Gavin decided that the most logical course of action was to kill his father with a knife to the throat in the most public place possible. Judah thought this was absurd. Gavin informed her that patricide was practically a family tradition. “He’ll be disappointed in me if I don’t at least try,” he said, flipping the dagger he’d taken to carrying. It was overly jeweled and too well polished, but the long blade was nasty. “All I need is a chance.”
Forgetting, apparently, his earlier certainty that Elban would never give him one. “Are you liable to catch him here in the staff corridors?” Judah said. Because that was where they were, even though she was going to the stables and he was going to the training field, where he’d spent nearly every waking hour of the last forty-eight practicing with the dagger, and there were faster ways to get both places if you didn’t care about being noticed. Judah used the staff routes fairly often, but Gavin almost never did. “Or are you just avoiding Amie and her friends?”
He slid the dagger back into its sheath. “She was incredibly attractive before I thought I might have to marry her.”
“Has she been disfigured somehow?” Judah said, and he said, “Let’s just say I see her differently.”
They came to the intersection where he needed to go one way and Judah the other. Before he could walk away, Judah grabbed his arm. “Before you murder your father,” she said, “you need to tell Elly what’s going on.” Because he hadn’t; neither had Judah. Being kept in the dark made Elly extremely angry and being angry made her extremely polite, and when Elly was extremely polite, she was formidable. Every icy please and thank you stabbed at Judah, and she felt an uncertain lurch in Gavin’s stomach, too, the moment she spoke Elly’s name.
But all he said was, “Speaking of telling, Cerrington’s telling all sorts of stories about you from the night of the hunt. Which makes you the first woman he’s touched in decades. Congratulations.”
“Tell Elly,” Judah said doggedly, “or I will.”
In the stables, Darid sat in the doorway, braiding rope. He greeted her as normal, but when she picked up the pitchfork and began mucking out the nearest stall, she became aware that he would not look directly at her. “Am I doing something wrong?” she said.
“No wrong way to muck out a stall.” His attention remained fixed on his rope, but something in the tone of his voice told her the sentence wasn’t over. She waited for the rest and finally it came. “Not sure you should be doing it at all, though.”
The words weren’t a surprise. She’d known he’d say them someday. But she hadn’t expected them to come now, when the rest of her life was falling down around her ears. She stuck the tines of the fork in the old wood of the floor. Harder than she needed to; the sound of metal stabbing into the wood was louder than she’d intended. “I’ve been mucking out your stalls for almost a year. You’ve never said anything like that to me.”
“Thought it.”
“Sure. But you never said it. So what’s changed?” Then the connection snapped together in her head, as unnatural as the gaslights. “You heard something about me, didn’t you? What was it? That I was chasing some courtier?”
The strands of hemp wound in and out around his fingers, the long tail of completed rope coiled next to him on the ground. Darid’s fingers could weave rope on their own while his brain did three other things but suddenly the process seemed to require all of his attention.
“More than that?”
His eyes flicked up to her. She had blushed when Gavin mentioned Firo, but she didn’t now. She could feel him searching for either confirmation or denial. She didn’t know how to give him either, but one of her eyebrows wanted to lift so she let it, and a slow smile touched Darid’s face.
“As long as no lord from the provinces is going to show up here with a horsewhip,” he said, and then, “Don’t look at me like that. People do odd things.”
“I do odd things all the time,” she said, “but not that.”
She went back to her muck. He went back to his rope. After a few minutes, he said, “I have people to protect. My men. My family.”
She kept her eyes on her work. “Yes,” she said. “I know.”
Before she left, Darid said that he would show her the next time she came how to weave rope herself; he had tried to teach her before, but she’d been hopeless at it. Darid didn’t have time to waste on hopeless tasks so she took the offer as the apology she suspected it was meant to be, and said she would be happy to learn. Then she went down to the baths. This early in the day, they were deserted. No noises came from behind any of the closed doors, and not a single page waited outside the bathing rooms for a courtier. Judah had no page, and clean clothes would have required a trip back upstairs, so she had none of those, either. The steam was scented so strongly with eucalyptus and lavender that her eyes stung. After, she put her dusty dress back on and it smelled like horse and hay, and as she tied the laces she thought, Elly is going to marry Elban.
It hit her like a slap. She felt like one of Theron’s clockwork things, wound to its limit every morning so it would go through the motions all day, spinning and ticking away. Meanwhile, the world burned, and for the thousandth time, she pondered how strange life was, how easy it could be to let your feet carry you through the hours despite the fire.
On her way back upstairs, she met the Seneschal. He was talking to one of the kitchen stewards about wheat: how much the fields inside the Wall could be expected to yield, how much would be consumed, how much would have to be purchased or traded from the provinces, how much all of it would cost. When he saw Judah he did not pause, but held up one finger. She considered ignoring it, but knew she wouldn’t be able to avoid him for long. So she stood, impatiently, until the conversation was over. As the steward slipped past her on his way out, he slashed at the air. Protecting against the evil eye—her eye. Judah slashed back.
The Seneschal appeared not to notice. “This way,” he said, and led her two hallways over to an empty guest room. It was shabby enough that it was probably meant for tradesmen or visiting servants; the cot was narrow, there was no sink or running water and the washstand was chipped. The only window opened onto one of the light shafts. This far down, the light had a long way to travel, and what made it through the window was weak and halfhearted.
“If you’re going to yell at me about Firo,” she said, “don’t bother. Nothing you’ve heard is true.”
He shook his head. “Firo likes beautiful men. Neither word applies to you. While I’m curious about the conversations he’s obviously covering for, I doubt very much that they contain anything I don’t already know. And Firo might be useful to us down the road.”
“I thought I was supposed to stay away from the courtiers.”
“Circumstances have changed. If Lord Gavin marries Lady Amie, she’ll want you dead,” the Seneschal said matter-of-factly. “Marrying you to Firo and sequestering you in Cerrington might not be the worst thing. He’d follow instructions if he were paid well enough, and there’d be little risk of pregnancy.”
Judah recoiled. “There will be no risk of pregnancy. I won’t marry Firo.”
“Perhaps you’d rather be walled into one of the unused towers for the rest of your life, or beheaded.” His consonants were crisp, bitten-off. “Lady Amie doesn’t know about your bond with Lord Gavin, and she can’t find out. Unlike Lady Eleanor, she would have no qualms about using the information to her advantage.” Judah could practically feel the man thinking. It was like standing next to a hot fire. “It would take a lot of money to buy Firo, though. He’s well-connected in his own right, and he wouldn’t go against Elban unless there was quite a lot in it for him. We might be able to blackmail him; they don’t think very well of men with his preferences in the outer provinces. Why is Lord Gavin spending so much time on the training field?”
“He likes hitting things,” Judah said.
The Seneschal slapped her, hard, and the world flashed white. It was more startling than anything. Then came the heat, and only after that the pain, like something rising out of the deep. She put a hand to her cheek. She couldn’t feel the touch of her fingers at all. “Like that?” he said calmly.
Whenever she or Gavin broke a rule as children, Judah had taken the blows for both of them, although they’d shared the pain. But there had been warning then. There had been reasons given. She had never bothered arguing because she was a child (and not an important one, as she was constantly reminded). She wasn’t a child now, and she was filled with a prickling sense of anger and affront so huge that she could make no sound big enough to express it.
“I suspect that Gavin is planning an attempt on his father’s life,” the Seneschal said. “If he asks you about the blow I just gave you, tell him that an axe through the neck hurts a great deal more. I cannot protect him from a charge of treason.”
Only when he was gone did words come to her. “How dare you,” Judah said, but she was alone in the room, and speaking to nobody.
“He hit you because he didn’t dare come after me,” was all Gavin said when he saw Judah’s bruise that night. “I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t worry you that he knows?”
He shrugged. “What can he do about it?”
“Behead you?” she said. “Us?”
They were on the terrace, leaning on the balustrade. Elly had gone to see Theron, who still said—as he’d told Judah, when she visited him earlier that day—that he was not ready to come back down. Gavin had not been to see his brother at all since the hunt. Now he surveyed the greenhouses and oat fields and sucked his teeth. “I think we can call that bluff, for now.”
“If it’s not a bluff, I’ll resent you as long as I live,” Judah said with more bravado than she felt.
She didn’t go to the stables the next day. She didn’t want to explain the bruise to Darid. Instead, she went walking through the fallow fields where the sheep grazed on wild grasses. After spending so much time with the quick, strong horses, the sheep seemed placid and dull. The ewes hadn’t been sheared for lambing yet and they barely moved; it was hard to believe they could, under the weight of all that wool. A few herding dogs loitered around the edges of the flock, long-nosed and intelligent. They watched Judah curiously but without malice. She wondered if the hounds had ever been dogs like these, or if they had started as some other animal entirely—something imported from the Southern Kingdom or Duviel, made of heat and jungle.
When she returned to the parlor, the door stood ajar, and she paused outside it. She could hear strange voices within. Through the opening she saw a pair of boots, well-made but plain. If she tilted her head she could see the back of a thin, shabbily-coated person, blond hair tied back in a leather thong at the nape of his neck.
She pushed the door open. The boots were the Seneschal’s, extended before him where he sat in Judah’s chair. The man in the shabby coat was Arkady’s assistant, whatever his name was, the one who never spoke. And on the sofa, hunkered like a bird, limbs hanging limp around him as if he lacked the strength to compose them, sat Arkady himself. “What are you doing here?” she said to the three men, reserving her harshest glare for the Seneschal. “Get out. You’re not wanted.”
“You’d know what that feels like,” Arkady said.
The Seneschal stood, one hand upraised. “We’re not here for you, Judah. Come back in an hour, and we’ll all be gone.”
“I’m not leaving. I live here.” She stepped inside. “Why are you here?”
Arkady eyed her dress and boots, mud-spattered from her walk. “Foul girl. Have you been rolling in dirt?” The apprentice merely stared, eyes wide behind his glasses. He always stared. Judah paid no attention to either of them.
“There are rumors in the city about Lord Theron’s health,” the Seneschal said. “Arkady needs to examine him so we can issue a statement and dispel those rumors. People are putting in orders for mourning,” he added as an afterthought.
Rumors. Firo had mentioned rumors. He wants Theron dead, Gavin had said. Elban always got what he wanted. Judah’s fingernails were already at the soft skin of her wrist. Come, come home, emergency. “Theron’s not here,” she said, managing to sound normal.
“We know. Lady Eleanor has gone to fetch him,” the Seneschal said. “She was very reasonable about it, once I explained the situation.”
Elly was very reasonable about the situation because nobody had told her about the situation. Hurry. Hurry. Now. They should have told Elly what was happening. Judah should have. She hadn’t. “I won’t allow this without Gavin here,” Judah said fiercely. Hoping fierceness was enough, because if they wanted to take Theron into the bedroom sooner than that, she had no idea how she would stop them. Hurry. Come now.
“It’s not for you to allow,” the Seneschal said.
“What’s that, girl, a rash on your arm?” Arkady said.
Judah felt like she was screaming, but the scream had nowhere to go so it reverberated inside her.
Gavin burst into the room, red-faced and hollow-eyed. He’d been on the field again and hadn’t stopped to take off any of his armor when he’d come running. His helmet was in his hand and his hair, soaked through with sweat, stuck up at odd angles from his head. His gaze swept over the two men in the room before landing on Judah. “What’s wrong?” he said, breathless. “Why are they here? Who’s hurt?”
“Nobody’s hurt,” the Seneschal said. “Everything is fine.” Gavin gave him a hard look at that, but the Seneschal seemed not to notice. “We’re just here so Arkady Magus can examine Lord Theron and issue a statement saying that the rumors of his illness are unfounded. Your people are concerned, Lord Gavin. Lady Eleanor has been kind enough to go fetch your brother for us.”
At rumors Gavin’s eyes had widened. Now he took a step toward the Seneschal, his shoulders down and his jaw clenched. “Lady—” By habit, Judah put out a hand to stop him, although she wouldn’t have minded in the least seeing the Seneschal go down under Gavin’s fists. But then Elly and Theron entered through the open door, arms linked. Elly took in the scene before her and looked, questioning, at Judah.
But Judah was staring at Theron. In the thin grayish light of his workshop, she hadn’t noticed how thin and grayish he’d become since the hunt. He was unshaven, his beard coming through in sparse patches, and he’d obviously been wearing the same clothes for days. She should have taken better care of him. Made sure he stopped working occasionally, and ate and rested.
“What’s wrong?” Elly said.
Our fault, Judah thought. Elly didn’t know. She didn’t know because we didn’t tell her. Theron’s expression was grim, but not grim enough. He squared his narrow shoulders. “Let’s get this over with, if we’re going to do it,” he said to Arkady, who nodded and—with some difficulty—stood up. His apprentice moved quickly to help him.
Theron thought the danger was over, that it had been left behind in the woods. Judah could feel Gavin’s sweat on her skin, the race of his pulse in her veins. She watched him strip off his gauntlets and drop them on the table. “I’m coming in, too,” he said.
Theron glared at his brother. “I’m not a child. I don’t need to have my hand held,” he said curtly, and marched into the bedroom. His back was straight, giving him a military bearing Judah was sure he’d never managed on the training field.
Arkady shook off his assistant, who still held him by the elbow. “Neither do I, boy. Wait out here.” There was a peevish irritation in Arkady’s voice. As he made his way after Theron, he walked as if his guts hurt him, or his back.
The door closed behind the two of them with a final maddening click.
“You shouldn’t have brought him down,” Gavin said to Elly.
“It was easier than arguing.” Her eyes traveled over him, then moved to Judah, and narrowed. “You’re a mess. You both are. What’s going on?”
The Seneschal sat back down in Judah’s chair, disinterested. Gavin said something angry, and Elly responded in kind, and as Judah dropped, helpless and numb, to the sofa, the words all fell away because Arkady was behind the closed bedroom door with Theron, and anything could be happening in there, anything.
“Your cheek is swollen,” a soft voice said. Arkady’s apprentice stood next to her. He didn’t even give Judah a chance to lie about the bruise on her face; just opened the satchel he carried, and began to root around in it. “I have a salve for that. It’s very effective. My own formulation.” The rhythm of his speech was odd. He wasn’t from Highfall.
She didn’t really care. Theron was alone in the bedroom with Arkady. There were rumors that he was ill. People expected him to die. She tried to reassure herself: if Elban wanted Theron dead, he would do it publicly, with lots of blood and lots of witnesses. Not behind a closed door. Not in secret.
“I apologize. I’m afraid I’m not very organized,” the apprentice said. He put his satchel down on the narrow end table. It blocked her view of everybody else in the room.
But maybe somebody else wanted Theron dead, someone who did not want Amie of Porterfield to be Lady of the City or anything close to it. To the dismay of some, Firo had said about Theron being alive. To the rejoicing of others. Judah had no doubt Arkady could be bought. She had no doubt that he couldn’t be trusted.
Without warning, something fell into Judah’s lap: a tiny brown bottle, the length of her finger and twice as big around. “Hide that,” the apprentice said in an undertone, and suddenly the apprentice had Judah’s full attention. She moved her hand over the vial to cover it.
“Arkady Magus is always telling me how unprofessional it is, all this rummaging. And he’s right. Ah, here it is,” the apprentice said, speaking normally now. He bent down in front of her, a small ceramic pot in his hand. His eyelashes were the darkest she’d ever seen. “This will feel cold,” he said, and with two shaking fingers—he almost seemed afraid to touch her—he began to spread the salve from the pot onto the part of her cheek that felt too thick. His eyes darted down to the vial in her lap and, in the same undertone he’d used before, he said, “Give that to Lord Theron. All of it. The moment we leave.”
Her fingers curled around the vial. “What is it?”
“Antidote.” His lips barely moved.
Antidote. Poison. Her lungs seized. She couldn’t breathe.
Then, in his regular voice: “There, that wasn’t so bad, was it? The swelling and bruising will be gone by morning. Your skin might feel a little irritated, but that will pass.”
He was odd-looking, even beyond the eyelashes. It was almost as if his skin was the wrong color for his hair—pale, but the wrong color pale, somehow. His eyes were blue, like everyone else in Highfall’s, but intense. Like a sky brewing a storm. The way they were fixed on her was almost alarming. “Why are you giving this to me?” she said as quietly as she could.
“Because I’m a friend.” Quiet, loud. “A magus heals.” He snapped his satchel shut and walked back to his place by the bedroom door.
Judah clutched the bottle in her fist. Theron was being poisoned. But poison felt wrong for Elban, not brutal enough. Unless, maybe, it was a particularly ugly poison. Agonizing. Long.
Or—maybe the poison lay in her lap. Her brain spun. Maybe whatever filled the brown bottle wasn’t even fatal. Maybe it was just dangerous enough to make Theron sick. If she gave it to him—if she were seen giving it to him—the House was already against her, as far as it cared about her at all, but she was popular in Highfall. Firo had told her so. She wouldn’t be, if she were a suspected poisoner. She would be a traitor. Easy to get rid of. Easy to wall up in an unused tower. Easy to execute.
Amie wouldn’t mind seeing her executed, or so she’d been told. And Amie had connections in the city. She could have started the rumors.
The bedroom door opened and out came Theron. Did he seem paler? She couldn’t tell. He’d been so pale to start with. Was he breathing hard? Were his eyes unfocused?
“He’s well enough,” Arkady said to the Seneschal. Theron himself showed only vague interest. He knew Judah loved him, knew she respected the lightning-quick connections his mind made. But he knew she loved Gavin and Elly, as well, and he was all too accustomed to thinking of himself as less-than. If someone told him that Judah had tried to poison him, to make things easier for the others, would he believe it?
“His blood seems weak, though,” the magus continued. “And I’m not happy with his lungs.”
Would Gavin believe it? Remembering the study, knowing what his father was capable of, knowing that she also remembered and also knew—would he think her capable of making the choice he couldn’t, to spare him the consequences? The bottle was cold despite the heat of her hand, as cold as if the apprentice had drawn it from the bottom of the aquifer instead of the bottom of his satchel.
“I gave him a tonic,” Arkady said, and Theron muttered, “Tasted bloody awful.”
Judah felt as if her heart had stopped.
The Seneschal stood up. “I’m glad you’re well, Lord Theron. The people will be much relieved. Thank you for indulging us. Would you take some refreshment before you leave, Arkady Magus?”
Of course Arkady would take some refreshment before he left. He always did. He barked at his apprentice, who scurried to his side, taking up Arkady’s satchel as well as his own—but was it Judah’s imagination, or were all three men leaving faster than they usually did? Normally, Arkady took every opportunity to fawn over Gavin and Elly or be horrible to Judah. This seemed too simple. Too clean. The door closed and only the four of them were left in the room. Theron wanted to go back up to the workshop immediately. He’d figured his device out, he said; he’d had a breakthrough. Elly was pleading with him to stay and eat, or at least change clothes. Gavin was offering to go down to the baths with him.
The moment we leave.
Maybe the poison was already in Theron, working its way through his body. Maybe she was letting him die by sitting here, frozen with indecision.
Maybe the poison was in her hand.
She stood up. She would tell them quickly. Theron could decide for himself, when he knew everything. Look how much trouble they’d created by not telling Elly everything.
Give it to Lord Theron. All of it.
Judah opened her mouth to speak.
“Oh,” Elly said, sounding surprised. “Theron, your nose is bleeding.”
And it was: a thin but steady stream of blood that grew even steadier as Theron reached up to touch it. He squinted at his bloody fingers in puzzlement. Then he collapsed.
Elly cried out. So did Gavin, maybe. Judah couldn’t tell. Elly pulled Theron’s head into her lap as his entire body began to shake. Gavin tried to take off his brother’s glasses. Judah knelt next to him. Fumbling with the cold bottle and its impossibly tiny cork with fingers that felt huge and clumsy. The moment we leave. Theron’s breathing was loud and frightening, as if he were being choked from the inside. His eyes were wide but unseeing. The whites showed all the way around the blue. Elly and Gavin were calling his name. The cork flew out. Judah said, “Hold his head,” surprised at how cool she sounded. She grabbed his chin and forced his mouth open, emptying the bottle into it. The liquid was clear and thin, like water. Then she held his mouth closed again and he choked and gagged and she thought, what if I’m killing him, what if this is me killing him right now?
His spine arched. The heels of his boots slammed against the floor. His eyes rolled back in his head and then closed. He went limp.
In the absence of his terrible breathing the silence was nightmarish. Elly seemed to be holding her breath and Judah could not breathe, either. I’ve killed him, she thought, once again stunned by how easily she could think that.
Then Theron inhaled, a great ragged whoop. His next breath was easier, and the one after that. Soon he was breathing normally. His eyes remained closed.
“What just happened?” Elly turned to Judah. “What was that? Where did you get it?”
“The apprentice. He said to give it to him as soon as they left.” Over Theron’s inert body, still lying half in Elly’s lap, Judah met Gavin’s eyes. “He knew.”
Elly brushed Theron’s sweat-drenched hair away from his forehead. “Arkady tried to poison him.” She seemed to be testing the idea, speaking it aloud to see if the words sounded true. “Why would he do that? Why would Arkady want Theron dead? The Seneschal said they wanted to make sure he was healthy, because—” Her eyes widened. No fool, Elly. “Because there are rumors in the city that he’s ill. That he’s dying.”
It was awful, watching the pieces fall into place in Elly’s mind. Judah found the tiny cork, and jammed it back into the mouth of the empty bottle. Which just felt like glass, now. Not cold at all.
“Who wants Theron dead?” Elly’s voice was flat and furious. “Why?”
Judah didn’t answer. Gavin’s eyes were fixed on his unconscious brother. Parsing it out, as Judah had before Theron collapsed, trying to figure out how much to say. Tell her, Judah thought to him, even though that wasn’t the way the bond worked. Tell her everything.
“Because he’ll be a horrible commander,” Gavin finally said.
Elly looked at Judah. Who, for all of her grand intentions, found that she could not say the words, now that Elly was waiting to hear them, and who had to watch as Elly’s lips pressed together, as her eyes grew hard.
“You let me deliver him to them,” she said softly. “Both of you.” Then she leaned down, kissed Theron’s forehead and stood up.
Gavin stood up, too. “Where are you going?” He sounded alarmed.
“We,” Elly said, in a cold, furious tone Judah had never heard before, “all of us, are going to put Theron to bed, and not leave him lying on the floor like garbage nobody cares about. Then we are going to close the door, and we are going to come back out into this room, and the two of you will tell me absolutely everything.” She looked at Judah. “Grab his legs.”
They didn’t tell her absolutely everything—Gavin did not mention Amie of Porterfield—but they told her enough. Elly didn’t speak for hours afterward. She sat by the bed where Theron lay—Gavin’s bed, not the hard little cot in the alcove—and watched his thin chest rise and fall. The light outside dwindled and died, and still she sat. When Judah or Gavin tried to speak to her, she only nodded or shook her head. Even those movements were remote.
A kitchen boy brought dinner. Nobody ate much. The boy came back for the trays. The House grew quiet.
Judah expected Arkady or the Seneschal to come to see what they’d wrought, but neither did. Gavin stretched out on the sofa. Judah tried to get Elly to sleep, too, but her efforts only produced the faraway shake of the head, so she herself lay down on Theron’s cold, dusty bed. She wanted to be close if anything happened.
She didn’t expect to sleep, but eventually she did.
In the morning, she awoke to see cobwebs in the corners of Theron’s alcove. She sat up, rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and went into Gavin’s room. Elly sat where Judah had left her the night before. “No change,” she said.
Theron lay exactly as Judah had last seen him. Even his head rested at the same angle. Grief filled Judah. “I gave it to him too late,” she said. “I waited too long.”
“Don’t.”
“I was afraid it was a trick. I was afraid he’d given me the poison instead of the cure. Because, why me? Why would he give it to me?”
“Because nobody ever notices you,” Elly said. The words stung, but they were true. Elly stood up and shook out her skirt. “I heard breakfast come. We should eat.”
Bread and greens and grapefruit and spun honey, but Judah couldn’t eat, couldn’t wrench herself out of those precious seconds she’d wasted, standing idle while the poison worked its way through Theron’s body. If he died because of her, she’d never forgive herself. Elban’s grip over Gavin would die with him and that thought was even more shameful; once she’d had it, Judah knew she didn’t deserve to forgive herself, not ever. Elly, spreading honey on bread, seemed so serene. Even sleepless and wan, even furious, Elly’s essential goodness shone through. Judah knew that shameful thought would never occur to her.
She cursed herself. She wished it were her life at stake, so she could end it.
Fingers laced through hers. Gavin’s. He’d sat beside her and she’d been so trapped in her guilt that she hadn’t noticed. He squeezed her hand and she felt the thorny tangle of his mind, as gnarled as her own. Elly was so good at wearing the face she needed to wear, and Judah no longer knew what was true. She knew she loved Theron. She knew she didn’t want him to die.
Toward evening he began to stir. Small movements at first, like watching a room being lit one tiny candle at a time. Gavin pulled the cot into the main bedroom and they took turns sleeping there. When Theron opened his eyes in the early hours of the morning, Elly was asleep on the cot, Gavin on the sofa out in the parlor. Judah was the one sitting next to Theron’s bed and his eyelids had been fluttering for almost an hour, so she was watching when they opened. For a few frightening moments, as his gaze wandered the room aimlessly, she was afraid he was blind. But then their roaming stopped, and he seemed to see her.
“Theron.” She spoke quietly, so she didn’t wake Elly. “Can you hear me?”
For a few even more frightening moments, she thought he was deaf. Then he nodded. His lips moved and he said something. She couldn’t hear, so she leaned closer, and he tried again.
“What happened?” he said.
They hadn’t talked about this, about what they’d tell Theron. Judah didn’t know what to say. “You’ve been sick,” she said finally. It wasn’t a lie.
Theron’s eyes drifted, befuddled, to Elly’s sleeping form. “Arkady was here.”
“Yes.”
“Wasn’t sick then.”
“No.” Judah’s eyes were hot.
Theron seemed to think about this for a moment. Normally, to watch Theron think was to be in the presence of a tightly-wound machine, whirring away behind his eyes. This felt different. This felt like watching water drip out of a leaky bucket. He just woke up, she thought. He’s still half-asleep. He’s still sick.
“Tonic,” he said dreamily. “Poison.”
Judah’s eyes closed. She made herself open them. “Yes.”
This didn’t seem to bother him. “Alive.”
She tried to smile. “It’s a long story, love.” But he was already asleep again. Judah felt cold and frightened. Just woke up, she told herself. Half-asleep. Sick.
But the shameful thing that crouched inside her whispering horrible truths knew better. Throughout the night, the cycle repeated: Theron would wake, ask what had happened, and go back to sleep. By morning he was sitting up, holding a cup of coffee Elly had made for him, pale with cream and thick with sugar. He didn’t seem to be able to remember it existed long enough to drink it. Every time he noticed it in his hand, he seemed surprised all over again. He would answer a question if it was put to him, and he didn’t seem unhappy. But neither did he seem like Theron. He was content to sit in bed, eat what they gave him, and listen when they talked, all while wearing the same pleasant, vaguely surprised expression. Theron would rather work than sleep, always, and he was restless when not actively busy. But now he didn’t ask to get out of bed, or complain when they told him to rest. He didn’t even ask for a book.
It was unsettling. Judah suspected that, like her, Elly and Gavin hoped he would fall asleep again so the three of them could confer. He didn’t. And yet, on some level, it was as if he’d never woken up. When dinner arrived, Elly made him a plate and took it to him; Judah and Gavin stayed in the parlor, picking glumly at their own food. They were surprised when, only a few minutes after she’d gone into the bedroom, Elly came back out and closed the door behind her.
“I told him I’d be back after I’d eaten,” she said. “He didn’t seem to mind.”
“Why is he like this?” Gavin said. The question came from the thorny place inside him, and wasn’t directed at anybody in particular.
But Elly answered, her voice chilly. “I don’t know. We could send for Arkady, if you like, and ask him.” She crossed the room and poured herself a glass of wine. Then she sat down.
“I’ll do it,” she said. “I’ll marry Elban.”
Judah couldn’t speak. “No,” Gavin said. “I won’t let you.”
“It’s not for you to let me do,” Elly said. “But of course it wouldn’t have occurred to you to ask my opinion on the subject, because nobody’s ever asked my opinion about anything in my entire life. Why start now?”
“It’s not going to happen,” Gavin said doggedly.
“You would have gone straight to Elban if we’d told you, and you know it,” Judah said.
“Which is what I’m still going to do, except now Theron’s half-dead. Congratulations, both of you. Nice work, well done.” Elly’s tone was neutral, almost matter-of fact. But her words couldn’t have hurt Judah more if they’d been made of fire.
“What happened to Theron isn’t my fault,” Gavin said. “And it’s certainly not Judah’s. But it doesn’t matter. You’re not marrying Elban.”
“I’m not, am I?” Still neutral. A bit curious, if anything. “How do you plan to stop me?”
“I’m going to kill him,” Gavin said in almost the same tone.
Elly’s eyebrows went up. “You’re not serious.”
“Competely.”
Elly took a long, deliberate breath, and then let it out. “Doesn’t that plan rather depend on the willingness of the guards, the courtiers, and the Seneschal to go along with it? That aside, have you even stopped to consider who exactly it is who doesn’t want me to marry Elban?” She gestured toward the closed bedroom door. “Because clearly somebody feels rather strongly about it. And I suppose it’s possible that they just think Theron would be—what did you call him? A lousy commander? But murder seems like a drastic choice to avoid something that might never happen. I doubt you’ve made any secret of your plan to guild him.”
Gavin said nothing.
“If you don’t marry me, Gavin, who will you marry? You need an heir. They won’t just let you play forever.” Elly’s emphasis on the word was ugly.
Judah could feel in her muscles how much Gavin hated this conversation. She could feel his confusion; this Elly was not at all the tolerant friend he’d been paying lazy court to since they were eight years old. Judah herself was less surprised. “Porterfield,” he said. “That’ll be the public story, that I’m renouncing you for her.” Then, too quickly, “Which I would never do of my own volition. Which I will never do.”
“Instead, you’ll kill Elban,” Elly said.
“Yes.” He sounded defiant. “I told you, Elly. None of this will happen.”
“And has it occurred to you,” Elly said dryly, “that there might be some anti-Porterfield faction that doesn’t want it to happen? Considering that courtiers are courtiers, and that if Theron’s dead he can’t be the stick Elban is beating you with. No, there’s no other answer. I’m marrying Elban. Unless you really do have the Seneschal on your side, Gavin.”
Gavin’s eyes slid uncertainly toward Judah, then away. “I don’t. But I refuse—”
Elly laughed. “How long have you lived here? Anyone would think you’re the one from the province full of sheep, not me.” Her laughter melted into anger, liquid and caustic. “You don’t get to refuse. I don’t get to refuse. The stupid Porterfield girl doesn’t get to refuse, although she might not know it. All I do is read family histories, Gavin. Generations of them. Nobody gets to refuse.” Elly’s voice had not wavered once in this entire horrible conversation, but it did now. Judah knew that the waver was not grief but rage.
Gavin was quiet, deflated. Wrestling with something. Finally he said, “Elly, he’s a monster.”
Her shoulders twitched. “I come from a long line of monsters. I’m not afraid.” She stood up and held her hand out to him. The gesture was uncomfortably formal. “Thank you for not killing Theron.”
“You would never have forgiven me.” Gavin watched her hand as if it pained him, and made no move to take it.
“No,” she said. “I wouldn’t have.”
She arranged an audience with Elban before it had even occurred to Judah that such a thing was possible. They had an hour to wait. Judah spent it with Theron. Every lethargic motion of his head felt like a reproach, a reminder that she’d done nothing while Theron’s mind drained away. Elly was building her own pyre to throw herself on and save them all. Nothing Judah did could help her. Sitting with Theron was nothing compared to the price Elly had volunteered to pay. Judah swore privately that she would take care of Theron as long as he needed it. She had no other purpose; she would devote herself to him.
Still, when Elly asked her to come with her to see Elban, Judah said, “If you want me to,” though it meant leaving Theron alone. Judah knew her presence in Elban’s study would not improve his mood any, but it might draw fire away from Elly. To that end, she would have gone in wild and rumpled as she was, but Elly insisted that Judah put on a clean dress, and made her sit to have her hair rebraided, so she’d be as presentable as possible. Elly herself wore the same dress she’d worn all day, with her hair in one braid that she pinned up out of her way. Practical, but plain—as plain as someone as lovely as Elly could be. She would not dress up for Elban. He might marry her, but she wouldn’t play bride for him.
“I’m sorry,” Judah said while Elly did her hair. “We should have told you.”
“Yes,” Elly said. Then, unexpectedly, she leaned her head down on top of Judah’s, and put her arms around Judah’s shoulders. Judah put her hands over Elly’s.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered again, and neither of them said anything more.
When the two women emerged from the bedroom into the parlor, Gavin was waiting by the door. He’d changed his shirt and cleaned his boots. The set of his jaw was stubborn. “Theron’s asleep. We’ll lock the door. I’m not letting the two of you go alone.”
Elly shrugged. “Do as you like.”
They did not speak at all as they made their way through the corridors.
Judah hadn’t been in Elban’s study since she was eight years old. The smell of it hit her like a blow: fire, brandy, leather, sweat. The dark, wicked tobacco Elban smoked. The room looked different by gaslight; brighter, colder. The books in the library, back when Judah had been allowed in the library, felt like friends she hadn’t met yet; Elban’s books felt like guards at a fortress. A glass-fronted cabinet held the good Sevedran wine Elban drank, a carved stone medallion hanging from the neck of each bottle. One small, delicately paned window was set into the wall, but the hour was late and the window was black.
Elban sat at the huge desk, pen in hand, book open to a blank page in front of him. In the purplish lamplight, he seemed even more cadaverous than usual, his long white hair hanging over his shoulders like a shroud. At the sound of Gavin closing the door, he looked up. “You’re all here,” he said. “I shouldn’t be surprised. You always did travel in a pack.”
A big leather sofa and two armchairs were arranged in front of the fireplace, where a hot fire burned. He gestured toward the sofa. Elly sat down, her movements as fluid and dignified as if she were at a state dinner. Gavin sat on one side of her, Judah the other. As if they could offer her some protection, merely by being there. “Not quite all of us,” Elly said. “Theron is ill.”
Closing the book and crossing the room to sit in one of the big armchairs, Elban said, “I heard. Will he live?”
“He’s recovering.”
An iron poker rested in the heart of the blazing fire. Elban took a neatly rolled cigarette from the tray on the table and, leaning over, picked up the glowing poker and touched the cigarette to its tip. “It would be like him, after all these years of coughing and stuttering around the place, to die just now when it was least convenient.” He blew a cloud of smoke into the air. His pale eyes studied Elly. “Your value is dropping, Tiernan. I bought you from your father for six hundred pieces of gold, but my son traded you away to save a half-blind weakling who might die tomorrow, anyway.”
On the other side of Elly, Judah felt Gavin’s skin go hot. But Elly’s tone was smooth and even, without a single ragged edge. “Theron is worth more than all of us put together. And I wasn’t traded away this time. This is my decision.”
“Banish the word my from your vocabulary, Tiernan. Nothing belongs to you.” He flicked the ash of the cigarette onto the carpet. “Well, say what you came here to say.”
Elly’s chin lifted. Gavin’s stomach was a sick void. “I’ll marry you. But I want your word. Theron lives.”
“If fate wills it.”
“I hope fate does will it, then, because if anything happens to him, I’ll throw myself off the solstice balcony. Right into the Lord’s Square.” It didn’t sound like an idle threat.
“Really?” Elban looked at her with no more than mild interest. “The girl who has to be forcibly dragged onto that very balcony, threatening to plummet to her death from it? How gruesome. Wouldn’t it be easier just to kill me?”
Every muscle in Gavin’s body tensed. Judah’s, too. Elly didn’t move.
“In my sleep, perhaps, after a night of conjugal bliss? You wouldn’t be the first to leave my bed with murderous intent, Tiernan. Of course, you could try it right now.” Elban spoke cordially, as if he were offering them all tea. “There are three of you and only one of me. Only one of you has any combat training, and I’ve killed more men than I can count—but still.”
“I don’t imagine that would end well for us,” Elly said.
“Very perceptive.” Elban raised his cigarette toward her in salute. “My guards all come from Highfall Prison, you know. The Seneschal selects them. Most were under death sentences—petty offenses, theft or fighting. Occasionally worse. Occasionally much worse.” He spoke like a tutor lecturing them on some subject he knew so well it no longer interested him. “All of them are clever enough to recognize that they’ve been rescued. All of them know they owe me their lives. They are fiercely loyal.” The smoke from his cigarette circled his head. “I’ve assigned one to each of you. If I’m found dead tonight, or any night, none of you will see sunrise. If my House falls, you will all fall with it. And you’ll die horrible deaths. Long. Painful. Degrading.”
“Maybe it would be worth it,” Gavin said, so low he was barely audible.
“Maybe so.” Elban sounded pleased. He threw his cigarette into the fire and stood up. With two graceful, menacing steps—no movement wasted, his eyes never leaving his son—he stood in front of Gavin. Who was on his feet, now, too; awkward by comparison, but standing between Elly and his father. The two men were of a height. Gavin had Elban’s jaw, and his mouth. That mouth, Judah thought illogically: the thin lips, the curl at the corner that could be amused or endearing or, like Elban’s, cruel. Theron had it, too. It was in every portrait, on every carved sarcophagus in the crypt, all the way back to the beginning of Elban’s line. Everyone always spoke of Gavin as resembling his mother but now Judah saw that with the passage of a certain number and quality of years, he would look very like the man standing in front of him.
“Come on, then.” The taunt in Elban’s voice was so light. It would be easy to miss. “Take that stupid dagger you carry and put it in my throat. Patricide is a noble enough death.”
Judah could practically feel the knife in Gavin’s hand, his desire was so strong.
“But when the deed is done,” Elban said, “take the knife from my throat and put it in your own, so you won’t have to watch what happens to these two. Because you will watch; that’s part of my orders for you.” The curl in the corner of his mouth deepened. “Unless you kill them, too. But after what I saw on the hunt, I very much doubt you can do that.”
Gavin didn’t move. Judah didn’t even think Elly was breathing.
Elban snorted and sat down. “As I thought. Suicide would have the same result, Eleanor of Tiernan. After your suffering ends, that of those you leave behind will be long and luxurious. If I remain alive to enjoy it, it will last all the longer. As I said before, nothing belongs to you. Not even your life. You live at my indulgence and you will die that way. Please me, and I’ll make your death quick.”
“You know, Lord Elban,” Elly said, “it is possible to rule without being an utter monster.”
Elban blinked. Then he threw back his head and laughed. “Who’s your model for that, Tiernan? Your father? He once burned a mill full of children to punish their parents for refusing to pay his taxes. It’s a good story. Ask him to tell it to you, if you ever see him again.” The faint taunt was back in his voice. “Perhaps we should invite him to the wedding. Your father, and all of your brothers.”
Elly didn’t answer. Her hands were carefully folded in her lap but her clenched knuckles were white. She spoke often of her mother, who’d died when she was fifteen, but rarely of her father. Never of her brothers.
The Lord of the City leaned back in his chair and eyed her speculatively, his pale eyes showing more interest than they had. “I’ll give you this, heir. Your Tiernan has courage. Of course, she’s not yours anymore. But Porterfield will suit you well enough. Just let her put a collar around your neck, and be a good dog, and she probably won’t be too hard on you.”
Gavin’s jaw was clenched so hard that Judah’s teeth hurt, but he still said nothing. “What about Theron?” Elly said.
“He lives. For now.”
“‘For now’ wasn’t the deal,” Gavin said.
Elban smiled. It was a sleepy, slow smile, full of confidence and loathing. “Oh, it won’t be me that kills him. A few years from now, when you love the city a little more and your childhood a little less, when you find yourself not sleeping so well, knowing there’s another living claimant to the throne—you’ll find yourself making plans, heir. Or, more likely, letting Porterfield make them for you. About your brother, and about that.” He nodded toward Judah. The curl in his lip spoke of disgust, now.
Elly took Judah’s hand, her grip fierce and protective. “She’s not part of this,” she said, just as Gavin said, “She’s fine the way she is.”
“She looks like a foreign whore,” Elban said. “Not that I have any objection to foreign whores, as such, but I generally don’t let them live in my House. And nor will your new bride, unless I’m mistaking the Porterfields to their very essence. So tell me: until we break that filthy bond, how do you intend to protect the little pet you’ve grown so fond of?”
Judah felt twin dull aches in her palms. Not a signal: Gavin’s fists were clenched, his fingers digging brutally into his palms. Elly still held Judah’s hand. Judah wished she would put it down. The contrast between Elly’s soft fingers and Gavin’s hard ones was distracting and difficult.
“I’ll talk to Amie.” Gavin’s heart was pounding, and that was how Judah knew that talking to Amie would do no good. “Or I’ll find somewhere safe, where Amie can’t get to her. A guild, maybe.” He didn’t want to guild Judah out. She didn’t want to be guilded.
“Difficult to protect her from so far away,” Elban said. “And guilds get raided, particularly those that accept women. Yes, a guilded woman’s life is—difficult.” The word left Elban’s lips like a breath. “What if she were injured? What if she sickened?”
Gavin’s heart pounded harder. Judah found herself breathing fast. He sounded desperate. “An apartment in the House, then. Somewhere out of the way.”
“And when she grows tired of being out of the way? When she wants to go for a stroll in the sunlight? How will Porterfield react, when they meet on the Promenade?”
Judah already knew the answer. The Seneschal had given it to her. Gavin, though, was just figuring it out. “Then—she won’t—” He stopped. His face was stoic but fear and pain radiated from the rest of him.
“Won’t what? Won’t go for a walk? Surely you don’t mean to imprison your devoted little pet, do you, heir?”
Walled into a tower. That’s where she’d be. That’s what he’d do; what he’d have to do, to keep them both alive.
“No.” But Gavin swallowed hard enough to make Judah’s throat hurt.
“What else would it be called, then, when you put her someplace where she won’t ever be seen or heard from again? Because that’s the only way to make your Lady forget her, and as long as she’s not forgotten, she’ll be in danger. And so will you.”
“You forget.” Elly’s voice rang out, clear and cutting. “Amie won’t be Lady of the City, not for a long time. I will be.”
Clearly enjoying himself, Elban said, “You? Power comes from connections, and you have none. We’ve never let you make any. You’ll look very pretty next to me on the dais, and I’m sure I’ll enjoy the time we spend together, but you’re nothing.”
Elly’s fingers gripped Judah’s. Gavin said, “I will not let either of them be hurt.”
“The Tiernan is mine, and I will do with her as I please, and you will have nothing to say about it. And as for the foundling, you will, indeed, let Amie hurt her, if that’s what she wants. Because the more attachment you show to her, the more Porterfield will resent her, and the more pain you’ll both have to bear. And the more pain you bear, the harder it will be to keep your secret, and if you fail to keep your secret, well—” Elban shrugged. “The Porterfields aren’t known for their empathetic hearts. I would not count on Amie’s love for protection, once she understands just how easy you are to kill.” He stood up. “Come here, foundling.”
Judah had no choice but to obey. The image of him next to Gavin was still in her head. Same height. Same jaw. Pain flickered on the ball of her thumb: the oldest of their signals, going back years. Going back, in fact, to this very study. Here with you.
Elban surveyed her. “What’s that stupid name Clorin gave you, foundling?”
“Judah.” She didn’t believe for an instant that he didn’t know it.
He snorted. “Do you know the judah vine, foundling? It grows in the north. It’s a parasite. Pretty flowers, but it ruins everything it touches. So I suppose it’s not a bad name for you, at that.” He smelled like nothing. All Judah could smell was cigarette smoke and the fire. She might as well have been standing there alone. He picked up the poker resting in the coals. The end was shaped with a point, a hook and a barb. “My son thinks he loves you. He has not yet learned that there’s no such thing. There is convenience, pleasure, utility and gain, and that’s all. One day, he will realize that he doesn’t love anyone at all. Not the Tiernan, not his scrawny, unsatisfying brother, and not you.”
Here with you.
Elban grabbed Judah’s wrist and, fingers like iron, wrenched it to expose the skin on her inner arm. Her dress had half sleeves and she could see the marks from Gavin’s scratching. “Let’s speed that day along,” he said, and pressed the flat side of the poker against her skin.
The pain was instantaneous and brilliant and the rest of the room shrank to nothing, but her training held and she did not cry out. She heard Elly’s horrified gasp and heard—smelled—the sizzle of her own skin cooking. Her vision refracted in her tear-filled eyes. Countless Elbans. Countless pokers. Countless arms, all of them burning.
“See how easy she is to hurt, heir. See how easy you are to hurt.” All she could see clearly were Elban’s eyes, the irises so pale they were almost white. He lifted the poker—it stuck to Judah’s skin, pulling free with a disgusting tearing sound—and before Judah knew it was happening he held the other arm and the poker came down again and the searing doubled. “See how quietly you sit and watch, what a well-trained little dog you are, already. So much for love.”
“I’ll lock her away.” Gavin’s voice sounded strangled.
“Yes. You will. But we’re not bargaining.” He lifted the poker again and dropped Judah’s arm. She fell to her knees, staring at her branded skin. He had flipped the poker so the two burns were mirror images of each other: the point, the hook, the barb, in wet, mottled gray and red. The smell coated her throat. She very much would have liked to pass out, or throw up, and tried very hard to do neither.
Elban bent over Judah, examining the marks. Sounding once again like the worst of their tutors, he said, “It’s a delicate balance, you know. Leave the brand too long and the nerves are destroyed, so the pain stops. But lift it too soon, and the scars don’t shine the way they should.” Satisfied, he straightened. “I think I’ve gotten these exactly right. Her scars will be pretty, even if nothing else about her is.” He stirred the fire with the poker. Judah stared, fascinated and feverish, at the logs in front of her, as they shifted and glittered. Her arms glittered, too, shining as intensely as the coals. Gavin, far away, was gray with shock and pain and misery, sweat dampening the edges of his hair.
“Keeping in mind, of course,” Elban said, “that all of this is only happening because you love your brother too much to kill him.”
Theron. Judah needed to take care of him. She had sworn it. She focused all of her self into her legs, and stood up.
“Amazing.” Elban’s voice, bright and interested, was growing distant. “A normal woman would have to be carried to bed after burns like that. She’s barely human.”
She was not human. She was pain in the shape of a human. She glittered like fire. She burned.
In the corridor, Gavin’s arm instantly circled her, trying to hold her up despite his own pain. “Jude, my arms—I can’t carry you—” he said, sounding desperate and scared, but then Elly had her other side. Her feet dragged as her head lolled on Gavin’s shoulder, as his voice in her ear told her he was sorry, sorry.
Then she was lying on Elly’s big soft bed and Elly’s gentle hands were moving around her. “Get the scissors from my sewing basket,” Elly said.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“We need to cut these sleeves off. Maybe the whole dress.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Gavin. Help me.” Elly’s voice was sharp and direct enough to even break through Judah’s haze. Judah could see her hovering overhead, carved into hard white stone with the force of her anger. In a moment Gavin was there, too, equally white but sweaty and sick from his own burns; careful not to move her arm, he took Judah’s hand, then dropped his head to it. Kissed it, lay his cheek against it. The waters inside him were stormy and rough. Judah could not try to soothe them.
Meanwhile, she could hear the low sliding snick of Elly’s sewing scissors, and then water falling into a bowl somewhere, as a cloth was wrung out. More kindly than she’d spoken to Gavin, but with just as much firmness, Elly said, “Judah, I’m going to clean your arms. It’ll hurt, love.”
Elly was right. It did hurt, love.
She could not eat dinner that night but drank too much of the wine they forced on her. When she woke into a silent world, she was alone. The shutters were closed and the bedroom was dim. Somehow she dressed, sliding her coat gingerly over her bandages. The burns still seared and her arms were stiff, besides, but she managed her boots, too. The air in the bedroom felt dense, unbreathable. All of her skin hurt. She had to get outside.
The parlor was empty. Sun streamed in through the windows and the edges of everything glittered. In Gavin’s room, Theron slept, his hands unnaturally idle on top of the blankets. Gavin, himself, was gone. Poor Gavin, out there somewhere hoisting a halberd. Swinging a sword. Bearing a bow. The pain was never quite as bad when it wasn’t truly yours, but still. Poor her, too. Creeping a corridor, lurching a lawn. It didn’t work as neatly. She needed more words. Through. Across. Words to carry her, to move her from one place to another. The crisp spring air was a cool balm on her face, but something was wrong with her mind. Was Gavin drunk again? No. There was no sober little boat bobbing on the tide. This was hers. When she passed courtiers and staff she made a special effort to stand up straight, and threw her feet out in front of her in something that maybe, perhaps, seemed like a purposeful stride. Nobody stopped her. Nobody spoke to her.
The palm of her hand itched.
The walled garden was empty and she spent some time resting on a bench. Then she spent some time resting on the ground next to the bench so that she could lay her cheek on its cool smooth surface. She wanted to crawl inside it, to wrap herself in the marble like a blanket. She wished she were made of marble: a cold, still, painless statue, withstanding the rain and snow, feeling only the slow scratchy embrace of ivy. The ivy was green and thick and glossy. She felt green and thick, but not particularly glossy. She wanted to be out in the open air, away from the walls and hedges, where the breeze could blow away the thickness in her head. The glitter. Because the thickness and glitter were strangling her, she was choking on them. Guttering like one of Elban’s gas lamps, right before it went out.
Elban. Elly was going to marry Elban. Fact. True.
Later.
She pulled herself up, brushed halfheartedly at the dirt on her dress, and resumed walking. Boots on the hard-packed path, one, two. From somewhere far above she watched them with great interest. It was marvelous, the way boots just kept moving. How did they do that? One scuffed brown boot into the dirt, then another. Gravel scattering beneath them. The hounds howled, but the sound soon faded. She heard a human voice. The snuffle of a horse.
The boots stopped. Something was blocking them. Other boots, like hers but larger. She heard her name. It took a moment for her to connect the word with the stifled thing inside her. A hand touched her chin, brought her head up. Darid, his brow wrinkled with worry. Somebody said, “She okay?” and at first she wondered how he’d spoken without moving his lips.
But it must have been somebody else speaking, because Darid answered. “No.” His fingers were as cool as the marble had been. “She’s burning up. Go to the House, tell them we need the magus.”
Magus. Arkady. Arkady had poisoned Theron. Fact. True.
Later.
The tiny stifled part of her forced air from her lungs into her throat, into words. “No,” she said. “No magus.”
“Judah, you’re sick,” Darid said.
Elban burned her. To prove he could. That nobody would stop him. Nobody had stopped him.
I’ll lock her away.
Fact. True.
Later.
“Not sick,” she said. “Hurt. No magus. Magus hates me.”
Darid made a noise. It sounded like the noises his horses made. “At least come inside. Let me do something for the fever.” He took her arm. She screamed. He jerked back as if she were made of fire. She felt like she was. He said something else, but she couldn’t answer, the pain had finally engulfed her, she was falling. She hoped somebody caught her.
He did.
Fact. True.
He made her drink something bitter that tasted faintly of hay. Not long afterward the glitter started to recede. It felt like she was coming out of a hole. She found herself lying on the bench in the tack room. Her coat was gone and her bandaged arms lay carefully placed on her stomach.
Horses got sick. Horses needed to be treated. A dog could be replaced in six months; horses were expensive, horses took a long time to mature and a long time to train. Darid had a substantial collection of herbs and mixtures and potions and salves. They were meant for horses but most of the staff had never seen a magus—staff was replaceable, too—so he knew how to use them on humans.
Wherever Gavin was, he was in agony. She could feel his pain like a gauze veil as her own receded. She was surprised that he hadn’t felt her fever. But, wait: the itch in the palm of her hand wasn’t an itch. Now that the pain from the burns had ebbed, she could feel him scratching, incessantly. When Darid stepped away, she scratched back. Just once, deliberate and slow.
After a moment, Gavin sent it back to her. The itching eased.
By then, Darid was back. Holding the back of her hand, he gently pushed the sleeves of her dress up over Elly’s bandages. A few snips with a pair of brutally sharp shears and the bandages were gone. The burns were both covered with sickly gray-yellow ooze, the skin around them swollen and hot. Judah preferred their looks to the one Darid wore on his face. She remembered: on the second day after the Wilmerians’ arrival, Judah had found Darid working on one of their horses. They were shorter and sturdier than House horses, made for work and not war—but the poor mare Darid had been tending wouldn’t be doing any work anytime soon. Every rib stood out, and her legs were impossibly thin. Her mane and tail hung limp and tangled and there were oozing welts on her dirty cream-colored hide where a harness had been strapped too tightly and left too long. But her hind flanks were the worst, because the horse had been whipped, and viciously. Her dingy hide was stained with an ugly brown that could only be blood.
Normally Darid carried a lightness with him, but there had been no lightness that night. His face as he’d cleaned the little mare’s wounds, as he’d shown Judah how to coax her to eat—it was the same face she saw now. She found herself afraid. Ashamed. She didn’t want him to look at her that way.
After what seemed like an eternity, he did exactly that. “This was not an accident.”
Mutely, she shook her head.
“And even if I knew who did this to you, there’s nothing I could do about it.” He seemed to be telling himself, more than her. “If it was someone on staff, I could. But it wasn’t. Was it?”
She shook her head again.
His eyes were fixed on her arms, but for a second his pleasant stablemaster’s mask slipped and she saw the rage beneath it. Tightly bound, deeply controlled. For her. He was angry for her—not because he felt the pain she felt, or someone had judged him responsible, but at the simple fact of her suffering. She wrapped herself in that anger the way she’d wanted to wrap herself in marble, except the anger was warm and protective instead of cold and dead. It filled her with awe.
Darid’s chest swelled and his nostrils flared as he took a long breath in and let it out again. “I can heal this. Get rid of the infection. That, I can do.” He still held her hand in his. She thought she felt his fingers tighten, ever so slightly. Then he let go.