2

“DID YOU FIND ANY DECENT SILK?” THEODOR EXAMINED THE tightly closed bud of a yellow rose next to him; pink and cream climbing roses bloomed in a cascade of petals in the arbor. He had carefully trained them himself, nudging their fledgling vines up the trellis as they grew, year after year.

“Oh, loads. Cottons, too. And a nice set of wools—good colors, not drab stuff. Alice and I spent all day, and I’ll be going back tomorrow for a few more pieces. You want to come peruse the wares?” I joked.

“I wish I could. The small council is finalizing the Reform Bill. It goes to the Council of Nobles for debate as soon as we can hammer out the election regulations.”

“Finally,” I breathed in near reverence for the bill that had taken months for the group of council members under Theodor’s leadership to draft. “Elections—for the councils replacing the Lords of Stones, Keys, and Coin?”

“Those elections exactly, and the Council of Country.” A smile crept over his face at saying the name borne of a concept cobbled together from political theory books, my brother’s revolutionary writing, and hours of discussion with his small council. What was only an idea would be, if the bill passed, real seats of government filled by real people, elected by their peers, in the fall, serving as a second and equal governing body alongside the Council of Nobles. When the bill passed, I amended. I had to believe it would.

“So close,” I breathed. “You included the voting provision for women, yes?”

“Let’s not push,” Theodor said. “The suggestion horrified enough of the small council that it will have to be put off for now. The bill has to be as perfect a presentation as possible,” he added. “If it’s too radical, they’ll call for a quick vote and eliminate it right off, then recess and trot off to their estates for the rest of the summer.”

“But it has to be enough,” I countered. My relationship to the movement I had thought of for so long as “my brother’s revolution” was messy and difficult, but I knew that trivial changes wouldn’t be enough. Not for Niko, and not for the thousands he certainly spoke for.

And not, I accepted, for me, either. I had never peddled pamphlets in the streets or been willing to risk fire and scythe in a coup, but change could come without violence now. The past months had shifted that, working quietly with Theodor to build and revise this monumental piece of legislation. Of course I wasn’t welcome in the chambers of the Council of Nobles, but Theodor had asked my opinion, and I had carefully considered what insights he needed from the commoners of Galitha, as well as I could represent them. Moreover, working alongside one another, our relationship had changed in myriad minute and lasting ways. Spark and flash of early romance had softened and built into comfortable coals of earnest partnership.

Now reform—true, enduring change—was so close that it hung ripe and heavy like the early blackberries in Theodor’s garden, and still as fragile as the unpicked fruit.

“I think,” Theodor said with a statesman’s deliberate care, “that it will be. The most important, most oft-repeated theme of the literature preceding the Midwinter Revolt was elected representation. Replacing the Lords of Coin, Keys, and Stones with elected bodies and creating an elected council to serve alongside the Council of Nobles should accomplish that.”

“Yes,” I said with some hesitancy. My brother and his friends would have happily seen the nobles’ control removed completely. I knew, of course, that eradication of the Council of Nobles would have been the kiss of death for the bill itself. “And taxation? The imposition of taxes has always been contentious among the people.”

“Indeed. I suggested a popular vote for all taxes, as your brother’s pamphlets all suggest, knowing it would be rejected.” I sighed, but Theodor held up a hand. “Knowing it would be rejected, but that requiring approval from their elected representatives in the Council of Country would, then, sound far more appealing.”

“You’re actually quite good at this,” I said with a grin. I nodded. “Will this—all this—be enough?”

“I think so.” He reached into the inside pocket of his coat. “If this is any indication.”

He tossed a smudged pamphlet to me, its cheap binding already coming apart. The Politics of Reform and the Duty of Conciliation: A Peoples’ Responsibility. “That sounds like one of my brother’s titles,” I joked weakly as I paged through it. These reforms are hardly adequate, but they open a door of progress… We must not mistake compromise for concession… Our voices will be heard over the clamor of tradition, as reason and logic that convince the aristocracy of their own injustice.

I set the paper down slowly. “This sounds like my brother’s work,” I whispered. So familiar in its cadence and diction, so like him. It was like holding a part of him in my hands, letting an echo of his voice speak over incalculable distance.

“He said he would find a way to keep working. I suppose I should be grateful he’s working in our favor. Somewhat,” he said, nudging the page open to a particularly incendiary diatribe against the liberties taken by the nobility.

“I—he’s not the only one.” Even here in Theodor’s serene garden, leaning against his chest, surrounded by roses in explosive bloom, Niko’s charge followed me. “I saw Niko at the Silk Fair.”

Theodor sat upright, pulling me to face him. “Niko Otni? He’s evaded the Lord of Keys for months.”

“He says you’re not trying hard enough,” I replied blandly.

“That may be true,” Theodor said. “Things have been blessedly calm and the Lord of Keys hasn’t wanted to upset the quiet with a manhunt.”

“Well, Niko says you have him to thank for the quiet, too.” I traced an over-bloomed rose with my fingertips, and its petals fell in a fragrant shower into my lap.

“What did he want?” Theodor brushed the rose petals from my skirt impatiently until I stayed his hand.

“To impress upon me my responsibility,” I said loftily, then softened. “I need to advocate for the Reform Bill.”

“You?” He caught himself. “Not that you aren’t as well versed as anyone, but you’re—” He stopped abruptly.

I watched the flush break over his fair cheeks, embarrassment at what he almost said. “Yes, it’s because of who I am. A common woman. They’ll believe me when I say the people are ready to rise up again if reform doesn’t pass.”

He nestled into quiet reflection of the yellow rosebud nearest him. “I suppose,” he said finally, “that you may be correct.” He pressed his lips together. “I confess that I’ve been… protecting you a bit.”

I pulled his hand away from the rose and searched his face. “Protecting me?”

“If you were noble, if this match was more… conventional, we would be appearing together at social events far more often. Publicly, not quiet evenings at Viola’s salon.”

I nodded, appreciating this. I had only attended a couple of social functions with Theodor since the Midwinter Ball, and those had been small events, hosted by Viola at her salon or, more recently, by Theodor’s brother Ambrose, who had insisted with firm kindness on making my acquaintance and including me in his monthly card parties. “You didn’t want to put me through what the nobility would say. How they’d look at me.”

“No, I didn’t. They’re not all like Viola and Annette and Ambrose. Some of them are far more wedded to tradition and the elevated separation of the nobles for the good of the country and all that rot. They’re not pleasant when someone skips serving a fish course at a dinner, let alone something of this magnitude.”

“I couldn’t avoid them forever. I mean, not if…” I left that hope, that future unspoken but tangible.

“I know,” Theodor confessed. “I suppose I figured they would eventually accept it without pushing them. That is, I had hoped that time would simply relieve them of their curiosity or surprise, but the tension surrounding the Reform Bill… there’s no chance for them to calm down enough.”

“I think,” I said, hesitant but unwilling to back away now, “that it’s time. I… I could have done more last fall and winter. Maybe. I don’t know. But trying to hold the ground in between sides only resulted in…” I stopped, overcome for a moment remembering Nia, and Jack, and the hundreds of dead, nameless to me but known and fully loved by others. They had been neighbors, faces I passed in the street. Perhaps the nobility couldn’t account for their loss, but I could. “I can’t stand by again. Speaking for the common people is all I can do, so I will.”

I paused, absently pulling a few petals from a rose. I didn’t want to bring up the one additional thorn to appearing with Theodor at more social events, but I had to. I hadn’t pressed the issue, but I had not been invited to the spring concert series his mother hosted at the palace, or the official coronation ball—of course, I hadn’t particularly wanted to attend, either. If I was honest, I was content to avoid that potentially painfully terse situation as long as possible.

“What about your parents?”

“What about them?” He handed me a new rose, taking away the bare stem I held. “Oh. You mean—right. You’d certainly see them at some juncture and—yes.” I waited. Theodor stared at his hand. I gently kicked his ankle. “I’m sorry, I’m sure once they meet you, they’ll be delighted—”

“I doubt that they’ll be delighted.” We were going to have to deal with Theodor’s reticence to face his parents about me at some point, but it didn’t have to be today. “Maybe it’s better if we don’t attend anything with them, at least not right away.”

Theodor studied my face with the same careful, delicate examination he usually reserved for botany. “Very well. That won’t be difficult—we’re often invited to different events. I can think of several opportunities. There’s a dinner at the foreign minister’s house, a concert, and a garden party.”

“All this summer?”

“All in the next fortnight.” He laughed at my shocked face. “And this is the off-season—most of the nobility are at their estates for the summer. Be glad it’s not the height of the social season. We’d be swamped. And then that does introduce the question… you will be viewed as taking a more official role with me. As my intended.”

“And the politics of that…”

“Damn the politics,” he said, pulling me toward him and cupping my face. “You sit here and tell me you’re willing to be ridiculed and outcast, you’re willing to lose clients for your shop, all for the sake of the reform, and I’m not supposed to simply love you for you, no politics?” He kissed me, impulsive and bright, and knocked more petals into my hair.

“As much as you like,” I said, tracing his cheek as I pulled back, “but you know that for you, marriage, and this one in particular, is acutely political.” I was an outsider—perhaps harmless, perhaps a trivial novelty, but perhaps something too destabilizing for the already wounded system of nobility. Perhaps, even, an outsider viewed as a malicious threat. “Will the nobility read a threat in that? Will it push them away from reform?”

“You’re not forgetting a large group of people we can surmise will be quite pleased at the union, are you?” I shook my head—of course I couldn’t forget the people who surrounded me every day, who rented the row houses next to mine and bought strawberries in the street in front of my shop. “And given the fact that they’re waiting for some real sign of progress on reform, I still say,” he said, an arm tightening around my waist, “that this is a politically expedient marriage. The old bats can balk all they like, but what could possibly convey how serious I am about the common citizens of Galitha more than marrying one?”

“Getting the reforms passed.” I laughed.

“Fair enough. I’m working on it.” He tweaked my nose, and I swatted his hand away with a grin. “Formal dinner next week then?”

I mustered my resolve and offered him a gentlemanly handshake, which he returned, then kissed my palm. “You have a deal.”