i.
Alise remembers killing the King, which is a problem, because she hasn’t killed him yet.

iii.
There are protocols to plotting to kill the King, like not talking about killing the King, and certainly not talking about killing the King in the palace, and most certainly of all not talking about killing the King in the palace while in bed with the Queen, whispering details in her ear while fucking her with more care than the King has ever shown her.

She comes to Alise’s explanation of how they’ll make sure the job gets done, teeth sinking into the meat of Alise’s shoulder to keep from being heard by the servants only a closed door away.

vi.
Every morning, red blooms across the Queen’s lips.

They are lined with a pencil first, sharpened with a knife like whittling a stake, and then a stiff-bristled brush paints them with the same exacting precision, and then they are powdered dry, and then the ritual repeats: a pencil, sharp enough to cut, a brush, powder.

vii.
Life in the palace is run by protocol. The degree of bow, the order of entry, the position of guards.

Alise stands the same number of inches from the door in every room, except when she is fucking the Queen in her marital bed or when she is killing the King.

ii.
Alise slides her blade into the heart of the King, sharp like the knife that whittles the pencil that lovingly traces the split in the Queen’s lip.

xi.
The plot begins standing fourteen inches to the left of the door to the Queen’s private dressing room, when the door swings open and smashes into Alise’s face. The broken nose isn’t why Alise decides to kill the King, nor is it even a particularly large deciding factor, but it certainly does not hurt.

Any more than a broken nose is wont to hurt, at least.

xvii.
There are rumors amongst the palace guard of magic, older than the King, older than kings. Of striking blades that never struck, of poison that was not, of things done that were undone. There are rumors of men unmade, of assassins unborn.

Some say that Time was a grand lord’s beloved, and She blessed his children, and his children’s children, a royal line unbroken.

xxvii.
The Queen weds the King with unpainted lips, unscarred lips, unsplit lips, stood tall as she swears fidelity and he swears protection, two great families binding soft hand to soft hand till death.

xix.
The King dies with poison on his lips.

xx.
No poison touches the King’s cup.

xxi.
No poisoner is ever born.

xix.
The King does not die.

xxvi.
Alise meets the Queen on her knees, soft lips to soft fingers as she vows allegiance to the Crown and to the King and to his Queen, a line unbroken. The tips of the Queen’s fingers brush Alise’s lips, a benediction and an apology and a mistake.

iv.
There are protocols to plotting to kill the King, and Alise’s life is made from protocols, so she does not speak of the plot to kill the King, not even to the Queen, not even when watching her dab arnica on bruises from fourteen inches from the door, filled with impotent rage.

That which is not spoken of cannot be heard, and that which is not heard cannot be stopped, and Alise will not allow herself to be stopped.

iii.
Alise grinds a knife to a razor-sharp blade on a whetstone gifted to her by the King himself, for five years of dedication to his Queen.

x.
Red blooms across Alise’s lips, blood from her broken nose streaming down her face and down her sinuses, staining her teeth like an animal that has chewed its way out of a trap.

ii.
Alise slits the King’s throat while he sleeps.

xii.
The King presents Alise with a sheath for five years of dedication to his Queen.

xv.
There are no protocols for fucking the Queen while the King sleeps a wing away, which Alise knows because she checks. Each protocol, current or obsolete, is numbered and titled and indexed, and they are all available to the palace guards. Alise reads each of them, one by one, hundreds upon hundreds of protocols in all different hands.

Beside the protocols are the rules, and beside the rules are the laws, and Alise reads those, too, because if she is going to disobey she wants to know what she is disobeying.

The unofficial motto of the palace guard was once Do it Once, Do it Right, and If You Have to Die, Then At Least Die Doing Something.

xc.
A new rule is established banning all unofficial mottos for the palace guard.

xviii.
The Queen, with lips painted red, steps up to Alise where she stands fourteen inches from the door and kisses her.

She tastes of perfume, and of blood, and of the paint and the powder and the pencil, and when she smiles she does not look at all like an animal that is chewing its way out of a trap.

xiv.
At night Alise stands fourteen inches from the door, and servants stand fourteen inches from her with a wall in between, and for the only time of every day there is nobody to see when Alise abandons her post, when she steps eighteen inches from the door, then twenty, then stops counting altogether, though she does know the distance from the door to the Queen’s bed, to the Queen, draped in something diaphanous that splits where the Queen’s legs part.

Here the Queen’s lips are not red except from scrubbing.

Here the Queen does not taste of perfume.

Here the Queen is bruised.

xxiv.
Every morning, red blooms across the Queen’s lips, paint and powder and pencil reshaping lines broken. The King watches, unbruised, unblemished, decadent in repose in their marital bed.

Alise stands fourteen inches from the door, eyes fixed on the King.

Protocol requires watching the most imminent threat in the room.

xxiii.
Alise drives the point of the pencil into the King’s eye, point whittled sharp enough to cut. It is unplanned, spontaneous, an animal chewing its way out of a trap.

xxv.
The King does not sleep in his marital bed with his Queen.

xxii.
Alise does not remember killing the King.

xiii.
The Queen, with red-painted lips and finger-bruised skin, steps up to Alise where she stands fourteen inches from the door and does not kiss her, not with the eyes of the servant with the paint and the servant with the powder and the servant with the pencil on them, too many eyes in a too-large room that smells too often of blood.

The Queen thanks Alise for her years of dedication to the Queen, and to the Crown, and to the King.

As the Queen walks away, soft fingers reach for callused.

In violation of protocol, Alise reaches back.

v.
There are protocols to plotting to kill the King, written in obsolete and superseded versions of protocol books, tucked away and unindexed but findable if reading every protocol book in an effort to learn whether there are protocols about fucking the Queen.

They are not particularly specific.

Alise wishes she could talk to their writers, so she could teach them the proper way to write a protocol.

ii.
Alise smothers the King with a pillow in his sleep, because the protocol states that assassinations should be simple, quiet, and untraceable.

cxli.
No protocol is ever written on how to kill a King.

ix.
In bed the Queen touches Alise’s lips, traces them, smooth and unsplit. When she slides her fingers into Alise’s mouth, Alise could close her teeth like a trap but she does not, not even when her mouth is stretched full and her throat threatens to gag.

They are matched, fingers to lips, the Queen’s fingers as smooth as Alise’s lips, the calluses on Alise’s fingers catching on the scars on the Queen’s lips. Alise rarely touches those lips except with her own, and every time she pulls away she expects red dripping between them like petals from a dying flower.

xxix.
Alise meets the Queen once, before she is the Queen, before either of them are who they are, and the Queen who is not yet the Queen tells Alise of the story of the grand lord who was Time’s beloved, and how her family claims to be descended from them the way every great family does, the line unbroken but filled with a thousand bastards.

Alise laughs.

When they kiss, they come away bloody.

iii.
There are no protocols for plotting to kill the King, but Alise has been operating without protocols since the first time she abandoned her post.

ii.
The King dies with poison on his lips.

iii.
There are no protocols for plotting to kill the King, but Alise has been operating without protocols since the first taste of blood on her lips, and perfume, and paint and powder and pencil.

ii.
The King dies.

iii.
There are no protocols for plotting to kill the King, so Alise talks about killing the King, whispers her plan in the Queen’s ear while they lie tangled in the Queen’s marital bed, Alise’s fingers tracing bruises that should not be there.

ii.
The Queen steps up beside Alise and closes her hand over Alise’s on the hilt of the dagger kept in the sheath the King gifted her for five years of dedication to the Queen.
Together, they press the blade into the King’s heart.

i.
Alise remembers killing the King.

Fiction Editor: Joyce Chng.

Copy Editor: Jamie Johnson.

Accessibility Editor: The Accessibility Department.