The Unwilling

by KELLY BRAFFET

  Theron thought the danger was over, that it had been left behind in the woods. Judah could feel Gavin’s sweat on her skin, the race of his pulse in her veins. She watched him strip off his gauntlets and drop them on the table. “I’m coming in, too,” he said.

  Theron glared at his brother. “I’m not a child. I don’t need to have my hand held,” he said curtly, and marched into the bedroom. His back was straight, giving him a military bearing Judah was sure he’d never managed on the training field.

  Arkady shook off his assistant, who still held him by the elbow. “Neither do I, boy. Wait out here.” There was a peevish irritation in Arkady’s voice. As he made his way after Theron, he walked as if his guts hurt him, or his back.

  The door closed behind the two of them with a final maddening click.

  “You shouldn’t have brought him down,” Gavin said to Elly.

  “It was easier than arguing.” Her eyes traveled over him, then moved to Judah, and narrowed. “You’re a mess. You both are. What’s going on?”

  The Seneschal sat back down in Judah’s chair, disinterested. Gavin said something angry, and Elly responded in kind, and as Judah dropped, helpless and numb, to the sofa, the words all fell away because Arkady was behind the closed bedroom door with Theron, and anything could be happening in there, anything.

  “Your cheek is swollen,” a soft voice said. Arkady’s apprentice stood next to her. He didn’t even give Judah a chance to lie about the bruise on her face; just opened the satchel he carried, and began to root around in it. “I have a salve for that. It’s very effective. My own formulation.” The rhythm of his speech was odd. He wasn’t from Highfall.

  She didn’t really care. Theron was alone in the bedroom with Arkady. There were rumors that he was ill. People expected him to die. She tried to reassure herself: if Elban wanted Theron dead, he would do it publicly, with lots of blood and lots of witnesses. Not behind a closed door. Not in secret.

  “I apologize. I’m afraid I’m not very organized,” the apprentice said. He put his satchel down on the narrow end table. It blocked her view of everybody else in the room.

  But maybe somebody else wanted Theron dead, someone who did not want Amie of Porterfield to be Lady of the City or anything close to it. To the dismay of some, Firo had said about Theron being alive. To the rejoicing of others. Judah had no doubt Arkady could be bought. She had no doubt that he couldn’t be trusted.

  Without warning, something fell into Judah’s lap: a tiny brown bottle, the length of her finger and twice as big around. “Hide that,” the apprentice said in an undertone, and suddenly the apprentice had Judah’s full attention. She moved her hand over the vial to cover it.

  “Arkady Magus is always telling me how unprofessional it is, all this rummaging. And he’s right. Ah, here it is,” the apprentice said, speaking normally now. He bent down in front of her, a small ceramic pot in his hand. His eyelashes were the darkest she’d ever seen. “This will feel cold,” he said, and with two shaking fingers—he almost seemed afraid to touch her—he began to spread the salve from the pot onto the part of her cheek that felt too thick. His eyes darted down to the vial in her lap and, in the same undertone he’d used before, he said, “Give that to Lord Theron. All of it. The moment we leave.”

  Her fingers curled around the vial. “What is it?”

  “Antidote.” His lips barely moved.

  Antidote. Poison. Her lungs seized. She couldn’t breathe.

  Then, in his regular voice: “There, that wasn’t so bad, was it? The swelling and bruising will be gone by morning. Your skin might feel a little irritated, but that will pass.”

  He was odd-looking, even beyond the eyelashes. It was almost as if his skin was the wrong color for his hair—pale, but the wrong color pale, somehow. His eyes were blue, like everyone else in Highfall’s, but intense. Like a sky brewing a storm. The way they were fixed on her was almost alarming. “Why are you giving this to me?” she said as quietly as she could.

  “Because I’m a friend.” Quiet, loud. “A magus heals.” He snapped his satchel shut and walked back to his place by the bedroom door.

  Judah clutched the bottle in her fist. Theron was being poisoned. But poison felt wrong for Elban, not brutal enough. Unless, maybe, it was a particularly ugly poison. Agonizing. Long.

  Or—maybe the poison lay in her lap. Her brain spun. Maybe whatever filled the brown bottle wasn’t even fatal. Maybe it was just dangerous enough to make Theron sick. If she gave it to him—if she were seen giving it to him—the House was already against her, as far as it cared about her at all, but she was popular in Highfall. Firo had told her so. She wouldn’t be, if she were a suspected poisoner. She would be a traitor. Easy to get rid of. Easy to wall up in an unused tower. Easy to execute.

  Amie wouldn’t mind seeing her executed, or so she’d been told. And Amie had connections in the city. She could have started the rumors.

  The bedroom door opened and out came Theron. Did he seem paler? She couldn’t tell. He’d been so pale to start with. Was he breathing hard? Were his eyes unfocused?

  “He’s well enough,” Arkady said to the Seneschal. Theron himself showed only vague interest. He knew Judah loved him, knew she respected the lightning-quick connections his mind made. But he knew she loved Gavin and Elly, as well, and he was all too accustomed to thinking of himself as less-than. If someone told him that Judah had tried to poison him, to make things easier for the others, would he believe it?

  “His blood seems weak, though,” the magus continued. “And I’m not happy with his lungs.”

  Would Gavin believe it? Remembering the study, knowing what his father was capable of, knowing that she also remembered and also knew—would he think her capable of making the choice he couldn’t, to spare him the consequences? The bottle was cold despite the heat of her hand, as cold as if the apprentice had drawn it from the bottom of the aquifer instead of the bottom of his satchel.

  “I gave him a tonic,” Arkady said, and Theron muttered, “Tasted bloody awful.”

  Judah felt as if her heart had stopped.

  The Seneschal stood up. “I’m glad you’re well, Lord Theron. The people will be much relieved. Thank you for indulging us. Would you take some refreshment before you leave, Arkady Magus?”

  Of course Arkady would take some refreshment before he left. He always did. He barked at his apprentice, who scurried to his side, taking up Arkady’s satchel as well as his own—but was it Judah’s imagination, or were all three men leaving faster than they usually did? Normally, Arkady took every opportunity to fawn over Gavin and Elly or be horrible to Judah. This seemed too simple. Too clean. The door closed and only the four of them were left in the room. Theron wanted to go back up to the workshop immediately. He’d figured his device out, he said; he’d had a breakthrough. Elly was pleading with him to stay and eat, or at least change clothes. Gavin was offering to go down to the baths with him.

  The moment we leave.

  Maybe the poison was already in Theron, working its way through his body. Maybe she was letting him die by sitting here, frozen with indecision.

  Maybe the poison was in her hand.

  She stood up. She would tell them quickly. Theron could decide for himself, when he knew everything. Look how much trouble they’d created by not telling Elly everything.

  Give it to Lord Theron. All of it.

  Judah opened her mouth to speak.

  “Oh,” Elly said, sounding surprised. “Theron, your nose is bleeding.”

  And it was: a thin but steady stream of blood that grew even steadier as Theron reached up to touch it. He squinted at his bloody fingers in puzzlement. Then he collapsed.

  Elly cried out. So did Gavin, maybe. Judah couldn’t tell. Elly pulled Theron’s head into her lap as his entire body began to shake. Gavin tried to take off his brother’s glasses. Judah knelt next to him. Fumbli
ng with the cold bottle and its impossibly tiny cork with fingers that felt huge and clumsy. The moment we leave. Theron’s breathing was loud and frightening, as if he were being choked from the inside. His eyes were wide but unseeing. The whites showed all the way around the blue. Elly and Gavin were calling his name. The cork flew out. Judah said, “Hold his head,” surprised at how cool she sounded. She grabbed his chin and forced his mouth open, emptying the bottle into it. The liquid was clear and thin, like water. Then she held his mouth closed again and he choked and gagged and she thought, what if I’m killing him, what if this is me killing him right now?

  His spine arched. The heels of his boots slammed against the floor. His eyes rolled back in his head and then closed. He went limp.

  In the absence of his terrible breathing the silence was nightmarish. Elly seemed to be holding her breath and Judah could not breathe, either. I’ve killed him, she thought, once again stunned by how easily she could think that.

  Then Theron inhaled, a great ragged whoop. His next breath was easier, and the one after that. Soon he was breathing normally. His eyes remained closed.

  “What just happened?” Elly turned to Judah. “What was that? Where did you get it?”

  “The apprentice. He said to give it to him as soon as they left.” Over Theron’s inert body, still lying half in Elly’s lap, Judah met Gavin’s eyes. “He knew.”

  Elly brushed Theron’s sweat-drenched hair away from his forehead. “Arkady tried to poison him.” She seemed to be testing the idea, speaking it aloud to see if the words sounded true. “Why would he do that? Why would Arkady want Theron dead? The Seneschal said they wanted to make sure he was healthy, because—” Her eyes widened. No fool, Elly. “Because there are rumors in the city that he’s ill. That he’s dying.”

  It was awful, watching the pieces fall into place in Elly’s mind. Judah found the tiny cork, and jammed it back into the mouth of the empty bottle. Which just felt like glass, now. Not cold at all.

  “Who wants Theron dead?” Elly’s voice was flat and furious. “Why?”

  Judah didn’t answer. Gavin’s eyes were fixed on his unconscious brother. Parsing it out, as Judah had before Theron collapsed, trying to figure out how much to say. Tell her, Judah thought to him, even though that wasn’t the way the bond worked. Tell her everything.

  “Because he’ll be a horrible commander,” Gavin finally said.

  Elly looked at Judah. Who, for all of her grand intentions, found that she could not say the words, now that Elly was waiting to hear them, and who had to watch as Elly’s lips pressed together, as her eyes grew hard.

  “You let me deliver him to them,” she said softly. “Both of you.” Then she leaned down, kissed Theron’s forehead and stood up.

  Gavin stood up, too. “Where are you going?” He sounded alarmed.

  “We,” Elly said, in a cold, furious tone Judah had never heard before, “all of us, are going to put Theron to bed, and not leave him lying on the floor like garbage nobody cares about. Then we are going to close the door, and we are going to come back out into this room, and the two of you will tell me absolutely everything.” She looked at Judah. “Grab his legs.”

  * * *

  They didn’t tell her absolutely everything—Gavin did not mention Amie of Porterfield—but they told her enough. Elly didn’t speak for hours afterward. She sat by the bed where Theron lay—Gavin’s bed, not the hard little cot in the alcove—and watched his thin chest rise and fall. The light outside dwindled and died, and still she sat. When Judah or Gavin tried to speak to her, she only nodded or shook her head. Even those movements were remote.

  A kitchen boy brought dinner. Nobody ate much. The boy came back for the trays. The House grew quiet.

  Judah expected Arkady or the Seneschal to come to see what they’d wrought, but neither did. Gavin stretched out on the sofa. Judah tried to get Elly to sleep, too, but her efforts only produced the faraway shake of the head, so she herself lay down on Theron’s cold, dusty bed. She wanted to be close if anything happened.

  She didn’t expect to sleep, but eventually she did.

  In the morning, she awoke to see cobwebs in the corners of Theron’s alcove. She sat up, rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and went into Gavin’s room. Elly sat where Judah had left her the night before. “No change,” she said.

  Theron lay exactly as Judah had last seen him. Even his head rested at the same angle. Grief filled Judah. “I gave it to him too late,” she said. “I waited too long.”

  “Don’t.”

  “I was afraid it was a trick. I was afraid he’d given me the poison instead of the cure. Because, why me? Why would he give it to me?”

  “Because nobody ever notices you,” Elly said. The words stung, but they were true. Elly stood up and shook out her skirt. “I heard breakfast come. We should eat.”

  Bread and greens and grapefruit and spun honey, but Judah couldn’t eat, couldn’t wrench herself out of those precious seconds she’d wasted, standing idle while the poison worked its way through Theron’s body. If he died because of her, she’d never forgive herself. Elban’s grip over Gavin would die with him and that thought was even more shameful; once she’d had it, Judah knew she didn’t deserve to forgive herself, not ever. Elly, spreading honey on bread, seemed so serene. Even sleepless and wan, even furious, Elly’s essential goodness shone through. Judah knew that shameful thought would never occur to her.

  She cursed herself. She wished it were her life at stake, so she could end it.

  Fingers laced through hers. Gavin’s. He’d sat beside her and she’d been so trapped in her guilt that she hadn’t noticed. He squeezed her hand and she felt the thorny tangle of his mind, as gnarled as her own. Elly was so good at wearing the face she needed to wear, and Judah no longer knew what was true. She knew she loved Theron. She knew she didn’t want him to die.

  Toward evening he began to stir. Small movements at first, like watching a room being lit one tiny candle at a time. Gavin pulled the cot into the main bedroom and they took turns sleeping there. When Theron opened his eyes in the early hours of the morning, Elly was asleep on the cot, Gavin on the sofa out in the parlor. Judah was the one sitting next to Theron’s bed and his eyelids had been fluttering for almost an hour, so she was watching when they opened. For a few frightening moments, as his gaze wandered the room aimlessly, she was afraid he was blind. But then their roaming stopped, and he seemed to see her.

  “Theron.” She spoke quietly, so she didn’t wake Elly. “Can you hear me?”

  For a few even more frightening moments, she thought he was deaf. Then he nodded. His lips moved and he said something. She couldn’t hear, so she leaned closer, and he tried again.

  “What happened?” he said.

  They hadn’t talked about this, about what they’d tell Theron. Judah didn’t know what to say. “You’ve been sick,” she said finally. It wasn’t a lie.

  Theron’s eyes drifted, befuddled, to Elly’s sleeping form. “Arkady was here.”

  “Yes.”

  “Wasn’t sick then.”

  “No.” Judah’s eyes were hot.

  Theron seemed to think about this for a moment. Normally, to watch Theron think was to be in the presence of a tightly-wound machine, whirring away behind his eyes. This felt different. This felt like watching water drip out of a leaky bucket. He just woke up, she thought. He’s still half-asleep. He’s still sick.

  “Tonic,” he said dreamily. “Poison.”

  Judah’s eyes closed. She made herself open them. “Yes.”

  This didn’t seem to bother him. “Alive.”

  She tried to smile. “It’s a long story, love.” But he was already asleep again. Judah felt cold and frightened. Just woke up, she told herself. Half-asleep. Sick.

  But the shameful thing that crouched inside her whispering horrible truths knew better. Throughout the nig
ht, the cycle repeated: Theron would wake, ask what had happened, and go back to sleep. By morning he was sitting up, holding a cup of coffee Elly had made for him, pale with cream and thick with sugar. He didn’t seem to be able to remember it existed long enough to drink it. Every time he noticed it in his hand, he seemed surprised all over again. He would answer a question if it was put to him, and he didn’t seem unhappy. But neither did he seem like Theron. He was content to sit in bed, eat what they gave him, and listen when they talked, all while wearing the same pleasant, vaguely surprised expression. Theron would rather work than sleep, always, and he was restless when not actively busy. But now he didn’t ask to get out of bed, or complain when they told him to rest. He didn’t even ask for a book.

  It was unsettling. Judah suspected that, like her, Elly and Gavin hoped he would fall asleep again so the three of them could confer. He didn’t. And yet, on some level, it was as if he’d never woken up. When dinner arrived, Elly made him a plate and took it to him; Judah and Gavin stayed in the parlor, picking glumly at their own food. They were surprised when, only a few minutes after she’d gone into the bedroom, Elly came back out and closed the door behind her.

  “I told him I’d be back after I’d eaten,” she said. “He didn’t seem to mind.”

  “Why is he like this?” Gavin said. The question came from the thorny place inside him, and wasn’t directed at anybody in particular.

  But Elly answered, her voice chilly. “I don’t know. We could send for Arkady, if you like, and ask him.” She crossed the room and poured herself a glass of wine. Then she sat down.

  “I’ll do it,” she said. “I’ll marry Elban.”

  Judah couldn’t speak. “No,” Gavin said. “I won’t let you.”

  “It’s not for you to let me do,” Elly said. “But of course it wouldn’t have occurred to you to ask my opinion on the subject, because nobody’s ever asked my opinion about anything in my entire life. Why start now?”