The Castle Behind Thorns by Merrie Haskell

around the room as if seeing it for the first time, eyes lingering on the scratched walls. Her gaze fell to his painstakingly crafted bowl of fruit porridge.
    â€œMy lady, I have food for you.” He picked up the bowl—more than three-quarters of a bowl, in fact, and a lucky find—and handed it to her.
    She wrinkled her nose. “What is this?”
    He hesitated to tell her the particulars of where he got food, fearing her disgust. “Porridge?”
    â€œAre you asking me or telling me?”
    Abruptly, he was tired of her rude manner. Certainly, she was the daughter of a count. But he was the son of a blacksmith. Blacksmithing might be the craft of a peasant, but smiths had an important lineage and many secrets. And many royals had worked a forge as well; Grandpère used to tell him stories about how Richard the Lion-Hearted of England had worked side by side with his smiths, improving techniques for shaping armor.
    He decided: He wasn’t going to call her “my lady” anymore. While they were both trapped in this castle, they were on the same footing.
    No. Not the same. Sand was the lord of this place. He was the one who had started mending it. He was the one setting it aright.
    â€œEat it or don’t eat it,” he said abruptly, setting the porridge on the floor beside the bed, tilting the bowl so it didn’t spill. “It’s as good as any food you can find around here. What’s your name?”
    She blinked owlishly at him, looking small and young and lost all of a sudden. “Perrotte,” she said. “That’s my name.” And then hesitantly, in a tiny voice, she said, “I’m sorry. I am not treating you well. My mother would be most upset with me. She taught me greater graciousness than that.”
    Sand had heard plenty of stories about the Countess from other villagers, and he had a hard time imagining the Countess teaching anyone graciousness. But he didn’t say anything.
    Her voice grew tinier still when she asked, “And my father?”
    â€œThe . . . Count of Boisblanc?” Sand stalled.
    â€œYes,” the girl said, eyes narrowing.
    â€œIf we are talking about the same Derien, Count of Boisblanc . . . he is dead.”
    In comparison to her reaction to the news of Queen Anna’s death, Perrotte remained much calmer—on the surface. But the way her face went completely calm made him think she was extremely disturbed underneath it all.
    He knew only one other person who generally appeared calmer the worse she felt, and that was his stepmother, Agnote. He’d learned how to read the signs of that kind of control. Perrotte’s eyes gleamed; she blinked rapidly, and then her eyes were normal again. She breathed deeply, and said in a voice only slightly thickened, “He was injured in the League War. He never healed fully—he was quite ill, and had been for some time, before I—” She stopped speaking abruptly, her face still as composed as if it were shaped from metal.
    Sand never knew the right thing to do when faced with grief. He cast about for something else to draw the girl’s attention. He handed her a cup of water, and she drank it, wrinkling her nose slightly.
    â€œAnd my sister?” she asked, returning the cup to him. “Rivanon was newborn. Does she live?”
    Her sister, Rivanon! That was the Princess. “Yes. She married a prince of France—we call her the Princess, though she is also our Countess. Your mother yet lives, and though she is the dowager, we all call her the Countess still—”
    â€œShe’s not my mother,” Perrotte said sharply. Sand realized she was shivering. He pulled a mended blanket from the foot of the bed and drew it around her shoulders, then handed her the bowl of porridge again.
    Perrotte bowed her head for a moment; Sand thought she was praying, until he saw that one finger was rubbing the roughness of the