by Rosalyn Eves
I selected a piece of bread and nibbled at it, considering. When I came out of the Binding, Lady Berri had said that something held me there. A part of me was there yet, a dull yearning that never eased. Had Hunger spelled me, sealing me to the Binding spell with my own desires? Had it been a side effect of the laudanum? Or something else, something deeper, truer? “Can you still find a way for me to get back into the Binding?”
She frowned. “I believe so. I will need to complete some minor spell work before we attempt it again.” Her eyes met mine. “Three nights from now, I shall be along to fetch you. Be ready.”
Ready? I nearly laughed. How does one prepare to end the world? To start anew? Even with years to prepare, I imagined I could not ever be ready.
But to go into the spell again? Ah. For that, I was more than ready.
Ginny brought in the mail with my morning tea and set the tray beside me in my bed. For a wonder, there were three letters, including one from James. I slid my finger beneath the seal, curious to find how his Romani magic was progressing.
The letter was to the point. Someone ratted me out, and the magic tutor discovered my ring and your letters. I’ve been sent down. They were asking me where you got the ring, but I wouldn’t tell them anything. Be careful.
I dropped the letter on the covers, my fingers suddenly numb.
Ginny, who was laying out my dress for the day, noticed my stillness. “Is everything all right, Miss Anna? Bad news from your family?”
“James has been sent home from Eton.”
She smiled a little. “A prank, no doubt. I shouldn’t worry. Boys will be boys.”
“No.” It was strangely difficult to force the word through my lips. “It’s worse than that. He’s done something illegal.” Something I told him to do.
I did not want to read the other letters. I knew what they said. Mama would find a way to blame James’s failure on me, though James would not have told her the truth. Papa might suspect my involvement, but he would speculate instead how James had come by the talisman, and his careful nonblame would hurt more than all Mama’s railings. I set the letters down and flung my covers aside. The need for action was already building in my limbs, energy fizzing through my blood and into my brain.
I could not bear to think of James. The only solution was to cram my mind so full of other things there would be no time for reflection.
I had meant to show the letter to Gábor, to give him notice if there was anything to James’s warning. But he was not anywhere in the house. I begged Mátyás to accompany me to Café Pilvax, hoping to find Gábor there.
“I’ll come too,” Noémi said. “I’m not expected at the hospital until this afternoon, and there won’t be many more fair mornings.”
Mátyás and I exchanged a glance. I suspected Noémi might not like what she found at the café: conversations about revolution—and William.
Indeed, Noémi spotted William almost as soon as she had crossed the threshold. She stood in the gathering light from the large window facing the street and scowled. “What is he doing here?”
Neither Mátyás nor I answered. I scanned the crowd for Gábor, the familiar set of his shoulders, the dark curl of his hair. I had not realized, until my heart sank, how much I depended upon finding him.
While Mátyás and Noémi secured spots at a nearby table, William cornered me.
“Well, Miss Arden. Have you found a way to break the Binding?”
I did not mean to tell him—I had planned to break the Binding in secret and let the students challenge the Austrian government in the wake of the Circle’s collapse. But William must have seen something change in my face.
“You have! Come, this is encouraging. Tell me when it is to be, so we may be ready.”
I did not want the blood of boys on my hands, if it came to a fight. And this was so soon.
“You know I am fully capable of bivouacking on your doorstep and following you everywhere until I discover your secret.” He snapped his fingers. “Or perhaps we should begin our revolution at once, and when it fails, you will carry the guilt of our failure on your shoulders for the rest of your life.”
He would do it too. “You are detestable,” I said, and he grinned at me. I sighed, and told him what Lady Berri planned. We would break the Binding if we could—the students might as well prepare for it.
“Was that so difficult? You’ve done well, Miss Arden. I must tell Petőfi at once.” He scurried off to fetch the poet from an argument in the back corner. They conferred animatedly for a moment, Petőfi gesticulating and William nodding.
His eyes shining, Petőfi rushed toward me. He grasped my hands in both of his. “Most noble lady, thank you. You have given us precisely what we need: a moment of crisis, a time to change everything. For weeks, months, we have deliberated with no clear plan, but you—you!—have given this to us. Words are easily come by, but it takes more to rouse men to action.”
I blushed, uncomfortable under his scrutiny and flowery prose. I did not feel particularly heroic. Rather, I felt flattened, pricked by worry for James and nagged by doubt. I believed I was right to break the Binding, but I feared for my friends if it came to open battle with the Circle.
After shaking my hands once more and pressing a kiss on my knuckles, Petőfi swept past me to Mátyás. “We’ll need you to go to the soldiers at Buda Castle, mislead and confuse them. Infiltrate their ranks. Mimic their leaders.”
Mátyás froze. “I’ve no training as a spy.”
“You’ve unprecedented gifts, William says. You should use them.” Petőfi clapped a hand on my cousin’s shoulder. “You’ll be the hero of Hungary when this is through.”
“I’ve no desire to be a hero. Surely there’s something else I can do? What you ask…it isn’t easy for me.”
Petőfi’s eyes flashed. “And you think this should be easy? What we do demands sacrifice, demands blood and honor and sweat and tears. You will do this for us because we need you.”
Mátyás nodded, but his eyes were uneasy and sweat beaded about his temples. None of this felt real, these boys arguing about their fight to come. They sounded precisely like James, playing at Napoleonic spy games. The poet moved on, murmuring instructions to others in the crowd: what weapons to gather and where to meet.
I crossed to Mátyás. “What was that about? What is it Petőfi wants you to do?”
Mátyás folded his arms. “I don’t wish to speak about it.” He cut his eyes at Noémi. “I hear you’ve agreed to break the Binding.”
His attempt at distraction worked. Noémi sprang up and plucked my ringed hand. She thrust it in my face. “Have you forgotten what the Circle will do to you if they find out?”
I pulled my hand back. I had not forgotten. Fear tightened in my gut, but I had chosen to trust Lady Berri. I had chosen to believe we were right to break this spell. The skin beneath the ring itched and burned, and I rubbed it absently, trying to ease the discomfort.
Noémi cast a scornful glance around the café, her eyes coming to rest on William, who was helping the poet organize the students. She stalked over to him, jabbing one finger into his chest. “And you! How can you suppose you will succeed against trained Austrian soldiers? Against the Circle? It will be a slaughterhouse.”
“Noémi,” Mátyás said, rising from his seat and putting his hands on her shoulders. “It will be all right.”
“It will not be all right!” she said. “When you fight, people die. You’ve seen nothing of death. I have.”
“Some things are worth dying for,” William said, his eyes burning. “ ‘Only this thought haunts me, that I might die in my bed, slowly withering like a flower.’ ”
The bittersweet words caught at my heart, but Noémi scoffed at them. “Oh yes. I’ve read Petőfi’s poem. One expects such thoughts of poets. But I had hoped you were rational men. There’s nothing heroic about dying.”
“We won’t die.” William smirked. “Have Mátyás bring you to my workshop. I’ll show you.”
“What makes you think I want anything to do with this?” Noémi asked. “I’d stop you if I could. But I—”
She broke off as a wiry man with thinning hair pushed his way through the crowd of students. “The Circle is rounding up Gypsies in Tabán! They mean to enforce the Hapsburg prohibition against non-Luminate magic. Should be quite a show.”
A show. Because of course punishment was only entertainment for those not involved. My heart shrank. Is that where Gábor disappeared? Then the knot of my heart twisted tighter. James’s letter. Was this the result of my folly? I had to do something. “Where is Tabán?”
“By Gellért Hill, on the Buda side,” Noémi said. A beat later, she realized my intent. “But, Anna, you can’t go there. Not today. Not ever. Even on a good day it’s not safe.”
“Someone must warn him. Them.”
Noémi shook her head and put her hand, very gently, over mine. “But not you.”
I hitched up my skirts and climbed onto a chair, pitching my voice to sound over the crowd. My Hungarian was rough, but it carried. “Please. Listen to me! Today, it is Romanies. But who will it be tomorrow? The Magyar? The Circle have already shown that they do not value anyone not like them. You must stop them!”
A half second’s shocked silence met my words, then the room erupted with jeers.
“What’s all this buzzing? Is a woman speaking?”
“She’s not even Magyar!”
“They’re only Gypsies!” a student cried. “It’s not our fight.”
“My girl, you shouldn’t be worrying your pretty head about our politics. I’ve got a much better idea of how you can occupy your time!” This last comment was accompanied by pursed lips and a very vulgar gesture.
I continued to stand for a moment, my chin held high and my cheeks burning. My stomach boiled with frustration. How could these men accept my help with the Binding—and then reject my plea? Because I was a girl did not mean I was witless.
I clambered down. “Mátyás, you must come with me. Gábor might be there.”
“There’s nothing we can do. What’s happening in Tabán has already begun.”
A scream burned in my throat. “How can you claim to be willing to sacrifice everything for a revolution—for an idea of justice—and be so unwilling to sacrifice anything for a friend. Are you afraid?”
He shook his head, though a shadow passed through his eyes. “If we act now, we’ll draw the Circle’s attention too early. That will spoil any advantage we have of surprise. Sometimes you have to sacrifice small things to win great ones.”
“Gábor is not a thing, and you cannot win a revolution on cowardice,” I said. As soon as the hurt registered in his eyes, I hated myself a bit. But only a little, because under the cover of my fury, the river of my fear ran deep, deep, deep. I had to find Gábor before the Circle retribution against the Romanies swept him up too.
Mátyás tightened his lips as if he would protest, but said only, “I’m taking you home. The streets may not be safe.”
Then, flanking me, Mátyás and Noémi marched me home like a prisoner.
They deposited me in the drawing room with Grandmama, very much as if I were an unwanted parcel. I knew they escorted me into the room solely to make it more difficult for me to slip away and find Gábor. I sent Mátyás a black look as he left, but he only grinned.
“Did you have a nice time with your friends?” Grandmama asked.
“Yes.” I choked down a half-hysterical laugh. A nice time. We plotted revolution while the Circle rounded up Romanies in Tabán. What would they do to the Romanies they found? Confiscate their talismans, certainly. Execute them? The idea made my heart cold.
Noémi took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders, as if gathering her resolve.
“Irína néni,” she began, crossing the Turkish carpet toward Grandmama. “You must reason with Anna.”
No. Grandmama couldn’t know. She would only worry—and forbid me to act. “Noémi, don’t.”
Noémi paused to look back at me, her eyebrows pinched together, her eyes troubled. “Anna, I must speak. You live by your conscience. I must live by mine.” She swung back to Grandmama. “Anna and Mátyás’s ridiculous student friends are determined on a revolution. They think they can take down the Circle on the strength of a broken Binding.”
Grandmama turned concerned eyes on me. “Is this true?”
I lifted my chin, fury burning hard and hot in my chest. “It’s true.” The reproach in her eyes was hard to bear, but I bore it. “Without the Circle controlling magic, anyone might cast spells. It won’t matter so much if I can’t use magic, if James can’t, because magic won’t be the only thing determining one’s worth. Beyond that, without the Circle bolstering the Hapsburgs in Vienna, Hungary might finally be free. I know you love this country. Can’t you see that this is the right thing to do? Papa believes it; so does Lady Berri. And so do I.”
Grandmama’s face softened a fraction. “When?”
I did not answer, so Noémi spoke for me. “Tomorrow night.”
Grandmama set her cane against the floor and tried to push herself upright. Her hand trembled, so she could not maintain a firm grip. Noémi and I both started for her, but Noémi reached her first, helping her to stand. I was only a few paces away when Grandmama said, “Anna, I understand why your heart is in this—but you cannot do it. I forbid it. I will not betray your mother’s trust this way.”
I set my teeth against the pain in her eyes. I did not like to disappoint Grandmama, but I had given my word.
“I will stop you,” Grandmama continued. “I will set wards around your room.”
I could break a ward, if I must.
Grandmama added, “And if the wards fail, I’ll set a footman to watch you.”
I swallowed my words of protest and turned on my heel. I marched down the hallway toward my bedchamber, seeing neither the patterned wallpaper nor the ornately framed pictures. I saw instead Gábor’s face, and James’s. I knew Noémi and Grandmama only acted out of concern for me, but that knowledge did nothing to stem the hot anger coursing through me.
Once in my room, I paced the floor. I threw myself onto my bed and screamed into my pillow. And then I looked at the bedclothes beneath my hand.
It only took moments to strip the bedclothes from the bed and fashion knots between them—heaven knew knots were the one thing for which my embroidery skills prepared me. I eased open the window. I had never escaped this way, but heroines did it all the time in books.
Someone tapped at my door, and my heart leapt into my throat.
“Anna? May I come in?” Noémi.
“I’ve no wish to speak to you.” Let her think I was sulking.
A deep sigh. “I want to help.”
“You don’t want to help. You want a world where things go on the same. I don’t.”
“I do want change. But not your way.”
I had to send her away. It was not hard to let bitterness infuse my voice, to craft an edge sharp enough to draw blood. “I liked you, Noémi. I trusted you. But now I wish I’d never met you.”
A long pause. A faint shuffling, then silence.
She was gone.
I steeled my heart against guilt and threw my makeshift rope out the window.
In books, the heroine never has any difficulty escaping through her window. I ran into trouble almost immediately: between my corset and my petticoats, I could not fit. I stripped off some of the petticoats, but I could do nothing about the corset or the narrow sleeves of my gown without summoning Ginny to help me undress, and she would feel duty-bound to tell Grandmama.
After much maneuvering, I managed to get out of the window, skirt and lower limbs first. The stitching beneath my sleeves tore, and the rope itself gave way when I was still a good six feet above the ground. I landed with a bone-jarring thud in the garden courtyard at the center of Grandmama’s rented palace and limped through the back gates toward the mews behind.
I hired a
fiacre to take me to the Duna and crossed the pontoon bridge into Buda after paying a small toll. Normally, Luminate did not have to pay the toll, but with my torn dress and lopsided skirts, no one would believe I was noble. The boats beneath the planks rocked as I crossed on unsteady feet. Buda Castle hovered above me on the hillside, the banners of the Hapsburgs flying briskly over the ramparts. The hills around the castle were transmuting into a rainbow of gold, ocher, crimson, and umber.
On the far side of the river, I stopped to ask directions of a middle-aged woman. She eyed me askance, but pointed obligingly.
Tabán, as I approached it, was not as I’d expected. I’d pictured a collection of narrow streets full of squalid buildings. But though the streets were indeed narrow and largely unpaved, the single-story houses lining the roads were for the most part clean, their walls scrubbed and freshly whitewashed.
The streets were empty, dry leaves scuttling across the packed earth, though I sensed eyes on me through the occasional cracked door or narrow window. Shouts rang out ahead of me, and I followed the sound, my heart thumping against my breastbone. The noise brought back the horrible afternoon when Noémi and I had been barred from the Romani camp. My steps slowed, but I forced myself onward.
As the noise grew louder, I clung to the whitewashed buildings, at last finding a narrow alleyway to slip through. It opened onto a larger, unpaved street, which in turn gave way to an open space that might be called a square, were it more properly formed. I proceeded cautiously down the street and positioned myself behind a wall of bystanders.
The square was full of people: Romanies, Circle members, onlookers. The handful of Luminate were easy to identify by their fine clothes. There was not much to choose from between the Romanies and the bystanders, most of whom wore plain, patched clothing. But the darker-skinned Romanies were being herded to the far side of the square, and their faces bore tracks of tears and tight-twisted mouths. Some invisible spell seemed to hold them in place. The onlookers reminded me of nothing so much as crows gathered around carrion. Were I an Elementalist, I’d have cast a Wind spell to knock all of them onto their rears in a fine patch of mud.
