51

VIOLA MET ME IN THE HALLWAY, PRESSING A PASTRY INTO MY HAND. “Ballantine’s gone to see about the ship,” she said. “And I suppose it’s time to say goodbye.”

She didn’t seem happy, but of course her carefully planned and planted life had been uprooted before it had even begun to grow. We joined Theodor and Annette in the garden, the heady, spicy perfume of the flowers at odds with Viola’s solemn face.

Viola and Annette stood close to one another but not quite touching. I smiled privately; I knew that there was comfort in mere proximity. “Let’s sit a moment—the morning is so warm already.” Our visit might have been a social call, an early breakfast before a boating party or a hunt, from the quiet grace with which she showed us to a dainty table and chairs under a shaded arbor. “I’ve started working on getting some of my funds from the Galatine banks transferred here,” Viola said as she arranged her skirts in the narrow wrought-iron chair. “I’ll be able to send some aid, I hope, when that’s done.”

“You hope?” Theodor’s brow knotted. “I was sure you’d be coming with us.”

Annette’s eyes grew wide, and I was as surprised as Annette. Viola screwed her mouth into a hard line.

“Theo,” Annette said quietly, “you’re asking too much. For us to return with you? What good will that do? There’s nowhere to go.”

“You forget,” Viola said, “that I saw nobles killed when I fled Galitha City. The Red Caps turned running to Annette into something else entirely, running from execution on the basis of my bloodline.”

“But I was sure—you were happy to discuss theoretical ideals and proposed reforms in your salon. You were a leader in Galitha City. Plenty of the nobles who eventually drafted the Reform Bill began to think—really think—for themselves in your gatherings.”

“Don’t flatter me now, Theo.” Viola sighed. “I am not opposed to the changes. I’m in favor of most of them.”

“It’s not flattery. It’s misplaced confidence.”

“Theo!” Annette interjected. “That isn’t fair. You never asked—”

“No, I didn’t ask. I expected. I expected everyone to be willing, once the time came, to stand for the ideals they enjoyed discussing so much. To come with me as a sort of Reformist leader. There are many people, nobles especially, who would listen to you.”

“I can’t do that,” Viola protested.

“Then don’t come back. Just—just a letter. A pamphlet. You can write to those who might still be unsure, who might decide to follow the law.”

“If you’re in earnest that I was influential,” Viola said slowly, “then I have done my part. Let me fade into obscurity here.”

“Obscurity? That’s not life for you and you know it. Help us. Anything to encourage the intelligent among the nobles to make an intelligent choice.”

“And risk ourselves here? Sophie was nearly killed, I won’t put Annette at that sort of risk with a few poor words on paper. What is worth that kind of risk?”

“The law, Viola!” Theodor slammed the table with his hand, so hard I feared the marble could crack. “With the law. We wrote the law. We debated the law. We voted on the law. It passed. What is a country without laws? It’s anarchy.”

“This is too much, too much too quickly!” Viola cried. I knew she was talking about more than the risks—she was thinking of the losses. She didn’t want to admit that the happiness she believed she had finally found, the peace and comfort of an uncontested future with Annette, long denied them, could be taken so suddenly. “You do realize how difficult all of this is?” She clamped her mouth shut. “I’m sorry, that was—”

“Yes, you know damn well I know how difficult this is. He is my own father. I will be accused of attempting to usurp the throne for my own gain. I very well may die before this is over, and even if I don’t, I will likely be driven from my own country. But the law will be upheld if I can do anything to secure it.”

Viola hung her head. “No one ever asked you to die for anything,” she said, to my surprise beginning to cry. “I certainly never did, and I never expected anyone to demand it of me.”

Theodor shook his head. “I’m sorry. I can’t wait any longer.” He stood up sharply and left the table.

“Sophie,” Viola said quietly. “I am sorry, I can’t—” She choked. “I can’t let anything happen to Annette, and I don’t relish the thought of being murdered myself, either. My words don’t matter any longer.”

I began to argue but found I couldn’t. “Perhaps you’re right. About your role, your voice in all of this.”

She nodded. “If I had known a salon could overturn a country, I would have stuck to card parties,” she said with a bitter laugh.

“That isn’t true and you know it,” Annette whispered.

“I do, too,” I said. I watched Viola, her eyes red and her carefully rouged cheeks tearstained. She needed to mourn, to let go of what she had carefully built. “I know you’ll help us when you can.”

Viola wiped away an errant tear. “I’ll do what I can.” She assessed me. “You’re still wearing that Serafan thing because you haven’t anything else, aren’t you? I’ll have a trunk of clothes packed. Who knows when you’ll see the inside of your own closet again,” she said.

“I—thank you,” I said.

“If things… don’t go well,” Annette said, swallowing that thorny reality, “you are welcome here. Always.”

I nodded, even though I knew returning to West Serafe was the least plausible scenario in my future, and embraced both of them. Then I found Theodor pacing the garden near the far wall and hidden from Viola and Annette by a trellis of trumpet vine. “Really, Theodor. You can’t expect them to—”

“If I can’t expect them to, Sophie, I am afraid how few I can expect it from.” He leveled his hazel eyes on me, gripping my hands as though I could buoy him up and prevent him from drowning in the morass of uncertainty opening before us. “If even Viola and Annette are not willing to risk everything, is anyone?”

I withdrew my hands slowly. “The rest of the country, Theodor. This can’t be a fight between nobles. It’s not a fight between nobles and it never truly was.”

He sank onto a stone bench. Knots of trumpet vine climbed behind him, and he absently plucked a sticky blossom. I sat beside him. “If you’re going to take this on, you can’t do it on behalf of Reformist nobles. That’s over now.”

He raised his head. “I am on the side of the law. Whatever else.”

“And in being on the side of the law, you must accept that your allies are now the common people who have been fighting for their reforms longer than you have. Not your fellow nobles who finally listened. Yes, some of them will side with you.” I closed my hand over his, the trumpet vine blossom trapped between our fingers. “But most will not. The king has not, and so those loyal to tradition over law will not. We have to look forward, not back.”

“What frightens me, what I can’t fathom—what comes out of this? I am fighting to uphold the law, to retain the reforms for the people. Not to overthrow our law, not to rout the nobility.”

“There’s no way to know for sure,” I said softly. “Between you and my brother, I have confidence you will guide the ideals of this fight well. But you have to let go of the reins, at least a little. This isn’t your revolution.”