter 19**

Outside of the Dauphin's apartements stands Emilie, with two children I haven't seen before. They drift aimlessly, their stares vacant. The girl wears a delicate, lacy, dress though it is smudged with dirt and has been patched. Her arms are like white bones poking from the dress. A boy wears breeches that are several inches too short, but his legs, too, are thin as sticks. The girl slowly turns her head to look at me as we near. Her eyes are large and hungry in her skeletal face. The air grows cold and smells of earth and something darker.

Ghost children, wasted from starvation from the looks of them. Wearing the clothes in which they were buried. They are waiting for the Dauphin to join them.

"Shoo," I whisper. "Find someplace else to wait."

The girl casts me a look of disdain from her wasted face. Her long dark hair hangs limply about her shoulders. The boy doesn't bother to acknowledge me, his gaze locked on the door, as if anticipating a great feast within. Perhaps of a soul, fresh from life.

"Shoo," I repeat.

The door to the Queen's chamber swings open. The ghostly girl moves toward it, not stepping but drifting, her toes dragging along the ground. She peers into the chamber; then, perhaps seeing nothing of interest, drifts back to her vigil at the Dauphin's door.

The air is filled with the Queen's scent: jasmine and rose, and something else sweet. It makes me feel sad, the sweetness of the scent, a hope about to be dashed, a wish lost.

The Queen sits in a chair embroidered with gold, wearing her dressing gown. Her blue eyes are distant, her face weighed with sadness. On a stool nearby sits the Duchesse de Polignac, still in her ball gown She glances at me, then away, without acknowledging my presence. I endeavor to keep my face smooth and calm.

. "Helene," the Queen says warmly. "I am glad you have come." She spreads her hand toward a plate of meat and cheese resting on a table, alongside a cup of wine. "Please, eat."

An earthy, cold smell begins to overpower the smell of jasmine. My appetite vanishes as I catch my breath, looking about the room. There, in the corner, huddle two more children, wasted from the illness that claimed their lives. Their skin is white in the shadows, wearing the same hungry expressions as the children outside.

I can tell the Queen senses the ghosts. She shivers, peering into the corners.

"Please, eat," the Queen repeats, and so I sit down and take a nibble of the bread, trying to ignore the feeling of the ghosts' eyes on me as I chew.

A loud crash through the window shatters the room's hush. The Queen startles, her hand to her chest. I drop the bread onto the plate.

"Down with _l 'Autrichienne!_" a voice bellows. The Duchesse flies to the window. At her appearance, several voices rise tauntingly. She slams the window shut, only muffling the cacophony from outside.

"I must apologize, Helene. My nerves are quite fragile. You may have heard. A servant girl was poisoned last night, after she wore a pair of gloves she stole from me. I only heard as I was leaving the ball."

"I did hear, Your Majesty," I tell her, my voice thick.

"I suppose one could say she got the fate she deserved, thieving from me."

"One could," I murmur.

"One could also say that Your Majesty shouldn't trust everyone around her," the Duchesse says, narrowing her eyes at me. "You wouldn't know anything of this incident, would you, Helene?"

"Jules, please. Of course Helene would never betray me in such a way."

"Of course not, Your Majesty," I reply, relief flooding through me.

"Perhaps a game of cards, in the rooms of the Comte d'Orleans," the Duchesse suggests. The Queen shakes her head vehemently.

"I must be near my son," she insists. Her eyes fill with tears. "At least the doctors will finally admit that his sickness is worse than just a bad case of teething," she says, her voice choked. "Teething? He is eight years old!"

The ghosts in the corner stir.

"Perhaps they do not want to give you bad news," the Duchesse suggests.

"How are we to help him unless they tell us the truth?" the Queen bursts out. "He weighs only sixteen pounds, fully clothed! My God, when I think of how I let that imbecile imprison my son in an iron corset..."

For a moment only the crowd's jeers break the bleak silence. The eyes of one of the children rest on me, hollow and longing.

The Duchesse shivers. "It is cold tonight," she complains. "You wouldn't know it's summer."

One of the children gets to his feet.

The Queen again looks to the corner, perhaps sensing the movement. I catch my breath; does she see them? But her eyes slide away, and I think she sees only shadows.

"Jules, you must be tired. Why don't you retire."

"Oh, 'Toinette, you know I never get tired."

"Jules. Please leave us."

The Duchesse gives an uncertain laugh. "'Toinette?"

"I have matters to discuss with my hairdresser."

The Duchesse laughs again, an edge to the sound. "Your hairdresser? I do not think Leonard would be pleased to hear you call her that."

"Jules."

The Duchesse casts a withering glare at me. I answer with a smile. As she glides from the room. I am sure she has begun to plot her revenge.

"You've hardly touched your food," says the Queen. "Please, eat."

So I take another bite of bread and cheese. My mouth is so dry the food tastes like sawdust. I must wash it down with wine.

A form appears near the window, gazing out, a sad expression on her face: Mathilde. She turns away and busies herself dusting the Queen's vanity.

"I need my hair to be styled," the Queen says. "As you can see, I am in need of a change in fortune."

"I do not think I can change anyone's fortune by styling hair, Your Majesty," I tell her.

"Then you must brighten it, at least." Her tone is light, but her eyes hold mine intently.

I rifle though my mind trying to think of a charm strong enough to ward off ghosts, the disdain of mobs, and the impending death of one's son, but I can think of nothing. Buttercups might bring cheer, and amethysts could protect her from betrayal.

Then I remember the blossom in my hair. It might hold off nightmares, at least.

I begin brushing through her red hair, noting how thin it is. A lock of her hair breaks. I catch my breath, in the tower with Celena again.

"Oh!" The Queen's eyes are wide.

"I'm so sorry, Your Majesty, I was careless..."

She shakes her head. "It's been happening so often. Even when Leonard styles it. I used to have such thick, strong hair, when I was a girl in Austria..."

Her shoulders shake as she begins to sob.

"Your Majesty..." I look around for a handkerchief.

"The King has ordered me to be ready to pack my things, to be prepared to flee Versailles. But my son is too ill to be moved. I won't leave him. I have asked the King to leave with our daughter, but he refuses. So we wait."

Her eyes meet mine in the mirror. "I understand you have many ladies requesting that you style their hair. So you must have quite a bit of money amassed by now."

"I have some, Your Majesty."

"And what do you plan to do with it?"

I can't tell her I plan to leave the moment I have enough money, not now.

"You're going to leave here, aren't you?"

I force a smile. "I don't have nearly enough," I tell her truthfully.

She turns to me and grips my hands, her fingers like ice. "You can see spirits, can't you?" she whispers urgently.

I hesitate, unsure I should admit to it.

"Your mother always could. She could speak with my dear sister, Cristina. She tried to show me how to see them. I nearly learned. But they were only ever shadows to me. And I could never hear them."

She tightens her grip on my hands.

"I need to know. Are there spirits waiting for my son?"

Slowly I nod. "There are children, Your Majesty. They are his age." Tears slip from her eyes and roll down her cheeks, cutting trails through the powder on her cheeks.

"Yes," I tell her.

She smiles weakly but a moment later her mouth twists. "I wish that the assassin succeeded. So I could go with my son."

I go cold. "But Madame, your daughter..."

"Yes, yes, of course," she says, her words tumbling from her in a breathless rush. "I could never leave her..."

Abruptly she turns and hurries to a little box, opens it, and removes a pile of letters, tied with a blue ribbon.

"They're packing my treasures," she murmurs, "but I would never trust them with my greatest." She presses the packet into my hands. "Keep them for me," she says. "Don't let anyone find them. "

I know that they are from the Comte.

I should burn them. They will inevitably be found, and it might be enough to convict the Queen, execute her...

"Promise me you will return them to me someday," the Queen whispers. "Promise." There is a wild light in her eyes.

What can I do but agree? I tuck them into the bodice of my dress. My dress bulges oddly there, but the light is dim enough that they may go unnoticed.

"Shall I finish your hair, Your Majesty?"

"My hair?" she says distractedly.

"It will help you feel more tranquil."

"Very well."

I begin to brush, my fingers featherlight so that I won't break any more of her hair, and as I hoped her tremors still under the rhythmic strokes. I carefully conceal the patches where her scalp shows through. Then I take sprigs of jasmine from the little jar at her table and begin to weave them into her hair, recalling Caroline's instructions. If I pin them in just the right pattern, they will soothe her shaking, quiet her thoughts.

The Queen gives a great sigh and closes her eyes. Her breathing deepens. I wonder if she's gone to sleep.

Then her eyes drift open. "Do you know," she says sadly to her reflection, "as a girl I would ride horses until my hair came all undone. It would drive my maids mad." She smiles slightly at the memory, tears shining in her eyes. "My sisters and I would perform plays for our parents, and we all laughed until our stomachs ached. I danced all night," she says, her chin lifting, "and everyone spoke of how graceful I was, rather than how sinful, how wasteful.

"Sometimes," she says quietly, "I wish I could be the princess in the story, the one locked away in the tower, and the only way in or out is to climb her long hair."

I want to tell her that she should never wish for that life, no matter how despairing she feels now.

Her gaze sharpens as she looks at the coiffure I've half finished, half of it swept high and wound with jasmine, the other half still hanging loose. She seizes one of the locks and tugs violently at it.

"Cut it," she says suddenly. "Helene, cut my hair." She snatches up a pair of shining scissors from the table and thrusts them at me. "Cut it," she repeats.

Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes gleam wildly. She looks unwell. Or mad.

"Your Majesty, how will this help?"

She presses her lips together. "You're right," she says at last. "It can't." She gives a brittle little laugh. "Of course it can't." She drops the scissors back to the vanity with a clatter.

"Shall we play cards, Your Majesty?" I ask desperately.

Her eyes light. "Yes. A game of cards. "Good. Please get the cards."

It is so dark I can hardly see. I find the matches on the mantle and strike one, holding it to a white tapers set in the candelabra. It flares to life, the flame blue. My chest tightens. It's only Mathilde, I remind myself.

"The cards, Helene."

I must search for them. They are not in their usual place. Perhaps Mathilde was practicing with them. I find them on the windowsill and carry them to the Queen.

"Ah. Thank you. I will shuffle while you light more candles."

The cards whisper together as she shuffles. I turn back to the mantle and light the rest of the candles, then join the Queen.

A set of cards is laid out on the table. The Queen slides the remainder of the deck into a silk bag. So it is to be faro, then.

"What shall we wager?" the Queen asks.

"Whatever you wish, Your Majesty."

She taps her chin. "If I win, you shall cut my hair. No, I can get Marie Louise to do that for me."

From somewhere off in the distance I hear the howl of a wolf.

How can that be? It is the end of summer, and there are no wolves in Versailles, only in the forest.

"Do you hear that?" the Queen whispers raggedly. "They're coming for me. For me and my children."

I open my mouth to deny this, but another howl joins the first. Instead, I speak loudly, trying to drown out the wolves. "Our wager, Your Majesty? What shall you give me if I win?"

The Queen's face is pale in the dim light, her eyes rimmed in red. "If I win, you must stay here with me, in Versailles."

My stomach drops.

"And if you win, you may leave. Tonight. And I will give you the money you need."

The howling dies down.

"Helene? What is your answer?"

"All right, Your Majesty," I hear myself reply. "If you wish."

Taking up the cards she shuffles them, dealing us each a hand. We pick up our cards and study them.

I hold three diamonds.

"I am sorry, Helene. Sorry that I was not the friend to your mother that she was to me," the Queen murmurs. "But I want to help her daughter."

She draws a card, discards another.

"I want you to have the happiness that was denied your mother. I've seen Aleron look at you the same way Axel looks at me, and you him."

"I doubt that, Your Majesty." The cards swim before me. Where is Mathilde?

"I see it," the Queen says firmly." Don't run from him. Let him love you. As Axel and I love one another."

The Queen lays down her hand. Her cards have easily beaten what I hold.

"How unfortunate for you, the Queen sighs. "Shall we try again?"

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Why don't you shuffle."

I take the cards and shuffle, willing them to be luckier. I deal us each a hand. This time I hold two hearts and two clubs. All the numbers are low.

Finally, Mathilde stands over the Queen's shoulder, looking down at the game, but she does not meet my eye nor offer me any hints.

Which to keep and which to discard? Why won't she help me now, of all times?

"When I first came to court," the Queen says, smiling fondly, "I could trust no one. Everyone watched me, waiting for me to make a misstep. Your mother was my friend from the beginning. I trusted her more than anyone else, even Jules. Her heart was so pure. She fell in and out of love in the space of a heartbeat."

She draws a card, discards one. My heart pounding in my ears, I stare at my hand. The numbers waver before my eyes. I can't decide what to discard.

"I was so envious of her. She had you, and I wanted children so badly. I thought of you as my own, you know. We had such fun, the three of us!"

She lays down her hand, smiling when she sees mine. "Awful luck today. Care to try again?"

I nod, my hands clenched in my lap, as she shuffles and deals.

"Anyone could read her thoughts in her face," the Queen continues. "She could never dissemble the way others could in the court. So it was obvious to all that she was in love with Axel."

I drop my cards on the floor. The Queen continues to speak as I gather them.

"To be fair, he loved her first," she says. "You should have seen the two of them at Petit Trianon! Whispering together beneath the trees, as if the rest of us didn't exist. Anyone would think they were the King and Queen.

"I was envious, Helene. I am the Queen, with everything I could want at my fingertips. And yet I was trapped, with a man I could not love. I could not even bear a child! And every day, the eyes of the court, on my belly, then on my face, pitying me, mocking me!"

She draws another card. "At first, I merely flirted with him. As I do all of my courtiers. But then I discovered that he truly amused me, and then that I truly loved him. And so when he kissed me, beside the stream at Petit Trianon.

"She begged me to rebuff him. She wept. But I couldn't take the chance that he would choose her over me. I broke her heart."

And condemned Caroline to the tower, my sister and me trapped with her. Until Celena reminded her too much of what she'd lost.

She looks at her cards, lays them down. "I believe I've won again."

I stare at them, diamonds all in a row, red as blood.

"You must stay with me now, Helene. That was our bargain."

I stand, to hide my expression and give myself time to think. "I will light some candles."

As I approach the mantle, I catch a glimpse of red hair, a mischievous smile, in the shadows. I decide to ignore her as I light one of the candles. It flares to life, burning blue.

"Why is it burning that odd color?" the Queen asks, her voice quavering.

"It means nothing, Your Majesty." I lift it to light a second. This one burns with a cheerful amber glow. But then, as I watch, first one, then the other, sputters, then goes out.

"Stop it," I breathe at Celena.

"I'm not doing anything."

"Helene?" says the Queen.

"I'm trying, Your Majesty." My hands shake as I relight the candles. They flare to life, both burning blue.

One of the candles extinguishes. The Queen moans as two more candles die, as if blown by an invisible breath.

"If the fourth goes out," she says, "I would regard it as a very bad omen."

Our eyes turn to the fourth candle. It flickers for a moment, then extinguishes.

In the next heartbeat I catch a movement near the window, see the silhouette of a woman, her hair shorn.

There is a knock at the door, and she vanishes.

In the instant before the door opens the Queen holds my gaze. "Remember our wager, Helene," she says. "Remember your promise."

Adela steps into the room. I can't see her face, but I hear the grief, heavy and thick, in her voice.

"Your Majesty," she says, and the Queen begins to sob.

"My son--" She flees through the door.

I snatch up the matches and relight each candle, though my hand shakes. A small part of me thinks that if only I can keep the flames burning, that the Dauphin can return to life. Perhaps even Juliette. For a mad moment I hope that even Celena can regain what she's lost.

"You know better than that," Celena says.

Each flame burns bright blue, and I can see Celena's light hair, her blue gown, in the odd light. But the woman with the shorn hair is gone.

There is no where to go but back to my chamber. After all, I've given my word to the Queen that I will not flee. But this afternoon I will go to see the gardener.

As I walk I imagine the Queen sobbing over her son's lifeless body. My eyes burn and my throat tightens, my footsteps heavy.

I nearly collide with a woman at the entrance to the Hall of Mirrors. Madame Levron, the woman I met my first day here, the one who scoffed at my clothes. Her haughty smile is gone, her face quite pale. She gives no sign of seeing me. Behind her scurries a page, weighed by an enormous trunk which he carries over his shoulder.

Another figure appears at the opposite end of the hall. She floats toward me, the tips of her toes sliding along the floor. As she grows closer I see she is a child, wearing a ragged dress too short for her, her arms wasted. She holds a bright flower. She smiles and offers it to me.

Gooseflesh rises along my arms. I have had enough of ghosts for today.

"The Dauphin wants his mother to be happy." Her voice is like a whisper of breeze. "He doesn't hurt anymore."

She offers the flower again, and numbly I take it. But both she and the flower disappear, only its wistful fragrance lingering in the air.

**Chapter 20**

I've returned to my room and tucked the letters with which the Queen entrusted me into their hiding place against the wall. Now I pace the room, waiting for daylight.

Something sharp strikes the roof just above my head, as if someone has tossed a handful of stones against it.

"Perhaps you should cut your hair. It might help you top thinking of Caroline, and the tower."

"What are you talking about?"

"You've left the forest, but you're still trapped in your tower, like she was."

The crashing against the roof grows louder. I cross to the window and look out.

In the darkness I can just see great chunks of jagged ice slamming against the palace. From outside I hear the terrified neigh of horses, the shouts of the few people who are outside at this hour.

It is summer. The crops will be destroyed. Again.

"The people will surely turn against the Queen now," Celena says from the corner.

I round on her, a mere ripple of shadows.

"How can this be her fault?" I demand.

"It won't matter to them. They have decided that she is evil, and nothing will change that."

"She's just lost her son."

"And they've lost their children, as well," Celena replies, her voice hard. I realize despairingly that she is right. "You should leave now."

"In the dark? In the storm?"

I look to the place I've hidden the Queen's letters.

"Do you really think that no one will think to look there?" Celena asks.

I glare in the direction of her voice. "The Dauphin has gone on to find peace. Why can't you?"

"Shouldn't you ask yourself the same question?"

From within the palace I hear what might be a wail. I go still, listening, but it is difficult to hear over the pounding of the ice against the window. But then I hear a roar, as if many people shouted, and the rumble of feet.

A mob, I think numbly. "Can't they let her be?"

"It's a good thing Aleron warned you to keep to your chamber," says Celena. "It's almost as though he knew this would happen."

I freeze halfway to the door. "How could he know?"

"Perhaps he was warned. Or, perhaps he knew because he himself helped to plan it."

I think of him at the marketplace, his arms wrapped around Juliette as around them the mob roared for the deaths of the Queen and her children.

I can't catch my breath. I feel as though I might be sick. I've been tricked, I realize, like any stupid schoolgirl. One kiss was all it had taken to convince me. One kiss, given during a play, when everyone on the stage pretended to be someone else.

He's tricked the Queen, as well. Who else that she trusts has betrayed her? Someone tried to murder her, someone she trusts. And now her son is dead.

I should keep my promise, and go to her.

In a moment I have opened the door and stepped into the hall.

I nearly collide with a servant. He gives a shout of terror, his eyes popping from his head. His livery flaps around him as he scrambles past.

I look down the corridor in the direction he's come, from which sound of shouting has now increased. A shrill scream pierces the noise, and I hear laughter, humorless and aggressive. A metallic smell hangs on the air.

Taking a deep breath, I slip down the corridor in the same direction as the fleeing servant. I think I can wind my way to the Queen's chamber through hidden corridors, perhaps unseen by the mob.

"Find the Austrian bitch!" comes a shout from somewhere nearby. I press myself against the wall, my heart hammering in my chest, fearing that the shouter will round the corner and find me here.

"Send her to be with her son!" screams someone else, and the walls shake with a roar of approval.

I squeeze my eyes closed and consider slipping out of the palace, and to safety.

But I think of the Queen, her hair thinning from grief, alone in her chamber, no doubt, abandoned by her friends.

I know I cannot huddle in my chamber and wait, alone with Celena's venomous comments. It would be as torturous as hiding in the tower. Taking my chances with the mob would be preferable.

And so, drawing another breath of the heavy air, I slide along the wall as quickly as I dare, seeking a path to the Queen's chamber.

I stumble into the Hall of Mirrors, all alight, though some of the mirrors are cracked. I catch movement behind a set of heavy curtains, just across from me. A pale, frightened face peers out at me.

I steel myself to see yet another ghost. But then I recognize Pauline. Catching my eye, she raises a trembling finger to her lips, imploring me to be silent. As if I needed the warning.

There is a loud crash and the sound of something breaking. A roar, angry or triumphant, echoes from the walls. The sound moves away from us. Toward the Queen's quarters.

Pauline scurries from her hiding place and grips my arms. "Steffan! Have you seen him?" Her face is streaked with tears.

She shakes me. "Have you seen him?"

"No!"

She releases me and stares down the hall. I follow her gaze to see a body lying on the ground. Pauline races to it and drops to her knees beside him.

An unfamiliar scent has filled the halls, of unwashed bodies, of earth, that strange smell I decide must be rage.

She gives a cry that echoes from the walls. "Steffan!"

I follow to see Steffan, blood pooling behind his head, his eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling.

"Pauline," I begin, but I don't know what to say to her, my throat constricting.

A figure steps from the shadows and kneels beside him. She strokes his cheek. Mathilde.

Steffan blinks and sits up, staring at Mathilde. She smiles gently, offering him her hand. He takes it and allows her to help him to his feet.

I release a breath, until I see Steffan is still lying on the ground in a pool of blood, Pauline sobbing over him. Another Steffan, his body transparent, stands beside Mathile, the two clasping hands.

"I've seen you, before," he says. "I thought I dreamt you."

He turns and looks at Pauline, sobbing over his body.

"No. don't look," Mathilde warns. "You'll never leave then."

He shakes his head slowly. "See what happens to those who are loyal to the Queen."

She tugs at his hand, and he slowly follows her. The two disappear into the wall.

"Pauline nods. He puts her arm around his shoulders and she supports him as he rises unsteadily. The two struggle away, back through the Hall of Mirrors.

Steeling myself, I slip down the hallway, eerily deserted, the whisper of my footsteps against the floor like the howl of wind, the beating of my heart like thunder in my ears.

"What are you doing here," comes a voice at my ear. A scream escapes me; I whirl to see Aleron standing behind me, as if he'd slipped there silently.

"I told you to stay in your chamber," he says.

My vision darkens. "You knew about this. You betrayed her. And all of us."

He hushes me hurriedly. I move away, but he steps toward me. "Don't come near me," I warn him.

He halts.

"How did you know there would be a mob?"

He shakes his head. "I didn't. How could I?"

I refuse to be fooled, again. "Then why did you tell me to stay in my chamber?"

"Because nearly everyone but the Queen thinks you murdered Juliette." He takes a step toward me. "I didn't know there would be a mob. I suspected that people would read the death of her son as yet another sign of her evil, and a signal from the divine to attack."

He stretches a hand toward me. I move away.

"At least believe me when I say this, Helene. It is not safe for you here. You must leave, immediately."

"I must go to her." I move down the corridor.

He catches my arm. "What good will that do?"

"She has no one."

"The Queen is beyond saving."

I stare at him speechlessly. From far away I hear another shout, hear the word "Whore" and "Cursed." I pull away and keep walking.

He catches up to me, matching my stride. "These people are desperate, starving. You don't understand what they are capable of."

"But you do, don't you?" I retort.

"Yes," he says steadily. "I do. Why she gave them to you--" his voice trails off as he shakes his head.

We have reached the hall of the Queen's quarters. The pungent aroma is even stronger here. I slow and peer around the corner. The mob is pressed outside of it. And before the door, alone, stands the tall, brave form of the Comte Von Fersen.

"The Queen will hear your concerns," he tells them, his voice steady, commanding. The people have fallen silent as he speaks. "She has lost her son. Can you not allow her a period of grieving?"

"So have we lost sons!" cries a thin woman, shrilly. Her eyes shine with grief. "Yet we must rise and toil again with no chance for rest!"

A few others take up her cry.

"I understand!" the Comte calls, holding up his hands, but others drown him out.

"Ice is falling from the sky even now!" shouts a tall man, whose face is marked with pox scars. "God will punish us until we rid France of this evil woman!"

"There is soup, and bread, and meat, for all of you!" shouts the Comte. "If you will go to the kitchens, it is being prepared, even now! Wait out the storm here, fill your bellies, and the King and Queen will hear your concerns when we are all more calm!"

"We can't be so easily placated!" replies the pox faced man.

"You can't tell me," the Comte says, lowering his voice and meeting the eye of the woman at the side of the red faced man, "that your children care more for your Revolution than a bowl of hot soup and some meat."

"Don't try to distract us, as though we were idiots!" the man bellows. Beside him the woman touches his arm. She murmurs something to him. I wonder if she is his wife, and how many children they have at home. He jerks his arm from her and scowls at the Comte, refusing to look at her.

After a moment's hesitation she sets her jaw and moves away from him, toward the rich smells now floating from down the corridors.

Others in the back of the crowd, mostly women, follow, and then some of the men, muttering to one another. A handful of people, including the red faced man, remain posted at the Queen's door. The Comte's expression does not change, though his rigid posture relaxes slightly.

Weak with relief, I turn away, expecting to see Aleron waiting to pester me. But he has vanished.

Where would he have gone? I peer into the crowd, searching for his red coat, but I do not see it. Why would he just vanish, when moments before he seemed so anxious that I leave.

The realization hits me like a blow to the stomach. I begin to run back the way I've come, to my chamber, opening the door and tumbling inside.

I rush to the mattress where I've hidden the letters. But I know before I've lifted it that I will find nothing in the hiding place.

Juliette's laugher rings through the room. "I tried to warn you," says Juliette, "but you never listen, do you?"

**Chapter 21**

I sink to my knees beside the bed.

Aleron. It could only have been Aleron. I confessed to him I had the Queen's letters, and he distracted me by nearly convincing me of his loyalty, easily. He'd done it with just a few sweet words.

And now, the Queen's secrets, with which she'd entrusted me, the words of love from the Comte, are lost to her. Anyone can repeat them, mock them, make them into an ugly joke. They will become a weapon against her. Despite what she did to Caroline, to my family, I can't do the same to her. Especially now.

She will think I betrayed her. Unless I go to her and tell her the letters were stolen from me. She will be furious. She will send me from her service. But she will know I didn't betray her, not purposely.

As I rise my eyes fall on some buttercups I'd cut from the garden, that I was going to tuck into Therese's hair. They are a bit wilted, but still a bright cheerful yellow.

With shaking fingers I comb my hair, tangled and coarse, into a passable plait, then take up the buttercups and tuck them into my hair. Perhaps if I weave them just the right way, just the way Caroline showed me, they will cast a charm that convinces the Queen of my loyalty to her.

"Why are you bothering?" comes Celena's voice from my shoulder as I work. "You think that if you repeat Caroline's mistakes, things will turn out better for you than for her?" Juliette is a shifting of shadows beside her.

I pin a blossom in my hair and pretend not to hear Celena.

"If you would only give up the old habits," she tries again, "everything will go much easier for you."

I take up another buttercup.

"But you don't want things to be easier, do you?" she asks slyly. "You're like her. You cling to the old ways, even as your doom is spelled out before you."

I examine my reflection in the mirror. My face is pale, pinched, my eyes ringed with dark circles. But my hair shines like autumn leaves, the flowers woven among it giving me a friendly appearance, trustworthy. Someone loyal, who would never betray a friend.

I take a breath and stand, resolved to see the Queen.

"If only you'd listen," Celena says mournfully from behind me. "I could help you, if only you'd listen."

I close the door on her voice.

This time my journey through the halls and corridors of Versailles is much quieter. I encounter a ghost sitting against the wall, his knees pulled up to his chin, staring morosely into space; another, in the Hall of Mirrors, twirls endlessly in a dance to music only she can hear. But neither of them tries to speak to me.

The Comte Von Fersen alone stands guard outside the Queen's door; the mob has dispersed, lured away by the rich scent of the soup .

I wonder if the Queen has already told him of my betrayal. My heart beats an uneven rhythm in my chest as I approach. I imagine his eyes narrowing, sending me away, hissing accusations at me. Or worse, dragging me away to the dungeons, for betraying the Queen.

But his blue eyes, Celena's eyes, brighten slightly as I draw near.

"Ah, the little messenger," he murmurs, low enough that only I can hear. "Have you come to comfort 'Toinette?"

I begin to reply, but my tongue is so thick in my mouth that no sound emerges. I swallow and try again. "Yes, Your Grace," I manage.

"A moment," he requests with a warm smile. He raps at the door, then opens it and steps inside, closing the door behind him.

I wait in the hall, the silence pressing against my ears. The ghost I'd seen twirling in the Hall of Mirrors floats past, humming to herself.

The door opens again at last and the Comte reappears. His smile is gone; his eyes are hard and cold. "The Queen will see you," he says, and the warmth is gone from his voice.

He opens the door again and stands away so that I might enter, and follows me inside, closing the door behind him.

The Queen sits in her chair, in the center of her chamber. Her face is pale, her eyes lined in red, and shadows pool beneath her eyes. Her hair, reddish and unpowdered, is merely tied back with a ribbon, and patches of her scalp show though in the candlelight. She does not smile.

Beside her stands Aleron, his hands behind his back.

"I trusted you," the Queen bursts out in a tearful whisper. "I trusted you more than anyone else. I thought--" she presses her lips together, her shoulders shaking.

It will take more than buttercups to convince her of my loyalty.

I glare at Aleron. "Your Majesty, Aleron--"

"Aleron is my _trusted_ bodyguard. As soon as you told him of the letters he came straight to me. Aleron is very good at sniffing out betrayal in my court. At discovering my enemies. Now, tell me where they are."

"I don't know!" I cry. "Aleron stole them from me!"

"That is a lie, Your Majesty," Aleron says smoothly. "I do not have the letters, nor do I know where they are."

"It is he who lies."

The Queen's voice is like the winter wind. "A true friend would never betray a secret the first time a handsome man flirts with them."

"No, that's not--"

"Toinette, you are overwrought," the Comte says, moving to her side.

"Oh Axel," she sobs, "Axel."

"Be careful, Your Majesty," Aleron murmurs, nodding toward me. The three of them turn to regard me.

"Your Majesty, of course you can trust me, it's Aleron who's lying!"

"Aleron, take this traitor from my sight, and lock her away, where she can never betray anyone ever again." The Queen's words go through me like a knife made of ice. It takes me a moment to find my voice. "He is lying, Your-"

"Immediately!" The Queen's voice is close to a shriek. Aleron takes a step toward me.

"Don't touch me," I choke, stumbling away from him.

He nods, and I hear footsteps behind me. I turn to see two guards at my side, reaching for my arms.

"No!" I try to pull away, but their grips are like iron. "Your Majesty, I would never betray you!"

Pressing a handkerchief to her eyes, the Queen rises and turns her back on me, leaning on the Comte.

Aleron's expression is as smooth as ever. I want to gouge his face so he'll never be able to fool anyone with his charming smile again. His eyes flicker to mine, then away. "Take her out of here."

The guards pull at me, and I try to sit down, to dig my heels into the ground, but the guards lift me so my toes slide uselessly against the smooth floor. I look over my shoulder to see the Queen sobbing into the Comte's shoulder. Aleron has turned his back on me and stares out the window in silence. In the Queen's chair sits Juliette, who gives me a little wave as the guards drag me away. Her laughter follows me from the room.

**Chapter 22**

The guards pull me down the hall, though I struggle against them, my arms burning, I cannot allow myself to be locked away in a prison, where the spirits will surely find me, where I will be unable to escape them.

A tirewoman rounds the corner and hurries toward us. I think of calling out to her. But I realize in despair that she wouldn't risk helping me. She scurries past, staring at the ground. She carries a valise.

Yet another of the Queen's servants abandoning her.

The little ghost girl with the flower steps from behind some curtains. She holds the blossom up to me as we pass.

Dimly I realize we have reached the stairs to the entrance, where Juliette and I once played. Desperately I wrench one arm free and feel my elbow connect with the stouter guard, who gives an oath. He catches my arm again and holds it so tightly it goes numb. "Not sure what Aleron sees in you," he hisses.

They drag me through the corridors, up the stairs. "Where are we going?" I demand. I manage to get an arm free and clout the stout guard.

He wrenches my arm so hard I hear a pop. Stars pop before my eyes.

"Careful," I hear the other guard say.

"If she hits me again, I will return the favor. I don't care what Aleron says."

We stop before my chamber. "What are we doing here?"

"Aleron has ordered you to be confined to your quarters, and he will come and deal with you."

I stare from one to the other. A bruise is already forming on the cheek of the stout guard.

"When will he return?"

"When he is able."

"Hold her." The stout guard takes a key from a ring at his belt and opens the door. The other shoves me inside. I fall to my knees as the door slams shut behind me.

I leap to my feet and race to the door, turning the knob, but it locked. Pounding on it, I shout for them to come back, to release me, but I hear nothing.

Turning, I begin to pace, my thoughts roiling through my mind. Aleron arranged all of this, gave the Queen the letters, told her I betrayed her.

Then had me locked in my own chamber.

I sit on my bed, then get to my feet.

Somewhere in the palace, glass shatters. Someone screams.

"Find her! Slit her throat! Roast her children!"

The rumble of footsteps through the halls. More screams.

The mob has returned.

I leap to my feet. I must escape. Now.

Slipping to the door, I ease it open and peer into the corridor. It is deserted. I should bring my things. My dresses, the Queen's mules, Caroline's pins.

My heart pounding in my throat, I rush back from my valise, already packed from the first time I tried to leave. Then I return to the door and ease myself into the hall.

The corridors are deserted, the only sound my footsteps whispering against the floor. Just ahead of me I see a woman scurry, a cloak concealing her face. Behind her follows a man hefting a trunk. More of the Queen's courtiers, fleeing to safety, saving their own necks.

Suddenly, from around a corner, someone crashes into me, nearly knocking me to the ground. It is the Princesse de Lamballe..

"They're coming!" she shrieks, gripping my hands with her cold, fragile fingers, scrabbling at my arms. "They will kill us!"

From behind her comes the roar of a mob, their footsteps pounding against the floor, the sound of things shattering.

I pull the Princesse into a chamber, slam the door, then seize a heavy chair and drag it before the door, propping the chair beneath the knob.

"Everyone's left," she whimpers. "All but me." The mob thunders past, just beyond the wood.

"I must confess. I only wanted her to remember who her true friends are. I never meant to hurt her."

I turn to face her. "Hurt who?"

She does not answer, her hands twisting in her lap.

"Princesse, where is the Queen?"

The Princesse shakes her head.

"Princesse! Please listen!"

Her pale blue eyes focus on mine for an instant, then slide away insensibly.

"Princesse!"

"Perhaps you should slap her," says Celena from my shoulder.

I take the Princesse by the shoulders, an unforgivable offense in ordinary times, but this night is anything but ordinary. ****

"Princesse! Is the Queen safe?"

"If I made her sick," she bleats, "if I made her sick, she would see that I am her only true friend. All the others would have stayed away, thinking it the plague. All but me. I would have stayed by her side, until she was well. And then she would know I am her only true friend. Not that Polignac."

An icy finger traces its tip down my spine. "If you made who sick?" I ask, and to my own ears my voice sounds far away. "Who did you make sick, Princesse?"

"'Toinette. I poisoned her gloves." Her lip quavers like a child's.

My heart pounds in my throat. "But you didn't make her sick, Princesse."

She frowns. "But I wanted to."

"You didn't make her sick." My voice rises dangerously; someone outside could hear us, but I can't help myself. "But you killed a girl."

"A girl?" The Princesse frowns. "What girl?"

I resist shaking her. "Juliette! A governess to the royal children!"

"Oh." Her face clears. "A servant." She lets out a great sigh. "Only a servant." Her mouth curves in a small smile of relief. She looks at my hands with a frown. "You're hurting me."

I drop my hands from her shoulders and leap to my feet, pacing one way, then the other, a roaring in my ears.

If Juliette hadn't stolen the Queen's gloves it could have been she who died, murdered by this daft woman with the mind of a child.

"Helene." I press my hands to my ears, unwilling to hear more of Celena's madness.

"Helene." Reluctantly I look up to see Celena standing beside the Princesse, no longer a shadow, her scars raw and angry in the candlelight. "I know what awaits her. Don't worry; there will be justice for Juliette."

"What do you mean?"

"I didn't say anything," says the Princesse.

"Only that you don't need to seek revenge for Juliette's death," Celena says. "The Princesse will meet her own terrible end, not too long from now."

"I'm the only friend 'Toinette can trust. I'm glad she sees that now. I am the only one she trusted to fetch her letters." Her eyes fill with tears. "But I'm too afraid to get them."

I turn to face the Princesse,. "What letters?"

She holds her hand over her mouth, like a child. "I shouldn't say."

I grit my teeth. "Princesse, if you tell me about them, I will get them for you."

The Princesse lowers her hand from her mouth. "And you'll say it was I who retrieved them?"

"Yes."

She sighs, touching her fingertips to her chest. "They are from her Comte. No one must know of them. One of her servants nearly stole them, but her gallant guard recovered them."

"Gallant," snorts Celena.

"She hid them, thinking to come back for them. But then she had to flee, and there was no time."

"Where are they now?" I ask.

She bites her lip. "I don't think I should tell you."

Celena laughs. I grind my fists into my forehead and take a deep breath. "Do you want to get them yourself?"

She casts a fearful look toward the door and shakes her head.

"Then you must tell me where they are so I can fetch them. Otherwise you'll have to do it yourself."

She lowers her head and murmurs something too low to hear.

"What?" I press.

"The Meridienne."

My stomach turns over. The secret room that can only be reached through her bedchamber. Which is where the mob must be headed now.

But I can't leave, can't lock myself into the Tower, without at least trying once more to help the Queen. The regret would eat at me forever, Celena reminding me every second of my failure.

"I would not," Celena says indignantly.

Until I turn as mad as Caroline.

"You probably wouldn't," she says, thoughtfully.

The heckling has already begun. I rise to my feet and stare at the door, behind which I can hear shouts and crashes, screams and breaking.

I can do this last thing, for the Queen, before I return to the forest and the tower, never to emerge again. I can show her she had one loyal servant, and friend, before we both must enter our prisons.

"Helene," the Princesse calls. I turn back. "You can have my chamber, when this is all over. It seems to be haunted. Oh," she says, her eyes falling on the candle. "The flame is blue."

I turn to see the candle alight at the abandoned table burns a deep, steady blue. Perhaps it is for Celena. Or perhaps another spirit, waiting eagerly for our deaths.

**Chapter 23**

I take up the candle. Creeping to the door, I press my ear to it. I hear laughter, but further down the corridor. Whispering a small prayer, I turn the knob and slowly open the door. The corridor is empty. Holding my breath, I tiptoe into the hall, holding the candle before me.

My eyes and throat burn with the scent of wintergreen. Just ahead of me, a shadow flits across the hall. The candle flickers. I catch my breath as the small blue circle of light from my candle almost, but not quite, illuminates the figure of a woman just ahead of me. Her hair is shorn to her neck, and she wears a sky blue gown. She is the shadow I saw in the Meridienne. She turns to look at me and I see the gleam of a smile, a smile that makes my throat close with pain, a fist grip my heart. Caroline.

What is she doing here?. For whom has she returned. Me? The Queen? Or both of us?

She turns away and steps out of the light, disappearing into the shadows, though the scent of wintergreen remains, wrapping itself about me like a shroud.

I slip through the maze of halls and corridors of the palace, passing wild eyed spirits and courtiers who might as well be ghosts, for the silent way they slip past, their eyes dead. None of them acknowledge me.

And then, I reach the Queen's chamber. I go to the door and tap on it. "Your Majesty?" I whisper. There is not answer.

Behind me shouts ring from the walls. Footsteps ring against marble; the rioters are racing up the Queen's staircase.

I turn the doorknob and tumble into the room. It is empty. The Queen's clock is playing its childish refrain.

_Gather in your white sheep ..._

I rush past the bed, to the tapestry on the wall. The candle flickers as I hurry through the door and down the narrow little corridor to the Meridienne.

My face, pooled with shadows in the candle's blue flame, is reflected in the mirrored walls. I don't look too closely, fearful of who else I might see in the room with me.

I turn in a circle. Where would she have hidden the letters?

"Try beneath the cushion. It's one of her favorite hiding places."

I jump and give a little scream.

"Shhh!" hisses Celena. "Do you want to be caught?"

I lift one of the cushions, and there is the packet of letters, tied with their lavender ribbon. I snatch them up and tuck them into my bodice.

"Aren't you going to thank me?"

Ignoring my sister, I race back through the corridor and into the Queen's chamber.

Someone stands next to the wardrobe. Juliette, her eyes cold and empty, wearing the dress she'd died in.

_I hear on the leaves_

_The water falling very noisily,_

"Let's see if the whore is in here!" a rough voice bellows from just outside the door.

I rush to the armoire. Throwing open the doors, I squeeze inside, then pull them closed. Just before they shut, I meet Juliette's eye. "Please don't tell them I'm here," I whisper. She does not reply.

_Here, here is the storm ..._

"Where is the bitch?" bawls the rough voice, and I hear the door open.

I crouch trembling in the darkness, hardly daring to breathe as I hear someone step into the room.

_It 's raining, it's raining, shepherdess..._

The wardrobe door opens, just a crack, as if someone had barely touched it. The air leaves my lungs as a line of light fell across my hiding place.

The door swings open. I stare into Aleron's face.

"Found you," he whispers, his face slack with relief. He takes me by the shoulders as if to haul me from the armoire, but I resist, clutching at the silks around me. I hear a tearing sound.

"Don't touch me!" I snarl at him. He yanks me from the armoire.

"You have to leave. Now."

At that moment the door flies open. Three men tumble inside, smelling of blood. The skull of one of them is caved in; he doesn't seem to realize he's dead, though, roaring and bellowing with the rest.

"You've caught one," one of them says approvingly.

Aleron turns to face them. "It wasn't hard."

I try to wrench away again but he pins my arms behind me.

I spit, curse, pull, but his grip is inexorable.

"I'm sure you gentlemen will find many treasures for the taking," he says. "This one is mine."

"I am not your treasure." I jab my elbow into his belly. His breath gusts, but then he chuckles, his arms tightening around me. "She is a quite a handful."

The others laugh. My stomach turns as one man mutters, "That's how you like them, eh, Aleron? Like that Juliette."

"Wait," a man with a scar across his cheek says, stepping forward. "I've seen her in the Queen's company." He tilts his head thoughtfully. "In Petit Trianon."

I recognize him now, one of the Queen's coachmen.

"She must know something," he continues. "You wouldn't be keeping all her secrets for yourself, would you?" He cocks an eyebrow, hissing the word secrets.

Aleron hesitates, for just a moment. I nearly break away, but his grip tightens. "of course not. You'll find that she's hidden the letters in the bodice of her gown."

I struggle anew as the man steps toward me, his eyes hard. "Hand them over," he breathes.

I shake my head. "No."

His smile widens. "Then I will have to go after them myself."

"No," says Aleron sharply, and I feel a rush of relief, until he adds, "I will do it."

I try to tear away again, but he grips both of my wrists in his hand. "Oh come now," he croons, "this isn't anything you haven't wanted for months."

I see Juliette over his shoulder.

"See what happens to those the Queen loves _,_ " __ she says. Then, with a smile, she vanishes.

I twist away, but still he plunges his hand down my bodice and pulls the packet of letters from them. "Here." He tosses them to the scarred man.

Abruptly he releases me. I throw myself at him, tearing at him with my fingernails but he pushes me away as if I were no more than an annoying dog. "Now let us find the Queen."

But the scarred man's eyes are on me. "In a minute," he says softly.

Aleron shifts slightly, putting himself between me and the man. "Go, Emile," he says quietly. "This girl is nothing to you."

"Nothing but the Queen's confidante, who knows her secrets," Emile snarls in return. "She'll fetch me rich rewards, that I won't let you keep for yourself." He takes a step toward me.

The coolness is gone from Aleron's eyes; they blaze, his jaw tight.

Emile takes another step, and swiftly Aleron draws his sword. Emile hesitates. "Traitor," he says in a low voice, and spits at Aleron's feet. "I always knew you were a traitor. You're a traitor to your people. You were born a rich, lazy pig and that's what you'll always be." He lunges past Aleron, toward me.

Aleron raises his arm; there is a flash of silver. Emile drops to his knees, then face down on the rich carpet, dark red blood blossoming across his back. Aleron stares down at him, a look of fury creasing his face.

Emile curses loudly and struggles to his knees. Aleron raises his foot and shoves him to the ground again.

"Soon enough your head will be on a platter, along with the Austrian bitch's," Emile snarls, "and I'll dance at your execution." He curses more, but does not try to rise again.

Aleron turns to face the other men, who are watching with their mouths hanging open.

"I suppose I was wrong about him," says my sister at my shoulder. Her head is cocked as she studies him. "He's actually quite dashing."

"What is this, Aleron?" the living man growls. The ghost stares at their comrade on the floor, his eyes lit with anticipation. I think he senses that Emile will soon join him.

"She is mine," Aleron says, his voice iron.

"Perhaps not so dashing," my sister says. "Quick, crack him with the candlestick."

He turns and holds his hand out to me. "We need to go," he says. His voice is even and cool, but there is a gleam of fear in his eyes.

When he holds his hand out to me, I take it. He leads me to the door. But the other men block his path. A knife gleams in the hand of the living man.

"Tell that man, with the lazy eye," Celena says suddenly, "that if he hurts you, his nightmares will haunt him forever."

"What?" I demand. The man with the lazy eye raises his knife and steps toward us.

"Tell him!" Celena orders.

"If you hurt us," I say, my words tumbling over one another, "you will never be free of your nightmares."

He halts in his tracks, turning to pin me with his odd gaze. "What?" I hear fear in his voice.

Inspired by my desperation, I weave my own fabrication. "The visions that terrify you at night will follow you into the day. They will drive you mad."

Celena laughs. "Very good."

"Are you a witch? How could you--" His knife dangles forgotten in his hand.

"And tell him," Celena says, "that you know he pisses blood."

"You are in pain," I tell him, my voice shaking, "because of the blood that you piss. And it won't stop if you hurt us," I add, as his face reddens and his eyes bulge. "It will get worse, and more painful, until your manhood falls off."

"Too far," Celena murmurs.

He glares at me, though his face is pale. "When the rich pigs fall, they'll suffer with them."

He turns and leaves the room, the ghost at his heels.

I clutch at the back of a chair, my legs unsteady. Aleron is staring at me.

"How did you know those things?" he whispers.

"Celena," I reply weakly.

His eyes widen and he looks around as if he could see her.

"See what happens when you listen?" she says, smiling smugly.

"The only way we can leave," Aleron says, "is if we pretend you are my prisoner. I won't be very nice," he adds.

My stomach twists for a moment. What if this is yet another trick? What if he plans to turn me over to the Revolutionaries?

Behind us on the carpet Emile writhes and groans. I can only hope that Aleron would not wound one of his comrades unless his loyalty to me were real.

So I allow him to take me by the arm, as if I were his prisoner, and lead me to the door. We step outside.

Everything happens in an instant. There is a wet, thick sound, the flash of silver, and Aleron cries out and jerks away from me, clutching at a knife in his stomach. The lazy eyed man laughs as he steps toward us.

Aleron whirls with his sword, but he moves clumsily and Lazy Eye swings at him, his fist cracking against Aleron's jaw. Aleron falls to his knees, the sword falling from his hand. I lunge toward it but the man has already launched himself at me, knocking me to the ground and pinning me, his arm against my throat.

"Isn't this what you wanted?" he breathes against my ear. "Oh, this will be worth a life time of nightmares."

I can't reply, can't breathe, as he presses himself against me. Beside me Aleron lies motionless.

"Fight, you idiot!" Celena shouts in my ear.

I remember the pins in my hair. I reached up and snatch at one, yanking it from my hair, and jab the pin into his face.

He screams and clutches at his eye. Blood streams down his face and splatters onto mine. My stomach lurches.

I wriggle from beneath him and rush to Aleron. "Run," he tells me weakly.

My head is jerked backward so hard my neck snaps. Above me I see Lazy Eye's bleeding, furious face. He has caught me by my plait.

He presses a blade to my throat. I feel a wet burn and realize he is already cutting into my flesh.

"I will slit your throat," he hisses into my ear, "but not before I give you what you've wanted." He presses his foul mouth to mine; my stomach roils. I feel sick. I try to jerk away but the knife cuts into my throat, deeper, and his hold on my plait is relentless. I raise my hands and scratch at him, tear at his skin, but he only laughs.

"Only a little deeper," he pants, "and you're dead."

My sister kneels beside me, her face sad, her scars dark against her pale skin. I close my eyes; I will be with her soon. Perhaps we can haunt the tower together, forever. Away from Versailles, and safe. Dancing and styling one another's hair.

There is a movement from beside me, another almighty tug at my hair. My head jerks. The knife slides across my throat, but not hard enough to cut. Somehow Lazy Eye's grip on me has loosened. Suddenly I am free, my head light. I fall away from my attacker and his knife.

"Your hair," Celena cries.

I spring to my feet without thinking. I take up the first thing I find, and bring it crashing down on his head. He twitches.

His eyes focus on the point over my shoulder. "Maman?" he gasps. He goes still.

Aleron groans. The sword clatters from his hand. Beside him lies my braid, the violets for secrets already withering. There are no more secrets here.

"Did you forget," Celena says, "that violets also portend an early death?"

"Run," Aleron moans. His shirt is soaked with blood. But I kneel beside him, tearing at my shift to create a bandage.

"He's not a very impressive soldier," my sister says. "One wound, and he's given up."

Aleron's eyes open; they widen as they focus on her.

"He can see me," Celena says. "That's not a good sign."

"And hear you," he chokes. "This is no small wound. "

"We must hurry," I tell him. "Can you run?"

He shakes his head. "We'll only be captured."

My eyes dart around the room and fall upon the secret doorway. "Then we'll hide."

His eyes follow mine. He gives a nod.

I half drag him to the door, down the tiny corridor, into the Meridienne. I settle him on the couch, then creep back out to wipe up the telltale trail of blood. I extinguish all of the candles and slip back into the corridor, drawing the tapestry across the little doorway before I close us in.

**Chapter 24**

All that night we stay hidden in the Meridienne, where once I saw the Queen missing her head. He lies with his head in my lap. I stop his wounds the best I am able with the Queen's fine sheets torn into shreds. We listen to screams and cries, glass shattering and wood breaking. Aleron's breath comes watery and shallow, but steady. I wonder if the Queen escaped, if her children are frightened. I wonder if she hopes for Axel von Fersen to ride to her rescue, if the words of love he wrote in the letter comfort her, calm her fears.

Aleron looks at my hair, his mouth twisting ruefully. "I'm sorry."

"I'm alive, aren't I?" I reply, touching the cropped ends. My head feels light, free of the burden of my heavy hair, of the memories of the tower, of the fear of betrayal. The cool air touches my bare neck, calming me.

At last the palace falls silent. I shudder, wondering what this means.

Aleron whispers into the darkness. "I had to betray you to the Queen. I knew you wouldn't leave unless she sent you away."

"I could have been thrown into prison."

"No. My men were to escort you back to the forest. I would have come for you, when it was safe."

Would he?

"What will they do with the letters?" I muse, to fill the quiet.

"Did you read them?"

"Only one. It was only a letter, a love letter. From Axel von Fersen."

"Then I was right, the letter was dangerous," he says. "Love changes everything. Makes you risk everything. Even a kingdom."

"I wouldn't know," my sister sighs from the shadows.

But she knows as well as I do that he is right.

I think of Juliette, of her smile as she left me in the grip of the Revolutionaries. "Why did she betray me to them?" I wonder aloud.

"Because you lived, and she didn't," Celena says.

I realize that she must have felt the same way, that perhaps she still does.

At dawn my sister creeps out through the doorway. She returns minutes later, her scars crisscrossing her neck like jewels. "They're gone. The palace is empty."

"The Queen?" I whisper.

"They've taken her to Paris, with her husband and children."

"They've promised not to hurt them." But I can read in her eyes what their future holds.

My eyes sting, my throat burns. Wintergreen.

I hear the rustle of fabric as my mother drops beside me. She reaches a hand toward me.

I close my eyes as her fingertips brush my face. In an instant I am back in the tower. Music fills the round little room. Caroline dances with Celena. Sunlight pours in through the open shutters and dances across Celena's face. Her cheeks are smooth and unscarred, flushed pink with laughter. A warm breeze whispers into the room, carrying the scent of cherry blossoms.

_It 's raining, it's raining, shepherdess..._

I open my eyes and the music falls silent. I am in the Meridienne once again, Aleron's head in my lap. Caroline has disappeared.

"Is she gone?" Celena asks from nearby. "I refuse to be in the same room with her."

"For now."

"If she thinks I'll ever forgive her for this..."

"Perhaps you have to. To finally move on from here--"

"Never," Celena snaps, her scars dark across her cheek. We sit in silence.

"You aren't safe here, you know," she say finallys. "The looters will be back any moment."

"Where will we go?"

"The only place you can."

I sigh.

"Will you bring him?"

I look down at him. His face is bloodless. "I can't leave him."

"Will he slow us down?"

"No," he grunts.

"Will you help us?" I ask Celena.

She smiles, her eyes light, as though she were alive again. "Of course."

We struggle from the palace, Celena flitting ahead of us, Aleron leaning heavily on me, his face pale and damp. He keeps his free arm pressed to his middle. The halls are filled with the heavy, metallic stench of blood and anger. Beneath our feet crunch the glass and fragments of broken treasures: the painted porcelain of a vase, the sharp edges of chandeliers.

The halls are shadowed. I hold the candle ahead of us with my free arm, and it burns a steady blue. I think of Juliette, and of the Princesse de Lamballe. I wonder what fate awaits her, if Celena is right. I wonder if she's already met it.

"Not yet," Celena replies, as if I've spoken aloud.

We reach the stairs and stumble down the first. Aleron's face has gone white and I stagger under his weight. "Aleron," I gasp, trying not to lose my balance, "it's only a little farther." With a grunt he braces his hand against the wall to steady himself. I see that it is wet with blood.

At last we reach the doors, flung open to the chill, damp air.

"He'll never make it back to the Tower," Celena says.

"A horse?"

"They'll all be gone," Aleron groans.

"Go and see," I tell Celena, and she flits off into the darkness.

I guide Aleron to the palace wall. He sinks to the ground beside it with a moan and I sit beside him, heaving a sigh. "How are you?" I ask him. I press my hands to his wound. He winces and leans his head against the wall and closed his eyes.

"I'm all right," he says, his voice barely a whisper.

Through the trees we catch the gleam of torches and hear distant shouts,

The ghostly soldier I saw the day I delivered the Queen's message to the Comte marches past, his eyes fixed on the road ahead. Perhaps he knows his Queen is in distress and is off to help her.

And then I hear hoofbeats. I struggle to my feet as Aleron's eyes open.

"It's all right," Celena calls.

And there, walking toward us, is the gardener, leading the fish seller and his daughter.

The gardener rushes toward us, then stops abruptly. He raises a hand toward my face, then drops it. "Are you all right?"

My eyes sting. I feel a surge of affection for this odd man, who pulled himself from the safety of the garden to help us. Perhaps this is what it's like to have a father. "Yes. Yes. I'm sorry I didn't come when I was supposed to."

"It's all right." Clearing his throat, he waves the fish seller forward. "Guillaume, this is the girl I asked you to help."

His brow creases. "It's risky, Frederic."

"Papa," the girl says quietly. The gardener watches his friend, his hands still at his sides.

The fish seller's mouth tightens. "Then we must go now. Hurry up."

Aleron struggles to his feet. I push my shoulder beneath his arm to support him. The gardener strides forward to do the same.

The fish seller and his daughter lead us away from the palace, swift and silent, no lantern to give us away. His cart waits at the edge of the forest. Wordlessly the two men lift Aleron into the back of the cart. The girl and I climb in beside him.

The gardener stands at the end of the cart. "Come with us," I tell him.

He shakes his head. "I'll stay here. I've never cared for the forest."

My eyes sting again, my breath hitching. "Thank you," I manage.

He lifts a hand and brushes a calloused finger down my cheek. Then the cart lurches, and we lumber into the forest, the gardener's silhouette against the lit palace.

The cart bumps and jolts for hours into the forest. We shiver, our breath puffing in white clouds before us. The wolves' howls echo from the trees, another full moon lighting our way. Aleron tries to stifle his moans. The sharp scent of evergreen fills the air.

Celena sits in silence beside us.

When we reach the village the cart stops. The fish seller turns around. "I don't know where to go from here." His eyes flit from me to Aleron, and I know he will go no further.

"That's all right," I tell him. "Thank you."

My bones ache as I struggle from the wagon. The man and his daughter come to my side to assist Aleron. He slides clumsily from the bed.

"I wish we could help more," the girl says.

I try to smile. "You've already helped a lot." I wish I had one of the Queen's trinkets to offer her.

"Come," the man says to his daughter, and the two of them climb into the wagon and trundle to one of the little houses.

I turn in a circle. In the darkness I have no idea where to go. We don't even have a lantern.

I feel a chill and turn to see the spirit of Lionel. He points a pale finger into the trees. As if it were enchanted the path lights before me.

"Thank you," I murmur, and we step into the woods.

We walk for a time, swallowed into the forest. Overhead the moon rises and hangs like a lantern overhead. The wolves howl in the distance. Snow crunches beneath our feet.

When I lose the path again, Hyacinth appears to point the way. Later Emilie flits into view ahead of us, and we follow her for a time.

"Why aren't you leading us?" I ask Celena, huffing under Aleron's weight.

"You haven't asked," she says loftily.

Finally the tower appears, washed in moonlight, surrounded by evergreen trees, wrapped in the scent of wintergreen. I stand staring at it, feeling a mixture of relief and dread. It has been my prison, but for now, it is my sanctuary. As it was for Caroline.

"We're here" I tell Aleron. His breath is shallow and quick.

Celena opens the door for us. As it swings open the familiar odor of woodsmoke and wintergreen wafts from the staircase. I hesitate.

"It won't be forever," Celena says.

Aleron leans so heavily on me that my knees buckle and for a moment I fear I will not be able to get him into the tower. But then he takes a weak, staggering step, then another, and together we lurch to the door and inside of it.

"I wish I could help," Celena says.

"So do I," I grunt.

Step by step we scrabble up the stairs, his breath echoing from the walls, Celena a few steps ahead. At last we reach the trap door at the top. We sprawl onto the floor and lie catching our breath.

Though my limbs are heavy as lead I half drag, half lift him to the bed. His face has broken out in sweat, his front smeared with blood. I slide to the floor, resting against the bed. Just for a moment, I allow myself to rest, to feel my heart beating in the peace of the room.

Much later, a fire burns in the hearth. Aleron lies in my bed, wrapped in fresh bandages made of blue silk, torn from the gown I'd seen Caroline's spirit wearing. My dress is stiff with Aleron's blood, but there is more color in his face and his breath has slowed.

"What now?" Celena asks. She holds her cards, shuffling and reshuffling them.

"He must recover."

"That will take a long time," Celena says darkly.

"It might."

"And then what? You know he won't stay. He'll want to help the Queen." She hesitates. "Will you go with him?"

I study his face. His face is missing the charming, confident smile he wore in Versailles like a uniform. Lined now with pain and exhaustion, I hardly recognize him. But have I ever met the true Aleron? Will I ever? He's deceived me too many times. I can't let it happen again.

I turn to look at her, sitting just outside the light of the fire. "I don't know what I'll do. I won't stay here, though."

Celena stares into the flames.

"But I won't leave you again."

A smile flashes across her face, and for an instant her face is smooth and unmarked, her eyes full of light. Standing, she goes to the window and tosses the cards into the night.

I drop to my knees and reach deep beneath the bed to find the dust covered box. I pull it out and open the lid. The smell of wintergreen rises from the box in a cloud. The dark plait lies coiled in the bottom.

Thanks to Caroline, the spirits might follow me, perhaps forever, and there is nothing I can do, but accept them. I know I can't forgive her, not ever, not for what she did to me, and not for what she did to Celena. But I can let her go.

I lift the plait form the box and carry it to the window. I can't see them in the dark, but I know the rooftops of Versailles lie beyond the forest. And past that, Paris, where the Queen and her family have been taken. Where I hope to find her.

I unwind the plait and toss a lock of hair out the window, and the breeze carries it off. In my mind I see her dancing before the fire. As I toss another, she is weaving amethysts into my hair, warning me against betrayal. Another, and she sits at the table, table, poring over her cards.

I hold the last strand in my hand. Slowly she looks up at me, holding my gaze. It feels as though a cold fist squeezes my heart.

I look into her dark eyes. "I'm not like you. I will never be like you. No matter who betrays me, how hurt I am, I will never do what you did."

"Let it go," Celena says from behind me, and I do.

Caroline's voice sighs at my ear as she fades. "Good bye, daughter." Her voice floats away in the night air with the last lock of hair.

- THE END -

Kristin Burchell is a writer, teacher, and mom. She is the author of _The Witches of Proposal Rock_ and _Enter Elisabeth_ , both available on Amazon. She ​is always looking for a really good ghost story.
