25

WE PULLED AWAY FROM LADY VIOLA’S HOUSE, SILENT EXCEPT FOR the rattle of the wheels and the horse’s shoes on the cobblestones. I glanced up and down the street, searching the dark for the shadow who had followed me to Viola’s. I saw no one, but that didn’t mean one of Pyord’s men wasn’t there, lurking, stalking me. Just because I wasn’t a target didn’t mean I couldn’t be followed, I thought with a shiver. Theodor watched out the window intently, mouth pressed into a firm, determined line. As though he were on sentry duty, protecting us.

We turned onto a broad avenue and he finally leaned back in his seat.

“What did the rock say?” I said.

“What?” Theodor sat up straighter. “Oh, the one that came through the window. It said, As glass shatters under the weight of one rock, so does a weak government under the people’s will.”

“How poetic,” I said. “Where did they read that, some—oh no.” It was probably from one of Kristos’s pieces, I thought with sinking guilt I didn’t deserve.

“I think you may be right,” Theodor said softly. “Though I am sure he did not intend this particular use, or the violence I fear is building if the Red Caps are funding and arming themselves.” He glanced out the window, a cursory scan. He seemed to confirm we were still safe. “Too bad he’s out to sea or he could discourage his comrades from misusing his words.”

I stopped the confused look that spread over my face—my lie. That Kristos was on board a ship. Not held captive by some revolution-prone professor who was likely connected, somehow, to the deviants who threw the rock. I realized I hadn’t finalized a commission with Princess Annette before leaving—if Pyord wanted to chastise me for that, I’d be able to tell him it was, in a way, his own fault.

I leaned my head against the cool glass of the window, but my face still felt like it was burning. I sighed. “This is why you didn’t need to take me home. I’m not the target.”

“You’re still a lady and a friend, and I feel, therefore, an obligation to protect you. Whether by taking you home or warning you that armed insurrection might be coming.”

“I’m not a lady!” I almost shouted, surprising even myself. “I’m a common woman, a shop owner, a tradesperson. I’m not a lady. I’m not noble,” I repeated, as though we both needed to be reminded.

“I know that. I know you’re not noble—don’t think I’ve forgotten, even if I can’t seem to behave as though I remember. If it doesn’t matter to me, who else might decide they don’t care?” He clamped his mouth shut. He’d already said too much—that he didn’t care if I was common. He’d thought about the impossibility of continuing an affair into something more. He didn’t want to give it up.

And I laughed. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. Almost hysterical, fueled by fear and guilt, I filled the carriage with peal after peal of desperate, joyless laughter.

“What’s so funny?” Theodor asked, eyes wide with confusion. He must think me mad, I thought, clutching the velvet cushion under me as I forced myself to stop.

“It’s just—we’re just—if you did want to marry me—”

“I can’t and we both know that,” he snapped.

I waved my hands, trying not to laugh again. “If you did, the only way you could is if the Red Caps succeed in staging a full coup and you’re stripped of your nobility. You’d get exactly what you want. Precious, no?” I stopped a cynical laugh from bubbling to the surface and averted my eyes from him, aware how inappropriate what I’d said was. Seditious, even.

A smile tugged at Theodor’s mouth, threatening to break into a full grin. “How romantic.” He lost the battle and laughed. “Now, given, I’d probably be dead if it came down to that, but otherwise, it’s a delightful fairy tale.”

It was macabre, but I laughed anyway, until my sides strained against my stays and my lungs burned.

Theodor chewed his lip as he watched me, then cracked open the carriage door and shouted something to the driver. His words were whipped away in the wind. I took a deep breath. Momentary madness had passed, and I calmed myself.

I watched Fountain Square pass by, deadly quiet this time of night, and then we turned toward the river. Not, I saw, toward my shop or my house. The carriage clattered on the bridge over the river, echoing over the cold waves below.

“Theodor,” I said softly. “Please just take me home.”

“I will,” he said. “But let me show you one thing first.”

I shook my head but didn’t argue. In truth, the kindest thing I could do for Theodor would be to distance myself from him, to keep him safe from Pyord. We turned up the narrow road toward the gardens. The greenhouse had been magic once, why not again, I imagined Theodor thinking.

We didn’t, however, stop by the greenhouse. Instead, we stopped by a pond circled by huge willow trees. Theodor led me from the carriage.

“Well?” I asked, more rudely than I had intended.

“I thought so,” he said. He took my hand gently. His eyes were striking in the moonlight, flecked with the same gold as the autumn-hued willow fronds around us. The moonlight settled in hollows of his high cheekbones and he looked impossibly beautiful. I hated him for it.

“You thought what?” I wanted to retract my hand, but I didn’t.

Inside the shelter of the willows, there were a dozen small ponds, cascading one into the other in miniature waterfalls, and finally one large fall sending the running water to the river below. Or, it would have been cascades and running water, save that it was frozen. Silent and beautiful, like a winter enchantment.

“I thought you would like this,” he said simply, leading me to an island in the middle of the ponds, stepping deftly across a narrow footbridge.

I shook with anger and desire and utter sadness. He knew I would want to drink the beauty I saw here; he wanted to share that with me. But why?

“Sophie,” he said, watching my eyes glisten with unshed tears. “What’s wrong?”

“What’s right?” I demanded. “You’re a duke; I’m no one. You’re noble, and I’m linked whether I want to be or not to people who want to destroy you. My brother is—” I stopped myself. “This is impossible.”

Theodor did not, as I had expected, drop my hand. Instead he drew me closer to him. His body felt warm under his cloak. “You’re correct that we are on opposing sides, by birth, of what I foresee will not be a short conflict restricted to riots and pamphlets.”

I almost stopped breathing.

“I am quite sure my parents wouldn’t approve of you, and your brother wouldn’t approve of me.”

I considered the fact that, for all I’d worried about Kristos, I hadn’t thought about how much he would hate finding out a duke had kissed me.

“And I will likely have to marry someone I don’t choose, and not in the far future. But this is still real. And it’s here, now.” He gestured around us, the ice reflecting broken starlight and the golden ribbons of the willow leaves fluttering in the cold wind. “And this.” He held up our hands, still clasped. “This is real, too.”

“But you just said—your parents, my brother, who we are.”

“I didn’t say a thing about that. I just said, this.” He held my hand tighter. “And this.” He leaned close and brushed my lips with his. “We have time. Common or noble, we’re all allotted the same amount of that, and wasting it would be criminal.”

I hesitated. “I’m not sure.” There was so much he didn’t know, so much danger he couldn’t be aware of.

“Nothing is sure. Especially not now. Except this.” His hands cupped my face, and he kissed me, fiercely, and I replied with the certainty my words could never have admitted.

We held each other, on that island of frost surrounded by ice, warm in our embrace until dawn began to crest the sky.