The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson

interminably. Though I’ve agreed to be his eyes and ears, I avoid the dining hall and its maneuvering nobility as often as possible, preferring to take my meals alone with the kitchen master. He’s a kind fellow, thin and flour dusted, and he seems glad for the company.
    During the afternoons, I seek out Father Nicandro. Together, we pour over the Belleza Guerra , spotting contextual inaccuracies in my own copy. His study is so like Master Geraldo’s, with its haphazard scrolls and dusty vellum and close-in adobe walls. It smells of candles and age and drying ink, and I have but to close my eyes to imagine myself home in Orovalle, in the one place where I don’t feel useless.
    Questions tumble around in my head about the Godstone, about its history, about what Nicandro meant when he called Ximena my “guardian.” But my nurse is always hovering about, guarding me from myself, and I’m afraid to ask lest she change her mind about sparing the priest. One morning I rise early and creep from our suite to seek him out, but he is not there. When I return, Ximena scolds me for venturing out without protection, and the fear in her eyes, true and fierce, frightens me.
    Cosmé is in constant attendance. Though no one will take Aneaxi’s place, Cosmé is the most efficient maid I’ve ever had. I tell her so, frequently, and it gives me such a twist of pleasure to watch her react to praise from someone she despises. The Scriptura Sancta calls it “the fire of kindness.”
    She is cleaning out my fireplace one day, her hands and arms black with soot up to her elbows, when I invite her to move her things into Ximena’s room.
    “There is plenty of room,” I assure her. “And I know the servants’ quarters are cramped.”
    “Thank you, Highness,” she says without looking up. “But I have my mistress’s suite to myself right now.”
    “You do?” I realize I haven’t seen Condesa Ariña in days, maybe weeks.
    “She went to Puerto Verde with the king, of course.”
    She says it so flippantly, between shovelfuls, but her words are like fists in my stomach.
    My voice is tight and wavery. “Does she accompany His Majesty often?”
    Cosmé stands, the bucket of soot weighing her shoulder down. A gray-black smear streaks her lovely forehead. “They get away together as often as possible. She accompanies him almost as often as Lord Hector. Would you like a fire tonight, now that it’s all clear?”
    “No, thank you,” I whisper. Who would need a fire in this place? I can hardly breathe for the strangulating heat around my neck.
    That night, after Ximena has gone to sleep, I sneak down to the kitchens. The kitchen master is there, getting a head start on tomorrow’s batch of bread. He says nothing when he sees my unshed tears, just gestures toward a bench near the round oven and hands me a platter of cheeses. A pungent variety with tiny bits of pepper tingles on my tongue. I eat until my belly aches, until I can no longer distinguish the spice of the peppers. I wash it all down with two glasses of wine and lurch back to my suite.
    The next day, General Luz-Manuel, a man I’ve only seen from across a cluster of food platters, calls on me. My head aches from lack of sleep, so I feel justified turning him away with apologies, pleading illness. I know I’ve failed Alejandro by denying a member of his household. Married to him less than a month, and already I’ve failed. But it’s hard to care.
    My husband has a mistress. I know it with certainty. “Mistress” has always felt like such a naughty word, but not a serious one. I am a naive child, so out of my depth.
    I lie in bed all day. Condesa Ariña’s face flutters in the canopy above me—the coral of her gently flushed cheeks, the softness of her skin. She has a part of my husband that I don’t even begin to understand. I try not to think of them together, but I can’t help it. Then, without meaning to, I start imagining his warm hands on my bare skin. It’s