The morning Lady Maribel Ashcombe came to cut off my hair, she expected a frightened farmer’s daughter to kneel beneath her silver scissors. Instead, I ran into the royal forest, found a bleeding young man under an apple tree, and insulted him three times before discovering half the kingdom was searching for him.
Chapter 2
They brought me to the palace in a carriage despite my insistence that I preferred walking home. Apparently saving a prince made one’s preferences temporarily ceremonial.
Lucien’s arm had been reset by a royal physician. He sat opposite me looking miserable while Cassian rode beside the carriage window.
“So,” I said, “Maribel.”
Lucien grimaced.
“Lady Maribel Ashcombe is politically engaged to me.”
I laughed.
He looked offended.
“This is not amusing.”
“It’s horrifying. That’s why it’s amusing.”
“I don’t love her.”
“Excellent. At least your arm isn’t the only damaged part showing signs of recovery.”
Cassian nearly fell from his horse laughing.
Lucien explained that he’d entered the forest secretly while investigating corruption in districts managed by Lord Ashcombe. Food shipments had vanished. Taxes appeared twice in records. Private petitions described punishments never mentioned in official reports.
“Maribel claims Rook Alley is orderly and improving,” he said.
“Yes. We’re improving at starving politely.”
His jaw tightened.
“I suspected the reports were false.”
“So naturally you climbed a tree.”
“I was observing patrol smoke.”
“From an apple tree.”
Cassian leaned toward the window.
“The tree remains important.”
“Cassian.”
“I am preserving history.”
The royal palace overwhelmed me before I crossed the doors.
Marble floors stretched beneath ceilings high enough to house weather. Servants stood in silent rows. Courtiers watched my torn skirt, muddy boots, and hair with poorly concealed horror.
Whispers followed.
“Who is she?”
“Look at her.”
“Is that the prince’s sling?”
I leaned toward Lucien.
“If nobles whisper any louder, they’ll need trumpets.”
He smiled.
Then Queen Seraphine saw me.
She stood at the far end of the hall.
Her face went pale.
“Leora?”
I stopped.
The queen descended the steps slowly.
Her eyes moved from my face to my curls, then to the carved comb tucked into my belt.
“Where did you get that?”
“It belonged to my mother.”
Her lips parted.
“Leora Vale was your mother?”
“Yes.”
The queen’s eyes filled with tears.
Before I could ask another question, palace doors opened behind us.
Maribel entered.
She wore pale blue silk and perfect gloves.
Lord Ashcombe followed.
Maribel hurried toward Lucien.
“Your Highness, thank heaven. We feared—”
She saw me.
Her face became one of the most enjoyable sights I’d ever witnessed.
“That girl.”
“Hello,” I said.
Her gaze dropped to my hair.
Still there.
Every curl.
She turned sharply toward the king.
“She fled lawful correction. She is disruptive, disrespectful, and possibly dangerous.”
Lucien stepped forward.
“She saved my life.”
Maribel stared.
“Her?”
“Yes.”
I smiled.
“I stabilized a fruit-related royal emergency.”
Cassian coughed.
Maribel ignored me.
“I was merely trying to make her acceptable.”
Queen Seraphine’s expression cooled.
“Acceptable to whom?”
Before Maribel could answer, King Alden entered.
Lucien explained everything: his investigation, the missing supplies, Maribel’s threats, and my escape. Maribel interrupted repeatedly until the king finally raised one hand.
Lucien faced his father.
“Until the accusations against Lady Maribel and Lord Ashcombe are investigated, I request that my engagement be suspended.”
Maribel went white.
Lord Ashcombe stepped forward.
“Your Majesty, surely an alliance cannot be disturbed by the word of an alley girl.”
The king looked at him.
“If titles guaranteed honesty, my council would disappoint me less often.”
Cassian quietly wrote that down.
The investigation began.
I remained at the palace as a protected witness, which sounded much grander than being trapped in rooms full of twelve forks.
The palace tried to tame my hair within two hours.
A maid approached with pins, oils, and ribbons.
“My lady, your hair must be arranged.”
“It is arranged.”
“It is loose.”
“That’s how it arranged itself.”
Princess Elowen, watching from a sofa, hid a smile.
“For court,” the maid persisted, “it should be more suitable.”
“If a ballroom is frightened by curls, perhaps the ballroom needs courage.”
Elowen dismissed the maid before either of us suffered.
She then took responsibility for teaching me court manners.
This was largely unsuccessful.
I learned that a fan could communicate contempt, invitation, boredom, disapproval, or social murder without a single spoken word.
“In Rook Alley,” I told Elowen, “if we dislike somebody, we say it.”
“At court, we smile until they wonder whether they’re dying.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It’s diplomacy.”
At my first formal supper, a countess looked at my hair and announced, “Rather wild for a royal table.”
I tasted my soup.
“Then the table should try not to provoke it.”
Lucien nearly inhaled his wine.
Another nobleman said, “Her father sells vegetables, doesn’t he?”
“Yes,” I answered. “Someone has to feed people too important to grow their own.”
Cassian added something to his notebook.
“What are you writing?” Lucien asked.
“Useful phrases.”
The next morning, Queen Seraphine asked to see me privately.
I brought Mother’s wooden comb.
The queen held it carefully.
“Leora carved this first flower herself.”
I stared at her.
“You knew my mother well?”
“She was officially my attendant.”
The queen smiled sadly.
“Unofficially, she was my closest friend.”
She told me stories I’d never heard.
Mother smuggled honey cakes into royal meetings. She mocked terrible court fashions. She challenged nobles who treated servants as furniture.
“She was brave in a palace that measured women by birth, skin, accent, and how quietly they could disappear,” the queen said. “She taught me that dignity has nothing to do with where a person stands in a room.”
“Then why did she leave?”
“She fell in love with your father.”
I smiled.
“That sounds like her.”
“I wrote for years after she left.”
My smile disappeared.
“She never got those letters.”
The queen stared at me.
“Never?”
“She kept everything important in a blue box. There were no letters from you.”
Silence settled between us.
Correspondence between the palace and outer districts had been controlled in those years by Lord Ashcombe’s family.
The queen’s face hardened.
“If someone intercepted my letters…”
The investigation suddenly became personal.
Maribel must have sensed the ground shifting beneath her.
Her retaliation began immediately.
First, a maid attempted to steal Mother’s comb from my room. I had anticipated something like it and left the box filled with flour.
When the maid opened it, a white cloud covered her face and uniform.
I entered at exactly the right moment.
She began crying before I spoke.
Maribel had promised her a better position if she brought her the comb.
Cassian titled his report “The Flour Incident.”
Then rumors spread that I’d bewitched Lucien in the forest.
At a reception, an elderly lord asked whether southern women truly possessed charms.
“If I possessed magic,” I told him, “I’d begin with your hairline.”
Queen Seraphine coughed into her hand.
Lucien left the room.
Later he insisted it was because his arm hurt.
Then Maribel arranged for another woman to accuse me of pushing her from a terrace.
Unfortunately for them, at the supposed hour of the assault I had been in etiquette lessons with Elowen, three servants, and Lady Brindle, who considered punctuality a religious obligation.
Finally, Maribel sent a forged letter to my father.
She told him I’d disgraced him, chased a prince, abandoned our home, and brought shame upon the Vale name.
The messenger never reached him.
My father was already coming home.
He arrived at the palace gates three days later carrying travel dust, market ledgers, tax receipts, and the fury of a man who had returned from selling turnips to discover politics had attacked his daughter.
I ran across the courtyard.
Father grabbed my shoulders.
“Is all your hair still on your head?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
He exhaled.
“Now I can decide whom to kill.”
“Politically?”
“At first.”
Lucien approached.
Father noticed the sling.
He looked at Lucien.
Then at me.
“Is this the tree fellow?”
Lucien blinked.
“The prince, sir.”
“We’ll see.”
Cassian turned away because he was laughing too hard.
But Father had not come merely to retrieve me.
He brought evidence.
Tax receipts showing families charged twice.
Market records proving charity grain had been resold.
Statements from widows fined for invented violations.
Women whose daughters had been denied winter food until they changed their clothing, covered their hair, or removed traditional jewelry.
And three broken hairpins taken from girls whose braids had been cut by Maribel’s officers because they looked “foreign.”
Father placed everything before King Alden.
“My daughter is not a ladder for noble people to step on,” he said. “Neither are the women of Rook Alley.”
The king studied the papers.
Then he ordered a public royal hearing.
Maribel had wanted to cut my hair.
Now the whole kingdom was about to hear why.
