47

I AM UNFETTERED. UNBOUND. FLASH-DIVING TOWARD THE earth, which reaches for me with the greedy talons of nightmare. I sway and stop myself against a tree. Even George is quiet. The night is a held breath.

Thomas’s expression is creeping off his face, leaving him blank and flat as water beneath the fog, his eyes importunate. Confirming everything.

“Anne . . .”

“No.” I straighten and move away from both of them. “No. Neither of you has the right to speak to me. Neither of you has the right to say another word.”

I turn and walk down toward the river, blind in the darkness, stumbling over the lifting of roots and stones. Grasses tangle my skirts, and branches tear at my hair. I will sleep in the reeds. I will sleep on the grass of the hillside and drink in the moonlight, be given magical powers to destroy my enemies.

I will lose myself.

I will lose them.

George’s laughter follows me. I taste its bitterness on my tongue.

So I turn back. I will not run away. I am not in the wrong. I will not let either of them win.

George stumbles to the courtyard gate, abandoning me. But Thomas watches me. Sees me turn. He strides down the hill toward me. I do not slow down but rush up the hill to meet him.

“Please, Anne. Please let me explain.”

I am downslope of him, looking even farther than usual up into his face. But my wrath makes me a giantess. Fearsome.

“There is nothing to explain, Thomas. And nothing you can say that I will believe. Your words are no more meaningful than a castle manufactured from sugar paste. It may look beautiful, it may taste sweet, but in the end, it crumbles and melts and becomes nothing. It cannot sustain a person, and only serves to blacken the teeth and coat the tongue.”

“You deserve better.”

“Yes, I deserve better, Thomas! To you, I am nothing. I am a fabrication. I am nothing but a filthy gamble. And I deserve to be more than that.”

“You are more. I didn’t know you then, Anne. All I knew was that you had returned from France. You were opinionated and clever and impolitic and different. George wanted you to listen and follow and be discreet and fit in. I thought I could do that. I thought I could . . .”

“You thought to win money off my brother and my virginity off of me. You thought it would be fun.”

“Yes.”

“You would get me my place at court. You would introduce me to the most influential men. You would take me to bed. You would move on. Dispose of me like so much refuse.”

“Yes. That’s what I thought.”

“But Percy beat you to it.” I fight hard against the tears that threaten to engulf me. “You humiliated me. Made a project of me. A failed project.”

“I am sorry.”

The apology makes me stutter to a halt. Because I almost think he means it. Because it doesn’t make me feel superior to him, not like he said. It makes me feel small and trapped, like a frightened animal.

“It’s too late.”

He should have told me before. If he truly was my friend, we could have won the bet together. But he is not. I want to throw his apology back in his face, to see if he really means it.

I watch him carefully. “I think you’re just sorry that you didn’t win.”

“I’m sorry for so much more.”

“Such as?”

He’s holding something back. He’s still lying.

“I care about you, Anne.”

He won’t even look at me. His eyes are raised to the sky and his lips are pushed together in a flat line.

“And you’re sorry for that? Thank you, Thomas. That makes me feel better.”

“You’re making this harder!”

“Good!” I shout, not caring who hears or who looks or who writes down every bloody word. “I hope I make your life a fraction of the misery mine is. I hope you feel the frustration and the anger and the agony, Wyatt!”

My voice catches and I gulp back a sob. I will not let him win. I straighten my shoulders and take a deep breath.

“I thought you were my friend.”

The words come without my bidding them. Stupid. I can’t let him think I care. I need him far, far away. It hurts too much.

“I can’t be your friend, Anne.”

Thomas’s voice is barely a whisper. Perhaps I’ve confused it with the murmur of the wind in the grass.

“What?” I ask, not wanting to know, not wanting to hear. “What did you say?”

“I said I can’t be your friend.”

He still won’t look me in the eye.

“Why? Because you believe, as George does, that men and women can’t be friends? That I will try to control you? That I’ll make you into some kind of effeminate fool who can’t carry a lance or drink himself under the table?”

He doesn’t answer.

“Or is it because you desire me?” I pursue angrily. “Because that’s the other reason George gives. He says a man and woman can’t really be friends because the man will forever be wondering what she’s like in bed. Imagining her naked.”

Thomas groans.

“The man will become overwrought with jealousy when the woman marries. But you, Wyatt. No. You don’t feel that way. You flirt with one half of the queen’s maids and fuck the other half, but you only ever saw me as a project. A means to an end. An object. A prize.”

“That’s not true, Anne.”

“Then what am I, Thomas? What am I to you? I’m nothing. So you get nothing from me. No favor to carry into your ridiculous mock battles. No fodder for your overwrought poetry. And certainly no friendship, Thomas. Because I think I finally agree with my brother. It’s impossible.”

“What can I do, Anne?”

“Just go away.”

“I don’t want to lose you.” The words are ensnared in his doublet as he hangs his head.

“You already have.”

He bites his lip. “Anne.” His gaze lifts from the grass and roots beneath our feet and he looks right at me. Eyes the color of the sea at sunrise, the color of what used to be friendship.

Thomas squares his shoulders. Straightens his spine. Takes a deep breath. Just like my father taught me. When he exhales, his breath is a silver tissue of brume in air just beginning to frost.

He looks at me steadily. Doesn’t say a word. Waits a beat. He is a master of timing. I know it. He taught it to me.

I don’t want to wait for what he has to say for himself, what he thinks will make a difference between us. But I can’t move.

“I love you.”

My heart lurches forward as if reaching for him through my rib cage. I take a step back to prevent it from doing so. For once, the words that form of their own accord and spill from me without thought will not be uttered.

I shake my head.

Thomas closes the gap between us and kisses me. Hard. This is not wet and sloppy like his playful kisses. Or dry and desperate like Percy’s. Or teasing like the king’s.

No. This kiss is eloquent and alive and speaks directly to my soul. My heart ruptures, and the splinters freeze and tumble all around us with the musical sound of broken glass.

I place my hands on his chest, feeling the pulse of his heart beneath my fingertips.

And I push.

Thomas stumbles back, off-balance.

“Don’t,” I gasp.

I turn.

And run.