The Repaired Princess

Ada Fenwick had repaired saints, windows, and the glass eye of a particularly unpleasant duke. Until that morning, she had never repaired a princess.

“Hold still,” Duchess Orielle said.

“That is usually my line.”

The duchess pressed a warm cloth beneath Ada's jaw. In the carriage mirror, Princess Celine Averne looked back: narrower nose, fuller mouth, a small beauty mark beside the left eyebrow. Ada's own gray eyes remained, because the likeness plate could bend reflected light but could not change what looked through it.

The resemblance was excellent from the front. From the side, the princess's cheek flickered whenever the carriage jolted.

“You said this would be comfortable,” Ada said.

“I said you could breathe.”

“The distinction should have lowered my fee.”

Orielle smiled without amusement. She was the princess's aunt, a woman whose jewels could have heated Ada's entire street for a month. Today she wore none. Ada had not decided what that meant.

On her lap lay a case containing brushes, cotton, a diamond point, and the best excuse she had ever been offered for breaking into a royal vault.

“Say it again,” she told the duchess.

“You attend three receptions. You wear the crown at the midsummer inspection. You tell no one about the plate.”

“The other part.”

Orielle looked out at the palace gates. “You receive access to the royal glass collection and permission to identify the Hearth Prism.”

“And remove it.”

“If you can prove it belongs to the municipal furnaces.”

“I can.” Ada had catalogued its mounting scars three years before the palace confiscated it. She knew the exact pattern of its missing corner. She also knew how many blankets the children's ward now used in April.

The carriage stopped.

Orielle caught her sleeve. “If my niece comes home—”

“I step aside. Gladly.”

Something raw moved through the duchess's face. “Good.”

Ada opened the door before either of them could reconsider.

The palace of Mirrengard rose in layers of pale stone and stained glass, every window storing a little of the morning sun. Warmth drifted from the steps. Beyond its gates, people queued for coal vouchers in the spring cold.

She fixed that contrast in her mind. Then she lifted her borrowed chin.

“Your Highness.” A chamberlain bowed so low that she could see the thinning patch at his crown. “We feared the mountain roads would delay your return.”

“They tried.”

Orielle made a small sound behind her. Ada decided it meant adequate.

Inside, bells rang. Courtiers appeared from doorways with the speed of mice scenting bread. Ada kept her hands still and allowed herself to be directed toward a reception chamber whose windows glowed amber with stored summer heat.

At the far end, beneath a canopy of cut crystal, stood the Glass Crown.

She almost forgot to breathe.

Its central stone was not a stone at all. It was a wedge of colorless glass, fine bubbles caught along one edge. A deliberate flaw in the shape of a fern.

Her master's mark.

The Hearth Prism was mounted above the kingdom's diamonds.

Six months of petitions. Three rejected inspections. A warrant that had closed her workshop for asking to see the furnace inventory. And there it was, throwing generous heat across an empty velvet cushion.

“Celine.”

A man in a green coat approached with his arms open. Regent Halvern, the princess's cousin. Ada had studied his portrait. The painter had been generous about his smile.

She offered a hand instead of an embrace.

He kissed her knuckles. “Still angry with us?”

“I have had ample time to practice.”

His smile held. Orielle's fingers touched Ada's elbow, light and warning.

“Your rest has done you good,” Halvern said. “A stronger color.”

“Mountain air.”

“So I am told.” His gaze lingered at her cheek before he turned to the room. “Wine for our returned princess.”

A servant brought a tray. Ada chose the nearest goblet, then stopped with its stem between her fingers.

The glass held a faint blue bruise beneath the rim.

Someone had quenched it too quickly after reheating. A fracture waiting for the smallest change in temperature. As the cold wine touched the warm bowl, a thin line began moving toward her hand.

“Set it down,” a man said beside her.

Ada lowered it onto the tray. The bowl broke neatly in two.

Wine spread across silver. The servant went white.

“My fault,” Ada said at once. “I caught it against the bracelet.”

She had done no such thing. The stranger knew it. His glance moved from the glass to her wrist, then returned to her face with quiet interest.

He was tall, dark-haired, and dressed with the understated expense of someone who did not need an embroidered title to enter this room. A pale scar crossed the base of his thumb. His eyes were brown, unexpectedly warm in a face that otherwise gave away very little.

“An unfortunate bracelet,” he said.

“An unfortunate goblet.”

“Then we shall blame the bracelet. It has fewer dependents.”

Ada nearly smiled. That was dangerous enough to make her look away.

Halvern approached. “Merrick. I see you've met our princess.”

“Briefly.”

“Lucan examines the security of the royal collection,” the regent told her. “An exacting profession.”

“Someone should be exacting about it,” Ada said.

Lucan's gaze sharpened. “An interest of yours, Highness?”

“Everyone should have an interest in what keeps them warm.”

The answer was too honest. She felt Orielle go still beside her.

Lucan lifted the broken stem with a folded cloth. His movements were beautiful in the way a well-made tool was beautiful: nothing ornamental, no wasted force. Ada wondered what those hands repaired. Then she wondered whether they repaired anything at all.

“You saw the stress line before it opened,” he said quietly.

“Did I?”

“Most people watch the wine.”

“Perhaps I disliked the vintage.”

“Perhaps.”

He stepped aside to let her pass. No hand at her back, no attempt to make the moment last. Somehow the space he left made her more aware of him.

Orielle guided her toward a row of waiting ladies. Ada learned three names, forgot two, and answered a question about mountain wildflowers with information stolen from a wallpaper pattern.

When she next looked toward the crown, Lucan stood beside it.

He was watching the central prism.

Then he turned the broken goblet's base toward the light, and Ada saw the tiny etched mark beneath its foot: a black thorn, the emblem left on the work of the city's contracted killers.

Lucan covered it with his thumb before anyone else could see.

He looked directly at her.

For the first time that morning, Ada could not tell whether the glass on her face was cold or she was.