“Oh,” she said in a voice of veneration, then spent some time using the soap, applying it carefully, wonderingly, the same way she ate her food. “This is one of the best and most-needed baths of my life,” she said.

“One of?” said Lovisa, who was more under control now. “How many times have you been kidnapped before this?”

Bitterblue smiled. “My life hasn’t always been soft.”

“Is this your idea of a soft life? Bathing in a rough public pool in a scratchy tunic, with somebody’s leftover soap?”

Bitterblue only smiled again, closed her eyes, and ducked under the water. Lovisa didn’t know why she kept throwing sharp little stones, launching them with hot bursts of breath, but every time they failed to wound, it made her want to throw them harder. Because that’s who she was: a girl who burned down her own house, attacked her own mother, abandoned her little brothers.

She stood abruptly, left the water, and marched back to the bathhouse. There, she made herself wait outside in the cold, shaking as the wind chilled the water on her skin, until she couldn’t bear it anymore.

Weak, she thought to herself ferociously. Then she let herself inside.

—

Sometime later, Lovisa and Bitterblue met Vera in yet another stone room, tucked among trees down another winding path. Lovisa had been to public baths before. None of them were isolated like this, or empty of patrons, or peppered with tiny, hidden, chimneyless rooms, or cloaked in so much secrecy.

Vera was gray-haired, tough, and expressionless, as the firekeeper and the bath monitor had also been. “Are you all sisters?” Lovisa asked.

Vera ignored this. “I’ve been hearing some unlikely rumors,” she said, peering with hard eyes at Bitterblue. “But there are plenty of dark-haired girls with Royal Continent looks on our roads, saying they’re the lost Queen of Monsea.”

“Really?” said Bitterblue, quite surprised. “Why would anyone do that?”

“She means impersonators,” said Lovisa.

Bitterblue was astonished. “You mean impersonators of me?”

“Traveling actors,” said Lovisa, shrugging. “They put on a show. Like, dancing or something.”

“Dancing!” said the queen, her voice more delighted and more incredulous with every word. Then she laughed, like a sweet, clear bell. “The kind of dancing where you keep your clothes on, or take them off?”

“You two have quite a patter going,” said Vera, unimpressed. “Where do you want to go?”

“We’re not telling you that,” said Lovisa, in the same moment the queen said, “North.”

“How far north?” said Vera. “Hardippa? Torla’s Neck? Kamassar?”

“Hardippa,” said Lovisa in an attempt at misdirection, in the same moment the queen said, “Torla’s Neck.”

“You might want to consult with each other,” said Vera, “before you start putting your money down for things. Though I understand you’re the one likely to pay,” she added, turning her eyes to the queen. Bitterblue handed her a ring, which she considered closely.