by Sharon Shinn
Josetta nodded. “He wanted her dead.”
“So Corene helped her run away. Well, we all helped, but it was Corene’s idea. We weren’t sure she had even gotten safely out of Malinqua, but she did, and she’s on her way to Yorramol. She sounds so happy. Darien, you have to put this letter on the fastest ship to Cozique.”
Darien looked amused. “It will go out tonight. I suppose Corene can then write to her fellow conspirators in Malinqua. It is a rare privilege to be the bearer of glad tidings. I shall savor the feeling.”
• • •
Darien and Zoe left the house about five minutes later, but everyone else seemed set to stay all night. “Maybe we should roll out mats in the kierten and allow them to bed down,” Virrie said with a rare flash of irritability. But finally, a couple of hours after midnight, they were able to escort the last Frothens to the door and set the locks behind them.
“We can clean up in the morning,” Josetta said, heading straight for the stairwell. “Good night!”
On the way to her own room, Leah paused to peek inside of Mally’s. She fully expected the little girl to be asleep, but the form under the covers moved restlessly as soon as the door opened.
“Leah?” Mally asked.
Leah stepped inside the room, which was illuminated only by the faint light filtering in from hall sconces. “How did you know it was me?”
“I just did. Is the party over?”
Leah perched on the side of the bed and brushed the hair away from Mally’s forehead before folding her hands in her lap. “Finally. Why are you still awake?”
“Just thinking about things.”
“Good things?”
“Mostly.”
“Did you have a nice time tonight meeting everybody?”
Mally took one of Leah’s hands in hers and started playing with her fingers. “Yes. I have a lot of cousins.”
“Well, you’re related to Taro, and he is related to dozens of people, so you do indeed have a lot of cousins.”
“But Natalie isn’t my cousin. She isn’t my sister, either.”
Leah felt her heart cramp down. “She isn’t. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be as close as sisters. That doesn’t mean you can’t love her as much as you ever love anybody.”
“She’s going home pretty soon.”
“Is she? Back to Taro’s?”
“Yes.”
Leah took a deep breath, though she tried to speak casually. “Are you thinking that you want to go back, too? You’ve been gone a long time.”
Mally was silent. For a moment, she continued to toy with Leah’s fingers, then she flattened her palms around Leah’s hand. “I don’t belong there,” she said at last.
Leah placed her free hand on Mally’s shoulder and leaned down to gently kiss her cheek. “I wish you’d stay here,” she whispered. “With me.”
Mally’s hands pushed together, putting pressure on Leah’s. “I belong with you,” Mally said gravely. “Your skin is like my skin.”
“And your face is like my face,” Leah murmured. “Do you know why that is?”
“I think so.”
“I’m your mother.”
Suddenly Mally lifted both arms and held them out in a silent request for a hug. Leah swept her into her arms, holding the small body against her own, desperately trying not to cry. Not letting go for an instant, she levered her body onto the bed, stretching out next to her daughter and drawing her even closer. Mally buried her face in Leah’s chest and clung to her neck even tighter.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” Leah said, whispering into the dark hair. “I’m so sorry I was gone for such a long time. I didn’t know how to take care of you. I didn’t know how to take care of anybody. But I’m trying to figure it out. I want to do it. I love you so much. So much.”
“Stay with me,” Mally begged, moving over to make more room in the bed.
Leah settled closer, twitching the top quilt so it fell over both of their bodies. “I will,” she said. “I’m here now and I’ll never leave you again.”
TWENTY-THREE
When Leah opened her eyes in the morning, she and Mally were sharing a pillow, face-to-face, and Mally was awake and watching her. Leah’s body felt cramped and stiff from the night spent in an unfamiliar bed, and her arm was asleep from where it was stretched under Mally’s shoulders. But she didn’t move. She didn’t speak. She just stared back.
“We have to tell everybody,” Mally said, picking up the conversation from the night before. She didn’t seem worried or excited or angry or unsure. If her new reality had come as a shock to her, she was handling it with grace.
Maybe she’d figured it out, Leah thought. Though I don’t know how. “Most everybody else knows,” she confessed. “At least, everybody else who lives in this house. And Darien. And Zoe. Oh, and Nelson and Beccan.”
“And Rhan?”
Leah took a deep breath. “And Rhan.”
Mally didn’t say why she’d asked after Rhan, she just nodded. “If I live with you,” she said, “can I still go stay with Taro sometimes?”
Leah leaned in to kiss her forehead. “As often as you like.”
“But Virrie won’t be here with us.”
Leah shifted to a more comfortable position, and Mally adjusted herself alongside her. “No,” Leah said. “I think it’s almost time for her to go home to her own life.”
“Will I stay here by myself when you’re at the shop?”
“Absolutely not! Little girls don’t stay alone in big houses. Maybe I’ll bring you with me every day. Maybe I’ll find a tutor. Or a school! We’ll figure it out.”
“That’s good,” Mally said, sounding a little relieved. “I don’t like to be alone all day.”
Leah kissed her again. “I don’t, either,” she said. “I used to. Or at least, I told myself I did. But once I moved in here with you and Virrie and Josetta and Rafe, I realized I like to have people around me. All the time.”
“Well, you’ll have me,” Mally said.
“That sounds pretty wonderful.”
The door opened and Virrie poked her head in. “Mally, are you awake yet— Oh! Leah! Josetta was just wondering if you’d left early, but I see—well. The rest of us are going down to breakfast.”
“We’ll be there in a minute,” Leah said, sitting up and shaking away the last of her drowsiness. That was the moment she realized she was still wearing her party clothes. She laughed and gestured down at her colorfully embroidered tunic. “Obviously, I need to get cleaned up and changed,” she said to Mally. “Do you need any help getting ready?”
“I can help you and you can help me,” Mally offered.
“Let’s do it. Pick out your clothes and come with me to my room and we’ll get ready together.”
• • •
Josetta couldn’t have looked more delighted when Mally and Leah made it to the breakfast table, dressed in tunics and trousers of very similar shades of blue. “Look at the two of you! You match!” she exclaimed.
“Mally chose what we should wear,” Leah said. This was ridiculous; her heart was pounding at the thought of speaking these words out loud. “Because we had a long talk last night and I told her that—told her I’m her mother.”
Everyone exclaimed out loud at that, and Rafe even came over to give them each a hug. “Exciting news!” he said.
“But very good news,” Taro said in his rumbling voice.
“Leah says you already knew,” Mally said to him somewhat sternly.
He laughed. “Well, I did. But I’m glad you know now, too.”
“If you’re her mother, why have you been gone so long?” Natalie wanted to know.
“Because I didn’t know how to be anybody’s mother.”
“Do you know now?”
“Nobody knows ho
w to be a mother,” Virrie put in. “You just do your best and try to recover from the mistakes and love the children as much as you possibly can.”
“That’s what I’m going to do,” Leah said.
Natalie was frowning. “I don’t like to make mistakes. I don’t think I want to be a mother.”
“You don’t have to be,” Virrie said. “But you do have to eat your breakfast, so stop asking questions and finish your meal.”
“This is proving to be a very interesting morning all around,” Taro said.
“Why? What else has happened?” Josetta asked.
Taro heaved himself to his feet. “I’ll show you. Just stay right here.”
He left the room and the rest of them glanced at each other, mystified. Virrie just shrugged. “He gets this way sometimes. I just humor him.”
When Taro returned, he was carrying a sad little potted plant with a single forlorn branch. It appeared to have been stripped from some woody hedge that had lost all its summer greenery before it was stuck in this container in the hopes that it would flourish. And, indeed, incongruously, a slim twig right in the middle of the branch had sent out a few tendrils of timid green and one bright-red five-petaled flower. The rest of the limb looked completely dead.
“He wanted to put that out on the sideboard last night,” Virrie said. “I told him he has no aesthetic sense and to leave the decorating to people who do. But when I looked again, there it was, right next to all the food.”
“I wanted everyone to see it,” Taro said with satisfaction.
Josetta looked puzzled and Rafe looked incredulous, but Leah felt as if all the air had been sucked out of her body. Her toes and fingertips tingled with premonition. “That’s from your estate, isn’t it?” she said. “From that bush?”
Taro nodded, regarding the branch fondly. “It is. And I thought—why not try it and see? I knew that half the Frothens in Chialto would be here last night. I wondered if the presence of my heir could bring the thing to blossom.” He held out his hand. “And you see, it did.”
A moment of silence was followed by a chorus of questions. But who—? How could that be? If everyone in the room was a Frothen—
“So were you watching it all night?” Virrie managed to raise her voice above the rest. “Do you know whose presence had this effect?”
“No,” he admitted. “I tried to stay in the dining room, but I kept getting pulled away. I checked last night before I went to bed, and the whole thing just looked dead.” He beamed at the rest of them. “But this morning, leaves and a flower.”
“So then you don’t actually know who your heir is,” Rafe pointed out.
“No, but I know he or she was in the house last night,” Taro said. “I can start narrowing it down.”
“I don’t think that’s very many flowers,” Natalie said. “I think there should be a lot of flowers. Don’t you?”
“Maybe,” Taro acknowledged. “But maybe when I bring my heir back to the estate, the whole property will burst into bloom.”
“You must have your suspicions,” Leah said carefully.
He looked her straight in the eye. “I do. But it’s a burden, being heir to a prime. A gift, but a burden. Maybe this person isn’t ready for the role yet.” He glanced at Natalie. “And that’s why there’s only one blossom.”
“If I was the prime, I’d want a hundred flowers,” said Natalie.
Taro laughed and ruffled her hair. “Then when you come back with me to the estate, we’ll go to the wild hedge and see what you can do,” he said.
Leah took her last sip of water and rose briskly to her feet. “Time for me to get to work,” she said. She smiled down at her daughter. “Mally, do you want to come with me? You can play with the rocks and feed the fish.”
Mally looked undecided. “I do,” she said, “but I’m supposed to go with Taro and Natalie today.”
“I told them I’d take them to the Plaza of Men,” he said. “They want to make oaths at the booth of promises.”
“Now, those are a couple of promises I’d like to hear,” Rafe observed.
“We’re not going to tell you what they are,” Natalie told him primly. “They’re secrets.”
“And I’ll bet they’re good ones,” he answered.
“I can come tomorrow,” Mally said to Leah a little anxiously.
Leah swooped down to kiss her cheek. “Darling, you can come any day you like. But you should absolutely go off on your adventure with Taro and Natalie! Have a wonderful day and I’ll see you this evening.” She straightened up and waved at the table. “I’ll see you all this evening.”
“And then we can gossip about the party,” said Josetta.
Leah was halfway out the door, but she heard Natalie’s reply. “It isn’t nice to gossip.” She was laughing for the next five minutes.
• • •
Chandran was alone in the shop when she arrived, so Leah was able to give him a quick kiss without anybody seeing. “Where’s Annova?” she asked, still standing within the circle of his arms.
“She only came by to unlock the door and stock the cash box,” he answered. “She has errands to run for Zoe and will be gone the rest of the day. I told her we could manage without her.”
“For a day we can,” Leah agreed. “But I dread the morning she comes in and says she’s bored with retail work! I’ll never find anyone else as competent as she is.”
“It is something to consider for the future,” he said. “Finding someone you trust to replace her.” He set his mouth against her forehead and she briefly closed her eyes with pleasure. “So how was your party last night?”
“Good—crowded—exhausting—and long. I didn’t think people would ever leave. But, Chandran, the most amazing thing happened after the party.”
“What?”
“I told her! I told Mally. I stopped by her room and she was still awake and she wanted to talk and I— She mentioned that Taro and Natalie are going home in a few days and she— I asked her if she might want to stay with me, and she said—she said she belonged to me. How did she know that? But it’s true! And she wanted me to stay with her all night and I did and I think— Chandran, I think—I think it’s going to be all right.”
By the time she finished this speech she had started to tremble; her emotions were so high that she couldn’t contain them. He drew her closer, tighter, as if attempting to hold her bones in place so they wouldn’t vibrate right out of her body. She felt him kiss the top of her head. “Most excellent news,” he said gravely. “She will become the core and center of your life, and all that old heartache will melt away.”
“I still haven’t told her everything,” she confessed. “I didn’t tell her about Rhan. But she mentioned his name and I wondered—maybe she’s guessed that, too.” She looked up at him and she could feel the intensity, the earnestness of her expression. “And I didn’t tell her about you, either, but I will. I want to. Someday soon. Because you’re at the core of my life, too. I’ve gone too long without having anybody I cared about. Now I have a lot of people, but I can’t pick and choose. I want them all.”
“There is time,” he said. “We can move slowly. You know that I am here waiting. And I have learned the subtle and taxing art of patience.”
She laughed shakily. “I used to know it,” she said. “Now I’ve developed the mad curse of impatience. I want it all and I want it right now.”
He kissed her again and let her go. “But that in itself is a gift,” he told her. “To know what you want and to see it take shape right in front of you. Some people never get that much.”
She nodded. “There are days,” she said, “when I realize how lucky I truly have been.”
• • •
She was feeling less fortunate and less grateful by closing time. The day’s customers had included two demanding and unpleasant women who t
ook an hour of her time and left without making a purchase. During the afternoon, a small, excitable girl had knocked over an entire table of elay glassware, breaking half the pieces; her mother ushered her out of the shop without even offering to pay for the damage. There was a leak upstairs that Chandran could only fix temporarily by shutting off the water altogether. They managed to gobble down a hasty luncheon Chandran had bought from a street vendor, but the meat smelled off and the bread was stale.
“It’s one of those days that you’d like to have the chance to start over from the beginning,” Leah observed as she turned off the lighted sign in the window to indicate that the shop was closing.
“It is best to group your bad luck in one miserable stretch,” he said solemnly, but she could tell he was amused. “Then it is all done with at once.”
“Well, here comes good news,” she said, as the door opened and Jaker and Barlow stepped in. “Have you reconsidered?” she asked them. “You’ve come to sell me the rest of your goods?”
“Nope—we’ve unloaded every last item,” Barlow said with a grin. “We dropped by to say we’ll be on our way tomorrow and to see if you have anything in particular you’d like us to pick up on our next trip.”
“Those black jewels from Botchka were very well-received,” Chandran said. “We could sell any number of items featuring those.”
“I think we can arrange to get more,” Jaker said.
“And the feathered shawl sold in an hour,” Leah said, “if you happened to find something like that.”
“Not likely,” Jaker said. “But we’ll look.”
Leah didn’t have a chance to make any more requests because a small elaymotive came racing down the street so fast it almost jumped the curb as it slammed to a halt. Yori leapt out and ran for the shop door. Leah felt her whole body flood with panic as the guard burst inside.
“Get to Darien’s right now,” she said sharply. “Natalie’s been hurt—Taro is half dead—and Mally’s been taken.”
At first, Leah couldn’t make sense of the words. “Taro—Mally—what?” she said, stumbling forward.
