“You seem to know a great deal about her,” I murmured as we walked through the corridors. Now that I had my own light, I was able to pause and examine the artwork lining the endless corridors of the palace. I tried to find little details to remember to help mark my way.

“She was my first charge, when I turned fifteen.”

“Really?” I stopped in my tracks and turned to her in surprise, accidentally blinding her with my light in the process. “I wouldn’t have thought someone so young would…” I trailed off.

“Have the privileged position to empty the chamber pots of the Duchesse and the Queen?”

I flushed, because that was precisely what I’d been thinking.

“She knew my mother,” Élise continued. “She purchased the rights to Zoé and me when we were quite young, so we had many years to prepare for serving royalty.”

There was an edge to her voice that I could not help but notice. “Sorry,” I muttered, certain that I had offended her.

“Why?” she asked, knocking firmly on a door. “It wasn’t any of your doing, and besides, there are worse things than being a lady’s maid. I could be dredging sewers or working in the mines.”

Choice. The word came swiftly to my mind although I did not speak it aloud. Until these last few days, I had not truly appreciated what it meant to have control over one’s own life. The right to choose mattered – and it was a right none of the half-bloods had.

“What do you want?” shrieked a voice from inside the room.

“It’s me!” I shouted back. “Cécile!” Squaring my shoulders, I turned the handle and went inside.

“Cécile!” the Queen exclaimed as she caught sight of me. Rising to her feet, she hurried over and kissed me on both cheeks while I was still mid-curtsey. I wheezed as she pulled me into a hug that made my ribs creak.

“Don’t break her, Matilde,” the Duchesse shouted over her shoulder. “She’s positively fragile.”

“I’m not really,” I said, smiling awkwardly at the Queen as she led me towards a sitting area surrounded by mirrors. “I did grow up on a farm, you know.”

“These things, as is often the case, are relative,” the Duchesse replied.

“Your hair is positively tangles,” the Queen declared, seemingly oblivious to our conversation. Picking up a hairbrush, she pushed me down on a stool in the middle of the circle of benches and began to work the snags out of my hair.

“Just let her,” the Duchesse said, the soft tone of her voice out of character. “She is better when she has someone to mother.”

I nodded into the reflection of the mirrors, which had clearly been set up for this purpose.

“Why are you here?”

Élise had been right – Tristan’s aunt was not one for wasting time.

I cleared my throat. “Before, you said there were opportunities for me here in Trollus – that little would be denied me. I’d… I’d like to take advantage of that.”