by Anna Bright
The first night I’d arrived, I had stood over her crib, afraid even to look at her. Afraid I would hate her, as her mother had hated me. What if Alessandra had been right to fear me? What if sending me away was the safest course for her daughter?
But I shouldn’t have been afraid. I loved Victoria at once.
I’d looked at my sister down in her crib, clinging to a soft toy sheep, just three months old. And I knew that if anyone tried to hurt her, I would protect her. I would be a wolf so she could be a lamb.
My heart had swelled almost painfully in my chest as she burbled at me curiously, her green eyes so like mine and my father’s. I’d slept that night on the floor in front of her crib.
She was a squishy bundle in the crook of my arm now, grabbing at the ends of my hair and sticking them in her mouth. I indulged her.
“We’ve got an owl back here in the woods we might hear in a minute,” Daddy said, thumbing Victoria’s little fingers. “Nest of robins on the edge of the tree line. Family of foxes a few hundred yards out. I know we need to flush them out, but those little kits are just too sweet to watch.”
Yu thought, though nothing was certain, that Daddy would recover fully. Already, my father seemed less burdened, more engaged.
If I had gotten nothing else I wanted, I would still have called it a happy ending. Him and Victoria and me, here on the balcony. A family, whole and enough, despite it all.
“They hunted foxes in England,” I said after a moment. “I know they go after sheep and chickens, but I didn’t like it much.”
“I wouldn’t have, either.” Daddy shifted on his chaise, nudging me with his thin shoulder. His eyes were tired, but clear, and curious as I hadn’t seen them in a long time. “Tell me how it went, baby girl.” His brows arched. “You didn’t come back alone, I noticed.”
“Torden.” I smoothed Victoria’s hair again, my ring sparkling. “He’s Prins Torden. From Norge.”
“Was he the first one you met?”
“No,” I said slowly. “Bear was the first. But I should start at the beginning.”
Daddy took a bite of soup. It was pumpkin, made from the autumn’s harvest. Winter would be well upon us soon, and we needed to be ready.
But for now—before Daddy left, for heaven knew how long—I wanted to tell him my story.
I told him about the four courts I had visited. The boys I’d courted. The kings and tyrants I’d faced.
The Imperiya I’d helped topple, and the idea I had for Potomac’s future.
When I was done, Daddy squeezed my shoulder.
“I’m glad you’re home, Selah. I’m sorry I didn’t see sooner what she was doing.” He swallowed and took one of my sister’s tiny hands. “I was so wrong to let you go. I was afraid you’d hold it against Victoria, if I was fortunate enough to get you back.”
“Never.” I squeezed Victoria closer, as if to banish the idea. “She’s my family. And I’m glad to hear you say all that.” I paused. “But I’m also glad I went.”
“You are?” Daddy raised an eyebrow, surprised.
“I met and learned from people different from me. I fell in love, and I got to see a great wrong righted. And now I have a goal for our future.” I shook my head. “And—I saw the world, Daddy. I wouldn’t have missed any of it.”
Especially because you’re still here, I couldn’t say aloud. Everything is all right because you’re still here.
The owls began to hoot from the edge of the woods.
“Now,” Daddy said, shifting again. “Tell me about this idea of yours.”
Yu took Daddy to New York the next day. I went to Mass every single morning in his absence, lit every votive in the bank of candles in the church, prayed on my knees at Godmother Althea’s side.
And I worked from sunup to sundown to ensure that when he returned, healthy and whole, Potomac would be, too. Our coffers were empty, our government in chaos, our people uncertain. I began the slow job of rebuilding what had crumbled and decayed while Alessandra manipulated us.
I read into the wee hours of the night. Not only my fairy-tale book, but law books Bear and Yu sent me from England and Zhōng Guó—as well as a few about looking after babies. Victoria had two nannies, but I moved her nursery across the hall from my room and spent my nights walking her across the floor as I studied.
And when the morning came and the sun rose, I wrote letters until my hands ached, to my mother’s relatives in Savannah and to our neighbors, the Rappahannock tribe, to the zŏngtŏng and to England’s king, and to the Shield of the North and to the new government of Yotunkheym. I refreshed relationships with our friends and neighbors. I gathered as much wisdom as I could.
We held elections. Proper elections, with public debates and town meetings, where the people asked questions and received answers. Secretary Gidcumb was the only member of the old Council innocent of corruption and collusion with Alessandra; he became our new secretary of state, on our new Council, which did actual work. There were to be no more hangers-on in government.
We seeded every public field. I oversaw it myself.
I met with Alessandra only once, the day our new state barrister interrogated her in advance of her trial. She charged my stepmother to explain her deeds from their beginning. Alessandra admitted to recklessness with Potomac’s finances and to poisoning my father after blackmailing and manipulating Pugh (as she had Perrault).
“What about Peter?” I asked her suddenly, as Madam Turner, the barrister, finished her questions.
“What about him?” Alessandra’s voice was tinged with the same disbelief that had colored it the day I’d confronted her, as if she couldn’t truly believe she’d be met with consequences for what she’d done.
“Did you force him to decline my proposal?” I wasn’t sure why I asked; I had no reason to believe she’d give me a truthful answer.
Alessandra tipped her head back as if to think, exhaling through her nose. “I told the Janesleys I would audit their business if he accepted, and that something would be found. Does it matter?”
“Absolutely,” muttered Madam Turner, retrieving her ledger to make an additional note. I fought off an unexpected laugh.
“No,” I said. “Not really, it doesn’t.” I rose to go.
Alessandra clasped her hands, abruptly nervous. “Will you let me see Victoria?”
I frowned. “I love my sister. We won’t keep her from you. You’ll see her as often as the judge permits.” Alessandra met my eyes. Her own were troubled.
She didn’t trust me, or understand how I could love Victoria.
But her fear wasn’t my problem.
I didn’t see my stepmother again after that. I delivered my testimony in writing for her trial, and returned to work as they debated. I didn’t want to sway the outcome with my presence, and I had a life to get on with living. Alessandra had claimed enough of it already.
The morning the trial began, I sat at my writing desk, staring at the piles of correspondence and legal texts and baby books.
It was overwhelming.
I had come so far. I was so grateful to my friends, to my godmother, to Gidcumb—who I had learned was responsible for smuggling in my radio.
But I wanted—hoped—to do so much more.
I plunked my pen down, dipped my little finger in my pot of ink, and wrote my hopes down my left arm.
Happily
ever
after
We were so close to putting the past behind us, to the bright future that lay beyond all the fairy-tale endings.
A knock came at my door. “Come in,” I called idly.
I didn’t even have to turn. I knew his footsteps.
“Hi, sweetheart.” I wiped the ink from my finger.
Torden tried to squeeze onto my chair beside me, then stole my seat and lifted me onto his lap when he didn’t fit. “Art project, elskede?”
“Wishful thinking.” I gave a rueful laugh, a little of the old doubt creeping in. “I’m excited about my pla
n, but our funds are still low. Are people going to say I’m overspending, like Alessandra did?”
“Selah.” Torden turned my chin to face him. “You’ve done all you set out to do, and more. And this plan is going to take time. But it’s a good plan, and it is nothing like Alessandra’s wastefulness. Your Council approved it. After all you saw in the Imperiya, they see how important this is.”
He kissed me, and my very bones seemed to still, to steady.
How I loved this boy.
As he had done in Norge so many months before, Torden dipped his finger in the ink on the desk. In his own more angular writing, he wrote on my right arm the words I hadn’t been able to write myself.
And
they
all
lived
And we had.
71
In the first week of the New Year, my stepmother and Pugh were convicted and imprisoned for their crimes.
A week later, Anya came back from a long walk with Skop in the first winter snow, happy tears in her eyes and a garnet ring sparkling on her finger. Cobie and I squeezed her so tightly she pushed us away, laughing that we’d cracked her ribs.
In two more months, my father returned home from New York, pink-cheeked and thirty pounds heavier. Victoria had grown her first tooth. I turned nineteen.
And six weeks after that, we had a wedding in Arbor Hall.
I wrapped my arms around Anya’s shoulders as she waited in the Roots, but she wriggled away from me. “You’re going to wrinkle my dress, you oaf.” I laughed and fluffed her skirt.
It wasn’t new, since we were economizing. But Anya looked beautiful in the rose-gold gown I’d worn the night Torden had first proposed in Asgard. Cobie, for once, wore white—a silk dress that had been my mother’s. It fit her like a sail, which was to say, it suited her perfectly.
I wore my green lace dress, the one I’d worn in England. I’d gotten my heart broken by a boy who’d admired me in it.
So what? Hearts healed. Stories twisted and turned for the better.
Besides, it was a great dress.
When the bow hit the hardingfele’s strings, it was time to go. Cobie started up the stairs, a crown of valerian woven into her hair. Anya took Alfödr’s arm, and I followed Cobie up to the ballroom.
Anya wore a crown of yarrow and myrtle, for love. Bear would’ve been proud that I’d looked up the flowers’ meanings.
“What’s this?” Torden nodded at my wreath, leading me up the aisle behind Cobie and Hermódr.
I smiled up at him. “Wallflower.”
“No more,” he whispered, kissing the engagement ring on my hand.
It meant faithfulness in adversity. And we would be, come what may.
At the end of the aisle, Torden went to stand behind Anya, along with the rest of his brothers. Bragi. Hermódr. Fredrik. Aleksei. Hodr. Only Vidarr and Váli had remained at home to protect Asgard.
Cobie joined me behind Skop, along with the rest of the crew.
I smiled at Daddy. He wore a linen suit—no more black for him—and a bright smile.
“Hello, everyone!” he called out. “And happy Arbor Day!”
The congregation responded with words of its roots and stretching toward the sky above, and I felt it like wind in my hair.
When Skop and Anya had said their vows, we danced and celebrated, and I couldn’t believe how different Arbor Hall felt from a year ago.
I laughed the whole night. I did not hide.
Peter was talking to his father beneath a holly tree when I finally saw him. He returned my wave, smiling brightly at Victoria and me where I stood near the buffet table, bouncing her on my hip and choosing a dessert.
I had wondered if I’d come back and find Peter smaller, diminished somehow in my eyes. But he wasn’t.
I was the one who had changed. I had gone, and I had come back. And all was as it should be.
Peter crossed to my side, hands in his pockets, grinning. He looked happy and relaxed, his hair a little longer, his shoulders a little broader. “Glad to see you home again.”
“Me too,” I agreed. “A lot’s changed.” I smiled—a real smile. Not the brittle thing I’d tried on for him the morning I set sail on the Beholder, but something easy. Comfortable, as we always should have been, if I had asked the right things of us. If I had been content with our friendship as it was.
And I knew now what love really felt like. So I could be.
“It certainly has.” Peter’s shoulders rounded a bit, as they always did when he was thinking. “You seem so . . . content.”
“I am,” I said. “I wouldn’t change a thing.”
His smile broadened; I glimpsed the gap between his teeth. “That’s wonderful.”
“Peter!” Captain Janesley called to his son, gesturing at a circle of people around him.
“Yes, sir! Be just a moment.” He glanced back at me, still grinning. “I’ll see you at Mass later?”
I nodded, waving back at Captain Janesley. “Say hello to your mother for me.”
As he walked away, Victoria began to wail; she had a second tooth coming in. I tried to shush her, but Daddy swooped in.
“All right, then.” He scooped her out of my arms, cooing.
“But I—” I protested, stretching after my sister. I must have looked worried, because Daddy grinned.
“Who do you think walked with you at night? Do you think Victoria is my first baby girl?” Daddy smiled down into my eyes. “I’m back, Selah. I’m me again.”
I swallowed, and found I believed him.
It was almost a physical relief. Weight seemed to slide off my shoulders.
He winked at me and walked away, the sound of his laughter echoing off the marble walls and through the trees. Godmother went to him, trying to coax the baby away; I wasn’t sure who would win that battle. Probably all three of them.
As I watched, Torden took my hand and led me beneath a willow. We stood there together a long moment, taking in the party, his arms around me. Anya looked radiant.
“I want this,” he said in my ear. “I want this day for us.”
“I do, too.” I leaned my head back against his chest and looked up at him. “But your brothers are going to need you.”
Hodr had come home, and with Týr passed, it turned out neither Vidarr nor Váli wanted to take his place. Hermódr was the new heir to Asgard. He would someday be its Shield. He would need his brothers as he prepared for a role he’d never expected would be his.
As we watched, Torden’s father walked through the trees, speaking to Daddy.
Alfödr’s heart had changed toward me and toward Skop. I’d overheard the konge apologizing to our new captain the night before.
He’d said that he was wrong to lay hands on him, to dismiss his suit without consideration. That Skop’s bravery at Stupka-Zamok had proven him as worthy an ally as a king could wish. That his love for Anya was all any father could hope for.
“Have you heard anything about—” Torden arched his eyebrows down at me. I produced a letter from the pocket of my gown, biting my lip.
What if Torden balked, after all? What if he didn’t want to wait so long?
But his face lit up. “You were accepted?” I nodded, and Torden swung me off my feet and spun me around. “I am so, so proud of you.”
“You don’t think it’s too long to wait?” I asked when he set me down. The letter crinkled as my grip tightened anxiously.
Torden smoothed it out, tucking it back in my pocket. Then he led me out to the dance floor, to join his sister and his brothers and my crew, our friends and our family and the ones who counted as both.
“Take all the time you need, elskede. Chase all your hopes. You have so much possibility before you.” Torden fitted his chin above my head, his hands around my waist. Beneath the music and the party, I heard the beating of his heart. “I already know where my journey ends. It leads me home, to you.”
And they all lived
happily
> ever
after.
—Traditional ending
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit,
As it was in the beginning,
is now,
and ever shall be:
world without end.
Amen.
—Gloria Patri
All shall be well,
And all shall be well,
And all manner of thing shall be well.
—Julian of Norwich
Itt a vége, fuss el véle!
This is the end; run away with it.
—Traditional ending, Magyar tale
Epilogue
POTOMAC: ARBOR HALL
I stood on the pier, Daddy’s hands on my shoulders, Godmother’s hand in mine, Victoria babbling in her arms. The breeze was still warm; summer wasn’t over yet.
And my eyes were on the horizon again.
It felt like a morning exceptionally well suited to happily ever after.
I snapped out of my daze in time to see Skop pretending to pitch my bags of soil overboard. “Stop that, you miscreant!” I bellowed.
“Shouldn’t that be Captain Miscreant?” Bear asked, inquisitive, and Gwyn laughed.
Vishnu and Will were debating with Jeanne and Basile over barrels of something on the deck. J.J. scrambled around the rigging after Cobie. Andersen, Yasumaro, and Homer had disappeared into Homer’s office, bickering about our course.
Everyone was here. Well—almost everyone.
“Captain Miscreant it is!” I agreed.
Yu had returned to Zhōng Guó after Daddy had recovered, but we’d kept corresponding; and Perrault had gone back to New York.
“Come and stay sometime,” my protocol officer had said with a smile. “Perhaps you can teach me a thing or two.”
Lang was away somewhere, exactly where he wanted to be. And soon, I would be, too.
“He’s only your captain for a little while,” Anya said to me reasonably, leaning on Skop’s arm. “It’s not as though you’re staying on.”
