Page 69 of Immortal Rose

I pressed a hand to my stomach, feeling as if I might actually vomit. All women were prisoners of our society, whether they recognized it or not. Even Eleanor, the heir to the throne of Albion, had been reduced to a game piece in the hands of men.

“Eleanor is young,” Foxcourt said, “but she has a vision for the future of our kingdom, one in which the fairyborn aren’t punished for their existence and women aren’t constrained at every turn. But under Glenmoor’s thumb, subject to his cruel whims—it would be unsurvivable.”

His eyes were imploring, all but burning with the unspoken. Do you understand?

Because this—this was the root of it all, of every decision he made, of why he had imprisoned me, of why I’d been drawn into this conspiracy. This was what drove him.

Protecting Eleanor from the very man he believed had taken both his mother and his great-uncle from him.

Foxcourt nurtured his secrets and guarded them jealously. It had cost him something to reveal all of this to me, including his dangerous suspicions about Glenmoor. Whether he had come to trust me or not, I could recognize this for what it was: a peace offering. The act of a partner, not a jailer.

Amends.

I turned back to him. “You say that, but regardless of Eleanor’s wishes, it’s Parliament who writes the laws.”

“But the monarch who gives assent to them,” Foxcourt countered. “And approves appointments. And dictates the very pulse of society. The queens of our country have always been legendary, and her reign will be no different—when it is time for it. She will change things for the better.”

I was ashamed to realize I’d never thought about it that way. As archaic as the institution of monarchy was, as much as it reinforced the rigidity of societal inequality, Albion had yet to see someone attempt to wield it as a force for change rather than the status quo.

“You care about her greatly,” I noted.

“She is like a sister to me,” Foxcourt said. “Reddy and I have known her since she was a child, and we have seen her lose everything. I won’t let Glenmoor take her freedom, too, nor will I stand idly by as the traitor ascends to the height of power. I’ll die before I allow it to happen.”

One only had to look at him to know that every steel-edged word was true. His fury radiated from him, a streak of ice in the warm study.

There were so many questions I had, but only one I lacked the courage to ask. There had been an unusual momentum to our conversation, an almost exhilarating sense of unraveling. I couldn’t risk touching the jagged piece of his soul that would send him retreating back through an opaque veil of secrets.

But the question was there all the same, and it burned in me. Why would Glenmoor kill your mother?

And why had he never found justice for her?

“If Glenmoor is truly a monster,” I asked instead, “if he’s responsible for your mother’s and great-uncle’s deaths . . . why would the King ask Parliament to make him regent? Surely there are others in the line of succession ahead of him.”

“There are,” Foxcourt said. “But none who have become like a son to the King. But I’ve sensed a shift in the last few months—the King is less effusive about Glenmoor and more timid in his decisions. I suspect Glenmoor may be manipulating him through blackmail or some other lever.”

“Could it be a perfume?” I asked. Mama had told me of one, that it was the sole perfume from the Treasury’s pages even her father had refused to blend.

“I don’t know,” Foxcourt said, retrieving the quill he had set down onto his unfinished letter. “But I am working to find out.”

I nodded as I turned to the table where the Treasury waited. “Then I’d better get to work as well.”

But as the hours passed and the pages turned, I was no closer to finding Immortal Rose in the Treasury. I only sank deeper into a bleak mire of helpless anger and despair.

“Have you found it?”

I looked up at Foxcourt’s question. “No. Not in the five minutes since you last asked.”

“It’s been ten,” he said, folding his finished letter. “And I’m only wondering about the murderous expression on your face.”

I turned that very expression on him, unamused, but for the first time, my ire wasn’t directed at him.

“Well?” he pressed. “What is it?”

“I haven’t found Immortal Rose yet, no,” I said. “But I’ve come across what appears to be the King’s Blend perfume, or rather Breath of the Gods, for the revitalization of the body and mind. This is quite the scent: mint, bergamot, and a few other surprising notes.”

“Such as?” Foxcourt prompted.

“The fairy flower sweetfeather,” I said.