Fray

by Rowenna Miller

  “He wouldn’t dare assassinate his crown prince,” I argued.

  “Oh, certainly not! But you? You’ve been nothing but a hassle.” I picked up our pace and Alba didn’t argue. We nearly flew through the main gate of the compound.

  “How in the world do you even know this?”

  “Rich people don’t carry their own bags. Anyone coming or going hires porters. So I paid the head porter here to tell me what came in and out. Galatine trunks with Merhaven’s seal left this morning. I might believe he’d need nothing but his hair pomatum and tooth powder for the next few days, but his wife? No, she wouldn’t go without her wardrobe.”

  “I meant the hiring assassins bit.”

  She winced. “More commonplace. Picked the lock of your room, there was a threatening note. I left it there, you can have it if you want.”

  We had reached the main colonnade and so slowed our steps, conscious not to draw attention, gossip, more danger. “You investigate your own apartments if you wish, find the letter, see that I’m in earnest.”

  “And you?”

  Her face closed, neutral. “I have a few quick messages to send. For, shall we say, the next phase of this little adventure.” She clasped my hand quickly, tightly. “Find your prince and see if it’s not too late for him to sail for Galitha instead of Merhaven.”

  I walked on pins toward my room, forcing my feet to be slow and gentle on the marble halls but wanting nothing more than to sprint. My hands trembled as I unlocked the door, and sure enough, a fresh piece of good white paper lay on my dressing table, sealed with a pretty flourish of deep red wax. Like an invitation, like a social note. I read it quickly—Merhaven’s usual formality was missing from the letter, as though he assumed I couldn’t be trusted to read more than a six-year-old’s vocabulary.

  I will sail for Galitha without you and the prince. You will stay behind until I send for you. Do not attempt to leave. You will be killed, as I have hired local mercenaries, the a’Mavha, to watch you like guard dogs. Of course this arrangement must be kept secret.

  That damning bit of evidence in hand, I went to the adjoining door between our rooms. It cracked on its hinges as I flung it open, confronting, to my shock, Merhaven.

  “You know then?” I asked Theodor, looking dumbfounded at his desk, a pile of freshly inked papers in front of him.

  “Know what?” Theodor asked, eyebrow ratcheting upward in mild irritation. I went still—Alba had misled me, fed me false information. Merhaven wasn’t leaving. He was right here, going over some final bit of paperwork, some last notes on the Open Seas Arrangement or grain exports with Theodor. The letter was a plant. I chastised myself in stunned fear that I didn’t know Merhaven’s handwriting well enough to spot a forgery.

  But Merhaven edged away from me, eyes narrowing ever so slightly.

  There was one way to find out for certain.

  I steadied my breath. “You’re leaving. Attempting to leave us stranded here.”

  For a long, painful moment, no one spoke. My stomach constricted. I could still be wrong, and have made a fool of myself. Theodor rose halfway from his chair, watching me as though watching a cornered cat, unsure if it would run or bite. Then he turned his eyes to Merhaven, who was growing red.

  He unclenched his jaw and spoke. “So you discovered a bit too early. You were supposed to be on a tour of the water gardens, not returning for hours.”

  “What does she mean?” Theodor asked quietly, and when Merhaven didn’t answer, he roared, “Answer me!”

  “I’m leaving, and you are staying here. I will return to Galitha to restore the country. To drag it out from the mess it’s in. You’ll stay here past the conclusion of the summit.”

  “What mess? The country is moving forward, and you haven’t the authority to stop it!”

  “You weren’t supposed to succeed!” Merhaven exclaimed. “Your Reform Bill—it was supposed to fail entirely, or pass in a much weaker version. So we have to correct that mistake. We’ve already begun—as soon as you left, we began.”

  “You planned this? From the start, when we introduced the bill?”

  “The Reform Bill was never supposed to pass, so your time here was merely supposed to be a bit of a… break. From this talk of revolt and reform, for the common folk to go back to worrying about coal prices and bickering over when to plant the winter rye. But when that wretched bill passed, we had to take charge a bit more. We decided that once you were out of the country, we’d reinforce the nobility’s control over Galitha City and the provincial regions.”

  Theodor gripped the table. “It was all organized. All the trouble we’ve been hearing about—it’s not a malcontent noble here and there, but a damned formal insurrection. Fomented by—who? You and Pommerly and how many others?”

  “Dozens. And I thought we would have matters well in hand, but you got word somehow of the bit of unrest we’ve had—I was quite careful not to bother you with all of this, you know—and were ready to storm off like a toddler having a tantrum. We can’t have that.”

  “I was ready to return to my country and defend its law.”

  “Law! You’re like a child, playing at a game you don’t understand. Knocking all the wickets to the ground with a croquet mallet in a fit of pique. Enough now. The senior nobility of Galitha will set it right.”

  “They’ll fight,” I said quietly. Merhaven looked to me, surprised I had spoken. “The people. They won’t give it up now. Not when reform was fairly won, not if you take it away.”

  “You can stop with that now,” Merhaven snapped. “Your racket about the common people rising up again. I thought it an ugly tactic before and it’s entirely useless now.”

  My eyes widened at his terrible miscalculation borne out of aloof and distant separation from the people whom he had made into his enemy. “But they are fighting back. We both know that.”

  “In pockets here and there, perhaps. But not the grand revolt you sold half the nobility on.”

  I pressed my shaking teeth together. Merhaven couldn’t read the truth when it stared him straight in the face. I looked desperately at Theodor, who had turned a horrible shade of white.

  “Just go along with the plan,” Merhaven said, almost wheedling, “and we’ll be back to rights soon. You’ll still be crown prince, you can pretend this never happened. You can even have your wedding, and I imagine everyone will be more amenable to her now that the trouble is nearly over.”

  “Not on your life,” Theodor returned. “I could have you arrested.”

  “You won’t.” Merhaven took a breath, and before I could think to warn Theodor, he had drawn a small silver pistol from his pocket. He trained it on me. “I didn’t want it to come to this.”

  “Then put that away!” Theodor began to step away from the desk, but Merhaven’s hand stayed steady on the pistol. With deft and calm precision, as though adjusting his sextet, he cocked it.

  “You held the council hostage with your threats of violence and staged riots! With your rumors and pamphlets promising revolt, and your sorceress doxy holding her magic over our heads!” The pistol was still aimed at me, even though he faced Theodor. I shook as I looked down the small black barrel.

  “None of it,” Theodor said, enunciating each word with palpable anger, “was staged. The threats are not empty—you know as well as I do that they’re resisting you all over Galitha.”

  “They will quickly stop when there is firm leadership back in control. That’s what has been missing—firm, just leadership.”

  “It’s insurrection.” Theodor trembled.

  Merhaven sighed with nearly paternal regret. “It’s not insurrection, it’s reinstituting the law. The proper law, the natural law. Crestmont and Pommerly and your father have things well in hand at home.”

  “My father.” The bottom dropped out from Theodor’s voice, leaving it a hollow echo.

  “Yes, your father. He’s not going to allow a wayward son to grind the nation into dust. He’s convinced that yo
ur reforms will be a disaster for the country and has given us license to rectify them.”

  “License. He told you to maroon his son in West Serafe? To point a gun at his son’s betrothed?”

  “He told me to do what had to be done. For Galitha.” He heaved another sigh. “I am sorry it came to this. But you understand now, what must be done. I’ll leave you two here—door locked, I’m sorry for that—and you’ll make your way back to Galitha when I send for you. Not before.”

  He strode to the door, plucking Theodor’s key from a dainty marble-topped table on the way. The room was so silent I could hear the tumblers of the lock clack into place. Then I sank into a pile of sweat-soaked cotton on the floor.

  38

  “WHAT NOW?” I SAID, STILL SHAKING. “THEY’LL BELIEVE—OH, sweet hell, Theodor, back home they’ll believe we abandoned them!”

  “There’s nothing to stop us, as soon as he’s gone, from hiring our own ship,” Theodor said firmly. He shoved his chair away from the desk and it fell with a sharp crack.

  “There is,” I said, fishing Merhaven’s letter from my pocket. “He’s hired—I don’t know this word in Serafan, but some assassins. If we show up in the ports, they’ll kill us. Or, rather, me.”

  “Dirty old shark,” Theodor said, dropping to the floor next to me. “We’ll find a way.” He rocked back on his heels. “We never could have anticipated this,” he said, though whether to console himself or mollify me, I wasn’t sure.

  It didn’t matter. The flood of anger that had been suppressed under the terror of Merhaven’s pistol pointed at my head surged forward. “We could have,” I said, the words bitter as they spilled out, “and I did. And I said we couldn’t trust the nobility to be held in check by something as fragile as a law.”

  “I was supposed to consider treason a suitable response to losing a vote in the council?” Theodor nearly shouted. “To assume insurrection as a logical outcome?”

  “Yes!” I twisted my skirts in my fists, wanting to wring some sense into Theodor. “Yes. They’ve never been humbled, not like this. They’ve never shared their authority.”

  “But to turn against their own country’s laws—what’s a country without laws? They’re raised with that sense of duty, never to turn their backs on their country—”

  “How blind are you?” I shouted. “You were counting on some arcane sense of honor preventing them from doing what they’ve always done—take what they want. They’ll tidy it up with rhetoric about another manufactured version of honor—duty to their country, to the ‘true’ Galitha.” I swallowed the thick sour taste of this truth. “Their honor has always been a convenient excuse for what benefits them.”

  “Not,” Theodor said, “all of them.”

  I closed my eyes and exhaled anger. “No, not you. Not your brothers or Viola or Annette—I know. But you still can’t look past that, beyond what you wanted so desperately to be true.”

  “Then the nobility—all of us, me included, are just scavengers taking from the rest of the country? Always have been, always will be.”

  “I didn’t say that.” I stopped. “No, I won’t apologize. You know damn well that you and plenty of others have been trying to rectify the injustices Galitha is built on. I don’t need to coddle you on that point. But do you see—do you finally see—that what the nobles grant, the nobles can take away?”

  Theodor’s hands shook. “You want me to tell you that you were right? Fine. You were right. Does that feel better?”

  “Of course not! But do you understand now?”

  He slumped on the floor next to me. “If I didn’t already, I’m afraid that the lesson will be administered far more harshly by what we find back in Galitha.”

  “It’s not too late,” I said. “We know that the people are far more determined than Merhaven and his allies believe. They won’t give in without a long fight.”

  “And we’ll join them, somehow.” Theodor’s hand grazed his coat, and his fingers found the family crest pinned to the left side. Then his hand fell away. Joining the fight against the nobles meant joining a fight against his father. “First we have to figure out a way out of here.”

  “Do you know how to pick a lock?” I asked.

  “Sadly, no, lock picking wasn’t part of my education.” He stood up. “Shit. This is—someone will eventually find us.”

  We both started as a sharp rap on the door echoed through the room. “Have you out in a moment.”

  “Who’s—”

  “Alba,” I answered. “The Kvys nun.”

  “Of course.” He swept a few loose tendrils of hair behind his ears. “The Kvys nun. Of course the Kvys nun is picking our lock.”

  “I’ll explain later.”

  The lock clicked and the door opened. Alba slid a bent hairpin under her veil. “No, I will.” She paused. “I’ll explain to him while you pack a few necessities. I’m taking you to your brother—Creator knows you aren’t safe here.”

  “Not on your life you’re taking her somewhere else—her brother?” Theodor asked, slowly comprehending what Alba had said. “Her brother is here?”

  “Where else, the Fenian coal mines?”

  “And we have to make haste, to the harbor, to stop the ship—”

  “They’ll be gone before you reach port,” Alba countered. She turned to me. “Just a few necessities. What you can fit in your pockets.”

  The space around me seemed to constrict and then I met Theodor’s eyes, finding some anchor there. He was still lost, sifting through his broken trust, searching for meaning in the shattered pieces of the past months’ work, in the fragments of the system he thought he’d understood. I reached out, offering him the same foundation I held firm to. “We still have each other. We still have friends who are loyal to us and the cause. And we have the Galatine people, ready and able to fight for themselves.”

  He wavered a moment, and then nodded, once, nearly imperceptible. “Pack your things,” he said quietly. I dashed into my room and shoved a few necessities—what little coin I had on hand, a comb and hair pomade and hairpins, tooth powder, my sewing kit, spare stockings—into my pockets. My cotton gown was practical enough, and there certainly wasn’t room for a change of clothing. I heard Alba’s calm, commanding voice through the open doorway. There was still a wrapped packet in my pocket, too—Corvin’s kerchief. I hesitated, then tucked my comb and hairpins into the packet. I needed luck enough to bend my own rule; after all, I hadn’t deliberately made it for myself.

  “Now we go,” Alba said when I returned. “Prince Theodor will stay here, to allow Merhaven’s Serafan allies to believe, for now, that everything is going to plan. He’ll join us later.”

  “No, I don’t want to separate,” I argued. I saw my anchor in Theodor’s steady eyes, and I knew he saw his in mine. “We can’t,” I added, taking his hand.

  “She’s right.” Theodor pulled me close, his face buried in my hair. I relaxed slightly, under the spell of his familiar scent and heavy hands on my shoulders. “If we go on as Merhaven’s plans dictated, his allies here will believe the charade. As long as we don’t try to leave, we ought to be safe. So I won’t leave, and you’re merely doing as you’ve done all along—touring the city. If I go running off with you, I put you in danger.” He lowered his voice so that Alba couldn’t hear. “Remember—the Serafans have as much reason to want you dead as Merhaven. They don’t want their secret exposed.” He pulled away, swallowing hard. “So we play this game for now and I’ll find you as soon as I can.”

  My throat was nearly pinched shut by suppressed tears, but I managed to agree.

  “Let’s go.” Alba’s decisive yet patient command gave me direction—toward the door, down the long hallway, through the colonnade, and into this unexpected and unwelcome detour.

  We turned up one of the wide avenues that formed the main grid of Isildi’s center. I was surprised to recognize the university quarter—but of course, if there was a place my brother could have been expected to settle
on in Isildi it was the university. He had all but vowed to find somewhere to study when he had left Galitha, and the large and remarkably egalitarian Serafan university was one of the few places I might have expected to find him. We passed the imposing structures that housed the libraries and archives, lecture halls, and theaters, and entered a shabby but clean street populated with low-eaved bookstores and wineshops. Alba steered me toward the crumbling doorway of a bar. I couldn’t read the name on the sign swinging overhead, but the sigil—a dark arch punctuated with candles—was recognizable. The Grotto.

  The place was empty, though it took me a moment in the dark room to realize that. A single barmaid with her dark hair bound in an emerald-green wrap noted our entrance. She simply nodded in greeting to Alba and then stared at me, eyes widening, as though recognizing something she’d only heard about. She slipped behind the bar, her lithe figure disappearing behind ceramic carafes.

  “He’s in here,” Alba said quietly. “Your brother.”

  39

  I WAVERED BEFORE THE DOORWAY, ARCHED PLASTER COVERED with layers of thin net. My brother? The thought of seeing him again—rich and full and yet bitter. We had not left on good terms—I could forgive his betrayal in an abstract sense, knowing I would never see him again. Now that he was just past this flimsy curtain, what would I feel? The last time I saw him, there was relief he was alive; with that assurance long established as a comfortable fact in my mind, would the hurt and anger surpass anything else?

  I pushed aside the curtain and strode into the room with more confidence than I felt.

  It was brightly lit, unlike the bar it hid behind, and open above and with only partial walls that made it more of a courtyard than a proper room. Several people sat or reclined on cushions. There were books stacked in tidy corners and an abandoned game of cards on a table. I swallowed, taking another step, forcing myself to scan faces instead of objects.

  The first face I saw was Penny’s.

  “Sophie!” She leapt up, her brilliant smile illuminating her face and then quickly fading. Our last meeting had not been on good terms, and I saw her face transposed, not on the sunlit Serafan courtyard in front of me, but in my shop on a wintry afternoon, collecting her final wages and leaving. The expression was the same—regret and loss, pride and conviction.