“I thought that should be obvious.”
“No,” Wil said. “Your kingdom, I mean. You really would do anything to try and save it.”
He folded the cloth and set it on the nightstand. “That place—it’s in my blood.”
“It’s in your father’s blood, too,” Wil pointed out, her tone gentle. “Maybe he’s got his own plan for it.”
“My father cares only for his pride,” Loom said. “A kingdom is more than a mass of land. It’s more than imports and exports. There are people living—dying—in the shadows of a mountain palace where my father spends his days giving orders to servants and grooming my sister to be just like him.” He was talking faster now, as though the words were a flood he had been holding in. “I can’t explain it; I know you’re not from my world, that you should have no reason to care, but I know you’ll understand if I can show you. I know it.”
“Because you have a sense about me.” Wil rested her elbow to the knee of her good leg, offering a sympathetic smile. “Even if I were exactly as you hoped and dreamed, I can’t work miracles. I can’t fix a kingdom. That sort of thing takes generations. Resources. Council. It will take more than just a banished prince and a girl with a curse.”
Loom shrugged. “Prove me wrong, then.”
“Suppose I do just that,” Wil said. “Will you still take me to Pahn?”
“I always honor my word.” After a beat, he offered his hand.
Wil stared at it a moment, and then she took it in hers, offering a firm shake to confirm their deal.
“You’ll still take me at my word after I stole your ship?” Wil withdrew her hand, pretending she didn’t want to savor the warmth of his grasp. It had been so long since she could touch any living thing without fear. She still didn’t trust this odd immunity of Loom’s, though every muscle within her remembered how it had felt when he scooped her out of the water. Even through the pain and the anger, even though his glibness had infuriated her, just knowing that someone could still touch her made her feel like she was still a part of this world. She was still human.
“It could have been a clean getaway,” Loom said. “You could have turned Ada to diamond, then chopped him into bits and sold the shards to pay your way. That’s what Zay kept screaming you would do.”
“She really thought I would do that?”
“Try to understand, most people in her life have betrayed her. She can be . . . wary.”
“Same could be said for you,” Wil told him.
“I’m profusely wary,” he said, though his easy grin spoke to the contrary. “Especially of you. And perhaps it will be my downfall, but I’m glad our paths crossed.”
“Wish I could say the same,” Wil mumbled, and averted her eyes so they wouldn’t betray her lie.
It was quiet for a while, and then Loom said, “Wil?”
“Yes?”
“What is it, exactly, you are expecting Pahn to do for you?”
“I thought that was obvious. I want him to tell me why this is happening to me, and how to be rid of it.” She studied his grim expression. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those who doesn’t believe marvelers are legitimate.”
“I don’t need to believe anything,” Loom said. “I have seen for myself and I know full well what marvelers can do. But—there will be a cost.”
“I’ll pay it.”
His laugh was caustic. “You don’t know what it will be.”
Wil shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.” Whatever the cost, it wouldn’t be more than what this curse had already cost her. Though she braced herself for it, the reminder of her family knocked her off guard. The way that Owen had stared at her as he died, as though he had always known he would one day give his life for hers. And her father casting her away. Her mother back at the castle covering the mirrors and whispering mourning songs. Gerdie, whom she could never face again unless she were fixed.
She raised her chin, hoping that Loom had not been able to read any of this on her face.
He didn’t say another word.
TWENTY-FOUR
FOR MOST OF THE DAY, Wil slept fitfully. She dreamed that she made it back to Arrod, and that she climbed the castle wall to enter through her bedroom window. Only all the windows had been replaced by mirrors draped in black gossamer, and the gossamer ensnared her until she was drowning.
The dead were not allowed to return.
By the time she managed to free herself from the tangles of her nightmare, it was evening. Her leg still ached, though it was more manageable.
Limping to keep her weight on her good leg, she made her way to the chamber’s bath. She bathed carefully, and changed into the white satin tunic and trousers that were left folded by the sink, presumably by Loom.
She didn’t bother with her gloves or her boots. With all the sand and stone, there was precious little out here to be her victim. For that reason alone, she liked this place. Not that she would say as much aloud.
The castle was quiet and still, and Wil was grateful there was no one to witness the pathetic way she hobbled down the steps, trying to keep her weight off her bad leg.
She found Loom by a fire he’d built along the shore, turning caught fish over the flames.
“Hey,” he said, glancing as she positioned herself beside him. “I was going to come up in a little bit and see if you were hungry.”
“Starved,” she admitted. She had the vague recollection that he’d been to her room and set a plate of toast and fruit on the nightstand, but she’d been too tired to reach for it.
He handed her a plate of freshly cooked fish. The plate, like the glass from earlier, was finely etched crystal. “How’s your leg? I’d tell you to stay off it, but I’d have better luck telling the clouds not to cover the sun.”
“Healing nicely,” Wil said. “You might have considered a career in medicine, rather than regicide.”
He laughed. “Why not aspire toward both?”
After she’d eaten, Wil rolled her satin trousers up past her knees and lay back and let the fleeting sunlight touch her as it wished. She kept her knee bent to protect the healing flesh from the sand, but it didn’t hurt nearly as much now.
“Land of eternal summers,” Loom said, and lay beside her.
She shielded her eyes with her hand and glanced at him but said nothing.
“People used to travel to the Southern Isles for leisure,” he went on. “It used to have many allies. The East, the ever-neutral West, and, yes, even the famously arrogant North. But my father is too proud for the good of his kingdom. Under his rule, the past two decades have seen us become hermits. Completely self-contained with growing poverty, all because he refuses for us to have any codependence. I used to think he just didn’t see it, but he does.”
Wil closed her eyes and angled her chin up toward the sunset. Shades of orange and red bloomed behind her eyelids. “Who can ever understand kings?” she muttered.
“This is going to be an ugly war,” he said. “And your kingdom will have more kills to boast when it’s through. I just hope it can end quickly.”
Your kingdom.
“What is it?” Loom asked. Wil was sure that she had not let her face betray any of her worrying, but Loom was able to read her.
She heard him shift in the sand, most assuredly watching her. She draped her arm over her eyes, shielding them from the sun, and now, from him. “I think it’s foolish of you to hang any hopes on me,” she said. “I think that if you want to save your kingdom, you should come up with a better plan. One that employs logic and strength, not hope. Hope is not a weapon.”
“Now I really wonder what your story is,” Loom said. “If you think that hope isn’t a weapon. Everything is a weapon.”
“That’s weak logic,” Wil countered. “If everything were a weapon, we’d all be matched and the world would be a stalemate.”
“Not everyone is strong,” he said.
“I’m beginning to think you just like to argue.” She sighed, arching her b
ack in a stretch against the warm sand.
She heard footsteps shuffling toward them, Ada’s contented giggling.
“Save any dinner for us?” Zay asked. Her presence sent a cold dread through Wil’s blood. She didn’t fear that Zay would harm her again—that knife throw had been justified, and doubtful such luck from an amateur fighter could be repeated. But no, it was something else. Wil was thinking of what Loom had told her, about Zay screaming that Wil might kill her son and sell the crystal shards of him to pay her way. She had believed herself a monster from the day she turned the vendor to ruby, and she had gone to such lengths to hide it, but Zay saw right through her.
Loom sat up, and Wil raised her arm from her eyes to watch him.
Zay grabbed at a tuft of his hair and kissed his forehead before dropping beside him. He clapped a hand around her shoulder and squeezed her against him. Their easy affection made Wil bristle.
“Ada.” Zay patted her lap, and her little boy settled into the embrace. She gave him a hug so tight that he struggled to free himself, reaching for the plate. He was so used to being adored that he thought nothing of turning down affection; there was plenty of love for him to squander. Right now, he was only interested in food.
Zay didn’t offer Wil a glance, but that lack of acknowledgment was also pointed, making it evident that she and Loom had come to some sort of understanding on this matter.
Under the relentless Southern heat, Loom eased out of his shirt, and Wil rolled her eyes away. She paid little mind to the conversation Zay and Loom lapsed into. They were speaking in Lavean now—something to do with witches and the mountain palace.
Wil scarcely cared what they had to say, until she heard the word Loom used to address Zay.
“I keep saying your temper will be the death of you one day, ansuh.”
My wife.
She opened her eyes at that, and propped herself on her elbows.
And now she saw the proof on his upper left arm: two overlapping moons, accented in shimmering silver. A perfect match for Zay’s.
Loom saw the recognition in her eyes. “Ah,” he said. “I knew you spoke Lavean. I was wondering if you’d ever let on.”
Her frustration only deepened at that.
“Then why”—she made her voice cool—“did you almost kiss me?”
Zay shoved Loom so hard he toppled sideways into the sand, prompting him to laugh.
Zay sneered at him, but then she laughed too. “Eternal hells. You really do have a lust for bad decisions,” she said.
Neither of them seemed inclined to offer any sort of explanation, so Wil nodded to the toddler in Zay’s lap and asked, “Is he yours, then?”
“Ada is nobody’s but mine.” Zay’s jaw clenched.
“All right,” Loom said to Zay. “You’ve had dinner. Isn’t it about time for you to go someplace that isn’t here?”
“Come on, Ada,” Zay said. “Wouldn’t want any of Loom’s life choices to influence you.” She rose to her feet, her son in tow, and left. But not before casting Wil a disdainful glower.
Once she was gone, Loom inched closer. In the fading light, his eyes seemed bigger and darker. But it was their sincerity that did Wil in over and again; the way he pleaded for her to believe every little word he said.
“It isn’t what you think,” he began. “Zay is the daughter of my father’s high guard. As a reward for her father’s loyalty, she was to be queen when I inherited the kingdom. We were promised to each other before we were born.”
Wil eyed him skeptically. “But she has a child. He isn’t yours?”
“He isn’t,” Loom said.
“But he must have a father,” Wil said. “Where is he?”
“The father lives outside Cannolay, in Lamponay. The slums,” Loom said. “He came to Zay’s father and asked for her hand in marriage and was laughed from the palace. Instead, our wedding was pushed up. We had no choice in the matter. We pretended Ada was mine, for appearance’s sake. But when I was exiled, my father wanted to keep him in the palace. So Zay told him the truth—that he was just a bastard. Given the bounty on my head, it would be unsafe for Ada if anyone believed he were my heir now.”
Wil lay back and stared at the graying sky. “She wanted out of the palace that badly?”
“She never cared about being queen,” he went on. “When I was banished from the kingdom, my father would have arranged for someone of her class to marry her and raise Ada as his own. But instead, she chose to follow me here. It’s no sparkling palace in a mountainside, but it’s home.”
“Don’t know why you bothered to keep it a secret,” Wil said. “You could have just told me so.”
“Says the girl who buries her own secrets deeper than the sand.” His smile was warm in the dying embers of daylight. “Don’t take anything snide she says to heart. Zay has had a difficult go of things. Life in a palace isn’t as easy as you’d suspect.”
“Oh no?” Wil raised an eyebrow. “It’s not all dress fittings and comportment?”
From Loom’s hesitant expression, he couldn’t decide if she was being serious. That made her smug. He couldn’t draw everything out of her, after all.
TWENTY-FIVE
THE NORTHERN KING’S ILLNESS CAME about all at once in the morning, and had turned dire by nightfall.
The state of him—sallow, perspiring, and groaning—only agitated Baren’s fraying state. More than ever, he muttered about his ghosts, and began to adopt his mother’s superstitions about warding away death and spirits.
Gerdie stood in his father’s antechamber, silent and watching. He knew this was not Gray Fever. The pallor alone could tell him that much. It was possible his father had caught a virus that originated overseas. The only one to recently venture overseas had been Owen, and he hadn’t mentioned any pandemics, but then, Owen was not always forthright about the things that troubled him.
His mother had not left his father’s side. She had sent for the doctor, which Gerdie found unsettling given his mother’s distrust of modern medicine.
“I’m here, my love,” the queen whispered. She held the king’s hand in both of hers and pressed her face against his slack knuckles.
“Mother?” Gerdie ventured.
She turned her head, startled. “You shouldn’t be in here, heart. It may be contagious.”
With his traitorous immune system, Gerdie cared a great deal about avoiding contagions. He had read up on every illness; kept abreast of every epidemic; compulsively downed vitamins, never forgetting a dosage even when he might forget to sleep or eat. But he wasn’t frightened of catching whatever his father had contracted. He knew somehow that his father was alone in whatever this was.
His mother didn’t protest when he stepped closer, though.
“Have you eaten?” he asked. “Had some water, at least?”
As he stood over her, she raised her head and gave a wan smile. “I used to go days on nothing but sunlight and stars. Seems like a lifetime ago.”
“I’ll bring you something,” he said.
“You aren’t supposed to eat in a room where illness is present.” Her voice was soft.
So many wanderers shared fears that revolved around rooms and windows and doors and mirrors. It was no wonder they often slept out under the open sky, Gerdie thought. It must have been exhausting being so afraid.
“Come outside, then.” He touched her shoulder, and she laid her hand over his. “Please.”
Only a month ago his family had been complete and unbreakable, and now there was nothing but empty beds draped with black gossamer, and his mother.
He didn’t know how to say any of this. Owen had been the eloquent one. But the queen seemed to sense it. She rose from her vigil and called for a trio of servants to stay by the king’s side. “We’ll be in the oval garden,” she told them. “Send for me if he wakes.”
The oval garden was the queen’s favorite place in the world. There were over a dozen gardens within the stone wall, but the oval garden was where th
e queen’s thoughts had run wild. She plucked and planted whatever compelled her from one day to the next, and it was ever changing, and filled with all sorts of creatures.
Being here was like being in his mother’s mind, Gerdie had often thought.
It was past midnight now. An odd hour for a picnic, but Gerdie suspected his mother needed to be out of the castle for a while.
They sat on the iron bench that overlooked the reflection pond, a basket of breads and cloth-covered dishes between them.
At last, the queen spoke. “The summer that we were first married, your father and I used to sleep out here every night. Right there, where that cherry tree is now. It made me feel like I was still traveling the world, and it made him feel like he didn’t have to be king.”
“Papa didn’t want to be king?” Gerdie asked. His father was always so immersed in his affairs, it was hard to imagine him as anything but the king. Gerdie had no concept of what having an actual father might have been like. A mother, brothers, a sister—these things he knew.
“He did.” The queen canted her head as she spoke, trying to find the right words. “But it was a dark time for him. The throne is inherited, you know. His family was gone.”
Gerdie knew this, of course. His grandparents had been murdered by a duplicitous guard who wanted the throne for himself. He knew only that his father had escaped. It wasn’t something that was further discussed.
The dead had never mattered to him before now. What would be the use in thinking of them? But now, every day he thought about how long his own life might be. Owen and Wil would drown so many more times, in that vast expanse of years. In the children he might one day have whom they would not meet. In the changes they would not see, the songs they would not hear. In the portraits that were never taken.
“They did tend to take after me, didn’t they?” the queen said. “I was so afraid that they would grow up and sail away, fall in love with the world and never come back.”
“I worried too,” Gerdie said. Somehow it was comforting to talk about his brother and sister aloud, as though they still existed. He almost blurted out the rest, about the vendor turning to ruby. But he couldn’t bring himself to betray his sister’s trust. He didn’t want to ruin the memory his mother had of her. There would be no point. Wil was dead, and the thing they’d both tried so hard to solve had died with her.
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