by Anna Bright
For a moment, I heard only my own breathing, the ragged, terrified in-out of air in my lungs. And then I heard the heavy pounding of footsteps—of a pack running behind me. I whipped my head around, confused, but I should have known.
My friends were with me. Torden and Skop and Yu and Anya, Vishnu and Cobie, even Perrault. I wasn’t alone.
I thanked God that Konge Alfödr had raised a fast runner in his son.
My father was not going to die. He was not. I would stand between Daddy and Death himself and howl like a wolf with my pack at my side to fend off the reaper.
Sweat poured down my back, and my muscles burned as I chased the fading autumn light up and down hills, between buildings, through fields, sending birds and squirrels flying. I wanted to take it in, to run my hands over it all. But I didn’t stop.
When the house appeared in the distance, though, I pushed myself faster, worry ringing through my body with every step. “The east wing, third floor!” I screamed to the others. They followed me, like birds flying in a V, each of us sharply aware of one another’s presence. In my periphery, I saw Cobie and Skop and Anya and Torden had their knives at the ready, and Yu had a black bag in his hands.
In the door. Up the stairs. Guards waited outside my father’s rooms, and they started as we approached. “Miss, you don’t— Oh. Seneschal-elect.”
I nodded at Cobie and the rest of my friends. “Weapons away.”
“Seneschal-elect, your father is unwell,” said the guard closest to the door. “I’m afraid you’ll need to return later.”
“What’s your name?” I asked the guard, panting hard.
He frowned, uncertain. “Miller,” he said. “Lieutenant Miller.”
“Right.” Sweat was pouring into my eyes; I wiped it away. “Lieutenant Miller, I’m sure you’re following orders not to let anyone in my father’s rooms. I’m countermanding those orders, which I’m able to do because I’m going to be seneschal of this country someday. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Miss—”
“Seneschal-elect,” Cobie corrected him.
“Seneschal-elect,” Miller said. “But the Esteemed Consort—”
“Does not outrank me,” I said abruptly. “We’re wasting time. Move, or I will remove you from your post.”
The path to my father’s room cleared before us.
We burst in and found Dr. Gold sitting at Daddy’s side, nearly asleep in his chair. His head shot up when we entered, relief painting his every feature.
“Seneschal-elect, you’ve returned.” Dr. Gold rose, bowing slightly. “I’m so pleased you’re home.” His light brown hair looked dirty, and his eyes were red-rimmed; but I trusted the gladness in his voice.
“And I’m pleased to see you watching over my father,” I said. Something in my heart tugged at the picture of faithfulness he made; he wasn’t actively tending Daddy, but he hadn’t left him to suffer alone.
Dr. Gold looked over my shoulder. “Who is—”
I turned. Yu was bending over my father, a careful ear to his chest, listening to his heart and lungs, checking his pulse. “Dr. Gold, this is our ship’s doctor, Dá Yu,” I said. “He’s from Zhōng Guó and very experienced.”
I’d been afraid Dr. Gold would make some sort of display of wounded pride—that he’d protest his own competence, grow defensive or territorial. But again, at my words, he nearly sagged in relief. “Wonderful,” he breathed, and the two of them began immediately to speak rapidly in a language full of medical terms I didn’t understand.
Daddy was thin, so thin; his skin was papery and nearly gray. It held none of the glow of my childhood, the days when I’d followed him out to the fields and watched him work and sweat for his country.
I wished for something to do. I wished I understood what their words meant. Here, in this room, listening to his doctors, I wanted a translator more desperately than I had in Yotunkheym.
Dr. Gold stood to one side as Yu checked Daddy’s pulse, listened to his heart, asked how long he’d been in his present state. It had been ten days. The number nearly drove me to my knees.
Presenting? Disorientation, insomnia, diminished vision, skin discoloration, melancholia. Diabetes? Alcoholism? No, no.
Torden held my hand amid the horror and did not let go.
Poison, Yu had said aboard the Beholder the day I’d pressed him for the truth, before I’d ordered our ship toward old Deutschland.
When Yu offered the word now, Gold put a hand to his heart, drawing back in horror. “Is that possible?”
“I have a hunch,” Yu said. “Can you describe his course of treatment?”
“It’s a therapy Pugh suggested, apparently a popular one in New York.” Dr. Gold’s hands twitched toward his breast pocket, retrieving a cigarette. Yu plucked it away, eyes wide.
“You can’t smoke in here,” he said, horrified. “Don’t you know these cause hideous cancer in the lungs?”
Gold stilled. “You can’t be serious.”
“You can’t tell how it makes you slower? Sicker?” Yu demanded. He snatched Gold’s cigarette packet and brandished it at him. “These will kill you! And you certainly shouldn’t smoke around patients.”
“I . . . didn’t know.” The tips of Dr. Gold’s ears turned red.
Yu softened. “I’ve got some books I want you to read. I’ll have them fetched later. Most of them are in Zhōngwén, but some of them you’ll be able to read. They’re new. Modern medicine.” He shook his head. “Now, regarding the patient?”
“Yes. Sorry,” Gold said. “We embarked on a popular form of treatment—”
“So the runners spoke true,” said a cold voice from the doorway. “You’ve come home, after all.”
68
Standing in front of Dr. Pugh, my stepmother was slim again, delivered of her child, her eyes big and dramatic against her high cheekbones. She looked as if she hadn’t been pregnant in years, though she’d only delivered in August. Godmother Althea had told me over the radio.
But I had been gone a long time. Alessandra looked different, and I was different.
I turned back to Daddy. “Dr. Gold, what were you saying?”
“Levi!” Dr. Pugh interjected sharply. “This is private. There are foreigners present and—and sailors. And the seneschal-elect—”
“Outranks everyone in this room,” I said again.
Alessandra stepped forward. “I believe I made the conditions of your coming home very clear.”
Torden moved to my side and took my hand—my left hand. His ring glittered on my finger.
My ring was exactly where it belonged, and so was Torden, and so was I.
“Are you wed?” she breathed.
“Interrupt the doctor again,” I said quietly, “and see what happens.”
I wanted the truth. And I wanted it immediately.
I put a hand on Dr. Gold’s shoulder. “Please, continue.”
“Blue Mass,” he blurted. His words came quickly, as if to get them all out at once. “It’s called Blue Mass, I mix it myself, it’s rose oil, licorice, marshmallow plant, mercury, and glycerol. Pugh recommended it, he said it’s a very common therapy in New York, he—”
Yu had stopped dead. If he’d had something in his hands, I was confident he would’ve dropped it.
“Mercury?” He dragged the word out, horror plain on his face.
Dr. Gold frowned. “Yes,” he said. “I prepare it myself, very carefully.”
Yu stared from Gold to Pugh, his handsome, solid face aghast. He said something in Zhōngwén and shook his head. “Not—mercury,” he said. “Element Hg. Not that.”
Yu waited, wanting to be told that he had misunderstood. But his ears hadn’t betrayed him.
Alessandra and Dr. Pugh had betrayed my father.
He rounded on Dr. Pugh. “I might expect this from local expertise. That one wasn’t even aware of the dangers of smoking. Potomac is removed—but if you have access to information anywhere, you have it in New York.” Yu’s jaw
was set, so sharp it could’ve cut glass. “If anyone would know this medication was dangerous, you would have.”
I was shaking. “Tell me you didn’t know,” I said to Pugh, almost pleading. “Tell me you had a good reason to prescribe it.”
“Blue Mass has its—risks,” Pugh admitted. “But your father has been suffering from melancholia and its therapeutic qualities seemed to justify—”
“This man is dying. Any therapeutic benefits are clearly outweighed by the fact that he’s suffering aggressive nerve damage, which cannot have escaped your notice!” Yu exploded, jabbing a finger at Pugh. “I have read your oath, the one Hippocrates wrote. I took my own, from Sun Si-Miao. We’re physicians. We have a high calling, and you’ve dishonored yours.” Yu shook his head, disgusted.
Melancholia. The weight my father had carried in his bones for so long—the deep heaviness that had dragged at him, even after the sharp grief of my mother’s death had passed—it had a name.
And rather than support him, my stepmother had taken advantage of his vulnerability. Because she was greedy and hungry, and because she could.
And even that name—melancholia, it tolled in my ears—was not so fearsome as the other word Yu has used.
Dying.
I squeezed Torden’s hand tighter.
Dr. Gold was crouching, his head between his knees. “Do you mean to say—”
“Mercury is poison. We will discontinue this course of treatment immediately.” Yu held a hand out, and Dr. Gold stood. “We will set a course toward healing the seneschal at once.”
I crouched at my father’s side, looking at his closed eyes, watching the shallow rise and fall of his chest.
My fear was cold as ice. But my anger at Alessandra and Dr. Pugh burned furious and feverish in my stomach.
My father would not die.
I looked up at Yu and Gold. “I leave him to your charge. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” Yu acknowledged me with a nod.
When I stood, I felt ten feet tall. I felt myself grow, stretch, my shoulders squaring, like one of the giants from the stories in my godmother’s book. I took one, two, three strides toward Alessandra.
She was taller than me, still. But I had put on muscle from eating well aboard ship, from gardening, from scrubbing dishes and sheets and stones in Baba Yaga’s tower.
I towered before her.
“Step into the corridor, please.” I glanced at Pugh. “Both of you.”
My voice brooked no opposition. I was not surprised when both of them obeyed.
69
Torden and the crew followed me into the hallway, all but Yu. I shut the door behind me.
I had helped protect the innocents living in Baba Yaga’s shadow. It was time to protect my own home.
I planted myself in front of the door and faced Alessandra. “You didn’t have to do any of this,” I said, staring her down. “Hurt him. Banish me. I would have been content to work in my fields and stay out of your way. But you wanted me gone, and you sacrificed my father to do it.”
Alessandra smirked, eyes wide, thick lashes fluttering. “Sir Perrault, did you give her elocution lessons? She’s grown so bold.” Pugh sniggered. Perrault didn’t respond. “You’re a child,” my stepmother said more evenly. “I arranged your courtship because your prospects at home were doomed.”
I paused, considering her.
This would have wilted me once.
Alessandra had always professed to be powerful, just as the tsarytsya had. But so much of her power rested upon expectations and bluffs. Truth be told, she was much closer kin to Midnight than to Baba Yaga.
Something about my silence seemed to dampen her. “Selah?” Alessandra demanded, irritable. “Perrault? Have you forgotten our arrangement?”
I didn’t even flinch. I knew Perrault better, this time.
“No.” Perrault shook his head. “That debt’s long paid. And it was never, ever Selah’s to bear.” He squeezed my shoulder, bracing me.
Perrault was different. Stronger. And so was I.
My stepmother glanced again at my ring and at Torden.
Once upon a time, I would have anxiously assured her that I’d gotten engaged, as she’d ordered, or explained with fear and trembling why I was not. I would have, at least, enjoyed her shock at seeing Torden. I would have played her game, terrified of what she could do to me if I did not.
Today, I just thought of Midnight flipping the Tooth and Claw board over in her tantrum, and smiled a little.
I crossed my arms. “You know, Alessandra, I met a lot of people on my trip. You remind me of a general I met. She was petty, and greedy, and in the end, everything she grasped at slipped through her fingers.
“I’ve been dragged in chains across Europe,” I said slowly. “I have ventured out into Stupka-Zamok on Wolf Night and lived to tell the story. I have sat opposite Baba Yaga herself and played Tooth and Claw and won.” I stepped closer to her. “You don’t frighten me, or impress me, anymore.”
Alessandra winced—just a little. Just enough. As the haughtiness on her face slipped, I saw there was nothing solider or stronger beneath it than selfishness.
“Tell me the truth,” I said. “Now.”
Alessandra drew farther back. But she ran into Cobie before she could get down the hallway. Skop and Vishnu backed her. The rest kept close to me.
“The builders of this place made room for the trees that grew beneath Arbor Hall’s floors. They carved spaces out for tree trunks they should have just pulled up by the roots.” Alessandra’s voice wobbled. “Those builders made room for the trees as this house would never make room for me.”
“That’s not true.” My voice was flat.
“I was never, ever allowed to forget who Violet Savannah Potomac was to this country,” she breathed. “To you, or to Jeremiah.”
I raised my eyebrows. “You wanted me to forget my mother?”
“There was nothing left for me!” Alessandra brayed. “I did my best to carve out a space of my own, to give Potomac’s commoners something to aspire to.” I gasped a weary, incredulous laugh; my stepmother ignored me.
“But you and your perfect dead mother took up all the air in the house. I realized eventually that I had to pull out by the roots those things that threatened to choke me.” Alessandra’s thin face grew hard and ugly. “How else would there ever be any room for my daughter?”
“Your—” I stopped short, startled. “Your daughter?”
Alessandra had had a child. Of course, I knew this. But to hear her speak of a girl, living in this house, my own flesh and blood—I reeled.
I needed a long moment to get my bearings.
Alessandra wiped her nose on her sleeve. “From the moment I knew I carried my Victoria, I vowed she would not live in anyone’s shadow. She would not be an afterthought to a story already told.”
“There is always breath for more than one story to be told,” I said in a low voice. “My heart was never closed to you as yours was to me.”
She had never loved me, had never wanted to make room for me. And it had never been my fault. The lack had never been mine.
“I would have been no trouble. Your mistake was sending me away. If my claws are sharper than yours now, it’s your own fault.”
Alessandra looked away from me, petulant. That night in the Roots, she had seemed so elegant, so grand and powerful; I had run from her crying, off-balance, terrified of everything that was about to change.
Here and now, I felt large. I felt broad and strong and grounded, flanked by my friends. I wasn’t crazy or imagining things; she had hurt my father.
Backed against the corridor wall, Alessandra, queen of falsehoods and facades, was too small to scare me anymore.
“Skop, Vishnu, Cobie,” I said, not looking away from her. “Restrain them, please. Anya and Perrault, please go get help.”
They were not gone long. To my surprise, Captain Janesley—Peter’s father—was one of several guards who answered my friends’ summon
s.
“Selah?” He looked uncertain.
“You’re not misunderstanding the situation, Captain,” I said swiftly. “Please arrest my stepmother and the doctor. They’ve nearly killed my father—poison. Everyone here will attest to that, including Dr. Gold and my own doctor, who are tending to him now.”
“It’s a baseless charge. You have no proof,” Dr. Pugh said. His eyes were darting wildly between the guards.
“Not yet.” I kept my voice even. “But I’ve become a great believer in process, Dr. Pugh. In letting people speak, and letting the truth come out. I believe the same will happen here.” I paused and glanced back at Peter’s father. “Captain?”
Captain Janesley hesitated only a moment. Then he nodded efficiently at me. “Yes, Seneschal-elect.”
Alessandra and Dr. Pugh were both speaking to me as they were borne away. Threats, apologies, protests. I wasn’t quite sure what they said.
Words were powerful. In stories, in songs, in prayers, in promises.
But theirs had no power here anymore.
Скоро сказка сказывается,
да не скоро дело делается.
The tale is soon told,
but the deed isn’t soon done.
—Yotne saying
70
If I had learned one thing from the stories, it was that work begat work, and tasks begat more tasks.
I had traveled the world, seen a witch removed from her throne, and rescued my father; but Potomac was not saved yet.
Yu and Dr. Gold were occupied those first few days with stabilizing my father—getting him well enough to travel, so he could receive more advanced treatment elsewhere.
I slept and paced at his bedside. Torden brought me my meals, so I didn’t have to leave.
The night Daddy woke up, he asked to be taken to his bedroom balcony. I’d sat with him there as I had so, so many times as a child.
We had lost Momma. But we had one addition now.
I held Victoria, marveling at her pink toes, her funny little mouth that stretched and pinched like a rubber band. She had a full head of hair, soft and black as Alessandra’s.
