Free The Queen's Necklace by Teresa Edgerton Page A

nothing so much as a great spun-sugar confection, under its dusting of ice crystals and snow.
    Progress through the town was noisy, between the rattling of the flimsy two-wheeled vehicle over the icy cobblestones, the twittering of Madam Zaphir’s Prophetic Canaries, in two tin cages down in the straw under the seat, and the whispering and muffled laughter of the ragged entertainers. They took turns riding and walking, alternately tumbling in and out of the cart like acrobats.
    Well, they were excited, Ys realized that. Though none but Madame Zaphir, with her ugly little eyes and her cringing, obsequious manner, had any idea what it was all about. They only knew they had been paid in gold to perform a mission of utmost importance to the grand lady who employed them. And since it was impossible for that gaudy company not to attract attention as they entered the center of Tarnburgh, where the moonlit streets were still crowded even at this hour, best to make their approach loudly and openly, so that no one could suspect any sinister purpose.
    For all that, Ys felt a burning blush color her cheeks at the thought of being seen in such company. She sat stiff, silent, and embarrassed inside her sealskin cloak—until something about the route they followed forced out a protest.
    â€œThis is not the way to the palace gate! Where are you taking me?” Fear of treachery stabbed at her heart. If the fortuneteller had guessed who she really was, if the others knew they were harboring one whose very existence was a capital crime anywhere in the world—
    From her place at the back of the cart, Madam Zaphir spoke. “We must enter Lindenhoff on the other side: the servants’ entrance. What did Your Ladyship suppose? It’s not as though we’ve been hired to entertain the king’s guests. We are only there to amuse the cooks and potwashers after their labors.”
    With an effort at regaining her composure, Ys subsided. Bitter as it was to accept, the Gobline was right. How else to enter the king’s house unannounced—which was the only way that Ys could get in—but through the servants’ entrance?
    For life as Ys knew it had rarely included elegant ballgowns or jeweled slippers. More often it meant wearisome travel, by mail coach, diligence, and packet, and an endless procession of cheap lodgings and second-rate inns. It meant changing names and playing new roles in every new city where she and Madame Solange happened to find themselves—here as a music teacher and her devoted daughter, there as a widow and her paid companion—and more often than not it meant dresses, once beautiful, that had to be mended, let out, and turned inside out, in order to maintain the illusion of genteel poverty.
    â€œ We dare not attract their attention ,” said Madame Solange, when Ys was still very small. “ That is something that every Goblin and Gobline knows .” As she grew older, Ys had come to realize that quite as much as it was for the Padfoots and Ouphs, the Grants and Wrynecks, this was the key to her own survival.
    But all that began to change on the day Madame first gave Ys the necklace and the phial containing her mother’s ashes. Remembering that day, Ys pressed her hand to the front of her dress, felt the strange stones and the heart-shaped pendant lying so cold and malignant between her corset and her skin.
    â€œ Those who murdered your mother are dead. The Maglore are no longer divided. Though our numbers are few, we are now united in one great purpose,” Madame had announced. “ And while it is not possible that we could regain for you the entire world overnight, it has been decided that you should at least reclaim a small part of it. We are going to arrange—an advantageous marriage .”
    After that memorable day, there was a flurry of activity, a frenzy of plotting, a calling-in of hidden resources, all leading up to this night. Ys could only hope