Her face suddenly loses its dullness. ‘I killed them.’ She speaks hard and direct, as if she’s got no shame to say the words aloud. ‘My father fornicated with the Queen when she was fourteen. Did you know that?’ She searches me for surprise and finds none. She says harder, ‘Corliss and the other tutors taught me to read Latin, Greek, Hebrew. It was the one benefaction I received. And what did it buy me? I discovered a tapestry with the Queen’s shame woven into it. The Queen got with child by her own stepfather, my dear papa.’ The hook’s still aimed at the Country Mouse. ‘That gabby-goose Tilly Howe confirmed it once I gave her enough wine. Tilly delivered the child. The Queen made Corliss and the rest swear to kill it. And now I’m killing them. For my half sibling who was murdered. For my mother, who was betrayed by her husband and stepdaughter. For the fortune that was stolen from me.’ She looks at my collar. ‘You know the truth. You heard their Recitations. There were hearts on Corliss’s and Tilly’s coffins.’

I do know the truth. No hearts were recited. But Mush Face thinks there were. She doesn’t know the bastard wasn’t killed. Tilly Howe kept that from her.

‘Those are my sins,’ she says with a sort of pride. ‘I killed two. The fire was a mishap.’ She nods at the Country Mouse. ‘It’s more difficult to control than poison, but the old lady wouldn’t take my wine. She’ll die soon anyhow. Her burns have turned black, and she’s fevered with the corruption. She’ll not last two days. And, now that the Queen is as alone as I am, I will kill her too.’ A blackness comes into her eyes, and her fingers tighten on the hook. She’s going to try to kill us.

She pulls back to strike, so I go straight for her, grabbing at the hook’s shaft. We wrestle it between us. Years of scrubbing and rinsing bedclothes builds you up different than years of books and embroidery; still, she holds fast, pulling me around in a circle. I feel sudden heat against my legs. She’s turned me up against a pit fire. Clever as a fox, she is. I push back against her hard, but my ankle gives and slips down into the pit, my heel burning in the embers. One more push from her, and I’ll fall fully into the fire.

I grab behind me. Metal burns into the palm of my hand as I catch the handle of a cauldron hanging from the spit. I shriek like a crow and swing it as hard as I can into her face. It catches her jawbone, throwing her head back with a crack. She lands on the trampled grass, moaning like an animal.