ANNETTE, THEODOR, AND I STAYED UP LATE INTO THE NIGHT making our plans to return to Galitha. Admiral and Lady Merhaven would stay behind so that a delegate from Galitha could represent our interests at the summit, though that seemed pitifully unimportant to me now. The important thing was to get Theodor back to Galitha, where he was confident that, with his father’s backing, he could reconvene the Council of Nobles and begin to enforce the reforms, forestalling a complete descent into civil war.
Morning came too soon. I gathered what little courage I had, wearing my favorite deep teal jacket, cut a bit like a military coat. There was a battle here I barely understood, but I had to muster up to fight as best I could. My chest constricted tighter than a badly laced corset, thinking of the ways that charm or curse influence might serve as diplomatic subterfuge, thinking of the ways it would be all too easy to dispatch anyone who threatened its secrecy.
I slipped into the hall, quiet on silk slippers instead of hard-soled shoes, and padded toward the rooms used for meeting and negotiations. I was intercepted before I could reach them by a clutch of ladies in the echoing atrium. Lady Merhaven, Annette, and Duana were among them, along with a dozen other Serafan, Galatine, and Allied Equatorial ladies. Eyes darted away from me, and low whispers echoed in the high corridor. Annette’s face was set in a stoic, cold mask, her fists bunched into her skirts, visibly angry. My eyes narrowed—what was there to gossip about, aside from the fact that I hadn’t cared to accompany them on a walking tour that morning?
“… with curses,” I heard, the whisper amplified louder than the speaker intended by the curved marble walls. She was tall for a Serafan, and wore a delicate open robe over a white cotton gown, a meld of Galatine and West Serafan sensibility in dress. Annette hadn’t yet seen me, and shook her head, ready to protest.
“And Pellian, at that.” An East Serafan woman sniffed. “Born in Galitha, they say, but honestly, does it matter? She really has no place here. It’s not proper.”
“It’s downright unseemly. And to think that the future king of Galitha is marrying a lowborn immigrant girl instead of shoring up an alliance with—well, with any of our nations,” the tall woman said.
I let my slippers slap the marble floor, and Lady Merhaven looked toward me, surprised, and then averted her eyes. “Now, then, we should continue to the solarium for tea, shouldn’t we?” she said, a little too loudly.
“Will your… countrywoman be joining us?” the West Serafan woman asked in a tone that made it clear that this would not be well received.
“That’s her choice, Eife,” Lady Merhaven replied coolly.
“I am busy anyway,” I said quietly. I hesitated, then added, “I don’t know what sort of rumors you’ve heard about me, but I don’t do curses.”
Eife pulled her shoulders back. “That isn’t what I understand. I understand that you’ve even gone so far as to research curse casting at the library here.”
I tried to smother my surprise. Who had reported on my work at the library? Had I been trailed by Alba to the university, when I had seen her in the streets of Isildi? Or was someone else monitoring my movements?
There was, of course, no use in denying my trips to the library. “I took advantage of your extensive library and the availability of scholars, yes. But my interest was not in curses.”
“Then why,” asked Duana, brow furrowing and reticent as though she didn’t want to believe anything bad of anyone, “did you read works on curse casting?”
“Because ancient Pellian texts don’t talk about anything else!” I snapped, then composed myself. “I’m interested in the theory of magic. Ancient Pellians cast curses. I don’t.”
“So you say,” Eife sniffed. “It’s a wonder, allowing common folk and known conjurers to an official summit. You could easily curse all of us.”
“I assure you—I’m not here to wield curses. I’m only here because…” I swallowed, hard. “At the invitation of Prince Theodor.” Someone had been casting, I wanted to shout, and I didn’t know why or how.
“I’ll take my leave, as well,” Annette said, joining me and pointedly linking her arm through mine.
The group of ladies filed past me. Duana gave me a sympathetic look, but Lady Merhaven sailed past without a glance. Distancing herself, I assumed, from the newly minted pariah of the Five-Year Summit. In any case, the path toward the official negotiations was blocked now, and I didn’t need to rouse more suspicion as to why I was poking around where I had no invitation.
“I could use a walk,” she said. “I’ve been listening to those vipers long enough that I’ve a wretched headache.”
“This is bad,” I sighed.
“We could almost thank the noble mutiny for sending us back early,” Annette said with a pained smile. “Let’s go hide until luncheon.”
I couldn’t argue. We wandered away from the public rooms and meeting chambers, past verandas and open loggias linking our building to a lesser-used wing of the compound.
“You’ve done beautifully, you know,” Annette said, tracing the fragrant petals of a huge white gardenia. “They’re bitter old hags, most of them, and you’ve given them nothing but grace. It makes them even more spiteful, but it’s not your fault.”
“It doesn’t feel that way,” I replied, inhaling the heady gardenia scent.
“Lady Merhaven was trying to begin arrangements for a courtship with an East Serafan man before we leave,” she said abruptly. “Duana’s cousin, the delegate with the long queue and the scar on his left… never mind, you haven’t seen him.”
“How do you get out of it?” I asked.
Annette smiled. “See, this is why I like you. Pragmatic. No dithering over who might be offended.” In truth, I hadn’t thought of it. “I won’t be going to the meeting, and I won’t return the formal letters of invitation to visit him, either.” She shrugged. “I shouldn’t even drag you into it, but I wanted you to know that… I appreciate that you didn’t let them manipulate you into helping them. And… if anyone asks where I am, let me make myself scarce.”
“Of course,” I said. That was a simple enough fulfillment of Viola’s request, and I would have done it anyway. “We leave soon enough, anyway.”
She squeezed my hand, cleared her throat, and changed the subject. “I believe,” she said as we passed open windows covered with intricate trellises, “that these are residences of the West Serafan diplomatic corps.”
“Perhaps we oughtn’t to be here,” I said. It felt a bit like trespassing, especially as I smelled tea through the windows and heard a faint strain of music, scales being practiced under unsteady hands.
“The gardens are still public,” she replied. “And I wasn’t going to suggest we drop in uninvited for tea.” She took my arm to lead me toward a silver-trunked beech tree shading a reflecting pool, but I stopped her.
A strain of music, a light patter of notes I would usually ignore, caught my attention. I didn’t only hear them. I felt them, pulling at the sinews of emotion, a gentle pull like the nostalgia of a happy memory. I followed the sound to one of the low-eaved houses. A slim window allowed some light inside, but was certainly intended to maintain privacy. I ignored that clear directive and peered inside.
Three teenage girls gathered around one older woman, who demonstrated scales on a delicate, pale Serafan mandolin. I didn’t know much about mandolin technique, but the elegant precision she brought to the simple scales told me she was an expert. The three girls, in turn, repeated the scale. One was more proficient than the others; a pink ribbon fluttered on the neck of her instrument.
The teacher repeated the scale again, this time more fluidly, and the girls repeated. This time, however, a light sparkle grew around the strings of the girl with the pink ribbon. Casting. The other two girls watched the girl with the pink ribbon as she repeated the exercise. They could see it, too, could see it but either could not create the casting yet, or were not permitted to. My heartbeat quickened, the gently pleasant emotions stirred by t
he first strain of music dissipating into cold panic.
“Now that might be construed as rude.” I jumped, but the voice was only Annette. “There are koi in the pond, you should see—” She stopped, seeing my face. “What on earth?”
I pulled her arm and hurried away, putting as much distance as possible between the damning chords trickling from the music lesson and us. My slippers scuffed on the pebbled path, biting my toes, but I didn’t care; I didn’t even care that I was likely ruining the slippers.
“Sophie,” Annette whispered. “I know something’s wrong, but try not to look like you’ve just been witness to a murder. They’re watching.”
I slowed and resumed a ladylike pace, then looked up. Lady Merhaven, Siovan, Eife, and the other high-ranking ladies of the summit watched me from the veranda of the main building.
34
I FOUND THEODOR AS SOON AS HIS BREAKFAST MEETING WAS OVER, pulling him onto a small terrace and away from Admiral Merhaven, who watched with badly disguised contempt.
“Some witness gave them ammunition against you.” Theodor sighed as I told him what I’d heard the ladies gossiping about and seen in the mandolin lesson. “You did read work on curses, though?”
“Of course! Pellians didn’t write about anything else. What was I supposed to do? You suggested…”
“I know! I know I suggested we look into it, but now it seems a wretched mess that we can’t begin to understand, let alone do anything about. You’re quite sure the music lesson you saw was casting?”
“I’m positive. They’re training these musicians here. What we’ve seen so far is still bad, of course, but this… it’s an entire program of influence by casting.”
He ran a hand through his hair, mussing his carefully pomaded queue. “The sooner we leave here, the better. No one watching your every move, believing you’re the only one here who can expose them.”
“I need to clear my head,” I said.
“Not alone,” he replied. “If they’ve started spreading rumors about you—I don’t trust them.” I acquiesced, less than convinced that his presence or the flimsy ceremonial sword he wore would do much good against the attacks on my reputation.
We wandered, quiet, through the garden as the sun’s rays brightened the shell path to a warm gold and tied the shadows of the trees together.
I pulled us away from the center of the garden as tears spiked behind my eyes. I tried to force them down, but the anger that spurred them remained, and their heat spilled over my cheeks. Our allies were manipulating us with casting, Galitha was on the verge of civil war if it hadn’t erupted already, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it. The future I had sacrificed my shop for could dissolve into smoke and ruin. I could almost capture again the feeling the music lesson’s casting had pulled from me, a deep-seated and gentle happiness. It was my own emotion, drawn forth by the casting, and I recognized it—the optimism of accepting Theodor’s proposal, the confidence of the reform passing. A fragrant flower in full bloom that I hadn’t realized was one strong breath of air from dropping all its petals and becoming nothing more than a stalk stripped bare by harsh reality.
I hiccupped back a sob and then stopped, turning my attention to voices on the other side of the hedge. Theodor laid a hand on my arm, knowing I wanted the sliver of dignity that privacy could afford. I recalled where I was—right by the Queen’s Beech tree and the space in the hedges secreted away by tangled rose vines. We slipped inside the sweetly scented chamber, and I sat on a bench to compose myself as the conversation continued outside.
“Let me see you—I can hardly believe you’re really here!” The female voice was muted, but nothing could erase the excitement in even its whisper. And faintly familiar, despite being muffled. “I could devour you, you know that?”
I flushed and wiped my eyes—if I had expected to overhear something in the garden, I had anticipated political intrigue. Instead, it seemed I had blundered into a lovers’ reunion.
“It wouldn’t do at all to be seen here.” Another female voice. And it was familiar, too—but I couldn’t quite be sure, nor could I believe it.
“I know, I know. The villa is arranged—but who did you bribe to get you in here?” It was, I realized with a start: Annette and Viola. I grabbed Theodor’s hand, and one look at his face told me he already knew.
We stepped out from the hidden room, and I hadn’t decided whether to speak to them or try to pull Theodor away when a bright clatter of stones erupted behind me and both figures jumped to attention.
My skirt trailed a clump of weeds whose tendrils had straggled through the rocks beside the path. I raised a hand in weak greeting.
“Sophie?” Viola swept forward. She was dressed in an outdated and plainly cut dark blue traveling suit, impractical in the heat but not betraying her identity, either. I jerked the weeds from my skirt hem and hurried toward them. “And Theodor. I admit I hoped to see you both at some point, but not quite yet.”
“What are you doing here?” I hissed. Whatever their reason, it was clearly clandestine. Otherwise, Theodor and I would have known to expect Viola’s arrival, and certainly they wouldn’t be stealing about the gardens like a pair of besotted thieves. Annette hadn’t breathed a word of this when we had spoken mere hours earlier, spoken what I now recognized were words of farewell.
Viola grimaced at my tone, but Annette squared her shoulders. “Running away,” she said. “We’re hounded no matter what we do in Galitha.”
“We were going to tell everyone, you and Theodor included,” Viola added. “As soon as we figured everything out. But things have changed so much in the past few weeks.” She unbuttoned the top of her traveling jacket and loosened the kerchief wrapped around her neck. “No scolding, not now, Theo,” Viola said. “There isn’t the time and you won’t change anything anyway.”
“Then start explaining,” Theodor said. “So help me if this gets out.” He didn’t need to say it—there was enough scandal surrounding the Galatine delegation without a lovers’ elopement added like so much grist to the mill.
“Yes, Annette and I had planned, since she was invited on the delegation, to make use of the trip. It’s not running away, precisely,” Viola pleaded. “Yes, I know how selfish that would be. But we wanted a place we could retreat to. Out of Galitha.”
“Out of Galitha.” Theodor maintained an impressively placid face.
“Plenty of people do it! Have homes in the Allied States or here.”
“For diplomatic or trade purposes, typically. With, typically, the blessing of the Crown.”
Viola matched his iron stare. “Typically, perhaps. But not always. And sometimes for far more questionable practices than having somewhere to live unmolested by constant rumor and political machinations. Ever since those sketches were stolen, it’s been one ugly cartoon or satire or falsified gossip rag after another. We wanted to get away from that, from all the infernal gossip and cruel marriage schemes, so Annette found us a villa while she was here.”
“Is that where you were when you begged off for headaches?” I demanded.
“I’m sorry, Sophie, I did feel badly leaving you to fend off the old buzzards and their gossip on your own.”
Viola continued. “We planned to spend the better part of the year here—regardless, that part isn’t important.”
“It’s not?” Theodor shook his head. “You running off on your family, your obligations—Vivi, what would your father say?”
“After the past fortnight, he’d tell me to go!” Viola bit her lip, fighting to keep her voice low. “In fact, he did tell me to go. Galitha is collapsing on itself. It won’t be safe for nobles or commoners much longer.”
Theodor nodded. “So I’m to understand. Lucky you arrived when you did,” he added caustically, “given that we’re returning.”
“If you insist,” Viola said, eyebrow raised. “You might consider staying here. Lord Pommerly, in Havensport, even called up the army against his own people.” She exhaled. “I bare
ly got out of Galitha City. There are those among the common people who have taken to violence against the nobles and those common folk they see as colluding with the anti-reformists. Shops attacked, effigies burned. Most of the nobility who hadn’t already headed for their estates have done so now, but…” Her shaky breath made her petal-pink lips tremble. “I know that several didn’t make it, and there are more unaccounted for.”
“How do you know they didn’t make it?”
She returned his stare with misery flooding her deep brown eyes. “I recognized some of them, strung up from the ramparts of the wall just outside the city.”
Nausea hit my stomach like a hammer, and I had to sit. It was happening again, but worse, much worse, than Midwinter. “What now?”
“But to go back—Theo, there’s no telling what might meet you at the docks in Galitha City. What if the rebels have taken the port?”
“They’re not rebels, Viola—the damned nobles who refuse to obey the law are.” Theodor heaved a sigh. “I have to go back. There’s no other way to clean this up than to rally those nobles who will uphold the law to unite with the reformists among the common people.”
“You’re determined to go back, then,” Viola said.
“Was there some question about that?” Theodor barked. “Of course.”
“It’s only—if anyone isn’t willing to return, perhaps we could organize a bit of an expatriates’ community here. Just for the time being,” Annette added in a rush. “I’m not keen to cause any more problems by returning.”
“I’m not going to condone your stunt here by encouraging others to join you,” Theodor said.
“I thought, Theo, of all people, you would understand,” Viola said softly. She glanced at me, and hesitated before adding, “I know you justified your betrothal as beneficial to the political situation, but it very well may be that it pushed some of the nobles over the edge.”
Theodor huffed, then glanced at me before answering. I deciphered the ingredients of that look in an instant—remorse, hope, conviction. “I never ran away from my duties.”
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