Judah found Gavin in the solarium. In a month’s time, the entire House would attend his betrothal ball there. Now, the room under the vaulted glass ceiling was like the Promenade brought indoors. Careful arrangements of sofas, ferns and potted trees carved temporary rooms out of the marble-tiled space, and every one of them was full. Any courtier who could afford to keep rooms inside hadn’t bothered going home for the few weeks until the ball. Even if Judah hadn’t spotted Gavin by the fountain, she would have known where he was by the way the courtiers subtly gravitated toward him, like flowers following the sun.
But they wanted nothing at all do with Judah, and scattered before her like pigeons. Gavin stood with a tiny woman wearing a shade of fuchsia that barely escaped vulgar. She was young and her makeup was too heavy, but her hairstyle was relatively restrained and not too crowded with decorations. The lady courtiers were all draping themselves in stuffed birds and enameled insects this season, but this one wore only a single iridescent beetle over her right ear, where its blue-green shell brought out the strawberry in her hair. Her dress was trimmed in white fur and she’d brushed opal powder on her cheeks to make them sparkle. She reminded Judah of an iced cake, the kind that looked better than it tasted. Her blue eyes were round as sugar rosettes and about as lively. Or maybe Judah just disliked her on sight because she was a courtier, and seeing her laughing so easily with Gavin brought back all of the things she could do and Judah could not.
Gavin felt Judah’s presence, looked up and grinned; with a few words to the courtier and a slight incline of his head—her opal-frosted cheeks pinked at the honor—he came to Judah, and took her arm in his. Which would also have been an honor, had she been anyone else. Judah knew that was why he’d done it. She also knew that nobody else noticed how careful he’d been not to let his bare skin touch hers. The spun-sugar courtier’s blue rosette eyes watched, her mouth curled; one delicate hand touched the beetle in her hair and Judah remembered Firo’s words, and the Seneschal’s. I’m here, among the spiders, keeping track of the webs. They will eat you alive.
“You,” Gavin said, as they walked toward the door, “smell ever so faintly of cavalry.”
She’d spent the morning in the pasture with Darid, hunting milkscorn and low ivy, both of which gave horses colic. “And you absolutely reek of courtier. Was that Lady Amie?”
They entered the hall outside the solarium just in time to see a courtier in green silk grab his page by the ear and deliver two swift kicks to the boy’s leg. The page, his arms full of paper-wrapped bundles (clothes from the laundry, probably), didn’t even try to dodge the sharp toes of the courtier’s shoes. “On your way, lord courtier,” Gavin said, and the courtier—eyes widening with shock and consternation—mumbled something servile and dragged the page into the nearest hallway. Where, Judah didn’t doubt, he’d resume kicking the boy as soon as he was out of sight. Gavin turned to Judah. “Did you want something?”
“Theron got a note from Elban today,” she said.
His shoulders stiffened slightly, but when he spoke his voice was oddly calm. “What’s it say?”
“No idea. He’s been in his workshop all day and hasn’t seen it yet.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.”
Judah stared at him. “Really. After twenty years of completely ignoring Theron’s existence, you think Elban just wrote to say hello?”
“The witchbred foundling’s been seen strolling on the Promenade with Firo of Cerrington. Clearly, anything is possible.” He spoke with unaccustomed sharpness. “What does he want from you, anyway?”
Thoroughly annoyed, Judah said, “Marriage, probably. No doubt he’s madly in love with me.”
“Not bloody likely.” Then he saw her face, and had the decency to wince. “Come on, Jude. That’s not what I meant, and you know it. You’re not Firo’s type, that’s all.” He reached one hand out, as if to touch her shoulder, but then let it drop. His face softened with a sympathy that surprised her as much as the sharpness had. “I’m just making this worse, aren’t I? The Seneschal told me about his meeting with you. I’m sorry. I know you like to cross him whenever possible, but...the courtiers... You have to be careful, Jude.” Again, his hand reached out. Again, it dropped. “I don’t like them talking about you.”
Judah found the possessiveness in his voice distasteful. “They talk about me, anyway. What about the note?”
He drew himself up, his eyes sliding away. “What about it? I get three a week.”
“Theron doesn’t.”
“Maybe that’s changing.”
He sounded normal, but Judah sensed something strange from him, something slithery and uncomfortable. She reached for his hand to get a clearer picture—but just before her fingers touched his bare skin, he stepped away. “I have to go,” he said. “Theron will be fine. I’ll see you later.”
Out of all of them, Gavin seemed to chafe the most at life in the shabby parlor. And why wouldn’t he, since what waited for him outside of it was so much grander than anything the others could expect? Only Gavin would ever see a wider world. Only Gavin would lay eyes on the ocean, the steppes, the icy peaks of the Barriers; only he would ever travel outside the Wall, ride through the city on a warhorse like his father or travel the provinces with an army at his back. (Judah didn’t expect Theron to ever command that army; she didn’t think the army would accept him. Gavin had promised to guild him, which was a less horrible prospect for thoughtful, isolated Theron than it was for Judah.) He claimed that spending time with the courtiers was merely an obligation, but Judah could feel the prickling restlessness that drove him to the salons and retiring rooms. He’d come back drunk and happy, or drunk and impatient, or just drunk. If Elly was awake, he’d throw himself at her feet, making wild, embarrassing proclamations of devotion. If Elly was asleep, he would scratch at Judah until she came to find him. She was usually awake, anyway; when he drank, her head spun, too, whether she liked it or not. (She felt other sensations, too, when Gavin was with the courtiers; sensations she was fairly sure Gavin would not want spoken of to Elly, so she spoke of them to nobody. Not even Gavin himself.)
Other nights came the summonses. Then, as soon as dinner was over, Gavin would put on a clean shirt, oil his boots, and go to Elban’s study. “What does he want?” Elly asked once, and with a carefree smile Gavin said, “To bore me to death, so he can stay in power forever.” But Judah could feel how it truly was in the anxious knots in his muscles. She waited up for him, those nights, long after the others had gone to sleep. He never wanted to talk after, but he was always glad to see her. She could feel that, too.
Direct skin contact between them felt like setting two mirrors facing each other, every sensation reflecting and doubling endlessly. It could be overwhelming, even frightening, so they rarely touched. But after spending an evening with Elban, Gavin would drop his head to her shoulder, and she would lean her cheek against the soft flax of his hair. Waves of anger and revulsion would sweep over her from him. She would do what she always did when he was upset: close her eyes and think fixedly of water. Of the aquifer beneath the House, very deep and very old, hollowed out over eons by the gentle friction of liquid on bedrock. The earthy smell of wet stone, the lap of water so faint it was almost silence. She held that water in her head, let it wash over him to soothe the twisted feelings inside him. She asked no questions. She didn’t want to know.
Theron found the letter when he came down for dinner. As he unfolded the thick paper, Judah watched with barely-suppressed anxiety. Despite what Gavin had said, she didn’t like the letter. She didn’t like the way Theron’s eyebrows had shot up when he’d seen it, she didn’t like the way Gavin felt after spending time with his father, and she hadn’t liked the slithery feeling she’d sensed in him outside the solarium. She liked even less that Gavin knew about his brother’s letter and still hadn’t bothered to join them back in the parlor for dinner. Elly spread butter on a roll, humming; she’d made of herself a bright, glassy lake that not even the strongest wind could ruffle, but Judah could see the worry under the brightness.
As he read, one side of Theron’s upper lip curled, the way it always did when he was puzzled. “He wants me to go hunting,” he said. “This weekend, in the western woods. They’re bringing in deer.”
The words hung in the air. Neither Judah nor Elly knew quite what to do with them. It was Elly who said, finally, “Do you want to go?”
Carefully, Theron put the letter down on the table. “I don’t really think I have a choice, when it comes right down to it. But the bow’s the only weapon I’m not completely useless with. Maybe he heard about that.” His eyes, behind his glasses, were wide and almost...hopeful. Theron was so thin and nervous that he seemed younger than his years. They coddled him, the three of them, which annoyed him, but meant he’d never lacked for affection. It had never occurred to Judah that his father’s disinterest might bother him. “Elban’s never wanted anything to do with me before,” he said now, and the words were tinted with a fascination that worried Judah and scared her.
Where are you, she scratched to Gavin.
Home soon, he scratched back. An hour later, she began to feel the first swirling lurches of drunkenness. Liar, she scratched to him in angry red lines. She didn’t expect a response, and she didn’t receive one.
“I don’t like this,” Elly said the next morning.
There was porridge for breakfast, lumpy and not as hot as it should have been, and Judah’s stomach, sour with Gavin’s hangover, liked its smell no better than its looks. She lay on the sofa with her eyes closed. Through the open terrace door she could hear the dull thok, thok of practice arrows hitting the straw target Theron had set up; she’d woken to the sound and it had been chasing her ever since. Each thok made her wince, not just in her sore head but in every muscle of her body. There was no sign of Gavin. His bed hadn’t been slept in. Nobody mentioned it.
“Elban’s never been interested in Theron,” Elly went on. “He has no reason to be interested in Theron. And now suddenly he wants to take him hunting? With courtiers?”
Thok. Thok. Judah threw an arm over her eyes. “Elban’s insane.”
“Maybe, but he doesn’t do pointless things.”
There was a moment of silence.
“You don’t have anything else to say?” Elly sounded impatient, half-angry.
“I don’t know what Elban’s thinking,” Judah said. “He hasn’t told me.”
She didn’t mean the words to bite, but they did. Eyes still covered, she heard Elly’s exasperated sigh, and felt bad. “Sorry, El. I’m sick.”
“I know. Every time Gavin decides to drown in a bottle, I lose both of you. It’s not your fault, but it’s—” Elly’s voice stopped short, as if snipped with scissors. Judah heard the swish of skirts. Finally, she said, “It’s not that he’s with that stupid woman. And it’s not even that he’s being so obvious about it. But Gavin’s the only one who might have the remotest clue what Elban’s up to, and the fact that he’s hidden himself away somewhere—it worries me.”
Judah had no counterargument. It worried her, too. Moving her arm a spare inch gave Judah a view of Elly standing at the mirror, doing something to her hair. She was wearing one of her courtier gowns, soft and pink with too much embroidery. “Are you going out?”
“Theron has decided to pick this morning to go to training,” she said. “Since Gavin can’t be bothered to make an appearance, I’m going down with him.” Judah’s thoughts must have shown on what little Elly could see of her face, because the other woman—stormy though her expression was—managed a semi-amused grin. “It’s okay. Courtiers do it all the time—observe training. There are even benches.”
“Will there be courtiers sitting on them?”
“Maybe.” Elly was cool. “I don’t really see how it matters.”
She could afford to say that. Protocol would have kept Elly away from the courtiers even if the Seneschal hadn’t wanted it that way; she was supposed to stay apart, to remain impartial. Judah took her arm away from her eyes, dropped it casually across the other one over her stomach. Trying to be subtle, so Elly couldn’t see, she scratched a curlicue and twist on the inside of her arm. Where are you? There was no answer.
She planned to spend the day mucking out stalls with Darid to make the time go faster. Horses required the movement of astounding amounts of hay: from hayrick to loft, from loft to manger, from stall floor to manure pile. But every time she sat up the lurching came back. Gavin didn’t answer her no matter how many times she scratched, which distracted and annoyed her. Finally, she made it to her feet and stumbled down to the bathing rooms above the kitchen, where the great fires below kept the water hot. The steam and the pungent smell of the herbs steeping in the water cleared her head, but didn’t quiet her stomach. Individual bathing rooms were supposed to be single-gender but nobody paid attention to that and she could hear laughter from the room on one side of her and moaning from the other. None of the laughers or moaners was Gavin.
Feeling somewhat more human, she dressed, braided her hair. Gavin wasn’t in the solarium or the gardens outside. By the time she made her way down the wooden path that led to the training fields, the morning session was nearing its end. On the grassless field, men ran at each other in heavy leather armor, foreheads dripping with sweat, hair tied back or shaved entirely. Dust hung over everything. It coated her mouth and her eyes and the sleeves of her dress with a thin haze, like pollen. The benches set up by the training field were located upwind from the cavalry stables, for the observers’ comfort. On one end, they bloomed with courtiers holding fine scented handkerchiefs to their noses against the dust. On the other end sat Elly: back held straight, eyes fixed on the field.
Judah joined her. “Where’s Theron?”
“Can’t you tell?” Elly said, and Judah realized that she could. He was the smallest, and the scrawniest, and he spent most of his time standing pointlessly in the dust, flinching when one of the guards came too near.
“He doesn’t belong here,” she said.
“No,” Elly said grimly. “He doesn’t.”
Whatever maneuver the guards were practicing was over. Swords were being sheathed, gauntlets removed. Again, Theron was ignored. He trudged toward the edge of the field, dreary and dejected. When he spotted the two of them, he seemed to gladden. Up close, he looked ludicrous in his leathers. The pieces of armor didn’t fit him or each other, and the mismatch was so obvious that it couldn’t be other than deliberate. Anger swelled inside Judah.
“Well?” he said, by way of greeting.
Elly gave him an encouraging smile. “You did well.”
“No, I didn’t. But at least I tried.” To Judah, he said, “Hello. Elly came down to make sure I didn’t accidentally stab myself in the throat, but why are you here?”
“I never thought you’d stab yourself in the throat,” Elly said.
“Wanted to see what all the fuss was about,” Judah said.
“You’re not the only one.” Theron sounded depressed again. Judah followed his gaze to the courtiers. Laughter drifted over the field, musical and cold. “They’ve been here all day, cackling. As if this wasn’t hard enough.”
“When you’re Commander of the Army, have all their heads cut off,” Judah said.
“I’d settle for having them turned in another direction.”
“Ignore them,” Elly said. “You did well. Really, you did.”
Wearily, he said, “I’m nearsighted, not delusional, but thanks. Now I’m heading up the hill before anyone else notices me. You two coming?”
“Of course,” Elly said.
Meanwhile, a lone blossom separated itself from the bouquet of courtiers, and floated graciously toward them. Firo. “I’ll be up in a while,” Judah said.
Theron blinked in surprise, but when Elly nudged him and gestured toward the approaching figure, the surprise crumbled to disgust. “Fine, then,” he said, curt, and started up the hill.
“Ask if he’s seen Gavin,” Elly muttered, and followed him.
When he was close enough, Firo gave Judah a courtly bow. “A surprise to see you here.”
“I wish I could say the same,” she said.
He cocked his head. The gems in his ears were blue instead of white today. “While I admit to occasionally going out of my way to find you, today it’s you who’s found me. I had no idea you’d be here when I came to watch the training. Did you find it diverting?”
“Not especially.” Her tone was flat.
“Nobody does. It’s tedious and dusty. But the House is very excited about the hunt this weekend, and when word got around that Lord Theron was here—well, we couldn’t very well stay away, could we?” He leaned in close. His eyebrows were drawn in kohl, as well. “Odds are being taken.”
“On what?” she said, suspicious.
“Why, the results of the hunt. We’re all intensely curious about the outcome. I had to call in quite a few favors to get myself invited along. Naturally, it’s a disappointment that Lord Gavin wasn’t on the field today, but we’ve seen him at arms before. And watching Lord Theron is its own satisfaction.”
Judah had seen nothing satisfying in Theron’s performance on the field. “Hunting is different than combat.”
“Is it?” Firo made a humming noise under his breath. He nodded toward the benches below, where a tiny figure in emerald green broke away from the cluster of blossoms. The blossoms followed after it like windblown petals. “That’s Lady Amie, by the way.”
“Was Gavin with her last night?” Judah said.
“Indeed. He’s probably in her rooms right now.”
“Then why is she here?”
With faint surprise, Firo said, “Letting him sleep, I imagine. And, as I said, watching Lord Theron.” Firo stared out onto the field, though there was nothing to see. “Have you ever read the work of the Zeldish poets?”
Judah didn’t care about poetry. “No.”
“One of the wandering guilds. Lunatics to a one, of course. At least they were. Nobody’s sure if they still exist. Their devotion is—was—poetry. Strange poetry, about the least poetic things. Dead leaves and barren fields. Things like that. And yet somehow rather appealing.”
“I don’t care.”
“Beauty in death, or that which is about to die. The beauty of transience. Watching a flame, knowing it will burn out, and be gone forever.” His eyes were level and unblinking. “It’s a shame that Lord Theron is not, himself, more beautiful.”
“What are you talking about?”
“What, indeed,” he said. “Didn’t I say I would warn you, if a warning was necessary?” On the benches, the courtiers rose en masse, and slowly began to climb the hill like one single, multi-hued creature. “Ah, lunch. I must go,” he said, and did.
Cold sick heat flooded Judah. Her mind whirled. A warning.
Beauty in death. That which is about to die.
The hunt.
Theron.
Elly was in the parlor. A pile of armor sat discarded in the corner but there was no sign of either brother. Lunch waited on the table, bread and cheese and cold meat with vinegar sauce. A knife to cut it with. All untouched. “Theron went to the workshop,” Elly told Judah. Frustration twisted the word, stretched it in Elly’s mouth. “Gavin hasn’t come back.”
Judah crossed to the table. The meat was rimmed in a thick layer of fat but the cheese looked delicious. It reminded her that she hadn’t eaten since the night before. She picked up the knife. Then she flattened her left hand against the table, and drove the blade through it.
Elly gasped. Judah didn’t even flinch.
“He will now,” she said.
Judah let Elly wrap her hurt hand in a towel, knife and all, to contain the blood. But she refused to let Elly remove the knife or dress the wound. Nor would she tell Elly what had upset her. (She knew nothing, anyway, she told herself; she had only Firo’s unpleasant intimations.) Elly was furious. She paced, lips tight and silent. Judah watched with dull detachment as bright splotches of blood bloomed on the towel. Once it had been white, the towel, but now it was a dim sort of gray. Somebody—Clorin, perhaps—had embroidered peonies on its edge. She had known that towel her whole life. It would probably have to be burned now.
The door flew open and Gavin stumbled in. He wore an unfamiliar shirt, his left hand wrapped in some filmy, garish material. The glower he gave Judah would have melted glass.
“You’re out of your mind,” he said, holding his hurt hand in his whole one.
Elly stopped in front of him. She was a full head shorter, but as she took in the silk shirt and the feminine scarf, something in the force of her made him look small. He withstood only a moment of that glare before his eyes slunk away and he collapsed into the chair where Judah normally sat. “Elly,” he said.
“Don’t,” Elly said. “Just don’t.” She picked up the bandages, sat down next to Judah, and without much gentleness, tore away the towel and pulled the knife out. Judah didn’t react; neither did Gavin. Each of them was watching the other, to see. Blood surged from the wound. Elly washed it away and smeared the holes with salve. She made two thick pads of bandages, sandwiched Judah’s hand between them, and tied a third around to hold it all together. Then she stood and went to the table; dumped half of the bread out of the breadbasket and began to refill it with slices of meat and cheese.
“Elly,” Gavin said again.
Elly held up a hand. The straightness of her fingers and the stiffness of her wrist was enough to stop him. “Theron missed lunch. I’m taking him some food.” Throwing an acid look toward both of them, she added, “Try not to grievously injure yourselves again before I get back.”
Then she left. As soon as the door shut behind her, Gavin scowled at Judah and said, “One minute I’m opening a bottle of wine, the next my hand is gushing blood. I thought I was hallucinating. What if someone had been there, Judah?”
“You shouldn’t ignore me.”
“So I’m learning.” Gavin sounded exhausted. Tearing the scarf from his hand, he tossed it into the fire, where it smoldered and stank. His wound had stopped bleeding already, because it wasn’t actually his; it would heal long before hers did. He moved to sit next to Judah, and began to wash his hand in the basin Elly had left. The water was red with Judah’s blood and by the time he was done, it was even redder. Judah didn’t offer to help as he dressed the wound, tearing the bandage off with his teeth. He did almost as good a job with one hand as Elly had with two.
“Well?” Judah said when he was done.
“Well, what?”
“Theron,” she said. “The hunt.”
Gavin leaned back and closed his eyes. Judah waited.
Eventually, eyes still closed, he said, “Second sons don’t live.” She could feel the words pushing out of him in a torrent. “That’s why I’ve been trying to get Theron down to the fields to practice a little bit. So at least he has a chance of defending himself. I know you heard me; your heart is beating hard and your skin’s gone all cold.”
He was right. Her heart was beating hard. The rush of it filled her ears and made her hand throb. “The second son commands the army.”
“They’re supposed to, but they never actually do, because they all die. Go down to the crypts and see for yourself. The dates are all there. I can show you the records. Illnesses. Injuries. Whoops, my knife slipped and landed in his throat. We tried our hardest to pull him out of the aquifer, but his fingers kept getting caught under our boots.”
The sick rush of his anger washed over her. “Hunting accidents?”
“I try to protect him,” Gavin said. “I try on the field, and I try off the field. I tell every guard and courtier I meet about my genius brother, how he’s the only one who can figure out how the old things work, what an asset he’d be if someone gave him a chance. It doesn’t do any good. Nobody cares. All anyone cares about is that Elban’s army is strong enough to hold this mess of an empire together, and Theron’s kind of cleverness won’t do that. Do you think it’s easy to sit in Elban’s study and listen to him tell me all the different ways my brother could die?” His fists clenched. The pain in their hurt hands was searing, but he spoke with crisp, precise consonants: like Elban. “A true Lord thinks only of the city. A true Lord does not let himself be distracted by mere people. People are tools, and they are only useful if they work. Theron doesn’t work.”
She could feel white-hot fury inside him—but it was still his anger, not hers. She’d had years of practice telling the difference. She felt... How did she feel? Curiously blank. When she thought of Theron himself—trudging up the hill in his ill-fitting armor, for instance—there was a high flutter of panic and fear in her chest that snatched at her breathing and, yes, made her skin cold. But the rest was nothing. Vacancy. Emptiness. “So you’ll keep an eye on him,” she said. She felt no surprise at all, no shock. And why should she? Killing was nothing to Elban. Theron was nothing to Elban. The only one he cared about at all was Gavin. None of this was new information. She touched Gavin’s arm. His bare skin. A casual gesture, except it wasn’t at all. When her skin touched his she nearly recoiled. A deep well of worry ate at Gavin; something ominous and sick-making, huge and impossible.
“Keep an eye on him?” he said, incredulous. “Judah, I’m the one who’s supposed to kill him.”
Now she felt shock. Now she felt dizzy and sick. Even after she pulled her hand away from him, the sickness remained. It was hers. All hers. “You wouldn’t,” she said.
Of course I wouldn’t, he was supposed to say. Instead, he leaned his head back on the sofa again, as if he were too tired to hold it up. “If I don’t, Elban’s taking Elly.”
Those words made no sense. “Taking her where? Back to Tiernan?”
“Judah.” Gavin grabbed her bad hand with his and a wave of pain crested over her, echoing back and forth between the two of them. She could feel that the pain gave him a hard pleasure: like clenching a fist when you were angry, except he was clenching her fist, too. He thought he deserved his pain. He thought he deserved all of it. “He’s going to marry her.”
Her hand was on fire. “The Lord doesn’t remarry. Not once there’s an heir.”
“He can, in special circumstances. Guess who decides what constitutes a special circumstance?”
“The people like us more than him. Firo told me.”
“Of course they do.” Bitterness, sticky and black, filled his voice. “We’re a fairy tale. But how much do you think they’d love the prince if he cast the princess aside and refused to marry her? After all this time? Because that’s the story Elban will tell. With him as the hero, swooping in and saving her from the shame his feckless heir thrust upon her.”
“He’ll—” Panic rose in Judah’s throat. “You have to tell her. You have to tell both of them.”
“Tell them what?” he said. “That if I don’t kill Theron in cold blood in front of an audience of courtiers, Elly will spend the rest of her life chained to our monster of a father? What do you think the two of them will do with that knowledge?”
“If it’s the truth—”
Gavin cut her off. “If it was my death—or even yours, Jude—Theron would be very sorry, and very sad, and disappear into the old wing where nobody would ever see him again. Children would tell stories about Mad Lord Theron just like we tell stories of Mad Martin the Lockmaker. But for Elly? He’d throw himself off the nearest tower before he’d let anything happen to her, and you know it.” This was true. Elly was the kindest of them, and the most patient. Theron valued kindness and patience. Gavin went on. “The same goes for Elly. Tell her that marrying Elban means Theron lives, and she’ll be in his study by sundown, making the deal. Neither of us could stop her.” His face toppled with despair. “Hells, probably he’d jump at the same time she signed the marriage contract, and we’d lose both of them. If I could fall on my sword and save them I would, but if I kill myself—us—Theron and Elly are on their own. If he could have another child, he would have replaced me long ago—I’m sure he tried—but he won’t accept Theron as his heir. He barely accepts Theron as human. If I die, Elban will kill him anyway, and adopt a courtier or something. I’ve thought it all through, Judah. Every possible angle. But my father has, too, and he’s craftier than I am. I’m trapped.”
“Why doesn’t he just kill Theron, if he wants him dead?”
“Because just killing him wouldn’t make me miserable. He says the Lord of the City has to make hard decisions, with no interest in mind other than the future of the city.” Again, there was that eerie shift in diction, and the voice coming out of his mouth was Elban’s. “We are born with soft hearts, but softness is the one luxury in which the Lord of the City cannot indulge.”
Judah felt his defeat. She saw it in the way he slumped on the couch. And she knew, suddenly, why he’d fled from them the night before, why he’d taken refuge in his courtier and her bottle of wine. “You’re going to do it,” she said, numb.
His mouth opened, and closed, and opened again. Finally, he said, “If I kill him, he’ll suffer for a few seconds. Maybe less, if I’m good. If Elly marries Elban, she’ll suffer for the rest of her life.” He was haunted inside, hollow. “You don’t know my father, Judah. You don’t know what he’s like.”
“I know what you’re like,” she said. “You can’t kill your brother.”
He was silent.
“She’ll hate you,” Judah said desperately.
“I know.” His voice was lifeless. “You will, too. But you’ll both be alive and safe.”
“You can’t.”
“I don’t want to,” he said, and there seemed to be nothing else to say.
It was ghastly, the way he switched himself back on when Elly and Theron came back. Not because he didn’t mean it, when he apologized to both of them for missing Theron on the training field or when—off to the side, although Judah knew what was happening—he apologized to Elly for the spectacle he’d made with his courtier girl. No, it was ghastly because she could feel that he did mean it. He was sorry he’d left Theron on the field alone. He was sorry he’d embarrassed Elly. But the hollowness remained, the deep sick well of horror. When dinner came the food tasted like ash in Judah’s mouth, but Gavin ate normally, and answered all of Theron’s questions about the hunt: how many people would be there, the order in which they’d all ride, the trappings and protocol and unspoken rules. And all the while, inside, Gavin was wretched.
She was wretched, too. After dinner Elly brought out the cards and Judah tried to excuse herself, but Theron said they couldn’t play three-handed and Elly insisted she needed a decent partner. Gavin simply said, “Stay with us, Jude,” and it was that which swayed her. The hunt was in the morning. For these last few hours, they were all safe together, and life was not a horror.
So she stayed, but she could not concentrate. She and Elly lost the game.
She slept uneasily and woke sometime in the early hours, her throat and lungs burning. As quietly as she could, she rose and crept out onto the terrace where Gavin was smoking. He was already dressed in his hunting clothes, tall boots and a quilted jacket. Judah’s feet were bare and the stone terrace was cold. She sidled close to him, stood against the warmth of his arm, and felt him lean his weight against her.
“What if Theron doesn’t go?” she said after a long time. “What if he’s sick or something?”
“Postponing the inevitable.”
“You can’t,” she said. “Not really.”
Her hand rested on the terrace balustrade. He laid his on top of it. The fear and horror inside him joined with hers, and reflected back, and reflected back. It made her feel dizzy and ill. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t let Elban take Elly. But I can’t kill Theron.” He considered. “I could kill Elban. But I’m sure he’s expecting that. He won’t give me the opportunity.” He squeezed her hand harder. “Help me, Jude. Help me figure out what to do.”
Gavin’s hand clutched hers, hard, and she clutched him back. She had no answer for him, no help to offer save that she always offered: so she tried to think of water. Still puddles of water reflecting clear blue sky. Cold water frozen over with a skin of ice. Dark water lapping gently at rocks. Fear swirled through all of it in hot streaks of red, but the weight of his body against hers grew heavier, and she felt his head rest on the top of hers.
Water, she thought. Calm.
Dawn came a few hours later. Judah noticed the tremble of Theron’s hands as he poured his coffee. His stutter was so bad he’d hardly been able to ask for milk. Gavin had tried to be easy, but it didn’t take an unnatural bond to sense the grimness still in him, despite all the calm she’d poured into him on the terrace. It took all Judah had to let go of Theron when she’d hugged him goodbye; to watch Elly kiss his thin cheek, and not tell her to hold on a bit longer.
Judah and Gavin didn’t look at each other. It wasn’t necessary.
After they left, Elly prepared for her day, her bustling too busy. She didn’t normally chatter this much about her hair, her earrings. “I hate this dress. I hate the way it hangs. It won’t necessarily be a disaster,” Elly said, and it took Judah a moment to realize the subject had changed. “Maybe all he lacks is confidence. And forty pounds of muscle, and the ability to see past the end of his nose. Oh, it doesn’t matter what I look like. I’m just oiling the stupid rushes.”
Judah picked up an earring and put it down again. “Elly—”
“What?”
She’ll be in his study by sundown, making the deal. Neither of us will be able to stop her.
“Your dress is fine,” Judah said.
Elly sighed. “Come get me the moment you hear anything, okay?”
Judah wanted to be where she could be found, so she waited in the parlor, hyperaware of every sensation she picked up from Gavin. Burning muscles in her thighs and back: riding. Pain in her palms and fingers: were his fists clenched, or was she just feeling her own blisters? She’d forgotten her gloves when she’d gone to the stable the day before. A faint headache: that could be hers, too. It wasn’t foolproof, this connection of theirs. When Gavin was on the training field, she felt every blow, but the aches and pains of daily life were harder to pin down. She wished they’d arranged a signal for when the moment came. It might have already come. Theron could be dead already.
She still couldn’t believe he would do it.
She scratched him until the skin on the inside of her wrist grew raw. At first the answers came immediately, almost impatiently—all right? All right—but then they stopped coming at all. Anxiety wrapped her in a tight cold girdle, squeezing her stomach, making it hard to breathe.
Noon came. With it, a tray of bread and meat paste, along with a bowl of early tomatoes from the greenhouse. The tomatoes were as hard as apples. She didn’t even bother trying to eat. The smell of the paste was thick like body sweat. It drove her into her boots—Theron’s old boots—and out.
Down to the stables. Where else could she go?
“How long does a hunt take?” she asked Darid. He was scooping out warm mash, the earthy smell of which didn’t bother Judah at all, and the low chomping of the horses who’d already been fed was as peaceful as Theron’s shooting had been relentless, the day before.
“As long as they want it to. Or until they’ve killed everything there is to kill,” he said placidly. Judah flinched. He noticed, frowned a bit with his eyes. “Or until the hounds are too tired to run anymore, I guess. Are you worried?”
There was no point lying about it. “Accidents happen all the time on hunts. People get shot, hit in the head, thrown from horses—”
“It’s not the horses you have to worry about.” He finished with the mash and headed into the tack room; she followed. A saddle lay over a sawhorse. He picked up a rag and a bottle of oil and began to rub it down. After each swipe the saddle leather went dark and glossy, then dull again. “If it were me, I’d be worried about courtiers who can’t shoot. And the hounds, of course.”
“The hounds?” She thought of the kennel: the high slatted walls, the barking and growling that emanated from beyond them at the slightest noise.
“I used to work with them.” The steady motion of the rag didn’t falter but his voice was hesitant, as if he were telling her something he shouldn’t. “My first job inside. I was excited at first. I always liked dogs. But they’re not dogs. They’re—something else.” His mouth tightened. “And they aren’t trained for clean kills.”
Judah felt like she’d stumbled into some deep pit of feeling in Darid, something secret and uncomfortable. He wouldn’t look at her. Awkwardly, she said, “I’m shocked to learn that there’s an animal you don’t like.”
Then he did look at her, sidelong. “Well, I didn’t much like the kennel master, either. And he didn’t like me.”
“I can’t imagine anyone not liking you,” she said without thinking, because her mind was still in the western woods. Then she realized what she’d said and blushed. He turned away to hide a grin and she knew he was trying to be kind, which just made it worse. To be standing here, chatting about animals. She couldn’t stay anymore. She left.
She had barely pushed open the parlor door before Elly snatched it away from her. Judah could smell the fumes from the rush oil clinging to her, and her blue eyes were bloodshot—after finishing the rushes, she must have spent the rest of the morning reading in the Lady’s Library. “Oh,” Elly said, disappointed. “I thought you were them. They should be back by now, shouldn’t they?”
“I don’t know.”
Elly wrapped her arms around herself. “Did you eat? There was food, but I made them take it away. The smell. I can get more.”
“I’m fine.”
“Judah.” She sounded desperate. “Something is wrong.”
Judah remembered Gavin the night before, laughing and smiling at all of them through the blackness growing inside. She forced a curious smile. “What makes you say that?”
“Oh, don’t,” Elly said, impatient. “Gavin can get away with that. You can’t. You’re bad at it. And I don’t know. Everything. Theron on the hunt. You. The courtiers I see in the hall. The way the girl who came to get the lunch tray looked at me.” Her lips pressed together. She grabbed Judah’s hands and held them tight. “I feel like there’s something everybody knows but me. Is it that stupid woman? Is she pregnant?”
“I don’t think so.” Judah had no idea.
“But there’s something,” Elly insisted.
Her eyes were intense, pleading. Judah wanted to tell her—it seemed only fair, since the rest of Elly’s life was at stake, too—but what was the point? If the hunt went the way Elban wanted it to go, if it didn’t, there was nothing either of them could do. They were powerless, Elly and Judah both. They could only wait. “Nobody tells me anything, Elly,” Judah said wearily.
Elly let go of Judah’s hands and sank down on the sofa. “Furniture,” she muttered, and Judah said, “What?”
“Furniture.” Elly’s voice was dull, frustrated. “That’s how my mother told me to think of myself when she sent me here. Furniture, to be moved from one place to another as it suited.” She picked up the deck of cards. “Come on, Jude. There’s no point in brooding. Let’s play cards.”
When the girl brought the dinner tray, Judah jumped up so quickly at the sound of the door that she was dizzy. The girl was nervous. Elly asked her if the hunt was back and she mumbled, “Don’t know, Lady,” and fled.
“Well, that was helpful,” Elly said.
“They’re back,” Judah said.
“How do you know?”
The dizziness hadn’t subsided. It was worse, even. Judah’s hand went to the chair for support. “Because Gavin’s getting drunk.”
Elly cursed. Which almost never happened. “That idiot. Sit down before you fall down.”
“No.” Judah held up her bandaged hand. “He’s not allowed to hide from us. He and I have been through this.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“No,” Judah said. “Stay here. What if Theron comes back?” And she left.
Outside, she wheeled around a corner and felt like her head was spinning on a different axis from the rest of the world. Being Gavin-drunk was different from being drunk herself: when her own body was drunk, numbness filled her like water. When Gavin was the one doing the drinking, the confusion only rose partway, and the clear, sober part of her tossed wildly like a boat on its surface. This was how she felt every night Gavin spent with the courtiers. When she knew to expect it, it could be sort of enjoyable. Tonight, it made her angry.
By the time she reached the stairs, something unfamiliar was edging out the haze of alcohol. She pushed open the door just enough to slip through. The door’s latch clicked and the noise broke in her ears. Her steps felt too big. She was suddenly unsure of the floor. Putting a hand to the wall to steady herself, the stone felt soft under her fingers, almost luxurious.
In her tiny boat on top of the maelstrom, Judah saw, in her mind’s eye, a crystal vial, passed from pale delicate hand to pale delicate hand. This was what the drops felt like, then. She marveled, dimly, that the courtiers managed to take them and do anything else.
Gavin. She was looking for Gavin.
She stumbled her way through the evening-dim corridors, the deep, lugubrious waters surging beneath her. The House wrapped around her, in all of its complicated vastness, binding her like the corsets she refused to wear. She had long ago stopped noticing the ancient paintings that hung in its halls but now the strange flat-faced people in their odd clothes seemed far more real than the living people she passed. The sober part of her knew they were nothing to be scared of, but the dull faded faces seemed filled with hate. Vicious. Worse than any courtier. The waves of Gavin-feeling were increasingly violent. Occasionally one swept over her and swamped the tiny boat that was all she had left of herself, making her clutch the walls for support.
No, she thought, furious, the third time this happened. I am not Gavin. I am not hiding in a room somewhere. I am Judah. I am me. Ferociously, she pushed the waves back. She had been pushing back his pain since she was eight years old. This was no different. Her tiny boat grew slightly larger, slightly more sure. She forced herself upright again, and kept going.
Into the solarium, gaudy with courtiers and weird purple gaslights. Too much light. Too many smells. There was music but it didn’t make any sense. She tried to feel for Gavin, but to reach out for him she had to push him back and it was too much, too strange. A hand took her arm.
“Judah,” Firo said in her ear. “What are you doing here, dear girl?”
With no little difficulty, she shook him off. “I’m not a girl. Not your dear.”
He turned her toward him. The gems in his ears glittered black as eyes. She could feel his actual eyes peering closely at her, and when he spoke again his voice was yellow with laughter. “Why, you’re drunk. At the very least. This is no place for you to be out of your head, Judah. Come along, now.”
“No.” The floor felt strange underfoot. Soft. Stretchy.
“Just for coffee.” He sounded impatient. “Something to eat.”
She should not go with him. She knew that. But he was already leading her out of the too-loud, too-bright room; down a purplish hallway to one of the retiring rooms, where food and coffee was always laid out, where the music was quieter and a conversation could be had. In the daytime they were all polished brass and white linen, but this one was firelit and choked with thick herbal smoke that burned her eyes. In a corner she thought she saw two figures twined together in a chair but in her altered state, the deep-colored drapes at the windows seemed to be twining and caressing each other, too, so she didn’t trust what she saw.
Firo deposited her in an empty corner and told her to wait. Curious eyes seemed to glint at her from the two twining figures. She thought she heard foundling. She thought she heard witchbred. Then Firo was pressing a cup of coffee into her hands, delicate white china instead of the thick ceramic they used upstairs. He sat down next to her. She thought he touched her hair, pushed some of it behind her ear. She might have imagined it. She trusted nothing.
“The hunt,” she said.
“Very disappointing. Drink your coffee.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing. That’s why it was disappointing.”
“Theron?”
His smile rang off-key and discordant in her ears. “Lord Theron lives, foundling.”
Her worry had been a knotted rope inside her and when she heard those words it snapped, it recoiled, it waved madly around inside her. “To your dismay,” she managed to say.
“To the dismay of some,” he corrected. “To the rejoicing of others.”
“Who?”
“Guess.”
Judah closed her eyes briefly. But her eyelids were lined with colorless shapes that she did not like so she opened them again, and said, “I don’t speak courtier.”
“Particularly not in your current state. Who in the world got you like this, and why didn’t they stay to finish the job? Setting you free in the solarium like that is throwing a baby bunny to the hounds.”
“Shut up. Tell me what you know.”
“Well, which, dear?” He laughed, delighted with either the question or her muddled state. When she bristled—was she sprouting actual bristles?—he held up a jeweled hand. “Easy, foundling. Don’t call any more attention to yourself than you must. It’s considered poor taste to notice other people on a night like this, but I’m not sure you count as people. Also, I know nothing. I only hear things. There’s a subtle but real difference.”
“What,” Judah said, “do you hear?”
He had full lips. It was obvious that he painted them. Now they curved faintly. “I hear that the young lord is not strong, and rather clumsy. Liable to suffer illness or accident at any moment. And I hear that the weak-minded Lord Gavin is so taken with Lady Amie of Porterfield that he’s considering renouncing Lady Eleanor, and taking Amie as Lady, instead.”
“Not true.”
“Drink your coffee.” This time there was no doubt; he pushed her unbound hair back behind her shoulder and let his fingers linger there. “I’m not concerned with what’s true. Merely what I hear.” He leaned forward and she felt those painted lips brush her ear. His consonants were sharp, almost painful. “If Lady Eleanor were renounced, of course, it would be a terrible shame for her. And I very much doubt that poor sheepish Tiernan can afford the repayment of her bride-price. Come closer, foundling. You must seem like you’re enjoying yourself.”
Firo’s body radiated heat next to hers and his perfume was velvet-heavy and dark brown. Judah felt like she was choking. “Elban wants to marry her.”
“That’s another rumor, yes.” His lips were touching the skin under her ear now, making her skin crawl, making her want to writhe. “But if such a marriage were to come to pass, my ebony-eyed darling, you would want to be very careful with yourself. You would, in fact, want to make yourself as scarce as possible. Lady Amie will not share her prize with anyone. She will want Lord Gavin utterly to herself. I risk my own future even being seen with you, which is why we’ve suddenly become so intimate. I shall tell everyone that you, poor naive thing that you are, got foolishly drunk and threw yourself at me. I’ll be disgustingly detailed and, of course, reject you brutally. The other courtiers will love it.”
The tip of his nose, cold and smooth, touched the tender skin under her ear. For a moment he was a great snake wrapped around her, the hand on her arm a coil and the arm pressing her body to his another. For a moment she was afraid.
“I have to find Gavin.” Her voice sounded too loud.
She wasn’t talking to Firo. Not really. Voices in the corridor grew louder and she sensed somebody stepping into the door. Firo’s eyes moved toward them. He grabbed the side of her head, pulled it toward his. “Vanish, little foundling. Right now.” Suddenly he stood up, unbalancing her. She slid boneless to the floor and landed on her knees. From far away, she saw her coffee cup topple onto the rug, and heard distorted laughter. “Go,” Firo said. “Get out. Thing.”
She stumbled to her feet and ran.
The hallucinations were getting worse. She couldn’t go back to Elly. Not empty-handed. Not in the state she was in. And she felt a powerful urge to actually set eyes on Theron, to prove that at least some of the words that came out of Firo’s mouth were true. So she made her way to the workshop. The floor oozed like lamp oil underfoot and made her queasy. The workshop door was closed. She pulled it open, not caring if she startled him, only caring that he was actually there.
And he was. Sitting at his workbench in his hunting clothes—although the quilted jacket lay puddled on the floor where it had been dropped—and staring blankly at the spidery device he was building, which seemed somehow more whole than the last time Judah had seen it. The relief that flooded her smelled like lemons. She could only lean against the wall and stare. He was safe. He was whole. He was safe.
But there was blood spattered on his cheek, and more on his shirt. A single drop marred one lens of his glasses; behind it, his eyes were swollen and lifeless. Doll’s eyes, made of glass. For a moment, he seemed wooden and covered in cloth, like a minstrel’s puppet. She closed her eyes and when she opened them he was real again.
“Tell me,” she said.
He didn’t answer. The silence tasted coppery, like the blood on his glasses, and it swirled, and Judah almost lost herself in it. Then he said, “They killed a deer,” and his words were made of stone, like the walls and the floor. They had solidity and weight. The room filled with them.
In stories someone killed an animal and the animal died. Then he drew his bow and did slay the beast. With his sword he struck a goodly blow and thus the beast was slain. Theron’s words were words like fix and repair and assemble and he knew the depths those words contained, how they were the stories of things: how you couldn’t fix a thing without understanding what it was for, and how it was meant to work, and the sophistication of the mind that had created it; how repairing was not a task to be checked off a list but an act of devotion, a moment of communion between one human being and the world. How assembling was a miracle as deep and beautiful as the stars. The conception of a thing that did not exist, the drawing of a path toward existence. Think of gold, mined in streams and rivers and veins beneath the earth’s surface. Think of cogs, and the perfect distance between the teeth. Think of one gem, perfectly cut. One piece of metal. One idea. One machine.
Fix. Repair. Assemble.
As he followed his father and brother through the woods, unfriendly smirking courtiers all around them, words like hunt and kill and death seemed simpler. Putting a fire out was less miraculous than starting one. Watching clockwork wind down was less incredible than winding it up. Firing an arrow was an action Theron understood; the bow was a machine like any other, one that channeled the strength of the arm, magnified by the force of the pull, into the tiny point at the head of the arrow. Everything else—the fletching, the balance of the projectile—was refinement. Making sure the arrowhead hit exactly where it would be most efficient. One of the big veins in the throat, probably. Or the heart. Or through the eye to the brain.
He thought he could fire the arrow, hit the target. When they saw the deer in the clearing, the eye was too small, so it would have to be the heart or the vein. He admired the way the deer’s legs were put together, built for fleetness and silence. He saw in an instant how the tendons and muscles were connected. He found these things beautiful, like the horses they rode, like anything that was designed to do a thing as perfectly as possible. He had time to consider that the horses were bred the way they were, but the world had created the deer on its own. He had time to marvel.
Then his father raised his bow, and his black-fletched arrow flew.
It struck far from any vital target, in the big muscle of the deer’s hind flank, and at first he thought the shot was bad. But from the smirking courtiers he heard a murmur of approval. “Excellent shot, Lord Elban,” one said, even as the deer bolted and the hunting party—horses and men and fearsome grizzled hounds that stood almost to Theron’s shoulder—took up the chase. Theron was confused. It hadn’t been an excellent shot. It had been inefficient and wasteful.
His horse was well-bred and well-trained and needed no instruction from him. “Just hang on,” Gavin had muttered when the horses were led in front of them and Theron had gulped at the size of them, and as the horses gave chase to the wounded deer, just hang on was exactly what Theron did. He’d had daydreams—childish fantasies, he now understood—that while riding he would draw his bow and fire, but there was no question of loosing his grip on the pommel long enough to reach into the quiver that hung over his back for an arrow, let alone setting the bow and firing it, let alone in motion. Just hang on. Ahead of him, he could see that Gavin wasn’t just hanging on. Gavin rode the machine that was his horse as if he had been designed for it, as if they were two machines working toward one goal. He even had time to glance quickly back toward Theron, to make sure he was just hanging on. It had always been that way. If the human body was a machine, Theron knew his own had been poorly built from half-functional parts. Even now his lungs were tight and he had no peripheral vision, around the lenses of his glasses. Gavin was the perfected model, the very best plans and the very best parts. Theron was built from what was left over.
But his mind was quicker than Gavin’s, his fingers more nimble, and ever since realizing the difference between them—ever since realizing that he was not going to mysteriously wake up one day in a strong, capable body like his brother’s—he had done everything possible to avoid putting himself in any position where those advantages were worthless. And yet, here he was. The horse under him ran. He tried to keep from flailing and falling. It was the best he could do.
The hounds barked. The deer, limping badly, wheeled on its good leg, and just as it did another arrow flew, this one fletched in red. It landed deep in the other flank. A cheer went up. Blood drops falling from the first wound were joined by drops from the second. The hounds were deranged, slavering and snapping at the deer. Theron was baffled. What was happening, what was going on? They had come to kill the deer, and he knew there must be depths to kill that he didn’t understand, but why weren’t they even trying? Why were they doing such a bad job?
“Run!” Elban cried, and bellowed something at the hounds, and the hunters roared. Up ahead, Gavin bent down low over his horse. Theron’s own mount seemed to lift under him; suddenly the world flew past. The motion was smooth and terribly fast and he could see nothing, not even with his glasses.
He heard Elban’s voice again, cold and severe: “Hold!” The horses in front of Theron reared and stopped and Theron’s did, too, nearly throwing him in the process. Just hang on. He found himself next to Gavin, Elban on his brother’s other side. Again, Gavin risked a quick glance in Theron’s direction, the same old question in his eyes: Okay? Theron found himself in a tangle of reins and straps; they had seemed orderly enough in the beginning, but now they’d all come loose, and Theron felt like a fool, trying to assemble himself into the easy effortlessness his brother managed by nature. But he nodded. He was okay.
In front of them, the hounds had circled the deer, growling. The deer’s injured back half trembled on legs oddly splayed. Theron saw that it was holding itself up on its bones because the muscles weren’t working. It was a doe, or at least antlerless; her wide eyes were terror-stricken, her mouth open and panting.
The hounds would take it now. They would leap for the throat. It would be bloody. He must not flinch.
“Take it,” Elban said.
The biggest hound leapt—but not for the throat. Instead, the sleek gray beast went for the deer’s midsection, tearing loose a flap of skin. The deer squealed. Another hound went for one of the delicate forelimbs, and with a twist of the great head and an appalling snap, the deer went down to one knee. The courtiers cheered again.
“Mark the time, Seneschal,” Elban said, a muted delight in his voice. The Seneschal took out a pocket watch and flipped it open. “Gentlemen, give your bets.”
“Three minutes, Lord,” a courtier called out.
“Five!” said another, and then all the men on horseback were shouting out numbers. Two. Three and a half. Seven. A dozen or so courtiers rode with them; every face matched Elban’s, in excitement and pleasure. Only one courtier was silent, a tall man with glittering onyx earrings who kept to the back, and he seemed to be watching his fellow hunters rather than the deer.
“Heir,” Elban said. Heir meant Gavin. Theron had no idea what word Elban would use to address him. “What’s your bet?”
Staring at the deer—who still struggled to stand, on two wounded legs and one broken one—Gavin was made of stone. “Eight minutes,” he said.
Theron, with revulsion, realized they were betting on how long the deer would live. “Fifteen minutes,” Elban pronounced.
Minute after minute passed: hard, gory minutes; minutes loud with horrendous animal screeching. Great spurts of blood shot toward the courtiers, making them crow with delight, as the hounds tore the deer apart, bit by bit. They ripped her legs out from under her and tore them off when she fell; they chewed off her ears and her tail, and Theron didn’t understand why the deer didn’t die of fear and pain, why no part of the deer’s brain called the battle for the hounds and let her suffering end. He didn’t understand how the courtiers could stand and laugh as the deer tried to put her least broken leg under her. His own mouth was dry, his skin cold. Gavin remained stony.
“Why—d-doesn’t it die—” he finally muttered, drawing his horse close to his brother’s.
“Because it wants to live,” Gavin said, his voice dull. “Everything wants to live.”
On the other side of Gavin, Elban pulled at his reins. His horse stomped. “Does the Commander of the Army find the blood distasteful?”
It was more words altogether than Theron’s father had ever said to him at once. “No, Lord,” Theron said. “I mean, I’m f-fine, Lord.” Cursed stutter.
Elban’s ice-blue eyes fixed on him. “Time, Seneschal?”
“Fourteen minutes,” the gray man said.
“In one minute, Commander of the Army, I will have won the game. Do you think the beast can last one more minute?”
The deer had given up standing. Her head lay in the dried needles and leaves on the forest floor. The hounds were disemboweling her with excruciating slowness. As Theron watched, horrified, she blinked. He could feel his tongue wanting to stutter. “Yes, Lord,” was all he dared say. Elban said nothing in response, and neither did anyone else. In a panic to fill the silence, Theron said, “What’s the p-prize, Lord?”
“The p-prize?” Elban smiled. “Tell your brother what the p-prize is, heir.”
“Anything he wants,” Gavin said.
Theron felt sick.
“Anything I want. That’s the p-prize. Anything, or anyone.” The courtiers laughed, hooting lewdly. “So. Just another day, I suppose.” He pulled his reins again. This time his animal backed up, took a few steps to the side. Now he was next to Theron. He wore black, as always. A silver dagger hung at his belt. He pulled it out and pointed it at Theron. “I’ll tell you what, Commander of the Army. When I have won my p-prize, you, too, may have what you want.” He flipped the dagger in his hand, extending it hilt-first. “You may kill the deer. End the p-poor thing’s suffering.”
The last words dripped with sarcasm. The courtiers laughed again.
Behind Elban, Gavin did not look up. Theron took the dagger.
“Time, Lord,” the Seneschal said.
Elban’s eyes glinted. Theron knew eyes didn’t really do that but some motion in the muscles around them made him understand how that expression came to be. “Well, then. Commander?”
Still no help from Gavin. Slowly, Theron slid off his horse. His legs hurt and he paused for a moment with both boots on the ground, so he wouldn’t stumble. Elban made a noise in his throat that drew all of the hounds back from what was left of the deer, and Theron made himself watch to see if her chest still rose and fell. It did. The hounds had blank, all-black eyes. There were as many of them as there were men behind him and he felt the weight of all their gazes equally. Blood spattered their gray hides, dripped from their jaws as they panted; curious about this new thing on the ground, sensing that he was somehow neither master nor exactly prey.
They had torn the deer’s chest open, exposing her ribs. I’ll just put the dagger through her heart, Theron thought. She won’t feel anything. She’ll just die. Then we can go back to the House. This will be over.
The trees in the western woods were smooth-barked and still leafless, reaching skeletally up into the sky. Dead leaves crunched under Theron’s boots. He was acutely aware of the hunting horses behind him, all strong and quick and tall, the men on them strong and quick and tall, as well. He was the smallest, weakest thing in this clearing, with the possible—and only the possible—exception of the deer.
He took another step. The deer’s eye—brown, not black—rolled toward him in the socket, to see what new torture he brought. He could not believe he had ever looked forward to this. He did not ever want to do it again.
“Commander of the Army,” he heard his father sneer, behind him, and it made him angry. Who else was he supposed to be, other than who he was? How was he supposed to have grown into this person his father wanted, when his father refused to even acknowledge his existence? He gripped the dagger tightly, and made himself take the three steps to the deer.
Oh, gods. The smell.
He heard a noise behind him and turned.
Gavin was off his horse. The noise he’d heard had been his brother’s boots hitting the ground. He had a dagger at his belt, too, except it wasn’t at his belt anymore. It was in his hand.
He’s going to do it for me, Theron thought with a mixture of anger and relief. He doesn’t think I can do it. He thinks I’m a coward. He thinks I’m useless. He’s right. I am a coward. I am useless. Then Theron corrected himself, as he always did. No. I’m just useless at this. But I can help the deer. I will.
Gavin’s lips were pressed tightly together, his face white. He was holding himself strangely. Everything about him seemed strange. The dagger in his hand, poised to strike, his eyes fixed—
On Theron.
Behind him, Elban watched. There was no sound. Even the panting of the dogs had stopped.
Gavin took two steps toward him.
“No.” Theron didn’t mean to speak. Even as the word escaped his lips—without even a hitch, and ns were hard—he was thinking: this is not happening. This would not happen. The machine doesn’t work this way; this is not the plan; Gavin would not do this.
Just hang on.
Then Gavin moved. He had not seen his brother on the training field in so long. He had no idea how fast Gavin could be, and even now the part of his brain that appreciated a well-made machine was admiring the way all the parts of Gavin’s body worked with all the other parts, the fluidity of his movement, the sureness of his steps and the practiced line of his arm as he drew back the dagger; the way his brother’s torso and hips swiveled to deliver the maximum possible energy through the arm and wrist and hand to the weapon, focusing all of the strength and beauty that was the human body at its finest and best-trained into the fine-honed tip of the blade, sharpened beyond what the eye could see.
Theron closed his eyes.
A breeze. The warmth of his brother’s body passing within a hairbreadth of his own. A grunt, a thud.
He opened his eyes. Gavin’s dagger was buried at the base of the deer’s skull. He had severed her spinal column. She was dead.
All pleasure and excitement vanished from Elban’s face, replaced by anger and distrust. Gavin pulled his dagger from the deer’s body and wiped it on his trousers. With an illogical sidestep he swiveled, put himself between Theron and Elban. He still held the dagger point down but there was something dangerous in the set of his shoulders, the stance of his legs. It was a fighter’s stance. Gavin was waiting for an attack.
Elban made a noise. The hounds all stood as one and took a step closer. The courtiers were silent. In front of Theron, Gavin’s shoulders flexed.
Their father was going to kill them both. He would have them torn apart. “Gavin,” Theron said, low—meaning what? That he did not know what was going on, but he knew they were in danger. That he did not want to be torn apart by hounds.
“Quiet.” Theron could barely hear him.
The moment lasted only a few seconds but it also lasted longer than the fifteen minutes it had taken the deer to die. The moment lasted forever. “Well, then,” Elban said finally, as if they’d just finished a negotiation, although nobody else had spoken. He spun his horse and rode away. The courtiers followed. Gavin’s and Theron’s own horses, confused, stamped impatiently at the ground.
“Gavin,” Theron said again.
Gavin didn’t look at him. With the courtiers moving away, his whole body slumped, as if all of his bones had gone soft at once. Hoisting himself up onto his horse looked as if it took immense effort, and his posture in the saddle was grim. If posture could be grim. The human body was an amazing machine, not just effective but flexible and expressive. Even in defeat, Gavin was beautiful.
“Come on,” he said over his shoulder. Theron came.
In the workshop, for the first time, Theron seemed to notice the spatter of dried blood on his glasses. Deer’s blood. He chipped at it with a broken fingernail. Judah found it too fascinating, the slow erosion of the perfect circle of blood.
“He was supposed to kill me, wasn’t he?” Theron said.
“He didn’t kill you,” Judah said. Her hallucinations were intense and the words came out a sideways purple color. She was glad Gavin had not killed Theron. She was glad of the fact of Theron, perched on his stool, warm and alive. But there was a reason she could not be happy. Something she was forgetting; something that was drowning with Gavin’s mind in whatever chemicals he’d found.
Theron laughed. It was an ugly laugh. It huddled in a corner and brayed at them. “He thought about it, though. He seriously considered it.” He turned away from her, back to his machine. Like a door shutting. “Never mind, Jude. I’m okay.”
“You’re not.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Judah’s chest opened like a box and something vicious and scarlet escaped it. She watched it swoop around the room, hot and unsteady like a bird with a broken flight feather. Then it vanished through the tapestry that led to the broken staircase.
Her legs melted underneath her, and a soft gray nothing descended.
When she came to, she was sneezing. Gradually she realized she had been sneezing for some time. Apparently some part of her brain had been counting; she was at seven. By the time her eyes were fully open she was at fifteen. The light from the workshop’s one window seemed overly thick, a glowing fog that permeated the room, and her first dismayed thought was that the drops hadn’t worn off. But the fog was just sun hitting dust motes in the air. The edges of the room stayed where they were; the floor was solid. The world seemed to be behaving itself again.
Theron had stretched out on his code-breaking table to sleep, but now he was sitting up, rubbing his eyes. His legs dangled over the edge like a child’s. Judah herself was still on the floor. Theron’s hunting jacket lay rumpled around her waist, having evidently been draped over her at one point. A pile of books sat where her head would have rested. She guessed that Theron was responsible for both things, and was touched: he had propped her head up with the books in case she vomited in her sleep, and covered her with his jacket in case she got cold. The books were dusty. That explained the sneezing. “What time is it?” she said.
“Early,” Theron said.
A bit unsteadily, she climbed to her feet. Every muscle in her back protested. As soon as she was upright, all of the previous forty-eight hours slid back down onto her, a curious mix of relief and horror. Gavin had not killed Theron: that was the relief, both the relief of Theron remaining alive and the joy of Gavin remaining the person she thought he was. The horror was that Elly would marry Elban now. Theron didn’t know that, she realized, and on the heels of that realization came another. Theron must not know, not for the longest possible time. It could not be helped now. It would only cause him pain.
She made herself smile. It wasn’t too difficult. She would have Theron to smile at for years to come. “Let’s go find some coffee.”
“No,” Theron said.
“You’ll feel better when you’ve eaten.”
He didn’t move.
“Oh, come on,” she said. “You can’t just stay up here.”
“I’m not going to stay up here. I’m just not ready to come down yet.” He picked up his glasses from the bench and rubbed them on his shirt. “What am I going to say to him? Hey, older brother, thanks so much for not killing me?”
“He would never have killed you.” Judah could say that, now that Gavin hadn’t.
“I don’t even understand why. I don’t want to be Commander of the Army. I’d be terrible at it. They don’t have to kill me to keep me from doing it.” His voice was rich with anger and bitterness, which Judah’s brain processed properly, without adding taste or color. “Gavin knows I don’t want to do it. He told me I don’t have to.”
Judah tried another smile. It was harder this time. “You don’t. But you do have to come downstairs eventually. Elly will worry.”
“I’ll be down in a while,” he said. “Once I figure out what to say. I don’t want to tell her the truth. It will upset her.”
It was too early for staff girls carrying breakfast trays, but late enough that a different, younger set of girls crouched next to piles of dirty shoes in the corridors outside the guest rooms, furiously brushing and polishing. None of the girls looked up when Judah passed. If anything, they tried to make themselves smaller. And shoes were one of the first tasks House staff were given when they came inside, so the girls were pretty small already. The courtiers’ shoes, some high heeled and gaudy with embroidery and gems and some—Judah could not help but notice—tall mud-splattered hunting boots, seemed giant in their hands. In her younger years, when she’d come upon the newest staff members, Judah had been known to make her hair extra-wild and growl as she passed, to see them jump. Now she knew they’d been fed a steady diet of stories about the witchbred foundling from the moment they arrived, and felt sick at what she’d done.
Or maybe she just felt sick.
In the parlor she found Elly asleep on the sofa, sitting upright in the same dress she’d worn the day before, chin on her chest. Her sketchbook lay half off her lap, where it had slid when she’d drifted off, and a charcoal pencil had fallen to the floor by her bare feet. The sketchbook lay next to her where it had fallen, page filled with one of Elly’s forests: she would spend hours on the trees, making sure every branch and leaf was perfect, and then she would fill in the spaces between with half-glimpsed beasts and fierce eyes. There was no sign of Gavin. No boots, no coat, no dirty gauntlets thrown onto the table or dropped on the floor. Judah picked up the sketchbook, closed it and put it back in Elly’s lap.
Elly’s head jerked. She winced, put a hand to her neck. Then she saw Judah. “Are you just coming home? Where have you been?”
“In Theron’s workshop.” Judah sat down in the armchair. “Gavin was out of his head. By the time I got up there, I couldn’t make it back down again. I passed out on the floor.”
Elly stared at her; deciding if she was lying, Judah knew. It was painful to see. Finally she said, “That explains the dust. What about the hunt?”
“Everyone lived except the deer.”
“Was it bad?”
Stealthily, Judah scratched come here now on the inside of her wrist. Jagged and angular, which was its own message. There was no answer. “Yes. It was. But it’s over. And he’s not hurt. Just—”
“Humiliated.”
Feeling unclean, Judah nodded.
“And Gavin?”
Judah lifted her shoulders. Let them drop.
Elly’s hair was braided down her back. She reached up with both hands and yanked it ferociously, like a bell that wouldn’t ring. “Of course,” she said. “Because coming back here and actually dealing with us would be difficult, and Gavin doesn’t like difficult. Gavin likes fighting and wine and pretty little courtier girls who follow him around like geese. Oh, how strong you are, Lord Gavin. How handsome and manly.”
“To be fair,” Judah said, “Theron’s not here, either.”
“Theron has reason not to be,” Elly snapped, and pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes. When she dropped them again the anger was gone. “Tell me about the hunt, Jude.”
So Judah did. A version of the hunt, anyway, in which there was a bit more mockery of Theron’s stutter and a lot less of Gavin nearly killing him. Nothing she said was technically untrue, but it was all a lie, nevertheless. “Anyway, he survived,” she finished. “And it wasn’t easy for Gavin, either, so stable your warhorse, all right?”
“Gavin.” Elly’s lips pressed together. “Gavin will wake up with a headache and be just fine.” She sat down and began putting on her shoes. “I’m going to try to talk Theron into coming down. He can’t stay up there, his lungs will rot. If anyone asks for me, tell them to go jump in a well. And if you see Gavin, tell him to jump in a well, too,” she added, head held high.
As soon as she left—as if he’d been waiting and watching around a corner somewhere—the door opened again, and Gavin came in: pale and unsteady, hair disheveled and coat missing. His shirt was only half-buttoned, and incorrectly, with some brownish stain down the front that could have been wine or blood or either or both. His eyes were red and bleary. “I didn’t do it,” he said.
“I know,” Judah said.
Theron had said that when Gavin remounted his horse he had looked as though his bones were slumped and soft. She saw now what he meant. Gavin dropped onto the sofa, just where Elly had been sitting, and everything about him seemed defeated. “He doesn’t want her,” he said. He had a headache, a blurry throb over his eyes that Judah hadn’t noticed until they were in the same room. “He’ll take her to make me miserable. He wants Theron dead, so he has one less heir to worry about, and he wants to know I’ll jump when he pulls my string.”
It felt like Judah had been angry with him for days. She was tired of being angry with him. It was too hard. She sat down next to him. “We’ll figure it out,” she said, and took his hand. He let her. The headache flared; her queasiness and his folded together, doubled, redoubled, until she couldn’t tell where she stopped and he began.
She pulled herself together and focused. Water. Ripples in the sun. Slowing; quieting; still.