by Bree Barton
She stroked Freyja’s back. Mia could almost feel the warmth of her mother’s fingertips, her healing touch when Mia’s back had ached during her monthly bleedings. She never imagined one day she would see her mother touch another woman with such tenderness and devotion. A thing so blasphemous in the river kingdom, it had not even been a figment in her mind.
Mia thought of Nelladine. She felt something when she looked at Nell; she could not deny it.
They weren’t in the river kingdom anymore.
In Pembuk, everything was possible.
Now she watched her mother trace gentle circles on Freyja’s back. Such a small thing, and not small at all. Her mother seemed happy.
Did that mean Wynna’s elixir was working? Logically speaking, did it follow that if Mia kept taking her tincture, she, too, might feel this kind of love?
The Snow Queen exhaled. When her eyes met Mia’s, there was fire in them.
“I failed my people. But I will not fail them again. I will fight every day to make reparations. I believe it was my uncle’s greed and lust for power that led him into an alliance with . . .”
She and Wynna exchanged a heavy, painful look.
“An alliance with others who shared his greed,” Freyja finished. “That power lust is the black heart beating around us.” She straightened. “Each of us stands at an unprecedented moment in history. Now is the time for us to put aside our differences and fight side by side to save the four kingdoms. We must work together if we want to survive.”
The truth hit Mia with astounding force.
Her mother had not come to the House for her. She’d come for Freyja.
Mia turned slowly to face her mother. “You didn’t even know I was here,” she said. “Did you?”
Wynna held her gaze.
“But I’m so glad to find you, my raven girl.” She glanced at Freyja. “We’re so glad.”
“What changed?” The question left a bitter aftertaste in Mia’s mouth. “Last time we saw each other, you said you were tired of fighting. That you’d found quieter places to put your heart.”
“You are right to call me to account. I struggle with my part in all of this. It has been such a long fight to feel anything again, even the good things. My own mind felt so fragile. I thought . . . I feared . . . that if I opened myself up to others’ pain and suffering, it would consume me. So I stepped back. I looked away.”
She shook her head. “I will not look away any longer. I will fight with my queen.”
Wynna took a breath.
“You have always demanded the truth, my raven. You ask questions and challenge assumptions, pick and prod at things until you make sense of them. We desperately need truth-seekers like you. We want you to come back with us, Mia. You have a home with us.”
“The snow queendom is not my home.”
“You have a family.”
The word rocked the room.
Family.
What made a family? Was it the name Clan Rose? The blood coursing through Mia’s veins? The kinfolk she’d known as a child? By that measure, she had no family: her mother, father, and sister were all strangers masquerading as people she knew.
Was Pilar d’Aqila her sister simply because they shared a father? Or did something else tie them together? Mia knew they had forged a bond beneath the Snow Queen’s palace, even if Pilar continued to deny it: they had made a choice. They had promised to fight for one another.
And now Mia’s mother was promising to fight for her.
Only, she wasn’t. Not really. She’d come to Pembuk to fight for Freyja, the woman she loved. Her daughter was an afterthought. A pleasant one—Wynna had believed her dead, and was surely glad to see her. Mia did not doubt her mother loved her. But Wynna hadn’t chosen her. Not for a long time.
Mia caught the sound of voices in an adjacent hallway. She heard the punch line of a bawdy joke, followed by the low, husky laugh she knew so well.
Her heart lurched toward Pilar and Nelladine. She was astonished by how much she wanted to be where they were, strolling down a corridor, sipping a cup of fish ice.
Pilar had rejected her countless times. But Nell was different. Nell had opened her heart, offering healing, laughter, and companionship. Mia yearned to give her something in return. She had so much to give.
Maybe a family wasn’t the one you were born into, but the one you chose.
Maybe Nell would want to be chosen.
Maybe Mia could give her love.
“It’s so good to see you happy, Mother. I mean that.”
Mia’s eyes warmed with tears. She had not expected empathy to well inside her. But when she looked at the woman who had given birth to her, fed and loved and held her every time she cried, she was overcome by compassion. Wynna Rose had been forced to live an impossible life. She had done the best she could with what she had.
“I love you,” Mia said softly. “I will always love you. You once told me that love is all that matters in the end. You also told me to trust my heart. And in my heart I know I want to be chosen. You’ve found a new family. I want to find mine.”
Her mother reached out for her. Hands trembling.
“Oh, little raven,” Wynna whispered. “My wise girl. My Mia.”
The words crashed into a sob. Mia stepped forward and cradled her mother’s face. Pressed her forehead to Wynna’s.
“Fidacteu zeu biqhotz, Mother.” Trust your heart. “Thank you for teaching me to trust mine.”
Chapter 21
Espionage
QUIN HAD ALWAYS LOVED the kitchens. Though he found solace at his piano, the library was shrouded in fear and silence. Only the domain of the cooks vibrated with joyous noise. If Kaer Killian touted itself a mausoleum of the dead, the kitchens promised the opposite. They were boisterously, deliciously, unequivocally alive.
As a lonely boy, Quin had spent years shadowing the cooks. He was delighted to discover they were among the more loose-lipped servants. They knew Ronan would never darken the doors of the kitchens; thus emboldened, the cooks aired their grievances. They swore constantly, colorful expressions little Quin learned, then parroted with immense pleasure. The swats and scoldings he earned felt more like affection than anything either of his parents bestowed.
He discovered something else, too. The cooks were intimately acquainted with the royals’ preferences—not just how burnt they liked their toast or how sweet they liked their tea, but what time they breakfasted, snacked, and supped, and with whom they shared each meal. The subtlest shift in a pattern was hotly debated: If Princess Karri left even the smallest scrap uneaten, she was clearly unwell. King Ronan, on the other hand, hardly ever touched his food; if by chance his plate returned empty, it was a cause for alarm.
Quin was no longer an impish kitchen waif, spouting swear words and conspiring to filch a caramel off the cooling table. But since arriving in the Kaer, he’d dredged up a half-forgotten truth: the cooks held within themselves a glut of information, whether they knew it or not.
“Come to steal our sweets again, have you?”
A pretty brown-eyed girl stirred a saucepan leaking steam. She swept the dark blond hair off her sweaty forehead, scowling at Quin as he tied his apron.
“Don’t you have better things to do?” she said.
“I think I’m winning you over, Phoebe. Even if you won’t admit it.”
After hearing multiple Embers complain about the deplorable food, Quin had devised an ingenious plan. He would offer his culinary talents, endear himself to the cooks—and glean valuable information about the Embers.
That was nearly a month ago. He’d been shocked how quickly they’d said yes. The kitchens were short-staffed and eager to accept his help. He didn’t have to work very hard to charm the scullery maids; they were a willing audience, laughing easily at his jokes. Of course his true purpose was to pilfer not sweets but knowledge, to gain a deeper understanding of the Embers and their intentions.
True to form, he had learned a great deal. Mae
v wanted him dead. Sylvan, on the other hand, argued that the Embers had taken a shine to Quin, and if anything happened to him, they might revolt. “I know you don’t want to believe it,” Sylvan had said, in a conversation overheard by a maid sent to retrieve dirty plates, “but there are people in this kingdom still loyal to the crown.”
When Quin fantasized about the moment he would seize power, he imagined killing Maev first. Or perhaps the greater punishment would be to make her watch as he set fire to any Ember who refused to swear fealty, eaten alive by the knowledge that she had been right all along.
As for Tobin? He was a bit of a mystery. The Embers seemed to both fear and respect him, but no one knew him very well. If Maev wanted Quin’s head on a spike and Sylvan insisted they keep it firmly attached to his neck, where did Tobin fall on the question?
“I don’t know how anyone can stay out of the kitchens,” Quin said, reaching for a wooden mixing spoon, “with such toothsome aromas wafting through the Kaer.”
“Others manage,” said Phoebe. She was the lone holdout, the one member of the kitchen staff he hadn’t been able to win over. It vexed him.
“As a boy I’d catch a whiff of honey cake rising in the oven, raspberries and sugar and lemon juice melting in a saucepan for the glaze, and I’d trot right into the kitchens like a dog begging for a bone. My favorite cook always let me dip a spoon into the batter.”
Phoebe grunted, immune to his charms.
“You’ll get sick that way.”
She wiped her hands on her apron and went back to stirring.
“Let’s play a game,” Quin said. “If you could eat anything right now, any dish in all four kingdoms, what would it be?”
She shrugged, tapping her spoon on the steaming pot. “This one.”
Quin leaned over the saucepan of white slop, inhaling dramatically. “You’d choose a pot of creamed wheat?”
“It suffices.”
“I’m offering you anything in the world, Phee. Any meal you could possibly imagine! Succulent black truffles drenched in a roasted walnut crempog. Or do you prefer sweet? Buttermilk toffee pudding dusted with nutmeg and rimed in pink salt. A chocolate cinnamon mousse served inside a butterfel flambé. This isn’t fantasy: I’ll actually cook it for you.”
“I don’t need to be cooked for. And I don’t want your fancy food.” She handed him the spoon. “I’ve got vegetables to chop.”
She wiped the sweat off her brow and left him to stir the pot.
Quin watched her cross the room. It was late, the kitchens empty save for the two of them. A moment earlier, he’d felt magnanimous—kingly, even, in his munificence. He really would have cooked her any dish she wanted. Who wouldn’t say yes to an offer like that?
As Phoebe reached into a basket and lined up a row of cheerful orange carrots, Quin felt a sharp stab of fury. She should thank him for his kindness. He’d been generous, more than she deserved. He wanted—needed—her to look at him with something other than disdain.
Could he enthrall her?
It wasn’t the first time he’d asked himself that question. He’d wondered a thousand times on his trek from Luumia if he had the power of enthrallment. The query had been purely intellectual; to his knowledge, he could only conjure fire. Not until now had he felt a physical craving to bend someone else’s will to his own.
He stiffened. If he enthralled this scullery maid, he was no better than the men who had bent the will of women for thousands of years, including his own forebears. He felt a burst of pity for the Twisted Sisters. Even Angelyne. She had enthralled him, yes, used her dark magic against him. But enthrallment had arisen as a response to the abuse of power.
And yet. He, too, had suffered abuse. Why should he not also be granted the power of enthrallment to right previous wrongs?
Edgy heat coiled in his fingers. He touched the outside of the saucepan. The metal should have blistered his fingertips, but it felt cool to the touch. It took him a moment to understand why: his own hands were hotter than the pot.
Quin set the spoon aside. He pressed both palms to the metal. The pan grew warmer, and warmer, every bit of coolness dissolving as the contents churned to a savage boil. A caustic stench pocked the air.
“Your wheat is burning,” he called to Phoebe, drawing his hands back into his pockets. “Did you have the heat too high?”
By the time she stood beside him, the creamed wheat had charred completely black, a shroud lying at the bottom of the pan.
Quin walked back to his quarters from the kitchens, his mind alive with revelations.
For the past two months, he had assumed it would be impossible to mask his magic. He couldn’t exactly hide an arc of flame, especially if he didn’t know how to control it. But in the kitchens, he had performed a subtler kind of magic. Instead of fire, he had transferred heat through a gentle touch.
The look on Phoebe’s face had been intoxicating. She knew he had somehow burned her precious wheat, yet had no way to prove it. Glasddirans were taught that only women could be Gwyrach, a lie Zaga and Angelyne had chosen to perpetuate, perhaps because they did not want men to know their own power. Give little boys their fists and their swords—but never magic.
History reshaped itself in Quin’s mind. He imagined a kitchen full of boys like him who preferred cooking and the pretending arts to hunting and swordplay, their magic swelling secretly inside them, along with their pervasive terror of looking or acting or loving differently from the way King Ronan believed men should look or act or love.
“I wondered when you’d be back.”
He looked up, startled. Tobin was leaning against the doorjamb of Quin’s drawing room.
“I almost gave up and went to bed. Maev said you’ve been spending hours each day in the kitchens. Trying to curry favor with the cooks, I imagine.”
“And you’ve been sending Dom to spy on me.”
“Dom is free to do as he likes. As are you.”
“Yet evidently you’ve been watching my every move.”
“You’re a son of Clan Killian. You were born to be watched.” Tobin smiled. “You and I have each been seeking information, in our own ways.”
“And here I thought you loved music,” Quin muttered, “when your real talent was espionage.”
Instinctively they both glanced toward the clavichord—and caught each other doing it. Embarrassed, Quin looked away. It was too easy to imagine Tobin as he’d looked that night, cheeks ruddy from the rai rouj, plunking out the melody they both knew by heart.
Under the plums, if it’s meant to be. You’ll come to me, under the snow plum tree.
Tobin sighed. “I didn’t come here to fight. Truly. Will you walk with me?”
“Where? Has Maev ordered my public execution?”
“She would like nothing better. Lucky for you, I don’t answer to Maev.”
Quin appraised him. “Where would you have me, then?”
The question kindled the air between them, bright and hot. Just as he’d intended.
Toby’s silver eyes gleamed.
“Where I always had you,” he said. “In the library.”
Chapter 22
Something to Punch
PILAR HAD NO GREAT love of books. She’d grown up surrounded by her mother’s, all disappearing ink and dark magic. Words written by people who were long since dead.
But lately she’d been poking around the House library when she wasn’t sparring. Stone still came to the Gymnasia—and now Shay came too. “Mumma thinks I’m in the Creation Studio,” she said, gleeful. “I told her I can’t channel my full creative abundance if she’s watching. She’ll believe anything if you put it the right way.”
Stone and Shay had started bringing friends. Day after day, more new recruits piled into the Gymnasia, eager to learn to fight. Some loved the House. They met all kinds of interesting people. Others hated it. They’d been dragged there by their parents, forced to give up their friends. They resented being told how to heal, or that they needed to b
e healed at all.
Pilar liked those pupils best. She understood them. Her students’ hunger made her want to do better. Be better. Teach them to protect themselves not just with their fists, but with their minds.
The problem was, her recruits were rapidly outpacing her. Especially Shay. That girl was born to fight. So Pilar had started going to the library to dig up new tricks, new techniques. Even when she wasn’t sparring, she was thinking about sparring. She loved it.
She was also tired as four hells.
Sometimes she thought of going to the Orkhestra. Picking up a violin. Blowing off steam. But she always talked herself out of it. If that troupe of child lute players was still hanging around, they’d ask her how long she’d been playing or where she learned. No one deserved to know those things. It was easier to hole up on a ratty library sofa and read about how to break someone’s nose.
“Oh. I’m sorry, I . . .”
Pilar looked up to see Mia Rose lurking in the doorway, a satchel slung over her shoulder. Blinking like a startled deer.
“I just . . . I was looking for Nell. I never thought you’d be in the library! I can go.”
“No. Stay.” Pilar dropped her book. Rose winced as the spine hit the floor. “If you want.”
To Pilar’s surprise, she meant it. Training the recruits—her brood, as she sometimes thought of them—had put her in a good mood. She knew she hadn’t been kind to Mia. But maybe they could start over. Maybe it wasn’t too late.
Rose sat uneasily at the other end of the sofa, placing her satchel beside her. After a moment, she said, “What are you reading?”
“A book on fighting. You wouldn’t like it.”
“I tend to like most books.”
Mia scooped it off the floor. Turned to a random page and pretended to read.
Pilar found it endearing. She was trying, at least.
“Nell told me your mother was here.”
“Still is, last I heard.”
“Did you see her?”
“Yes.” Mia gave up on the book and set it aside. “She and the Snow Queen came to the House to enlist help and gather resources. When I saw my mother in the palace, she had no interest in saving the world. I guess that’s changed. They’re going back to Luumia to rebuild.”
