“Where shall we walk today? Shall we go to the gardens or take a trip into town? Shall we find a new gown for you?”

I didn’t realize then what I was giving up, the way the distance would grow between me and the Grisha, how I would lose their language when I didn’t take the same classes or know the right gossip or sleep under the same roof. But I didn’t have time to contemplate such things. The Queen fed me on candied plums and cherries soaked in ginger syrup. We painted silk fans and discussed fashionable novels with her friends. She let me pick out which wriggling puppy would be hers and we spent hours choosing his name. She taught me to walk, to curtsy. It was easy to adore her.

Even now, it’s hard not to fall back into the habit of loving her. She is so poised, so regal, a creature of sublime grace. I help her into her wrap, lush violet silk that makes her eyes glow even brighter. Then I tend to the veins on her hands.

“Do my knuckles look swollen?” she asks. Her fingers are heavy with jewels—sapphire bands and the Lantsov emerald wedged between them. “My rings feel tight.”

“They look fine—” I begin.

She frowns.

“I’ll fix them.”

I’m not sure when things began to change, when I started to feel less easy in her company. I felt her slipping away from me, but didn’t know what I’d done wrong or how to stop it. I only knew I had to work harder to coax smiles from her, that my presence seemed to bring her less pleasure.

I do remember the day I was working on her face, easing the faint furrows that had started to appear across her forehead.

When I was finished, she peered into the mirror. “I still see a line.”

“It won’t look right,” I said, “if I keep going.”

She rapped me once, hard, across my knuckles with the golden handle of her hairbrush. “You’re not fooling anyone,” she spat. “I won’t let you make me look a hag.”

I’d drawn back, cradling my hand, baffled. But I pushed down my confused tears and did as she asked, still hoping that whatever I’d broken might be repaired.

There were good days after that, but there were more when she would ignore me completely, or tug my curls so hard my eyes watered. She would pinch my chin between her fingers and mutter, “Pretty thing.” It stopped sounding like praise.

Tonight, though, her mood is good. I snip a thread from her cuff, smooth the train of her gown. With her blond hair shining in the lamplight, she looks like a gilded painting of a Saint.

“You should wear the lily in your hair,” I suggest, thinking of the blue glass comb I’d once helped to make for her in the Fabrikator workshops.

She glances at me, and for the briefest moment, I think I see warmth in her gaze. But it must be a trick of the light, because in the next second, she laughs in her brittle way and says, “That old thing? It’s long out of fashion.”

I know she hopes to wound me, but the girl who flinched at her barbs is long gone.

“You’re right, of course,” I say and curtsy deeply.

The Queen waves one smooth white hand. “Surely you’re wanted elsewhere?” She says it like it’s the last thing she believes.

When I finally get back to my chamber, the lamps have been lit and a fire burns merrily in the grate. One of the serving girls has set a fragrant bundle of kitchen sage on the mantel. They understand what it is to live beneath this King’s rule. Or maybe it would be the same under any Lantsov. I’ve met the heir, Vasily. He has his father’s soft chin, his wet lower lip. I shudder.

If I could wish for anything in this world, it wouldn’t be jewels or a coach or a palace in the lake district. I’d wish to be a true Grisha again, of course—but short of that, I’d settle for a lock on my chamber door.

I ring for a dinner tray, wriggle out of my ivory silk kefta and into a dressing gown. Only then do I see the ebony box resting on the plush cushions of the window seat. It is a simple object, completely out of place amid the frothing white and gold ornament of this room. Its elegance lies in the perfection of its angles, in its seamless sides, smooth as glass and polished to a high shine. It doesn’t bear his symbol. It doesn’t have to. And I don’t need to open its gleaming lid to know what’s inside.

I wash my face, take down my hair, toe off my satin slippers so that I can feel the grooves of the cool wood floor beneath my feet. All the while, the box lurks just out of my vision like a glossy black beetle.

The dinner tray arrives—a truffled cheese tart, wine-braised quail with crispy skin, and fish poached in butter. The food is rich, as always, but it never bothers me. No matter my worries, I can always eat.

When I’ve finished, I light the lamps in my closet. My kefta hang along one wall—wool for winter, silk for summer, thick folds of satin and velvet for when I am still asked to parties. There are two shelves stacked with rarely worn breeches and blouses, and a row of simple shifts made for me because the Queen does not approve of women wearing trousers.

The rest of the closet has been converted into my own little workshop, stocked with all the things I need for my kit: bottles of dye, sheets of gold leaf and coils of copper, tins of crushed carmine, and jars of pickled berries. They smell dreadful when opened, but the colors stay pure. There are other bottles too, full of more dangerous things that I’ve buried near the back of the shelf. There’s one in particular that I like to take out when the day has been long. I made it myself and I love the liquid’s warm golden color, its sweet cinnamon smell. Dekora Nevich, I call it. The Ornamental Blade.