Emilie
Mother awoke a mere thirty seconds after I settled back into the carriage. I had leaned my head as if resting—it was so hot and our journey so long that the idea we had nodded off wasn’t terribly unbelievable—and she jerked up. She would think it had only been a second or two if I had done it right.
“Emilie?” She blinked, the white cosmetics lining her eyelids sparkling, and touched her head. “Did I fall asleep?”
I yawned. “I think we both did. The crowd is clearer now, though.”
“It has been a long few days,” she said.
I stepped out of the carriage for the second time, and she took my arm immediately. She led me through the streets—bypassing water stalls tended to by pretty girls with bright smiles and sweet-smelling wares and slipping down an alley of vendors selling charms, all fake, to bolster the midnight arts and protect against the ravages of magical power—and we emerged on the other side of the market. The streets of Bosquet ended, and the path leading to the school began. Lord, this town was small.
The horizon cleared, and my mother pulled me close. She pointed to the mountains overlooking Bosquet.
The glass-domed spires of Mademoiselle Vivienne Gardinier’s school glittered over the town. The towers were moon white and sharp against the southern sky, and my mother’s relentless descriptions of her childhood home for years had not done the estate justice. The buildings were carved into the cliffs overlooking the Verglas River beneath, the rolling spokes of a waterwheel barely visible over the impeccably groomed garden blocking the ground floors and horizon from view, and a single observatory tower domed in silver marked the highest point for leagues and leagues. On the darkest of nights, it served as a light for the ships navigating the Verglas.
“It’s pretty.” I swallowed, the bitter tastes of sulfur and daisies heavy on the wind.
The half smile on her face was something I had never teased out of her. “I still miss it sometimes.”
A dirt path laid with gray stones led to a silver gate twisted to resemble crawling ivy twined about saplings. The garden beyond, fruit trees and flowers so perfectly organized they resembled a rainbow of soldiers in marching lines more than a garden, blocked my view of the school. My mother approached the closed gate, and I followed.
At eye height, someone had knotted a cheap poster to one of the silver saplings. My mother ripped it down and handed it to me. Beneath the jagged sketch of a laurel crown read:
A KING CANNOT REST ON HIS LAURELS.
HENRY XII SAVED US ONCE AS A PRINCE BUT HAS FAILED US REPEATEDLY AS A KING.
HE HAS FAILED TO SECURE PEACE AND HAS INSTEAD SPENT OUR MONEY ON FIELDS OF GOLD & GILDED PEACE TREATIES WITH NO GUARANTEES.
HE HAS FAILED TO FEED HIS CITIZENS IN TIMES OF NEED,
SAVING THE STORES FOR HIMSELF & THE COURT.
HE HAS FAILED TO PROTECT US FROM THE CORRUPT USAGE OF HACKS BY NOBLE NOONDAY ARTISTS.
HE HAS BROKEN HIS PROMISES TO RAISE WAGES,
PROTECT OUR LABOR WHICH HE DEPENDS ON,
& ALLOW OUR TOWN LEADERS SEATS AT COURT,
BUT HE DOESN’T HAVE TO REMAIN OUR KING.
WE ARE OUR OWN.
LET NOT YOUR NOBILITY NOR WEALTH STAND IN THE WAY OF DEMEINE.
JOIN US.
Next to that, someone had tied a flyer depicting the king’s court as a handful of leeches sucking the blood from the arm of the Deme people.
“Unbelievable,” my mother whispered. “I am appalled Vivienne has let those malcontents disseminate their nonsense here.”
“I like this picture better than those old woodcuts, though.” I ripped the leeches flyer down and peeked at the back. The signature of the protest’s elusive leader was so splotchy, it looked as if a dozen different people had tried to write it at once. “Laurel is getting bold.”
Laurel’s revolt had been brewing for ages and finally had taken hold in the eastern province of Segance this summer, but the news of it had only just reached us. Côte Verte was a collection of salt-blown woods and port towns on the westernmost coast, and my father, Lord rest his soul, had been a terrible leader. He had spent money as if there were no end to it—there hadn’t been, for there were always residents to tax—and he had died ten years ago, leaving me nothing but a title, a few debts, and copious amounts of shame. I had no doubt that many of my people would support Laurel. I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t.
I was already a terrible lady of Demeine. Why not live up to it?
“It’s no laughing matter,” said my mother. “We are lucky His Majesty has been so light-handed in dealing with them. They demand too much at once.”
My mother was content to let justice trickle down through the ranks, but I suspected Laurel would not be so compliant. Small steps away from the ocean might have seemed like progress to those farther from the water, but when high tide came in, others would still drown.
“Come,” said my mother, pushing open the gate and holding out her hand. “Claim your future, Emilie.”
Within the hour, I would be on my way to Delest and the University of Star-Blessed Wisdom.
They would laugh me out if I attempted to become a physician, so I would be a physician’s hack. I would prove to them how wrong they were. They would have to accept me after that.
I would not be denied my future as a physician.
I followed my mother for the final time. Golden honeysuckle brushed my shoulders. Ivy roses bloomed between the stakes of the fence, leaves a curtain of mottled green and butter yellow. My mother, shoulders relaxed and fingers skimming a row of knee-high lilies, led me down a stone path, and we wound our way closer and closer to the school buildings. The sweet scent of cherries hit my nose, and I turned my face into the breeze. My mother stopped.
Over her shoulder, beyond a thick wall of firs, were the doors to the school.
I shuddered. “Well, is this where you abandon me?”
With any luck, she wouldn’t walk me to the door, which could complicate things. It was tradition for new students to explore the garden, but I was certainly not traditional.
“You’re so dramatic for such a lucky girl.” My mother pulled me into a tight hug, the warmth of her arms a mantle of comfort I hadn’t received or wanted in a long, long time. I didn’t know what to do. We fought too much, too viciously. Her nimble fingers tucked a rose behind my ear. “We are at a turning point in our history. Stay safe and study hard. Make me proud, Emilie.”
I couldn’t promise that.
“I have only ever wanted to help people.” I hugged her back, but the gesture felt empty and awkward. “You understand that, don’t you?”
She pulled away, nodded, and her face fell back into the expressionless mask I knew too well. “You will write to me regularly, and Vivienne will tell me if you attempt to run away.”
“I will not attempt to run away,” I said. I would succeed.
“Good,” said my mother. “If you go straight, this path will lead you to the doors. You have an hour before you are officially late. Don’t be, but do feel free to take a few moments to reflect. This garden is a work of art—Vivienne created it herself without the help of magic. There are, of course, guards at every entrance, whether you see them or not. Don’t get in trouble before school even begins.”
She studied me for a moment, tense, and said, “I love you.”
She didn’t, but I had known it for so long that the lie didn’t sting. It was an old bruise, too yellowed and familiar to hurt.
“I love you too.”
I did. What a terrible wound it was, loving her despite her lack of interest in me. I had cauterized it ages ago.
Proper ladies of Demeine did not cry.
They endured.
She didn’t look back, and then, she was gone.
I wandered to the cherry trees. My eyes burned, tears pooling. It wasn’t fair; she left me here so easily, without even a second thought. It wasn’t fair how much it hurt, and worse, she would have chided me for my tears. I grasped a tree branch and ripped it free. Bark dusted my arm.
“What did that tree ever do to you?” a sharp voice asked.
The girl stepped over a thicket of blackberries, cheap dress snagging, and stopped before me. She didn’t frown, but she paused before giving the worst curtsy I had ever seen.
“Sorry, Madame,” she said.
I laughed. “I am a terrible noble, but at the very least, I must teach you how to curtsy.”
Given my past, Mademoiselle Gardinier would be lenient with “my” manners. I hoped.
Mine were doomed; I hadn’t even asked for this girl’s name.
“Who are you, exactly?” I asked.
“Annette Boucher of Vaser,” she said. “They let me in like you said.” She tapped the wooden leaf pin on her shoulder. “The guard said Mademoiselle Charron can use this to scry whoever’s wearing it, so be sure to give it back when you leave.”
“Annette Boucher,” I said slowly, the old Deme word a comfort. If I used her family name, I would be one of dozens and harder to find. “Thank you for doing this. Again, if you are caught, I will protect you and make sure you are not punished.”
One of her eyebrows twitched. “Thank you, Madame.”
She didn’t believe me at all.
Well, I could only remedy that by proving it.
“Now,” I said, clapping my hands. “We will change clothes, you will go up to school, I’ll wait long enough to make sure you’re not arrested immediately, and then I shall send your family what you bought today, yes?”
“Yes, or else they’ll think I stole it. Shouldn’t cost much to send, and you can take the money I have.” She pulled out a small purse and handed it to me. “Can I send you money to Delest?”
“You can and you will.” I weighed her coin purse—hardly enough to do anything with—in my hand. She had embroidered a crooked moon on either side. Or it was one very rotund cat. I couldn’t tell. “If you do not, I will be caught swiftly, and I doubt I’ll have time to send you a warning.”
If she robbed me outright? Well, there was nothing gained without taking a risk.
“You don’t mind me asking,” she said, fiddling with the silver trinket around her neck. “Why do you want to do this? You’ve got everything.”
“I don’t want everything.” I clawed at the lace scratching my neck. “I want one thing, and that is to be a physician.”
“Here.” She gestured for me to turn around, and her fingers skimmed the back of my neck, my necklaces bunching up as she lifted them free. She hung them from a tree branch. “You sure our clothes will fit?”
“There’s only one way to find out, and you cannot walk into the school in what you have,” I said.
She nodded. “Where do we start?”
“Help me remove this overdress, and then we may deal with this new contraption from Vertgana my mother insists is a corset.”
She had imported it from the nation to our north as soon as she heard it was in fashion. It was wasted on me.
“You don’t want to keep it?” she asked. The overdress she helped me pull over my head and hung from another branch. Her fingers lingered on the gauzy fabric. “How can you not want this?”
“I don’t like the way it makes me look or the way it feels. It makes me feel as if I’m lying about who I am.” Admittedly, the corset was much more supportive than the stays I normally wore under my clothes, but the pinch of it along my ribs made my skin crawl. “I have never been the lady my mother wishes me to be, tastes in clothes included.”
Unlike her dress, mine was laced in the back—surely to keep me from getting out of it—and she took such care with undoing the ribbon that it took far longer to untie than it had to lace up.
“Like your parents assumed wrong at birth?” she asked.
A curious turn of phrase I hadn’t heard before.
“I can’t say my dislike for what my mother prefers has been since birth, but it’s certainly been for a while.” I mopped up the cooling sweat on my shoulders with my handkerchief.
“Never mind.” She shook her head and went back to unlacing the corset.
“I know it’s wasteful,” I said softly, “but I hate it all—partly because I think I am supposed to love it and partly from my own dislike. I do not like the way I look in dresses; I do not like the chafing of them against my legs; and I do not like the way every part of this outfit constrains me. It is as if I am experiencing everything at once, my senses overloading, and it is unbearable. I don’t feel right in them.”
They were my mother’s domain. She adored clothes, her own closet still limited since we had sold some old dresses to pay off my father’s debts right after his death. I didn’t love the midnight arts as she did, and all of the clothes and jewelry she wanted me to wear only reminded me of my failures. Dressing how she wanted was like wearing my wrongness for all to see. If they looked at me, they would know I wasn’t meant for their world.
“I do not belong.” I pulled the rings from my fingers and rubbed the pink welts they left behind. “Wearing things like this only increases that feeling of wrongness in me. They are a reminder of what is expected and what I am not.” I laughed and forced myself to smile. It was no good wallowing. “And I do hate being wrong.”
Annette hummed, taking great care not to brush my skin as she peeled the last of the corset free. “That makes sense. Not belonging. I don’t either.”
She adored everything I hated and was already practically the perfect lady of Demeine. My mother would have loved Annette.
“You enjoy the midnight arts, don’t you?” I asked.
“It’s the only thing I enjoy,” she whispered. “Do you ever feel like magic is the only thing that understands you, even though it’s not real?”
Magic couldn’t think or feel, but it existed, and it wanted me.
“I know exactly what you mean, and yes, I do feel that.” I stepped out of the gown and underdress, and Annette gathered them up as if they were the most precious things she had ever seen. “I feel broken. The world tells me I should want these things, but I don’t.”
Standing in a stranger’s garden in nothing but a shift made it easier to say.
“If I go to this school, if I study the midnight arts, if I stay here and witness day in and day out the very things that make me feel broken for not wanting them, I fear it will kill me. I have felt out of place, unwanted, unimportant for so long with my mother, that I want something for me. Being forced to attend this school makes me feel like I’m not a person.”
Annette’s warm hand touched my shoulder. “As if when Lord Sun and Mistress Moon were weaving the world and all its people into creation, they dropped a stitch while making you?”
“Yes.” I laughed and wiped the cosmetics from my face. “I think more than a few.”
She pulled off her own dress and stays, and the simplicity of her clothes made me smile. The fabric was itchy and the dress slightly too tight, but I needed no help. Most importantly, my mother would have hated it. I kept my hose and gave her my shoes.
“I can’t believe you’re giving this away,” she said, tracing the silver lines of my dress’s bodice from pearl to crystal to pearl.
I undid the too-tight braids slicking back my hair. “I know I am lucky to have been born into my station, but you will appreciate that dress far more than me. You’ll be wearing the jewelry too. They’re heirlooms.”
She picked up her own cheap necklace and compared the little moon charm to the sapphire collar that had been my great-grandmother’s, and the silver glittered in her eyes. “I could buy a house or twenty with these.”
“Please do not. My mother would murder us both,” I said. “Speaking of, though, how are your mathematics?”
She hummed, gaze stuck on one of the mirrored necklaces my mother had hoped I would use for scrying.
“Annette,” I said sharply. “This is important. Mademoiselle Gardinier is expecting me to be atrociously behaved, but she will catch on to our charade if you do not have the requisite knowledge, like mathematics, history, or reading. Your penmanship, as well, will—”
“I was reading a poster when we met,” she said. “How do you folks always discount us, even when proof you’re wrong is right there?”
I winced, flushing, and nodded. “You’re right. I’m sorry. That was instinct, and a terrible instinct at that.”
Her top lip twitched, as if she were about to sneer, but her face remained impassive. She was such a good stoic lady of Demeine already.
“Pedigree is more important than artistry or wealth anyway. You’re the sole heir to one of the twelve families of the sword. If anyone ever questions you, simply remind them of your name.”
She stared at me, shocked, and I took her by the shoulders.
“Enjoy your months of astronomy, embroidery, and whatever else they teach you.” I plucked an orange from a nearby tree and dug my nails into its skin. “Madame des Marais, comtesse de Côte Verte.”
She could be the perfect lady, the pristine calm of Demeine my mother had always wanted from me, and I could be the avalanche lurking underneath.