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Katherine Howard was too afraid to cry.

There had been tears—so many of them—over the past forty-eight hours, since she was manhandled out of her apartments at Syon and wrestled, screaming, into the river barge. Her face had been constantly red and puffy, if not outright dripping, for weeks.

But now the tears were gone, maybe forever, because the fear coiling in her gut was too overwhelming. It had always been there, a frozen stone dropped through her stomach; but now the stone was dissolving, worming its way into every crevice of her body, flitting in between her organs and into every crack in her skin, and it had begun to constrict, to squeeze like a python, forcing the breath from her and making every vein in her body so, so tight. She could feel the tension squeezing her toes all the way up to her face, where her muscles were clenched so tightly that her tear ducts were blocked and she could not cry for the fear.

The block wasn’t helping. She had asked for it, to be sure—asked for an executioner’s block to be brought to her chambers so that she could practice, so that she would know just how to fold herself over it when the time came, so that there would be no chance of adding insult to injury or of making an irrevocable mistake that would increase the humiliation of her last public performance. She had knelt over it for hours, now, practicing how to walk over to it, how to kneel (right knee, left knee, flex your feet, tuck your dress under your shoes), how to lay her head precisely in the divet in the block, how to wrap her arms around and cradle in her palms the rough wood of the closest thing she would ever have to a coffin.

Some time ago, she had suddenly lost the energy to stand back up; the constriction of the fear had gotten too overwhelmingly painful, the exhaustion from the constant crying had sapped all the energy from her bones, the knowledge that it would all ultimately be meaningless twelve hours from now had infused her with insurmountable apathy. And so now she was just crouched on the floor, still folded over the block in the position she lacked the energy to move from, eyes closed, struggling to breathe. God, all her muscles were ablaze with the fear, tensed so tight it stung; how was she going to get through twelve more hours of this?

It was quiet in her chambers, with everyone gone, with her ladies-in-waiting dismissed (except for Jane, in the room next door, awaiting a similar fate), with her husband God-knows-where—so very quiet that when the voice spoke, she yelped in startled fear, even though it was barely above a whisper.

“Katherine, darling. You have to stop that.”

She tried to jerk back, but—kneeling as she was—her feet caught on the long hem of her dress, and she tumbled backwards onto the ground. Her face burned with the humiliation, and her eyes burned especially, and the tears threatened to return, because she had nothing left, no scrap of pride, the fear was worthless because she had nothing left to lose, she was helpless and sprawled on the floor, the hollow shell of a forgotten queen—

“Oh, Katherine,” came the voice again, this time layered with even more sorrow. “Don’t cry, love. Everything is okay.”

Katherine tried to look around, but the room was dark; the moonbeams slipping silently through the windows illuminated uneven scraps of the floor. But there, the candles on the far wall were illuminating a slender figure, perched on the edge of Katherine’s bed, cloaked in shadow and all the scarier for it.

Katherine barely had the air to speak. “Who are you?” She had to give herself the credit for getting it all out without her voice catching, stumbling, sprawling into cracks.

“You know, I think,” the voice said softly, and the figure stood—melted, it looked like—and slipped off the bed to rise to its full height. In the silhouette, Katherine could see a middle-aged woman, slender but poised; and then the figure moved into one of the puddles of moonshine and Katherine caught a glimpse of her face and realized that she did know.

“Queen Anne.”

The woman dipped her head in assent. “Queen Katherine.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, painfully aware now that she was still sprawled on her back on a dirty stone floor in the Tower of London. “I am not so much a queen anymore.”

Anne shrugged, ever so slightly, as if indifferent. “No less than I.”

Katherine lowered her gaze to the ground, where she could see hazy scraps of floor through Anne’s shoes. “How are you here?”

Was that a tiny smile flitting across Anne’s face? It was gone too quickly for Katherine to be sure. “The supernatural—has its ways. It is not often safe, nor prudent, for us to visit the world of the living; but some days warrant an exception. Some people warrant an exception.”

“Then—why me? Why today?”

When Anne spoke, it was gentler, soothing. “I thought you might like some—company, tonight. I thought you might not want to be alone. I know I didn’t.”

Katherine wanted to speak, wanted to thank her, wanted to say anything, but her throat was sticky and it caught her words before they could reach her mouth. She felt the shame collapse back over her—what kind of a queen couldn’t even respond when spoken to?—but Anne seemed to understand. “It’s okay, Katherine. Don’t speak. Get up from the floor, now, and come sit with me. Over here, my lovely.”

Anne stayed there in the moonbeam, waiting with divine patience as Katherine took in a shuddering breath, got to her feet, and made her way over to join Anne. Up close, Katherine could see even more clearly that Anne was ghostly, that she was not solid; half of the bedroom cell was visible through her chest. And yet somehow Anne’s arm, when she wrapped it over Katherine’s shoulder, was warm, not misty at all.

Anne guided her gently over to the bed, settling her down on the mattress with her back against the headboard and her legs stretched out on the bed, and then sat down next to her. “Katherine, it really is wonderful to see you all grown up, though I hoped I wouldn’t have to see you again for awhile.”

Beneath the numbness of the morbid horror, confusion sparked dully in Katherine’s brain. “Again? Have we met?”

And Anne giggled lightly. “A few years after I came to England—1526, I want to say—I paid a visit to your father, who had been—shall we say, aggressive in his correspondence with me. I got to meet you just after I arrived. You probably don’t remember; you were perhaps three years old at the time? But you were ever so proper, even then; you gave me a curtsey and complimented my hood.”

Katherine almost—almost—smiled. “I’ve always adored French hoods.”

“And they look so very lovely on you.”

“What high praise, from the woman who brought them to England.”

Anne chuckled weakly. “Mary—Henry’s sister—is the one responsible for that, I’m afraid.”

“Really? Everybody at court says it was your doing.”

“Well. We both know, I think, that what ‘everybody at court’ is saying cannot always be trusted.”

And just like that the grief—which Anne had so momentarily banished—was back on her, as she thought of court and remembered her household collapsing around her, remembered each of her ladies-in-waiting methodically condemning her (except Jane Boleyn, who had said she would follow Katherine anywhere and would tomorrow follow her to the executioner’s block). She was overcome again with a flash of vertigo, which had never really gone away; they called it a fall from grace for a reason, she supposed, but her stomach had not stopped feeling hollow and swooping since they mentioned Mannox’s name. She was falling through the bottomless infinity of space, unable to stop, and now she was beginning to see the ground beneath her, but that was not better because it would crash into her and drive the life from her body with a single smack. Katherine squeezed her eyes tightly shut, willing her breathing to calm, to little avail.

“Katherine.” Anne’s voice was a little hollow, and Katherine was afraid to look up at her, expecting a scolding or worse—Anne was such a towering, legendary figure, and Katherine could do nothing in front of her but cry—but Anne began stroking her back lightly. “Oh, Katherine, I am so, so sorry.”

***

It had been hours, and they had barely moved; Anne didn’t feel there was any need to make the child get up, and, besides, there was nowhere to go. Some time ago she had checked with Katherine, just to be sure that Anne’s suspicions were right and that Katherine had no plans to sleep tonight; Katherine had confirmed this with a weary nod and slipped into silence.

Anne had begun, some time ago, to braid Katherine’s hair, twisting it into complicated patterns and then undoing it to weave it into something else. It had begun as a ruse to get Katherine’s French hood off of her head so she wouldn’t have to do it in public—Anne remembered that humiliating moment of having to take off the ermine-lined hood at her own execution and replace it with that horrid white cap, and Katherine was certainly not in a state of mind to think of proactively taking off her hood herself—but the braiding had become soothing. It was something rhythmic, routine, engaging but not hard for Anne to do with her hands; and Katherine was leaning into the touch with an ease and an eagerness that made Anne wonder when she had last felt unthreatening hands on her.

The moonbeams were receding across the floor, snaking back out the windows; the moon was setting. The sky outside was gray now where before it had been black, and it wasn’t morning yet but it would be soon. Katherine would undoubtedly be escorted outside as soon as the sun was bright enough for everybody to trust that the axeman could see his mark clearly enough.

Still, though, it was not yet light enough—not quite—and so when the knock came on the door, Anne was shaken to the point of fear. Who was at the door? It shouldn’t be the executioner, not yet; it was not morning yet, and so who—?

The same fear had obviously electrified Katherine; her hand flashed out and grabbed Anne’s, squeezing in a vice grip, and a whimper escaped her lips. She was looking up at Anne with undisguised terror, and seeing her fear somehow tamped down Anne’s: she had much less to be afraid of than Katherine, and so she had to—would—be the strong one, the brave one, the one to answer the door. And so she rose to her feet.

But Katherine was shaking her head, fully panicked now. “You have to hide!” she cried breathlessly, her voice so tight. “You can’t let them see you!”

Anne felt a gentle smile rise to her lips. “No matter,” she told the child. “I have the power to decide who gets to see me; they will look straight through me if I want them to. I am invisible to them.”

Anne watched Katherine’s face relax, but only very slightly, and she would have swooped over to soothe but there was no time. She could already hear the deadbolts on the other side of the door being undone, letting in whoever wanted to come torment Katherine.

And then the door swung open to reveal three heavily-muscled, heavily-armed Tower guards. They were sneering. The man in the middle stepped forward to speak.

“Lady Howard,” he drawled, and bile rose in Anne’s throat, nearly choking her, at the sickening contempt in the guard’s voice. “His Majesty King Henry here to see you.”

And Anne was nearly bowled over by the shock; and then a sick adrenaline began churning in her stomach. She turned back to the girl huddled on the bed, pleading with dreadful desire. “Let me let him see me,” she breathed. “Katherine, please. Tell me I can show myself to Henry.”

Katherine’s face was twisted, crumbled, overtaken by terror and anger and total bewilderment and Anne couldn’t begin to identify what else. She stared openmouthed at Anne, seemingly entirely confused, and then she nodded. Anne felt her face curl into an almost cruel smile, relishing in the sheer power she felt coursing through her veins: she was going to get up in Henry’s face, to scream at her for what she’d done to the bouncy three-year-old she’d met when she first arrived to England who was now a sobbing teenager in her last hours of life—and he wasn’t going to be able to touch her.

She hid herself from him when he first walked through the door, going fully invisible, so that his face, when he entered, locked straight on Katherine and Katherine only, who was curled in on herself. He was so much fatter than he had been when Anne knew him, and his skin was beginning to sag, and his ulcer-ridden leg smelled disgusting; but the gleam in his eyes was one Anne knew only too well. It was the look that contorted his face when he played his sickening mind games, when he slowly and methodically twisted the perception of the person in front of him until they collapsed in on themselves, and it made Anne sick. It made her want to vomit. Especially because it was directed now at the girl on the bed, at Anne’s baby cousin.

She stepped right in front of Henry and she let her figure materialize; she let him see her face appear in thin air less than a foot away from his. She smiled; and when Henry yelped, screeched so loudly that the sound bounced off the walls and echoed crazily throughout the room, Anne let herself laugh.

She had wanted to let Henry speak first, but the way he was gaping, openmouthed and horrified, at her made it clear that he would not initiate conversation, not for a while. And so Anne let herself chuckle and ask, “I take it you didn’t expect to see me here?”

He gaped, stared, spluttered—and then he watched his eyes shutter and his face go hard and blank, blocking out all emotion. It was a look Anne knew well; it was, in fact, the last look she had ever seen on Henry’s face, on the scaffold barely five years ago.

Henry’s voice, when he spoke, was as emotionless as his face, hard and firm. “Move.”

Anne raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think I will, no.”

“I’m not here to see you.” He shot out an arm, aiming to shove Anne out of the way; but she let her ghostly body go misty and his hand passed right through her. He stumbled, off-balance, and his face went beet-red.

“I know you’re not here to see me,” said Anne, “but I am here to prevent you from seeing her. I am here to prevent you from ever looking her in the eyes, ever again.”

“That is not”—and Henry grunted again, trying unsuccessfully to shove a ghost—“your decision. This is not your place! Move!”

Anne smirked; a bitter giggle escaped her lips. “No.”

“How dare—”

And hearing his bitterness, his anger, cut through Anne’s restraints and opened the floodgates to her own bitter outrage. “How dare I? How dare you, Henry? How could you? She is younger still than your own daughter. You marry this child and you condemn her to death for being still a girl, and then you come here tonight to laugh at her, to rub it in, to frighten her more just so you can see her cry again? How dare you?”

Henry had apparently not learned that he could not touch Anne—had not learned that she could make herself misty, let his hands pass through her—and so when he brought his open palm down in a vicious slap and he made contact with nothing, he was pulled off his feet. He stumbled sideways twice, and then he landed heavily on his left leg, oozing pus and unusable from the ulcer; he gasped at the sudden weight and then, unable to support himself on the rotted leg, toppled to the floor with a cry.

Anne smiled, at Henry’s predicament and at the awed gasp from the bed behind her; her grin only widened when Henry finally, with lots of stumbling and cursing, got himself back to his feet. His face was bloodshot at the humiliation; he opened his mouth, gulping like a fish a few times, before abruptly turning on his heel and stalking out without another word.

Anne watched his retreating form with a smirk; and when she turned back to look at Katherine, still huddled on the bed, the child was shaking with silent laughter.

***

Anne’s diversion had been pleasantly distracting, and Katherine was grateful for not having had to speak to Henry—god, even imagining such a confrontation left nausea snaking through her stomach—but it had of course Anne’s control had been temporary. And if Henry was awake, it meant it was nearly morning, and that meant it was nearly—time.

And so she was quiet, again; she did not have the strength or the bravery to summon words. Anne didn’t seem to mind; she seemed to understand. Katherine was tucked under Anne’s gentle arms, cuddled up in a side hug against Anne’s warm body.

After perhaps too long, she wondered how Anne could hold her so tightly, so safely, when Henry’s hand had passed through her so cleanly. She licked her lips a few times, looked up at Anne, and garnered up the courage to ask.

Anne smiled gently, reaching out to tuck a stray lock of hair behind Katherine’s ears; Katherine shivered at the contact, touch-starved. “This—substance—is the form I take when I choose to visit your world. I can control it fully: who can see me, who can touch me. I didn’t let him feel me; but you I want to hold. No matter. I use this—body—rarely; I am nearly always… elsewhere.”

“Heaven.” It was not a question.

“No.”

“No?” It was what had sustained her, just barely, through the panic, knowing that there was a safe place waiting for her once she got through the terror. If not—if Heaven was not there—she felt her breath quicken, and suddenly the tightness in her heart was no longer bearable—

“Katherine, Katherine.” She heard Anne’s voice just faintly. “Focus on me, love, you’re okay. It isn’t the Heaven you’re picturing, but there is somewhere safe waiting for you. I promise, sweetheart, you will be warm and safe afterward. You will be with me.”

Anne’s voice was getting clearer; Katherine finally felt herself suck in a whole breath. “You promise?”

The arms around her tightened. “I promise.”

Katherine nodded, and slipped into silence. Anne had shattered her entire understanding of the world—how could there not be a Heaven?—but she was still here, holding her with warm arms, and if Katherine would soon be where Anne lived most of the time, then that was okay with her.

She lapsed into silence again, leaning into Anne; Anne cradled her and began to stroke softly across her hair. Katherine just buried her face in Anne’s shoulder and tried to breathe, tried to keep the oxygen flowing uninterrupted. Time passed; she could not guess how much, but it was warm and safe in Anne’s arms, and that was enough.

And then—and then. Heavy footsteps, faraway, growing closer.

Katherine bolted upright; leaving Anne’s side, the cold shot through her. “They’re coming.”

And she watched Anne close her eyes and nod. “They are.”

The lack of any denial sent the panic, which had been coiling in her gut, spiking up through her chest to stab her heart. “They’re coming to—to—to take me—and—”

Anne took her hands, which she had not noticed quaking, and held them tight, quelling the spasms. Anne’s ghostly hands were somehow miraculously warm, and the skin-on-skin soothed Katherine as much as anything could have. “I know. I—I know, Katherine. Just keep breathing for me.”

A sharp retort shot through Katherine’s brain—something about breathing and not being able to now and soon not being able to ever again—but she tamped it down. Anne was trying to help. And she was trying to comfort her, she was holding Katherine and stroking her back, she was here—and that in itself was soothing. Suddenly Katherine couldn’t imagine what she would do when Anne left.

And so Katherine just swallowed, and when her voice came, it was a whisper. “Will you—I mean, can you stay with me?”

“Of course, sweetheart.”

“How long?”

“Until the very end, Katherine.”

“You promise?”

“To the scaffold and to the block, Katherine; and I will see you immediately after. I promise.”

Katherine’s heart lurched, seized: it was suddenly twisted so tight. And it was painful with panic, but it was also painful with the intensity of the love for Anne that was overwhelming her. The love and the panic were inextricable—she didn’t think she could feel such a deep immediate love if it wasn’t triggered by the gratitude she felt for Anne comforting her, bringing her back from the edge of sheer hysteria—and all of it together made a sour cocktail in her heart. Her chest was painful, bitter; but it was bearable, because it was capped with adoration for Anne, and Anne was still here.

But the footsteps were getting louder, and she could hear voices now, and she couldn’t breathe; she could feel her entire body trembling from the oxygen deprivation. And then Anne grabbed her, seized her by the shoulders so their faces were an inch apart, and stared straight into her eyes.

“Katherine. Be brave. You have to be brave. I know how scary it is, I know how afraid you are, and I know there is nothing that will make it even the slightest bit less frightening. But you need to tamp down that fear for half an hour—half an hour, Katherine—and then it will be over and you will be safe and you can cry and I will hold you and you will be with me forever. Shut off the emotion for now. Separate your mind from your body; keep yourself calm. Go through the motions. I will stay by your side, but you have to be brave from within your own self. I know you can. I know you are strong. Show me, Katherine. Show me your courage.”

And then, with hellish timing, the door opened. Anne didn’t let her go, just kept staring at her. Katherine nodded. There were things more important than fear right now—things like honor and dignity—and she could already feel the terror draining from her, replaced with a sense of inevitability. There was no other ending now; she might as well submit with grace.

And so when the door opened, when the guards who stood there just looked at her and beckoned, she got to her feet by herself. Anne slipped off the bed beside her, still clutching Katherine’s hand; the guards looked right through her. Instead they slipped into a circle behind Katherine, not touching; they would grab if she fought, but she wouldn’t, not now. There was no point in fighting; there was no other ending. Better to leave this world with dignity, and enter Anne’s composed.

Anne squeezed her hand slightly as Katherine made her way, surrounded by guards, down the back steps of the Tower, into the courtyard. Katherine swallowed and cast her a glance, and then felt her lips turn slightly upward when she saw how widely Anne was beaming. “You’re doing so well, Katherine,” she whispered. “So well.” And Katherine nodded. The fear was gone; her chest was cold; she felt brave.

And then she saw the scaffold.

It was just there, rickety yet imposing; her ladies were there, and Jane, and—god—the executioner all in black with his axe, and the scaffold’s floor was covered in hay to soak up the blood that would spurt everywhere when it happened—to soak up her blood because there would be so much of it—god, her blood spilling everywhere, her blood, her blood, her—her—her—

“Ten minutes, Katherine,” came the whisper in her ear. “Be brave, my darling. I’m right here.”

Her entire body felt numb; she couldn’t feel her legs. But when Anne guided her to the scaffold and stepped up onto the first step, Katherine felt herself following, chilled to the bone. “Look at my eyes,” Anne whispered, and Katherine did, barely aware of her own body following Anne, step by step, up to the scaffold, until the steps ended on the flat platform.

The man waiting there nodded, then turned to address the crowd. “The Lady Katherine Howard,” he announced dryly, “to be executed for treason, in accordance with the laws of the kingdom of England and by the consent of the Royal Parliament and of His Majesty King Henry VIII.”

She knew what she had to do, and yet her mind had gone strangely blank—empty—paralyzed; and so she just stood there staring numbly until Anne nudged her and whispered, “Your speech, Katherine.”

She gasped; she nodded; she shook herself. She spoke. She was a wretched sinner, she had undermined Henry, a beheading was too merciful for her. Her throat caught on the very last word of her well-rehearsed speech—“death”—and she realized with a morbid chill that it would be her very last word ever.

Anne must have felt her shaking, because she snaked an arm over her shoulder. “Pay the executioner.”

This, too, she had forgotten; it came back in a rush, that she must pull out her own coin purse and make her very last purchase, compensating the axeman for his services. Her fingers were shaking so badly that coins spilled everywhere. Nobody moved to pick them up.

Finally she had pressed the sum into the executioner’s palm—so warm, so sweaty—and Anne squeezed Katherine to her side. “Now, Katherine.”

Anne drew back slightly to let Katherine to kneel in front of the block, and a chill shot through her as her cousin’s form—invisible to everybody else, yet so clear to her, so warm—left her. She had practiced this; she would get it right. Her heart was hammering so loudly, thunderously drowning out everything else, but she did not need anything else. She did not need to think. Her muscles knew what to do; they would never need to know how to do anything else.

Right knee, left knee, flex your feet, tuck your dress under your shoes.

Tilt your head to the side—cheek against the wood—so your neck is exposed.

Anne reappeared in her field of vision, kneeling on the side of the block; she reached out to adjust Katherine’s chin, so very slightly, so that their eyes were locked. “You’re doing so well, Katherine. So very well. Keep looking at my eyes.”

She nodded faintly; nothing in the world could compel her to look anywhere but Anne’s soft eyes, she told herself. Nothing could make her want to look away.

But it was never as easy as what she wanted, and when the executioner’s form, shadowy in her peripheral vision, shifted violently and raised the axe, she could not help but jerk her eyes over to watch him. For the briefest of moments her eyes caught his face, cruel and stoic; and then her gaze was drawn to the axe, the blade, glittering so brightly as it reflected the early morning sun, and that blade would soon be slick and red with her blood and oh god—

“Ah-ah-ah,” Anne chided gently, and her chilled fingers brushed against Katherine’s chin, readjusting her gaze so she had no choice but to stare straight into Anne’s face. “Eyes on me, Katherine. Nowhere else. Look at me. Keep looking.” And she kept her hand there, against Katherine’s face, so that when shadows danced in Katherine’s peripheral vision and figures loomed over her, just out of sight, she had no choice but to fight the urge to care about them and stare instead into Anne’s steady eyes.

And even though her heartbeat was drowning out all other sound, and even though she was choking on terror, her gaze stayed locked on Anne, staring unmoving into her cousin’s face as the world moved around her—until her neck erupted in pain, her vision lurched sickeningly, and the world went black.

***

She was disoriented before she even opened her eyes, like the way she felt whenever the court moved to a new palace—like the way she’d felt the first time she woke up in Henry’s bed. Her whole body was achy, especially around her neck, and her head was tight and throbbing; but more than the pain was a disoriented confusion, one that was made worse by the blackness. And so she forced herself to open her eyes.

And there, right where they’d been when her vision cut out, were two familiar green eyes, just like they’d promised. Katherine hadn’t felt how tense she was until she deflated, relaxed. “Anne.”

“Oh my darling.” Those gorgeous green eyes were wet. “Oh, Katherine, you’ve done so wonderfully well. You’ve been so brave.”

“Anne.” She couldn’t say anything else.

“It’s okay, my lovely, it’s okay. Take your time. You have nothing but time.”

Katherine nodded. Still not trusting herself to speak, she instead let herself look around. The room was shadowy; she was lying on a couch in a warm puddle of candlelight. And just on the edge of the light were other figures, other women.

Some were unfamiliar, but one—she had seen her face in portrait after portrait, still dotting palace corridors, and she was breathless, almost starstruck. “Queen Jane?”

Her thin lips widened and the woman dipped her head. “Queen Katherine.”

She flinched; she wanted to ask for them to please not say that, but she didn’t know how. She was so tired of it, of the title, of being reminded over and over again that she used to be Queen but she was no longer, she was disgraced now, and lost—

Jane must have seen something in her face. “Would you not like to use that name?”

Katherine bit her lip, because how did you explain you didn’t want the title of utmost respect? “I—”

“If it is the word Queen you dislike,” put in another woman—a figure Katherine had only barely noticed, her face half-shadowed—“that is understandable. Anne dislikes it as well.” Her voice was powerful, regal, but heavily accented; Katherine knew at once this woman was Spanish and knew just as immediately who she was.

“I think,” she got out slowly, shaking with the tension of trying to avoid any further humiliation in front of her predecessor, “that would be preferable.”

The woman nodded. “Of course. What would you like to be called, then? Just Katherine? Or you may choose something new entirely—I am a Katherine too, after all—whatever you would like.”

“I—” She stuttered, stumbled, felt her face burn.

“Take your time,” Jane soothed. “No need to answer us right away.”

Katherine nodded. She was comfortable here, safe, but—something was missing, something was odd. She was lying down with the others clustered around her, and she suddenly felt very cold, and very apart, and very alone, and—

“Anne?” It was barely a whisper, and it was almost embarrassing—she would have been embarrassed about such vulnerability in her past life, but she was so far past the point of humiliation now—“Anne, will you sit with me?”

“Of course, darling.” Katherine tucked up her feet to let Anne join her on the couch, then twisted around so she could put her head against Anne’s shoulder; Anne just wrapped her up in a hug.

Anne’s hand strayed to Katherine’s hair and began to stroke; barely a second later she drew back with a surprised laugh. “Your hair is so soft,” she giggled; “I couldn’t feel it quite the same before!”

Abruptly there was another hand on her hair and another soft laugh, and she looked up to see Jane Seymour stroking her hair next to Anne. “So soft,” Jane agreed in a low murmur, and then: “Comme caresser un chaton!”

Anne giggled, and Katherine caught her look straight at Jane, as if sharing an inside joke. Katherine felt her nose wrinkle: did they think she didn’t know what they were saying? “Je peux te comprendre, tu sais,” she told them: I can understand you, you know. I speak French; I understand when you say my hair is so soft that it’s like petting a kitten.

“Ah, un chaton intelligent!” It was playful and it was lighthearted—“ah, a smart little kitten!”—but the ease with which it slipped from Anne’s lips made Katherine wonder if, perhaps, this playfulness was the more real side of Anne, when she did not have to be the comforter to a teenager about to die.

“Un chaton du monde,” Jane added, and it made Katherine tear up, because she had never thought of herself as worldly, as well-traveled; she had never been outside of England, and her French had always felt stilted for it.

“Je me sens plus comme un chaton—piégé,” she told them, and there was an instant outpouring of soft, sympathetic denials from Anne and Jane—no, don’t say that, it’s not true anymore, you’re safe now—and she almost sobbed at the gentleness of their words and the strength of Anne’s squeeze.

And then the other Catherine spoke. “Forgive the intrusion, but would somebody mind informing the non-Francophone what on God’s green earth you all are saying?”

Katherine felt a surprised laugh jolt from her without her permission; she clapped a hand over her mouth (laughing at Catherine of Aragon? How dare she? How could she?) but Catherine just looked amused. Exasperated, yes, undeniably—but lightheartedly so.

And Anne and Jane were grinning too, not remotely frightened, and Anne said, “I was just mentioning how soft her hair is, and Jane said it’s like petting a cat, and—well, then it went a bit odd—but the point is, she said she felt trapped, and—”

“Pardon. Who said this?” Catherine interrupted, eyes bright with what Katherine could only identify as concern. “Who felt trapped?”

“Kitty,” Anne said simply, unthinkingly, and then she recoiled and shook herself. “I mean—Katherine—I—”

But now all of them were laughing, except Catherine, who was staring at them with a look of bewilderment. “‘Kitty’? Where did that come from?”

“I—it just did—but I—I’m sorry, Katherine, I don’t know why that came out. I’m sorry.”

But Kitty was smiling, and her face was softer and more relaxed than it had felt in awhile, and her whole body felt light in a way that it hadn’t since November—maybe since her wedding. “No—no, it’s okay, Anne. I’d like to try—Kitty, maybe? Just for a little, just to see?”

“Of course.” Anne’s arms were warm around her, and Jane Seymour settled on the couch on the other side of her, and Catherine of Aragon came to sit at Kitty’s feet (the rightful Queen of England, sitting on the floor!—it took Kitty’s breath away for just a moment, and she pulled back instinctively, so as not to touch Catherine with her shoes; but Catherine just gently brought Kitty’s feet to rest in her lap, and it was somehow soothing). “Of course, mon chaton, my darling. Oh, lovely, you’ve been so brave today, so very brave. I’m so proud of you.”

And she had heard that before, she had heard people say they were proud of her—Francis Dereham, when she stole Henry Manox’s letter; and her grandmother, when she was sent away to court; and her uncle, when she married the King—but she had always felt bitter when she heard it before, undeserving or uncaring or unwilling to take the praise. Now, for the first time, she relished it, leaned into Anne’s touch; and maybe Anne realized it was a sentiment that had been lacking, because she just burrowed her hands into Kitty’s cat-soft hair and leaned down to whisper in her ear.

“You have done so wonderfully well, darling. I am so proud of you—so proud, my Kitty.”

***