I was Tansy, and the pit had been pulling at me all night.
Not a sound. A pull, low in my teeth.
Every time I shut my eyes I saw Oriane's smile, and that smile had teeth in it.
So I got up in the dark and took Ferris's pin from my boot.
The crown called the dragons a gift. The oldest mark in that pit would call it a lie.
That was a weapon. Mine.
The stair under the palace was colder than the corridor above it.
Iron and wet ash. I counted each step so I would not have time to be afraid.
The pit gate stood open a hand's width, with no guard on it.
Servants talk. The watch changed at the third bell, and the third bell had rung.
The pit was a bowl of stone with a heat in it like a held breath.
Old dragons lay along the walls, scaled and slow, and not one of them moved.
The oldest marks were cut into the rock by the gate, worn soft by centuries of hands.
At the bottom of the row was a hand. No crown beside it. No king. Just a hand.
My heart hit hard. There it was.
Then the biggest shadow on the floor opened one eye.
Intruder, said a voice inside my skull. It was dry, and slow, and very old.
I could not move. My legs had gone to water.
You are not from the house you carry, said the voice. Small liar. Thief of doors.
Tansy: I came to read the marks. Nothing more.
The eye came round to me, gold and wide, and the whole pit leaned with it.
You wear another woman's name. You carry a dead man's silver.
My fist closed on the pin so hard the wing cut me.
Tansy: Leave him out of this.
The dragon made a sound like a door dragging open. The dead do not mind. The living do.
I wanted to hit it. I would have spent a broken hand on it gladly.
It said, You reek of grief and cheap lies. It is a bad perfume.
You are standing in a house of borrowed things. Borrowed things are owed.
I asked what it wanted. My voice came out thin as thread.
It said, When the crown asks what you are, what will you answer?
Tansy: Nothing.
Then it will take the answer out of your bones, it said.
I looked at the hand on the wall until I could draw it blind.
Then I backed away, and the eye followed me the whole way.
My hands were shaking. My chest was not.
My chest felt lit up like a lamp. Something enormous had noticed me, and the fear had a shine to it.
At the gate, a black coat cut the torchlight in half.
Prince Lucan stood with one hand on the iron, and he was not smiling.
Lucan: Tansy.
He stepped in close enough that I felt the cold come off his coat.
His eyes went over me once, slow, and stopped at my empty hands.
Lucan: What were you doing down there?
My mouth was dry, and my heart was going like a caught bird in my ribs.
Two people wanted my secret now. One was ancient. One was close enough to touch.
Lucan: I asked you a question.