Most everyone in Potomac had their own farms—big enough to feed themselves and their families, and maybe a little to sell or barter when that was done. A few plied other trades. Those who struggled to survive fed themselves from the produce of the common lands. I was responsible for these, helping plant and weed and till and harvest the public fields myself alongside the laborers we paid from taxes. This had once been Daddy’s job; I’d taken it over around a year and a half ago. He’d started getting tired, and I was ready to start doing more.

That life was all I knew. All I wanted. All I wanted to go home to.

I thought back to the first months after Alessandra had arrived, not long after I turned thirteen, when she’d tried to arrange cotillion practices and finishing classes for me.

To hide from her, I took to following Daddy into the fields, and to wandering on my own into the kitchen garden. I’d grown my first eggplant that autumn. The morning I found it, I picked it and marched it straight to the cook, and she promptly chopped it in half and grilled it for me. I ate it standing up and thought it was the best thing I’d ever tasted.

Lang was still watching me, curious. I shrugged, cutting him a grin, sharp and rueful. “I wouldn’t know. I’m not a royal.”

13

“No, not that one,” Perrault pronounced over my shoulder. “You’re an absolute savage.”

I’d reached for my utensils with the wrong hand again.

“Europeans do not cut and switch,” Perrault said delicately. “You Potomacs put your knife down as you eat, blade in, as a gesture of peace. As if the very necessity of the thing were not appalling.” He swore daintily, a feat I’d never before witnessed but sort of wanted to inspire again. Skop made a face, chewing a hunk of potato off the knife in his fist, entirely unbothered.

“It’s really hard to eat with my left hand,” I said defensively.

“Thus, our present exercise. This is not for my own entertainment, I assure you.” Perrault nodded curtly at my plate. “Try to do it properly.”

I sighed and stood.

“Where are you going?” he asked, affronted.

Perrault had been hounding me. Earlier, after I’d returned from gardening, I’d found my folder of suitors—a duplicate to his own—sitting on my bed. When I’d realized what it was, I’d tossed it in my trunk as if it were a live coal, then buried it.

I restrained an eye roll. “Can we pause lessons for a moment? I’m getting more carrots.”

“Oh, no,” Perrault said, imperious. “You’ve a reasonable portion of food. Sit.”