Step 9b: ...but if you do, have an escape plan ready

Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Ivelle stormed across her cell, fighting the urge to slam her head against the bars. She didn't know who she hated more: Lillian, for stabbing her in the back, or herself, for allowing her back to be (metaphorically) stabbed.

How had she not seen the signs? Lillian's deceit was obvious when she reviewed the events of the past month. Her unusual interest in poisons. Her offer to keep Ivelle's potions in the secret compartment in her room. Her insistence that Ivelle come to the palace and take the role of jester, where Ivelle would be primely positioned to shoulder the blame for the king's death...

Ivelle had been played.

From the very beginning.

Ivelle smacked her fist against the wall. Far from making her feel better, this only caused her knuckles to explode with pain.

"AUGHHHH!"

"Keep shouting like that. Who knows?" In the adjacent cell, Mariel tossed a pebble moodily against the wall. "Maybe if you scream loud enough, you'll rouse Eirifold from his coma and spark a rescue mission."

Ivelle shot her a dirty glare. "I was just taking a few minutes to wallow in self-loathing before I become a functional human again... Do you mind?"

Mariel shrugged. "In your position, I wouldn't just be screaming. I'd probably chuck myself out the nearest window. At least Lillian has good reason to want me gone, but you? I don't think I've ever seen someone get so badly betrayed by someone they considered a friend."

Wow. Ivelle glowered at her. "Are you sure you and Lillian aren't related? You've both got the heartless act down pat."

"We are definitely not related." Mariel leaned against the wall, closing her eyes. "If it makes you feel better, you're not the only one she's hoodwinked. Let me guess: was it her innocent, fragile Lillian act? Poor Lillian, whose brother was killed by the king, who was forced from her homeland and cruelly betrothed to Prince Eirifold? I won't deny she's been through some trauma. But she's not the soft, helpless girl she pretends to b—"

The creak of hinges cut her off.

"Speak of the Devil," Mariel muttered.

Lillian strode into the dungeon, trailed by two guards. Despite the chaos of the last two hours, she looked every inch the perfect lady, hair still coiffed in an intricate knot that gleamed with diamonds, wedding gown draped in perfect folds around her waist. Kohl smudged the space beneath her lashes, as though she had recently been crying, but this only added to the impression of a beautiful lady doing her best to hold herself together.

"Leave us," she told the guards.

The moment the men were gone, Lillian approached Ivelle, her eyes wide with concern. "Ivelle, are you all right? I know you've had a terrible shock today. Don't worry—I'll get you out of here soon."

"Drop the innocent act," Mariel snapped. "You're not fooling anyone. We both know you framed us!"

"Framed?" Lillian's mouth opened delicately. "I don't know what you—"

"Stop," Ivelle said. "Just... stop. Please."

"Fine."

It was like watching an octopus change color, the rapidity with which Lillian's expression morphed. Her kind eyes turned icy, her lips thinned into a smile, and the hands she'd been wringing in consternation went eerily still at her sides.

"I framed you both," said Lillian sweetly. "I'm a villainess with a passion for vengeance whose sole goal in life is to be queen and to watch Estrella burn. There, Mariel. Are you happy now?"

"I'm really not," said Mariel. (Ivelle was too busy trying to process Lillian's sudden personality change to do more gape at her). "What the hell, Lillian? I mean, I understand the urge to murder my father. I really do. But Harvald?"

"Oh, darling, I was doing you a favor. Your lecherous fiancé was rotten to the core. You'll never have to marry him now."

"Because I'll be hanged for murder!"

Lillian waved a dismissive hand. "Details."

"It was the venison," said Mariel, "wasn't it? You had one of your servants put deadly poison in the venison at our table, and a less deadly poison in Eirifold's soup. You know I'm a vegetarian, and you know Eirifold doesn't eat venison. It was just lucky that Queen Ysette didn't eat any."

"Unlucky for me." Lillian shrugged. "But, as the peasants say, 'two out of three isn't bad'. I can't take all the credit, though. I had a one or two people in my corner who helped me brainstorm the idea."

Ivelle couldn't stop staring at Lillian. Icy and disdainful, this version of Lillian barely resembled the kind, timid woman who had she had bonded with during their self-defense lessons. Somehow, this made the pain of Lillian's betrayal even worse. How much effort had Lillian put into her deception that her true self was nothing like the lady Ivelle thought she knew? "You're psychotic," said Ivelle, before she could stop herself.

Lillian glanced at her, as though surprised she was still there, and let out a short laugh. "Oh dear—now, that's an insult to psychotic people." She smoothed her hair with her fingers. "I'm really more of a sociopath. Try to keep it straight, dear; we can't afford to be un-PC in this day and age."

Fury built until Ivelle saw red with it. "Are our lives just a game to you?" she burst out. "Did you enjoy watching the Prince of Luntz bubbling with boils and Eirifold collapsing in pain?"

Lillian's gaze dropped to the ground. For a moment, Ivelle had the sense that Lillian might be a little ashamed, before Lillian shrugged and smiled. "What does it matter whether I enjoyed it?" The cloying sweetness returned to her voice, grating on Ivelle's nerves. "Their fate was merely a means to an end."

"A means to what end, Lillian? You know the other Princes of Luntz will want revenge for Harvald's death." Mariel's voice was cold. "They'll wage war. And if by some luck Luntz doesn't wage war, it'll be the wood fae, and if it isn't the wood fae, the citizens themselves will rebel. The city is in chaos, and the chaos will be even worse when the people realize the king is dead. Who caused the explosion earlier?"

"You tell me," said Lillian. "You go into the city more often than I do. What group has a sigil with a mongoose and five leaves?"

"Wh-where did you see that?"

Was it Ivelle's imagination, or did Mariel look scared?

"It rose from the bomb that struck the palace walls earlier. The tigers are in quite a ruckus, let me tell you." Lillian leaned closer, studying Mariel with eerie intensity. "I can see from your face that you know who it is."

"Even if I knew, if you think I'll tell you anything, you're deluding yourself," Mariel snapped. "But I will say this. When those people get into the palace, you'll be queen of nothing. And that's assuming Queen Ysette—I suppose I should call her the dowager now that Father's dead—doesn't kill you first. Do you really think she'll just let you waltz in and take the kingdom?"

Lillian tilted her head to the side. "Perhaps she will. Perhaps she won't. Either way, I'll have Castrena."

"And I'll have the noose. Does that make you happy, Lillian?"

"Always so dramatic!" Lillian laughed gaily. "But you know someone has to take the fall for all this homicide. You just happened to be a convenient target. No hard feelings, I hope?" She blew Mariel a mocking kiss. "Now if you don't mind, I have a couple rebellions to care of, bombs to investigate, you know how It goes. Sayonara, darling."

She turned to go.

"Wait!" Ivelle yelled after her. "What are you going to do with Eirifold?"

"Is he the only thing you care about? So predictable." Lillian sighed. "Don't worry. He's not quite dead. I need him alive to remain queen... at least, until I do away with the law that says only men can inherit the Estrellan throne."

She strode away, the dungeon door clanging shut behind her.

The moment she was gone, Mariel slumped against the wall again. "Bloody, bloody, bloody hell," she groaned.

Ivelle replayed Mariel's and Lillian's conversation in her mind. Something clicked into place, a dawning suspicion born of the almost-too-familiar way with which the two of them interacted. "You were lovers," she said.

Mariel closed her eyes, looking suddenly exhausted. "If by 'lovers' you mean I was once her puppet to be manipulated... I suppose you are correct."

If it were anyone else, Ivelle would have offered her sympathies. She knew better than most how it felt to be betrayed by a lover you trusted. But Mariel's expression made it clear that the topic was closed.

Instead, she asked, "Who sent the bomb earlier? What was all that about the mongoose and the leaves?"

"It's one of the Estrellan rebel signs. The mongoose symbolizes the rebels' intention to crush the royal family, because mongooses kill snakes, and of course, all royals are snakes in their minds... and as for the five leaves in the center—well, I think whoever designed the sigil was probably high at the time."

"D'you think the rebels might get us out of here?"

"No," said Mariel flatly. "They're fragmented and disorganized, and they're as likely to blow themselves up as they are to successfully infiltrate the palace. I was just acting scared to throw Lillian off-balance."

The flicker of hope that had sparked in Ivelle's chest faded, replaced once more by despair. "Do you know anyone who could help us escape?"

"There may be a few in the city who would help me, if I could get a message to them," said Mariel, "but it's hard to send a message from inside a cell." She glanced searchingly at Ivelle. "Just to be clear... you don't know how my mother died, do you?"

"No," said Ivelle, thrown by the sudden change in topic.

"I didn't think so. Lillian must've told me that lie so I'd pull you aside at dinner. She wanted to make us look suspicious. We played right into her hands."

"Why'd she pick that particular lie? Seems pretty damn random to me."

Mariel stared moodily at the wall. "She knows I've been searching for clues about my mother's death," she said in a low voice.

"Clues—like—like what? Like your mother was murdered?" Ivelle frowned. "If there was a murderess involved, it was probably Lillian."

"Don't be absurd. Lillian wasn't even born when my mother died." Mariel huffed with annoyance. "I suppose, seeing as I'm to be hanged, it can't hurt to tell you some things I've uncovered over the last few years. Someone should know, before our history gets erased entirely. What do you know of Estrella's rulers before my father, King Gorlin, took the throne?"

"I..." Ivelle's brows creased. Her knowledge of Estrellan history was murky at best. "They were pompous old dudes who liked money and wine?"

Mariel sighed. "That's what the historians and everyone else would have you think. Actually, before my father took the throne and changed the laws, Estrella was ruled by women." She shook her head. "My mother, Queen Ellyse of Estrella, married my father, who was a lesser noble, to carry on the line. She was Estrella's principal ruler until she died... under mysterious circumstances."

"What?"

Mariel shrugged. "I think it was murder. I still don't know. I dug up her grave in the middle of the night a few years ago, and there was no body there."

"What?"

"So then I tracked down her former servants to see what they knew. There are a few who weren't beheaded by my father and Queen Ysette. But none of them seemed to know anything, nor were they able to help me."

"No I mean—can we just—go back to the part where you dug up your own mother's grave? What are you, some kind of... grave... desecrator?"

Mariel shot her a quelling glare. "I am a princess of House Regoria and the only surviving daughter of Queen Ellyse of Estrella," she said, a bit acidly. "And you can't desecrate a grave if it's empty. To continue my story... somewhere along the line I started thinking how it was odd that no one in Estrella remembers my mother. Almost as if our history had been in some way erased. I started digging into magic that could cause people to forget things... and I realized a particular group does have that power. I refer, of course, to the wood fae. You are familiar with the power of wood fae tears?"

"Um..." said Ivelle, unsure where Mariel was going with this. "Surely you aren't suggesting that literally everyone in Estrella was forced to drink wood fae tears after your mother died?"

"Wood fae tears aren't the only thing that can make people forget. Wood fae magic can do the same thing."

Ivelle shook her head. This was starting to sound too much like a conspiracy theory to her. Plus, it had nothing to do with their most pressing matter. If they didn't find a way to escape, they would be tried for murder and probably hanged. Not to mention Lillian's not-so-subtle promise to change the law, instate herself as queen, and finish murdering Eirifold while he was still recovering from the first bout of poison.

She had to get to Eirifold before that happened.

She'd drag his sick body through the secret passage herself, if that was what it took.

"Why would the wood fae have erased Estrella's history?" she said impatiently. "That seems a bit of a stretch. It would've required massive amounts of power for something that wouldn't benefit them." She tried, unsuccessfully, to cast an unlocking charm on the prison door, then scrutinized her cell for other ideas. The cell was bare, devoid of anything remotely resembling a lock pick, shovel, or other device that could be used to escape.

"My mother was trying to drive the wood fae out of Estrella. She wanted to cut down their forest and turn it into farmland."

"Sounds like a delightful woman. A true gem of a queen."

Ivelle turned her attention to the upper part of the cell, fighting a surge of anxiety. If only Ash was here. She'd last seen him that morning, when she'd left him with Anabelle in his makeshift crow-firmery. If Lillian harmed so much as a feather on his head...

I'll murder her. With a poison that causes twice as many boils as the one that killed King Gorlin!

"All rulers make one or two bad decisions," Mariel was saying, a bit defensively, but Ivelle had stopped listening. She rummaged through her pockets, then turned to Mariel.

"Give me your hairpins."

"You don't believe a word I'm saying, do you?"

Ivelle didn't see the need to reply. She scrutinized the two mother-of-pearl tinted hairpins that Mariel passed her, stuck one of them into the lock, and jiggled it.

A second later, she dropped the hairpin with a cry of pain. The hairpin hit the ground, red and melting. Within seconds, it had fused with the floor.

"There's a spell on all the dungeon locks," said Mariel. "You won't be able to escape that way."

Ivelle sucked her singed fingers and glared at Mariel. "You couldn't have mentioned this earlier?"

"I already told you, there's no way to escape."

"There's always a way to escape. Some ways just require... more ingenuity than others."

She knew what her mum would do in this situation. Ascoria would try a blood magic spell, or some sort of dark ritual. The problem with those kinds of spells was that they usually required a living sacrifice.

But the living sacrifice didn't have to be human. Mouse blood worked just as well. It had been years since Ivelle had tried a spell like this, but she was eighty-five percent sure she remembered how to write the appropriate runes. All she needed was some blood.

She would wait until dinner, then try to lure out a mouse with some crumbs.

Ivelle rubbed her eyes. She'd been up most of last night practicing her jesting routine. The night before that, she'd stayed up fretting at Ash's side. Until now, the stress of the last few days had been enough to keep her awake, but the exhaustion was finally catching up with her.

A tiny nap couldn't hurt, right?

Decision made, Ivelle leaned back against the wall of the cell.

She had barely closed her eyes before she was asleep.

~*~

In her dreams, she was in the secret passage, and Skully was staring up at her with her unseeing eyes. "I will become as monstrous as I must," said the skeleton in her mother's voice, "because the world isn't kind to women who smile and curtsey and act like obedient dolls."

Then the skeleton was gone, replaced by King Gorlin, who leered up at her. "Your jests aren't worth much, and your life isn't worth much either," he said, as boils exploded across his face. "You should be the one in that coffin, not me."

Before Ivelle could inform him that of the two of them, he was definitely the one who belonged in the coffin, the image shifted, and she was staring at Eirifold, his face unnaturally pale, his eyes unseeing and cloudy. Soldiers and medics crowded around him, jostling her away.

"Ivelle!" It was Ash. "We have to go."

"I—I can't."

"Ivelle."

"He's dead, Ash. I—He's—"

"Ivelle Raven Delaville! Open your eyes this instant. We don't have all night."

Ivelle's eyes snapped open in shock.

A woman glared at her through the bars.

She was clad far more modestly than the last time Ivelle had seen her (though her dress still showed an ample amount of leg), her makeup was styled more severely, and her hair was a little bit grayer. And yet, Ivelle would have recognized that sharp gaze and judgmental sneer anywhere.

"You idiot," said her mother.