40

THERE WAS A PALL OVER THE CITY, TOO, A DULL, MALICIOUS QUIET. Something waiting. Something biding its time. The protests slowed, but the Red Caps gathered in knots in taverns, street corners, no longer shouting but whispering. The whispers terrified me.

Alice and Emmi worked their normal days, did good work; we took orders and delivered orders and restocked thread as though the shop had never been closed, but they were quiet, even Emmi. We all sensed something drawing tighter around us, growing shakier beneath us. Only I had a date in mind—Midwinter. Celebrated with parties in houses noble to common, marked with the Festival of Song during the shortest day of the year, and, I was sure, the date Pyord had planned his insurrection.

Masked by the quiet order of my shop’s regular production in the days leading up to Midwinter, I kept practicing pulling curses and charms out of my own sewing. I was painfully slow, and with mere days left to master the skill, increasingly frustrated. When Theodor asked if I could join him at his house to practice his own charm casting, I agreed, grateful not only for the break from my own dead-end work, but hoping that teaching him would show me something I had missed. If nothing else, the past weeks had taught me that I had plenty to learn about charm casting. Maybe the same route that brought me to trouble could lead me out of it. The streets were as quiet as they had been all week, punctuated by quiet Red Caps of whom I couldn’t help but feel vaguely, constantly suspicious.

No one followed me anymore, though, for which I was grateful, but I still moved quickly through the streets and arrived as inconspicuously as possible at Theodor’s front door.

“I haven’t been out in days. Father has the cabinet together writing a concordance to appease some of the Red Caps’ demands,” he confided. “It might be enough, if they can finish before the Red Caps make an attempt. Right now I doubt the cabinet’s ability to finish debating before Midsummer. I’ve been compiling information—mostly from your brother’s pamphlets—on their most frequent grievances.”

“They didn’t consider those demands until now?”

“Considered and promptly rejected dozens of times. Concession was seen as weak governance. They’re more afraid of revolution, finally—that truly would make them look impotent.” Theodor took my cloak and led me to his study. “Now. Enough talk about things we can’t fix. Charms. I promise to be a good pupil,” he said, folding his hands as though penitent.

“I’m sure you will be.” I laughed. “I’m afraid it’s my lacking as a teacher that we have to be concerned about. I’ve never taught anyone before. And, well … it may be too late.”

“Why?”

“I learned when I was a child. So did my mother. Everyone I’ve ever heard of learned as a child.” And, I added silently, for all I knew about the practice of casting, I knew little enough about how it actually worked, how the mind grasped the light and dark and drew it into obedience.

“Perhaps it’s like music—it’s easier to learn when you’re young and can train yourself to think in a certain way more naturally. But I’ve known aged men who picked up the violin in their retirement.” He shrugged. “They weren’t virtuosos, but they were competent.”

“It may work that way. It might not. Truly, I don’t know.” I held his hands. “But I know if anyone can learn, you could. So we’ll try.”

Theodor picked up his violin and tuned it. I watched him, thinking. How could one use a charm created by music? It couldn’t, like my charms or the ancient Pellian tablets, be permanent, I guessed. I assumed it would accompany the music, fading away when the music did. At the same time, it might affect anyone who could hear, or even any space that the music filled, rather than my stable but localized charms. Could he infuse a whole military regiment with good luck, a whole hospital wing with good health? I wished ruefully that I knew more about the theory behind charm casting, for the first time actually agreeing with Pyord about something.

“What do I do first?” he asked. I stopped, stumped already. What did I do first, when I set about to charm cast? I sat quietly and gathered my equipment and my thoughts.

“Just … calm yourself.”

“I thought I was calm,” he said amiably.

“No, like clearing your mind. Or thinking only about what you’re going to do next.”

“Which is?”

“Good question,” I said, unsure again. “When I sew, I start to stitch and kind of pull the light into what I’m doing.”

“I do that by … what? Thinking happy thoughts?”

“Not really.” I floundered. “It’s more being aware that it’s there. And …”

“Bending it to my will?” Theodor asked, laughing.

“Kind of,” I admitted. “Look, just try playing something now that you’re aware of what you can do. What you can see. Just notice when the sparks come through for you.”

He picked up his bow and drew it deliberately across the strings. The sound was sweet and mellow, like a soft spring breeze instead of the winter wind raking ice across the window. He caught himself up in a melody, and as he drew out a particularly beautiful line of notes, a shroud of light appeared around his violin.

He was so shocked that he nearly dropped the instrument.

“Was there anything different about how you were playing then?” I asked hurriedly. “Anything you felt differently, anything you noticed?”

“Not particularly,” he said, rubbing his thumb on the neck of the violin. “Just—this will sound stupid.”

“No, it won’t,” I countered.

“It felt like I wasn’t playing on my own anymore. That the melody had taken on a life of its own.”

This surprised me. I always felt in control of my creations, like a dictator of needle, thread, and silk. But I was deliberate in how I worked—Theodor didn’t know what he was doing.

“Try again,” I insisted softly. “When you feel it, try to hold it, to keep it.”

He nodded, determination overtaking his face, making his features look starker, older. The melody emerged again, and, sooner this time, light sparked around him. His brows constricted as he played, and the light grew. I felt warm and nearly weightless as the strains of music floated between us, comfortable and happy.

The light and the music faded together.

“I did it, didn’t I?” Theodor smiled softly, and I felt the warmth of the music sloughing off me.

“You did,” I said, surprised by the effects of his charms. “It’s different from mine. I had no idea—”

“What did I do?”

“You tell me. What did you try to do?”

“I was just thinking about how happy I am … when I’m …” He blushed. “When I’m with you.”

My lips parted. “That’s what I felt,” I said, “when you played. My charms are static—they just hang on a person in their clothes, surround them. But you made me feel what you intended.”

“That hardly seems useful,” he said, fiddling with his bow.

“Who cares about useful? It’s fascinating!” I grinned. “And there may be more to it, who knows? Maybe it’s a love spell of some kind, wrapped up in the music.” I thought of the ballad seller—even if she didn’t know what she was doing, surely her casting had the effect of a few extra coins in her pocket. Theodor’s version of casting could be as useful as mine. “If only I knew more—but I think you might be able to charm a large space, or a whole group of people that way. Eventually. With practice,” I teased.

“Today was a good start, though.” He put the violin back into its case.

A porcelain clock on the mantel chimed. “It’s that late? I have to get back to the shop—oh, Alice and Emmi will already be gone.” Winter’s early dusk pressed against the windows.

“I’ll go with you,” Theodor announced, mistaking my statement for worry about being alone rather than annoyance that there were tasks I knew my assistants hadn’t known to finish.

“To a district of town full of Red Caps ready to hang a noble? Your father would box my ears. No, thank you.”

“He’ll only box mine,” Theodor answered.

“Fine,” I said, and let him call for the carriage. Ensconced in the privacy of the carriage, I leaned into him. It felt like stealing moments from the inevitable when I allowed myself to be happy with Theodor. The thick black of an early winter evening pressed against the windows. I sighed, content for a few short minutes.

“Wait,” he said, his attention diverted to the street on his side of the carriage. We were on the same street as my shop—the same block, in fact.

“What is it?” I asked, watching the light from lanterns and torches bob past us. They coalesced in an undulating patch of light just ahead.

“I don’t like to say ‘mob,’ but it seems to be a rather disorderly group of citizens,” Theodor said.

He was right—as we approached the center of the well-lit mass, I could hear shouting and the strains of a song that I knew the revolutionaries had picked up as a makeshift anthem.

“We have to stop,” I gasped when I saw where they were.

“Absolutely not,” Theodor answered. “I’ve had fencing lessons and there’s a pistol under the seat, but believe me, I’m no match for a mob.”

“You just said ‘mob,’” I said softly. “But Theodor—they’re at my shop.”

He pressed his face to the glass to confirm what I’d already seen—the mob was gathered around my stoop. Anger flared like wax poured on embers. They had made me compromise the most highly held of my values; they had stolen my brother from me—did they have to ruin my shop?

The carriage was forced to slow as we approached the group anyway, and I saw that the woman standing on my stoop and shouting was a stranger. There was something comforting in that—had Kristos been poised to ransack my store, it would have destroyed me. But the sight of this woman with a rock in her hand and pure hatred on her face just roused practical, pointed anger.

“Stop,” I ordered Theodor.

“I’m not sure we have a choice.” He watched the crowd with analytical intensity, then rapped on the roof of the carriage. We had already slowed to a crawl; now we halted.

Without giving myself time to think, I threw open the door and launched myself onto the cobblestones. The impact stung my feet, but I rushed to the front of my shop, throwing elbows when bulkish men didn’t move.

I reached the base of the steps as the woman hurled the rock through the window. “This storefront is just one more way the nobles have infected even our common streets! We should tear it down, rock by rock!” I scrambled up the steps. If they knew that I was at the mercy of the nobility, too, that my shop had been closed because of my ties to the Red Caps, they had already forgotten or didn’t care.

“Stop this!” I gasped.

“What for? This shop caters to the wealthy, to nobles and the elite who benefit from their rigged game. This shop is part of the rigged game,” she added to shouts of acclamation from the crowd.

“This shop employs honest citizens.” I caught her arm as she flung it back to throw another stone. “Would you take their livelihood from them?”

“And who are you to stop us?” she snarled at me and wrenched her hand from my grip.

Who was I? I was a seamstress. I was a charm caster. I worked for nobles, and the rabble assembled here could never have afforded my services. I choked.

I was also Kristos’s sister.

I had to bank on the fact that they didn’t know that I had renounced him and told him I never wanted to speak to him again.

“I’m Sophie Balstrade, and my brother is Kristos Balstrade. This is my shop. Please leave it alone.” My voice rang out over the crowd, who had grown quiet while I’d scuffled with the woman.

She raised an eyebrow and laughed. “That so? If that’s the truth, why aren’t you on our side? Can’t see the sister of the great Kristos Balstrade sitting idly by, sewing pretties for nobles. That is what you do here, isn’t it? Sell yourself to them?” I heard several shouts of “whore” from the crowd. My shop was a tangible image of collaboration that they could burn like an effigy, and I was the symbol of everything wrong with the system they despised. “Raise yourself above the rest of us by clinging to them?”

“It’s true,” I said weakly. “I am Kristos’s sister.”

“I can vouch for that,” a voice called from across the street. Theodor. He stood on the rail of the carriage, leaning out over the stones below.

“A noble!” someone cried.

“She was with him!” shouted another. I groaned—Theodor’s presence was exactly what I didn’t need. But still my heart swelled that he wanted to help me, protect me.

A rock, certainly intended for my store’s windows, sailed instead toward Theodor. He ducked, and it collided with the paneling of the carriage, leaving a nasty gash across the wood. He retreated inside, and though the crowd shouted, black fear crept through me. I knew he’d reappear—and that he would have a pistol.

Foolish Theodor, I thought desperately. The single shot of that pistol might frighten a few of them, might distract them for a few moments, but it wouldn’t dissipate the crowd. Just drive, I wished fervently. Get away. Trust that they’ll break more of my windows and ruin everything in my shop but leave me alone. I was already banking on that hope.

On the fringes of the group, flickers of light caught my attention. The torches were moving aside rapidly for a hooded man, his strides long and deliberate. My heart jumped.

Kristos.

He swung up beside me on the stoop of my shop, giving me one long look before throwing back his hood. His bold features caught the varying light of the torches in a dramatic pastiche of shadow and color, and his eyes rested on the carriage and Theodor emerging from the door only briefly before he began to speak.

“This is not the revolution we require!” he shouted. The crowd silenced themselves immediately, the hush so palpable that I thought I heard a hundred heartbeats, all at once. Then he continued. “Attacking our neighbors? Throwing rocks and hurling insults at those who make an honest living? Whether they sell to you or to nobles, their earning is honest—not like the nobility who live off our labor.”

Shouts of affirmation followed Kristos’s words, and I sank against the stone exterior of my shop. The woman who had thrown the rocks had slipped away as soon as Kristos appeared. I stared at my brother, seeing him for the first time as all of these people did. He was not my brother, not the child I had grown up with—he was a leader. Just like Pyord said, a natural leader. What a great man he could have been, I thought. In another place, another life—my breath caught. He was trying to create that place, that life, where he could be more than a dockworker, more than a day laborer. I had created it for myself with my skill and my shop—I was lucky. He wasn’t—none of these people were. And so he carved the role of a leader for himself out of the bedrock of their need for change.

He was still speaking, and I looked out over the quiet crowd to Theodor. He had wisely tucked the pistol away, but he stayed firmly in the same spot. Unwilling to leave me.

I mouthed the word silently. “Go.” He shook his head slowly. I pressed my lips together, trying to dull the pounding of my beating heart in my ears.

“We should turn our attention where we can make an impact,” Kristos was saying. “The nobility is our enemy, not one another.”

My eyes widened. Kristos was looking straight across the street, practically daring Theodor to say something, to fight back, to run. I sank onto the cold stone, drawing my knees toward my chest like a frightened child.

The crowd sensed where my brother’s eyes rested and turned to Theodor, too.

He didn’t move. His thin jawline tilted upward, ever so slightly. My breath was ragged and audible, but Theodor inhaled and exhaled so calmly that he might have been sitting in Viola’s salon or in his greenhouse.

Go, I begged silently. Just go, get away now.

Kristos glanced at me, eyes narrowing. He exhaled once, a huff of angry air, and raised his arm. I covered my face, terrified to see what he was about to order his people to do.

“Let’s leave this place,” he cried. “Tomorrow is the Midwinter Festival of Song. We’ve long planned to show our numbers at the cathedral when the nobles gather to sing away winter—they won’t sing us away!”

Some in the crowd replied with shouts of affirmation, but most responded only with stony silence. “This is not how we earn the governance we deserve,” Kristos continued. “Arson? Vandalism? We are not street criminals. We are revolutionaries, soldiers in an army of ideals. We will show our force tomorrow and convince the nobility to acquiesce to our demands, to call for truce before war begins. Blood need not stain these streets!” he shouted.

I looked up at him, and he gave me a long look that I couldn’t quite read. Disappointment? Anger? Loss? All of these, or was it only that they were what I felt toward him? Then he swept away, pulling his cloak back over his features, obscuring himself even from me.

He strode up the street, toward the cafés and taverns, and the crowd followed him, dissipating so quickly that it was hard to tell what I’d been so terrified of until I saw the shattered pane of glass and imagined Theodor broken under their hands instead. I stumbled down the stairs, each step as unsure as a toddler’s.

Theodor met me in the street and pulled me inside his carriage. He slumped against the corner.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m useless.”

“No,” I insisted. “You’re not. That was a mob—there, I said it, too.” Neither one of us was ready for humor.

“Do you think he meant it?” he asked after a long silence. “That we might still forestall open revolt?”

I hesitated. “Even if he did, just now …” I thought of Niko’s determination and Pyord’s careful calculations and knew, somehow, that the machine was already in motion, the gears wound too tightly to prevent them from springing forward.

“I’ll never be the man your brother is,” he finally replied.

“That,” I said, my voice teeming with the anger I’d forced back until now, “is certainly true.” Theodor’s face met mine, shocked and hurt. I shook my head and explained, “He’s an awful person. He doesn’t really care about other people.” I forced each syllable through clenched teeth. “He cares more about his ideals than his friends. Than his family.”

“He saved you,” Theodor said. “And, might I note, me.”

“Yes. This time he did.”

“When he speaks, others listen. He’s made of something I’m not, crafted out of leadership when I’m merely born into it.”

“But he’s …” I wanted to tell Theodor everything—that Kristos had forced me to betray myself, that he was complicit in a plot against the king. Instead, I choked my confession back and said only, “He’s lied to me and hurt me.”

“I know,” Theodor said, even though he didn’t know the depth of Kristos’s betrayal. “Let me bring you to my home.”

“It’s not necessary. Just take me home.”

“Not a chance—I’m not letting you stay alone tonight.”

I agreed, defeated and exhausted.