“You made it a long way,” he said, his voice kind. Not at all mocking. Last time he’d mocked. Last time he’d been twelve. “You did really well.”
“It isn’t fair,” she said. “None of it is fair. I want to go see her and I can’t.”
She expected him to say something bland and reassuring. It’s all right. It will all be fine. But instead, he surveyed the staircase winding above them, eyeing the gap. His legs were longer, but he was heavier. “Shall we try it together? If I go with you?”
“No,” she said, and she hated—again—that there was not even a second when it seemed possible. “Not now.”
“She’ll come down when she’s ready,” he said gently. Then he helped her turn around, and she counted the steps that she’d climbed and saw that there were only eight of them, and almost wept.
* * *
She met the Seneschal in the courtyard, because Judah wasn’t there to do it. Surprise painted plain on his face, he said, “Is Judah ill?”
“No,” Eleanor said, although it had been four days and she had no way of knowing, truly. The magus came every day, went all the way up to the tower. He assured them all that Judah was fine, warm, eating. As Elly took the bag from the Seneschal, it felt lighter than it should have, and she glanced inside: a bottle of oil, a bag of oats, some dried meat of uncertain origin. All things that would make their life possible while sending a very clear message that it would never be pleasant.
But it was a lovely fall day, crisp and not at all damp. Around her neck Eleanor wore a scarf made of pale wool, plainly knit and as clean as it would ever get. She had made it herself, and her neck was warm. She didn’t know what game the Seneschal was playing; it didn’t matter. She would wake up each day and figure out how to survive and she would make sure the others survived, too. If the Seneschal wanted to kill them, he would have to use a knife.
“Have you thought about what you want to do?” he said.
“Actually, I’ve been thinking about the day Theron was poisoned.” The words were carefully chosen. If she accused the Seneschal outright, the magus might pay for it.
Neutrally, he said, “The day he fell ill, you mean.”
“The day Arkady poisoned him,” she said. “He was healthy, and Arkady made him drink something, and he nearly died. I’m not stupid, Seneschal.”
“I never thought you were.” But there was something new in his voice.
“Elban wouldn’t have poisoned Theron, not without being there to see. He liked to watch the suffering he caused. But somebody gave Arkady the order; he never did anything without an order. And when I think about who that somebody could have been, the only person I can think of is you.”
The Seneschal’s flat gray eyes studied her carefully. Finally he said, “It wasn’t a decision I made lightly. At the time, it seemed the best way to protect the rest of you. And I wasn’t happy with the result, if it matters. Arkady told me it would be painless.”
“You did it for us.” Eleanor’s tone was aloof and cool, exactly the way her protocol tutors had taught her that a Lady of the City spoke.
He nodded. “Elban was pushing Gavin too hard, and Gavin was weak. He was going to break. I needed him not to break. I needed more time.”
“To arrange your coup.”
“Yes. Not enough of the guards were on my side yet. Gavin would have killed Theron if Elban had kept pushing him, and I think murdering his brother would have driven Gavin insane, don’t you? I didn’t want him insane. I still don’t. Will you go back to Tiernan?”
“Why should I?”
“Because you can. You can be with your family.”
“My family is here,” Elly said. “Until you try to kill them again. And maybe even afterward; your success rate isn’t great.”
“If I wanted you dead, you would be.” He smiled as he said it. It was an appreciative smile, almost friendly. Eleanor said nothing; merely stood, icy, and watched. The longer they stood, the more his smile withered. Eventually, it died. In its place was something suspicious and hard.
“Where is Judah?” he said.
She didn’t quail. She had trained for this; her whole life had been training for this. And the moment was supposed to take place in a throne room or at a state dinner instead of a deserted courtyard, and she was supposed to be wearing velvet and silks instead of a plain dress and old boots. But it was the same, it was all the same. The Seneschal stared at her, a new awareness dawning. His lip curled in a snarl.
She was not afraid.
Chapter Seventeen
Judah was tired of fighting. The scratches on her cheek were fresh and bleeding and she was tired of impossible decisions that benefited everybody but her. She wanted away. She didn’t want to be sought and found the way they were always seeking and finding each other. She didn’t want the nagging awareness of Gavin at the edge of her mind and she didn’t want the nagging knowledge that Elly was toiling away at some menial chore, and she didn’t want the nagging guilt of knowing that Theron was what he was because of what she’d failed to be. Darid was alive and that was impossibly wonderful, but Gavin had lied to her about it and that enraged her, and she could not think of one without the other, and the mixture made her feel sick. She didn’t want the Seneschal. She didn’t want the magus. She didn’t want any of it.
She went to the old wing, but that wasn’t away enough. She could easily be found there. Only one place existed in the House where she could not be pursued, could not be sought out. So she pushed aside the tapestry, like the magus had done; gazed up at the staircase, spiraling into the dim reaches of the tower; hesitated only a moment, and began to climb.
The slit windows let in just enough light for her to see her feet and the edge. When she came to the crumbled place, the stones protruding from the wall seemed barely wide enough to hold a foot. The last time she’d been here, she and Gavin had stood on the edge and he’d said, Dare you, and she’d said, No, thanks, I plan to live to see adulthood. Then a rock had fallen. He’d laughed. She’d laughed. The truth was that neither of them particularly wanted to climb the tower; they’d climbed other towers, and found nothing but old furniture and dust. They’d been looking for an adventure, and towers were boring. Not an adventure at all.
Now, though: now, she wanted to. Because nobody else would. Gavin was too heavy and Elly was too scared and Theron never came to the workshop anymore. She would be left alone. She would be away.
She put one foot out, and then another, balancing across the gap with each foot on a stub of stone. The gap was smaller than she’d thought. The stone held her weight without even a wobble. She reached out for the next stub with her toe and tested, as careful as she had ever been in her life, to see if it would break and clatter to the floor below. It didn’t. Neither did the next one. The step after that was across an uncomfortable-looking span, onto a triangular stone with its bottom half flaked off. If it broke she would fall. There was nothing to hold on to, nothing to grab. She shifted her weight. Lifted her back foot. Swung her leg carefully—ever so carefully—forward.
But either the piece wasn’t as small as she thought, or wasn’t as far away as she thought, because the uncomfortable span was not so uncomfortable at all. Neither was the next. Her hand clung to the tower’s curved inner wall, finding nooks and holes to curl her fingers into, and each step was easier than the one before that. The magus had said the stairs would be passable, if someone were determined enough, and she was: determined enough to keep climbing as the stairs wound up and up, around and around, higher than seemed possible. There were more broken places, but she navigated them as easily as she had the first. The teeth always turned out to be larger and more secure than they first appeared, the spaces between them easily crossed. Up and up, around and around. The air changed; it became fresher and colder, as if a window were open. She didn’t even feel tired. In fact, she felt—was it elated? Was that the word?
Then, suddenly, there were no more steps. She stood on a small stone landing, facing a wooden door. The lock had been broken—annihilated, really, there was nothing but a jagged hole in the wood—and the door hung open. She frowned; the stairs would probably be enough of a deterrent, but she wished the lock worked, too. The door pushed open stiffly on corroded hinges. She stepped through.
And immediately understood why the air felt so fresh and cold. Half the tower looked like the workshop below, lined with shelves and cupboards. Several small tables dotted the room, none upright; a high stool and a settee seemed to have fared better, although the settee had one broken foot and listed at an awkward angle. Scraps of brown paper crumbled amid piles of dead leaves and bundles of feathers, twigs and eggshells that might once have been birds’ nests. Spiderwebs and wasp hives, abandoned for winter, sprouted from the shelves. Against one toppled-over table, the leaves and detritus had broken down enough that a small tree had managed to take root. It was frail, but surviving. Nobody had been up here in a very long time.
The other half of the tower was...gone. There was no rubble, no debris; it was as if an enormous mouth had bitten the top of it away, leaving neat, smooth edges. The floor was mostly intact, a nearly perfect circle, but only half of the roof remained and at least a third of the wall was missing. Beyond was open air, the ripe gold that presaged sunset.
She walked to the edge of the broken place. The parti-colored roof of the House spread out below her; off to the left, the sun glinted on what was surely the glass roof of the solarium, and above it she could just see the treetops of the wood where Elban had taken Gavin and Theron hunting. In the distance, of course, was the Wall. What she couldn’t see, in any direction, was the ground itself, which meant that someone standing there would not be able to see her, either. This tower wasn’t secret, but forgotten. The smoke and spires of the city were behind her. She didn’t know what lay over the Wall in the direction she was looking. Nobody had ever told her, she’d never thought to ask, and all she could see was sky.
Something in her eased. Away, she thought. I’m away.
An undamaged colored glass window was set into the wall opposite the demolished one. On the floor beneath it, broken metal pieces lay on the floor—gears, tubes—and a small round panel set into the window looked as if it were meant to slide, or maybe even open. She couldn’t get it to move and lost interest quickly. Under the thick mat of leaves on the floor were the same overlapping circles that decorated the chapel windows, inlaid in colored stone. She opened a few of the books on the shelves, but the writing inside them wasn’t any language she recognized. Since she couldn’t read the books, she used three of them to prop up the broken corner of the settee. In a chest in the corner she found a long piece of dark fabric, not too mildewed; she wrapped it around herself and curled up on the settee.
The sun was setting, and the break in the tower wall spread open before her like a stage. Pale rose deepened; became orange, gold, even a ferocious fuchsia that would have rivaled the gaudiest courtier’s gown. Judah leaned her head against the high carved back of the settee and watched. The colors melted, changed, darkened. A seemingly impossible number of stars flared to life. The air was cold. She was not. The moon crept into view, wide and gleaming. Her eyes grew heavy, and closed.
* * *
When she woke, Theron sat hunched on the floor, ankles crossed and arms wrapped tightly around his knees. The sky outside was new-dawn blue. She had slept through the night and into the morning, later than she’d slept in months. Poor Elly would have to milk the ewe alone.
She sat up, which set off a cascade of protesting muscles in her back and neck from the unfamiliar settee. “Here,” Theron said, and handed her a flask. She felt the warmth of the contents through the thick ceramic, and was grateful. “It’s just water, but it’s hot. I used Elly’s quickstove.”
“She’ll be mad at you for wasting the gas,” Judah said, and Theron said, “She wasn’t there.”
The water tasted stale but the warmth was good. “How did you find me?”
“The cats told me,” he said as if it were a perfectly reasonable answer. “But I don’t think Elly will believe that.” His throat worked as he swallowed hard. His eyes darted nervously around the room. “I can’t stay here, Jude. I’m not sure I can come back, even. It feels...tangled. Like being stuck in a thornbush. And the air—” His thin shoulders twitched. “I can’t stay here,” he said again.
Judah could feel nothing wrong with the air. It was damp and crisp and fresh. “I’m not ready to go back. Tell Elly—” she hesitated “—I’ll be down soon.”
But she didn’t go down. Toward noon she felt a tentative scratch on her wrist: Sorry. Please. Come. Talk. She ignored it.
* * *
When she heard footsteps the next morning, she was lying on the floor, watching the clouds. Theron again, she thought, and didn’t even feel inspired to call out. The ruined door opened and the footsteps crossed the floor. They didn’t sound like Theron. She looked up just as the magus sat down next to her, breathing hard.
“That’s a lot of steps. Here.” He dropped a bag in front of her. All sorts of delicious smells emanated from it. Judah realized she was starving. She fell greedily on the food inside: real bread—she tore off a piece immediately and stuffed it into her mouth—a small jar of shredded meat, two juicy-looking red fruits, and chocolate. Slightly grainy, less sweet than she liked it. But chocolate all the same.
The magus watched her eat with as much pleasure as if he’d been eating the food himself. Then he said, “Eleanor sent me. Has she always been afraid of heights?”
Judah’s mouth was stuffed with bread and chocolate. The combination was divine. “One of her brothers used to chase her up trees,” she said through the food. “And then shake them until she was so terrified that she’d do anything he said if he let her down.”
“I thought it might be something like that.”
Judah swallowed. She had eaten exactly half of the chocolate and exactly half of the bread. Opening the jar of meat, she sniffed. Vinegar and pepper; underneath, the carnal smells of blood and flesh. “Did you bring a fork?”
“Spoon. In the bag.”
Good enough. The meat tasted better than it smelled. Some spice in it reminded her of state dinners. “Are you here to talk me into coming down?” she said.
“Not in the least,” he said. “But I think the Seneschal is still expecting an answer to his proposal.”
“Ha.” Now she had eaten half of the meat, too. She found the lid, screwed it back on.
“Being Lady Seneschal doesn’t appeal?”
“I would rather die,” she said, and knew it was true.
The magus nodded. “Wise choice. Don’t trust him.”
“Theron says the same about you.” She lay back down on the cold stone, enjoying her full stomach. The Seneschal seemed a thousand miles away, trustworthy or not. “Of course, Theron also says that being in this tower feels like being stuck in a thornbush, and he gets messages from invisible cats, so probably Theron’s insane.”
The magus lay down next to her. “Theron’s not insane. He’s not normal. But he’s not insane. He’s...complicated. He said the tower feels like a thornbush?”
“Something like that.” Suddenly, she didn’t want to talk about Theron. She didn’t want to think about him. Theron made her sad.
He hesitated, and then said, “Eleanor told me about the stableman. I’m sorry. I thought they’d told you.”
“Were you in on that, too?”
He nodded. “He seemed like a decent person, which is more than I can say for the courtier Eleanor enlisted to help.”
“Firo?” She smiled. “He’s no worse than most courtiers. Better than some, I think. Have you seen Darid? Since then, I mean.”
“No,” the magus said. “Last I heard, he was planning on leaving the city.�
��
Judah turned back to the clouds. Darid, alive. Darid, out of the city. She pictured him, walking down a dusty road. Passing a green field. The field might be full of horses. The horses might be in foal. “Good,” she finally said.
“You know,” the magus said, “the city wasn’t always the way it is now.”
“I’m sure under Elban, it was much better,” Judah said.
“I’m not talking about Elban.” There was distaste in his voice. “What Elban called his empire was nothing but a group of greedy thugs that more or less agreed not to kill each other. And the Seneschal might think he’s different, but he’s not. I’m talking about before Elban. There were laws, then. Courts. There had to be, to hold together an empire that big. People aren’t all the same, you know. They have different feelings, wants, perspectives. But they’re all people.”
“You weren’t alive before Elban,” she said.
“No, but my ancestors were,” the magus said. “And they passed the stories down to me. Do you want to hear this, or don’t you?”
“Sure,” she said. “Why not? I like stories.”
“Well, years ago, the Lords of Highfall held everything from the Barriers to the eastern sea. Then one of them decided he wanted more. You know about the wasteland in the north?”
“I know there is one.”
“I’ve been there. Nothing grows. It doesn’t rain, it doesn’t snow—most of the time when people say wasteland, they mean desert, but deserts aren’t wastelands at all. Deserts are filled with life. The north isn’t like that. There was a war, a thousand years ago, between Pala and the Temple Argent—”
“They fought a war and destroyed themselves in the process. Everybody lost.” Some tutor had told them about it years ago.
The Unwilling Page 46
