by F. D. Lee
“I don’t know what to say.”
Seven smiled. “Truly this is a night of wonders.”
“Ha bloody ha. What has this got to do with me?”
“When I decided to carry out my plan here in Llanotterly, I was concerned, naturally, about interference from the General Administration.”
Bea nodded. “We’re always warned not to engage with anyone we suspect of being an Anti. I should never have spoken to you that first day.”
“I had planned to kill any member of the General Administration on sight.”
Bea tried to pull her hand away, but Seven grabbed it in his stronger one. There was no pain, just her hand lost in his. Bea looked at him, wishing he had something in his eyes she could grasp onto, but all they showed her was a deep and restless blue, yearning for something more. She could empathise with that at least.
“So why haven’t you killed me?”
“There are many reasons. You are unlike the usual General Administration puppets, that is one reason. You desire so much, which is always attractive to my kind. You are conflicted, and that intrigues me. Perhaps, however, I did not kill you because I have changed. And, Bea, this is why you must not submit to Redaction, nor to despair. You too have changed, and who knows where such change will carry you?”
“But what if it carries me somewhere even worse?”
“Indeed it might. And yet, mistress godmother, what if it does not? Enough. We are here, and it is now.” He stood, pulling Bea up with him.
Bea smiled. “You’re refusing to grant my wish, aren’t you?”
Seven laughed. “This wish, yes. Perhaps, one day, you will come to me with another. Now, this is of far greater importance: can you dance?”
Chapter Thirty-eight
Sindy tried to work out what she was going to say.
A couple of hours ago, when Ana had told her how frantic Will had been, she’d felt certain of his love, but now her confidence had drained away.
What if she told him how she felt and he rejected her?
What if she never told him and he did love her?
The noise of the coach as it approached the cottage shook her from her thoughts. She ran to the front door, took a deep breath and opened it.
Her father, when he saw her, burst into tears. He ran across the garden and gathered her up in his arms, dropping kisses on her golden hair. Even her stepmother hugged her, though she was also quick to bring attention to her nerves, which had suffered dearly.
Sindy took her father’s arm, explaining to her parents that she had been trapped in a cave, and that a huntsman had found her and brought her home, all the while watching Will watching her from the driver’s seat of the coach. He didn’t welcome her. He didn’t even wave at her or smile.
Sindy’s heart cracked.
Inside the house she sat with her parents for another hour or so, repeating the story that she and Ana had devised, hugging and kissing them and being hugged and kissed in return. Eventually they went to bed, and Sindy promised she would follow soon.
She padded through the kitchen and out to the garden, the night air cold on her skin. She shivered and walked towards her little swing, trying hard not to cry. When she started crying she’d probably drown in her tears.
When she got to her swing, she realised she didn’t want to sit on it. It was a swing built for someone who didn’t exist: a permanently young girl who would never grow old, never be strong, never be more than her father’s daughter and her husband’s wife. A weak girl.
If she’d been stronger at the beginning none of this would have happened. If she could have refused the godmother then she wouldn’t have needed to run away and frighten her parents. She wouldn’t have kissed Will and completely ruined their friendship. She looked around the garden, her eyes landing on the axe. She walked over and picked it up. It was heavier than she had expected, but not so heavy she couldn’t wield it.
She walked back to her swing, lifted the axe and hacked at the rope. It didn’t break in one go, but with each swing of the axe it frayed a little more until the wooden seat was suspended by only the faintest length of twine. Sindy shifted the weight of the axe in her hand and looked at the remains of the rope. She swung hard, and the wooden seat fell to the ground with a clatter.
“Why’d you do that then?”
She turned, the axe still in her hands, her blonde hair wild and tangled. Will was standing behind the house. She must have walked straight passed him.
“Why didn’t you welcome me back?” she countered, panting.
He detached himself from the cottage and walked over to her, his wide, normally open face marred. “I didn’t know what to say,” he admitted, reaching her.
“You should have said something.”
“I know.”
They stood in silence, staring at each other.
“Could you possibly put the axe down?” Will asked after a moment.
“Oh, yes… goodness… sorry.”
“You didn’t go to the Ball,” Will said in a tone of voice he probably hoped was casual.
“Why would I go to the Ball? I ran away to avoid going to the Ball.”
Will looked surprised, and then embarrassed. “Really? I thought perhaps it was because of me…”
“How could you think that?”
“Well, you see, the other day when you, ah, you kissed me, and you seemed upset, I didn’t know what to think. But then I met this woman who said she was my godmother… But that didn’t make sense. You’re the kind of girl who gets a fairy helping her. You’re the kind of girl who marries Kings,” Will said wretchedly, kicking his feet in the dirt, unable to meet her eyes. “I guess I thought you didn’t know how to say goodbye to me, and then I thought something had happened to you... Sindy, we’ve always been mates, if you want to marry the King I’m happy for you.”
Sindy looked up at him, his weather-beaten face staring at her in confusion. He wasn’t handsome. He wasn’t rich. But he was hers and she loved him. She pulled him forward, although in actual fact she more pulled herself towards him. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that she was the one doing it. She realised that Will would never lead her.
She took his left hand and placed it on her waist and threaded the fingers of his right hand through her own. She rested her head against his wide chest, and began to lead him in a dance.
After a moment, Will rested his head against hers, and they danced without music in the bare moonlight of her little garden.
Mistasinon eased his way through the Ballroom, blending in reasonably well in his blue suit and waistcoat. His tatty satchel ruined the look somewhat, and his frame, which was slender for such a tall man, drew some attention, but on the whole, he was unremarkable. He wondered if this had been the Teller’s intention all along. In Ænathlin his tan skin and height drew the eye like a wolf amongst sheep, but here with the humans he was just another face, slightly unusual but nothing more.
A young boy offered him a drink from a silver tray, but Mistasinon shook his head and the lad wandered off.
He scanned the room without interest, taking in the band on the spinning podium, the food and drink, and the guests showing off their beauty. Not for the first time, he wondered how strong the genie was, and what it would be like to see one again. They were extremely perceptive, he remembered, which might cause problems, especially if Bea were present.
His gaze swept over the dance floor. He came to a stop when he saw her.
Mistasinon couldn’t see the blood or rips in Bea’s dress. From where he stood he could only see the way the corset highlighted her shape and the sparkle of the sequins as they glittered in the candlelight. She was dancing with an exceptionally beautiful man. His eyes fixed on the couple. Bea was dancing well, though it was the man who now had his attention.
A foul taste filled his mouth, and Mistasinon realised he’d bitten his lip so hard he’d drawn blood. He pulled the handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket and wiped at his lip before any of the
guests would notice he bled the wrong colour. He waved one of the waiters over and took a glass of wine from the tray, swilling it around his mouth before swallowing it.
He made to step forward and then stopped. He looked up at the large gilded clock hanging above the arched entrance to the Ball. Mistasinon stood as the music of life flowed around him, the instrument of his agency muted.
Then, turning his back on Bea and Seven, he walked away. Guests were still arriving as he climbed the stairs to exit the Ball, but he passed by them without drawing attention. He moved against the crowd until he could slip down another corridor and be, finally, alone.
Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath in through his nose. Colours and tastes filled his mind, momentarily overwhelming his limited new senses. He leaned against the wall, and concentrated. After a moment he found what he was looking for. He opened his eyes and followed the smell of the genie towards his apartment rooms.
Chapter Thirty-nine
Bea couldn’t believe it. She was dancing, at a Ball, with a handsome man – although it wasn’t actually the person she wanted to be dancing with. She mentally stepped away from the noxious thought, landing right in the next one, which asked why she had agreed to dance with Seven in the first place.
She turned her head to the side to watch the other couples as they spun around her, the women’s dresses spread out like chrysanthemums.
“You are enjoying yourself?” Seven asked, his breath brushing against her hair as he spoke.
Bea, her eyes level with the golden snake around his neck, shook herself out of her thoughts. “We should see how Ana and John are getting on.”
“That is no answer.”
“And Melly. I just left her. Although I think she’s probably been to more Balls than I’ve had hot dinners.”
“The witch delights in a challenge?” Seven said, a smile in his voice.
It struck Bea that once she would have found the same comment annoying, but she knew better than that now. He was hedonistic, cruel and self-important, but at least he was reliable in it. And, she couldn’t help adding, he might also be honest and decent.
“I’m almost having fun,” Bea relented. “This is definitely the way to spend your last night before being dead-headed. I just hope the white suits don’t go after my Plotter or my friends.”
“You are being overly dramatic. Or overly selfless. In either instance it is extremely boring.”
Bea glared at him. “I’m not being boring. I’m accepting my fate with dignity.”
“You are running away.”
“Alright, fine. Maybe I am. And what you said just now… thank you. For trying to help. But it doesn’t matter. I still don’t have an ending. No ending – no Book. No Book – no Bea.”
Seven pressed his hand against the bare skin of her back, pushing her against him as they danced. As always, his skin was cold, despite the heat. He looked down at her, his handsome face seemingly impassive. His blue eyes were lined with kohl, as isolate as a cloudless sky, but Bea was getting better at reading them: with Seven she had to look at the muscles around his eyes and the position of his eyebrows to see what he was thinking.
And that was when Bea realised she could see something in his expression she probably shouldn’t be seeing, at least not directed at her. Yet there was no mistaking the way he was holding her, one hand resting on the small of her back, pressing her against him, the other now at the nape of her neck.
“What about Maria Sophia?”
He shrugged. “I love her. Wanting you does not diminish that.”
“Yes it does. Anyway, I don’t fancy you.”
“I am aware you pine another, but I do not believe this results in your being unattracted to me. Take heart – if you are determined to sacrifice yourself upon the alter of martyrdom, you may as well find pleasure while you are still able.”
Bea opened her mouth to tell him that she didn’t ‘pine’ for anybody, when he kissed her. She hadn’t been expecting it, and he took advantage of her shock. His lips and his tongue, when she felt it against her own, were cold as stone.
She didn’t mean to kiss him, but such was Seven’s skill that she was responding to him before she realised what she was doing. Bea could feel the power of him, the chill of his body against the increasing heat of her own, and she realised anything they did together would probably be the best experience of her life, and that it was all wrong.
He pulled back, puzzled.
“You do not enjoy my attention?”
“It’s not that. It’s only-” Bea began, and then stopped. She’d seen something, someone, who she really shouldn’t have seen climbing the stairs.
“Yes?” Seven asked, frowning.
“I have to…. Just wait here. I’ll be back,” Bea said, pulling out of his embrace.
Seven watched as she disappeared into the crowds. He had no idea what he had done to cause her to run away, and then it didn’t matter.
Maria Sophia had arrived.
Chapter Forty
Ana was feeling frustrated.
She’d barely had a moment to talk to the King. It wasn’t his fault, she grudgingly admitted. Every time they got started, some new person would need to be formally welcomed. She turned to John, who was looking out at the Ball with an expression of absolute misery on his face, his chin resting against his knuckles.
“What’s wrong?” she found herself asking him. He sighed and looked over at her.
“Look here, tell me what you see.”
“I see your subjects, my Lord-”
“Quite right, quite right-”
“Until the Baron forces them into the manufactories because you’ve drawn his attention to us.”
John shook his head. “This was a mistake.”
“So you’re giving up? Why am I not surprised?”
“For goodness sake. I meant trying to sort all this out here was a mistake. Can hardly hear myself think over this racket. But let’s talk brass tacks,” John said. “Baron of Cerne Bralksteld will invade, sooner or later, and that’s a fact. Not much we can do about it, far as I can see.”
Ana scowled. “There’s always a way.”
“Well, I’m buggered if I can think of it,” John said. “What do you suggest?”
Ana took a seat next to the throne. “Don’t draw his attention to us by expanding. He’ll see it as a threat.”
“And how do we pay the tithes without the tax?” John asked.
“Stop paying them.”
“And then he invades and we die.”
“We’ve got people, children, in our camp that he’s near tortured to death in his manufactories.”
“And I’ve got people in my kingdom who he’d actually torture to death if I stop paying him.”
Ana drummed her fingers, trying to think. The trouble was she could see the King’s point of view. She hadn’t expected it, but there it was. Llanotterly did have to keep paying the Baron. But she was right as well. The more they expanded the more the Baron would want, and the bigger he grew, the more people would die.
“It seems like all we’re doing is putting off the inevitable,” she said.
“Yes,” John said. “Quite frankly, I’d hoped you might have a little more to add.”
Ana thought about it.
“Well,” she said slowly, tasting the idea on the tip of her tongue, “I might be able to suggest something. But it’s not very… ah… moral.”
John looked up. “Less moral than keeping slaves or threatening to invade if we don’t cough up the dosh?”
Ana smiled one of her rare, genuine smiles. “More moral than that. Alright. How about this? My father was a pirate. He went missing years ago, but I still know some of the boys he did business with. If we could perhaps, ahh, reconfigure some of Llanotterly’s imports and exports, we could get money in without attracting attention.”
John shook his head. “We’d never be able to explain where the money was coming from.”
“So sell the
forest, just not so much. What do you think?”
John started to answer when the trumpeter announced the arrival of another guest.
“The Count Henri Laurent Ghislain of Cierremont, the sixth city of Marlais, middle county of Ehinenden, the Third Kingdom of Thaiana,” announced the page at the top of the steps, “and his Countess, Maria Sofia.”
John turned back to Ana. “I think you might be on to something, that’s what I think. Let’s discuss it with my Adviser in the morning. No, stay here,” John said when Ana nodded and stood to leave.
“Why?” Ana noticed the way some of the pages were eyeing her and added, “My Lord.”
“I think it might be an idea for you to meet some of this lot, that’s why. They’re a slippery bunch, and you’re a sharp girl. Just keep your eyes and ears open. God knows where S. has got to – ah no, there he is, catching flies on the dance floor. Not like him to lollygag,” John said, a note of uncertainty in his voice.
Ana followed the King’s line of sight and, after a moment, found the Adviser in the crowd. John was right. Seven was standing like a statue in the middle of the dance floor, oblivious to the fact he was interrupting the dancing guests, staring at the newly arrived Count and Countess as they made their way down the staircase at the other end of the Ballroom.
Suddenly Ana felt uneasy. She searched the crowd, trying to find Bea, but she wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
“Excuse me a moment,” she said to John.
She left the King and walked as calmly as she could over to Melly, who was standing on the edge of the dais, glaring at the crowds.
“Do you know where Bea’s gone? She’s not with the Adviser anymore. I think something-”
“Hush,” Melly hissed through her teeth.
“Excuse me? Did you seriously just ‘hush’ me?”
Melly glanced quickly at Ana, before returning her gaze to the crowd. “Yes. Something’s happening, but I don’t know what. I can feel it… something’s coming.”
