“That explains your adventurous streak.” Nan tried to relax into the chatter and not think of the fact that the Irminau army had joined them.
The sun was setting as they followed Baron Best to the hotel. Royal flags fluttered from the roof of the white-and-gold building, and electric lights shone on the snow heaped around the sidewalks. The hotel had probably been built twenty or thirty years before, but compared to all the older houses and shops in the rest of town, it seemed almost offensively new, and the lobby smelled of fresh paint and furniture polish. A portrait of King Otto hung over the desk, a sharp-eyed, dark-haired man wearing an ermine robe, who bore a faint resemblance to Sebastian.
Bellhops took their bags, and the baron showed them into a dining room that had been reserved entirely for their party.
Nan was not invited to Ingrid’s table—or was it really Baron Best’s table? She could see them from afar, the baron leaning toward Ingrid, while she seemed even smaller than usual, listening to him speak with a steady, unreadable gaze. Her body language did not suggest trust.
Waitresses brought around plates heaped with food and glasses of wine. The room was already noisy with the men talking, and the arrival of food did nothing to slow the conversation. This was good, because she could barely hear the man beside her, and had to lean in to speak to Sigi. It was the most privacy she and Sigi had had since they’d left.
“So,” Sigi said. “Here we are. Irminau. Should we have another toast? To our own insanity?”
“Why not.” They clinked wineglasses.
“I didn’t expect to be met by the military,” Sigi said. “This is already unnerving, and we just got here. He seemed to expect Ingrid.”
“I’m sure she’s been sending messages as we travel,” Nan said. “She seems well connected.”
“I don’t know how that happened,” Sigi said. “She rarely even talks!”
A curtain had risen on a stage with a prop cow. Now a girl in a very short milkmaid costume swished out and began to sing a flirtatious song about being lonely on the farm, fluttering her eyelashes at various men in the audience. Sigi snickered and then turned back to Nan.
“This reminds me so much of Mitterburg,” Sigi said. “We used to go up every single year in the winter to the lodges for skiing and the hot springs. In fact, my father got me my first camera so I could take pictures on vacation. I always liked being there, the way the air smelled.”
“Are you saying you’re a country girl at heart?”
“Quite possibly. I’d miss my friends if I left the city, but it was strange being around them, anyway.”
“You seemed in your element.”
“I guess I’m good at pretending. And I love my friends. I just felt odd the whole time. And Urobrun has such bad memories now. I’ll always think of what happened underneath the sidewalks.” Sigi picked the large forest mushrooms out of her meat, apparently disliking them. “I try not to let on how much all that haunts me. We have enough to worry about.”
“If Irminau and Urobrun did reunite, do you think you’d want to move out of the city?”
“Maybe. I could get a little apartment over a shop, like the ones here. Work in a café or someplace nice, and take pictures.”
“I used to say I’d be a dressmaker,” Nan said, “and Thea would be my assistant. I wanted to rescue her. She worked so hard, and she was so worried all the time. But it would never happen. I knew that.”
“It could happen, when this is all over.”
“When this is all over…” Nan tilted her wineglass, watching the dark liquid glow in the candlelight. “I find that hard to imagine.”
Sigi and Nan had barely touched each other since they met up with Ingrid again. She was trying to pretend to agree to Ingrid’s wishes, and Irminau was a more conservative country besides. But Sigi’s hand suddenly clasped Nan’s under the table. “It’ll work out.”
As they crossed through the lobby after dinner, a man jostled past her with his suitcase. Nan thought nothing of it until she felt a mysterious paper in her pocket. One of Sebastian’s messengers?
She says it lives, but it must feed.
Nan instantly suspected the meaning of the note. The “she” must be Ingrid. The “it” must be Yggdrasil, which she claimed she had saved from death by planting a new tree.
It must feed. The way the revived workers needed serum, or they would crave human blood. Was this note from Freddy?
The Norns could return from the dead, but perhaps that was because of Yggdrasil’s magic. If Yggdrasil was the source of magic, then where did the magic to revive the tree come from?
The apartment door swung open, and Mother’s eyes welled on the spot. “Thea. I got your letter, I—”
“I’m okay. Please don’t cry.” But Thea had to wipe away tears herself. “I—I would’ve come sooner, and I know I should have, but I’ve been trying so hard just to be strong, and I worried it would all collapse if I saw you.” Thea walked in, going slightly limp at the sight of home. She felt like she hadn’t seen this place in years.
“Have they been taking care of you, the revolutionaries?”
Thea nodded. “Like I told you in the letters.” She noticed one letter, sitting on the table, looking crumpled, as if Mother had balled it up in her hand. Maybe more than once. Thea had been writing since the day after she broke free, but now weeks had passed. “Sebastian’s making sure I’m all right. We’re in the same position.”
But Mother could spot a lie. “Are you?”
“Well, he understands, anyway, on account of his leg.”
“He got you a job.”
Thea shrugged one shoulder. “I’m not working yet, but I will be, soon.”
“It seems much too soon for you to go to work.”
“Everyone is working so hard. I can’t just sit around feeling sorry for myself.”
Mother nodded. “I suppose so. I just don’t want you to suffer any more than you already have.” She suddenly put her arms around Thea. “Oh dear. I have to hug you. You should’ve come sooner.”
“I couldn’t. I didn’t want to cry.” She was crying now. “I missed you so much, but it’s easier to be tough with strangers.”
“You don’t have to be tough all the time. Not with me, not anymore.” Her mother pulled back to look at her and smooth her hair, but Thea looked down. It was so painful here. She didn’t know how to explain that it was too late. She’d been tough for so long, sadness didn’t feel allowed.
“Sit down,” Mother said. “I don’t suppose you want anything to eat?”
“No.”
Mother had put her winter arrangement of pinecones on the table. Thea smiled that Mother still bothered to make the house festive, even when she was living alone and the city was on the brink of war. That was how she used to be, before the bound-sickness. “I wouldn’t mind some tea, if you still have that.”
“I do.” Mother put the kettle on, then stepped back toward the dining table. She glanced at Thea’s hands, which were still in her pockets. She’d had them in her pockets the whole time.
Thea frowned slightly. She didn’t know how to show her mother what had happened. She didn’t want to make a big deal of it. She certainly didn’t want to make her cry, but she feared that was impossible.
“Do you feel you’ll manage the job all right?” Mother asked.
“I’ve been practicing. I can fit a tray between my elbow and the prosthetic and serve from there.” She had trouble saying the word “hook,” much like the word “stump,” although she was blunt with herself within her mind. She added, trying to be reassuring, “It isn’t quite as hard to use as I thought it might be.”
“The hook, you mean?”
Thea nodded, trying not to cringe. “Or maybe I’m just determined. That’s what Sebastian says.”
“Sebastian is rather young, isn’t he?” Mother asked, and now Thea could tell she must have given something away by the way she said his name.
“I guess,” she said, nonco
mmittally. Mother obviously wasn’t fooled, but the teakettle was whistling, and she took it off the gas and poured out a cup.
“Just be careful,” she said. She set down the teacup. “You’re allowed to take your hands out of your pockets. I promise I won’t cry.”
Thea, feeling hot with discomfort, pulled out her hands. In plural, they were still hands to her. She had been trying to wear the hook most of the time, since Mr. Huber had brought it, even though it had felt frustrating and cumbersome, especially at first. The hooks opened when she extended her arm or moved her right shoulder, and it wasn’t intuitive to move her right shoulder to use her left arm.
“Your father would be proud of you.” Mother took the chair next to her. “We had to face all this when he was called up to fight—the prospect that he could be injured. When you say good-bye to a soldier, you don’t know how they’ll come back. And they try to be brave, but…they’re just young men. It’s not an easy thing, but it will get better with time.”
“I know,” Thea said gently. Mother was obviously not speaking just to Thea, but to her own struggles as well.
Mother smiled a little. “I suppose you’re tired of comforting speeches by now. It sounds like Sebastian may have given you a few.”
“Well, it’s not the same,” Thea said. “I’m glad you’re getting better, too.” She squeezed Mother’s hand, and they drank their tea.
Thea could manage the days. It was the nights when the weight of her losses and the uncertain future crushed her. She woke from nightmares into a dark room.
She took to stepping outside the room and walking up and down the hall. At least a few men were always up downstairs, listening to the radio, waiting for messengers who might come at any hour. She didn’t join them, but she listened to the sound of their voices, just to know she wasn’t alone, and after a while she would calm down enough to sleep.
One night Sebastian found her pacing. “Thea? What’s wrong?”
“Nightmares.” She drew her robe closer around her pajamas. “I’ll be glad to work at night again. The sun would rise just a few hours after I came home. It was easier to sleep when it wasn’t so dark and quiet. I felt safe hearing kids going to school and birds chirping.”
“I understand.” He looked hesitant.
“Why are you up?” Thea asked. “Do you ever sleep?” He was even still wearing daytime clothes, albeit wrinkled ones.
“I nap.”
“That can’t be good for you.”
“‘You need to take care of that body of yours, young man.’” He mimicked Mr. Huber’s aged voice and shook his finger.
Thea smiled. “Well, he was a little bit right.”
The hesitancy was back as he scratched his head. “The—um. I mean, do you want to…if you can’t sleep anyway…have a cup of coffee with me?”
She hadn’t seen him much in the month since Ingrid left. Once the Chancellor’s death was known, everything had happened very quickly, and he needed to keep up. Many of the existing officials surrendered, a few fled, several more were killed or captured. There was a constant round of messengers and meetings, and he had spent much of his time at UWP headquarters, keeping abreast of the latest developments.
“You drink too much coffee,” she said.
“I know I do. We might run out. How about cocoa, then?”
He cut a strong figure in the dim hallway, with broad shoulders and a slim waist. His hair grew more unkempt as the revolution turned toward the serious business of governing the country, and his stubble was now halfway toward a beard. It seemed unfair that he was still wearing regular clothes while she had on faded pink pajamas with a scraggly bow tie in front and thick gray wool socks. She covered the end of her left arm reflexively.
“Come on, no sense in lying awake thinking dark thoughts.” He held out his hand. She took it, her face growing hot even as her feet froze against the wooden floors.
Due to electricity restrictions, just a few lamps lit the downstairs. Sebastian picked up the one by the entrance hall. She heard a card game going on around the radio.
“If you want to wait in the parlor, I’ll get the cocoa,” he said.
She felt along the walls and stumbled around the furniture until she reached the curtains and opened them to let in the moonlight. She sat on the sofa, bound up with curious anticipation. Her mouth was dry. She tried to straighten out the bow on her pajamas.
“Here we are.” He walked in with two mugs. She didn’t care about drinking the cocoa so much as simply holding something warm. She missed the feeling of wrapping both hands around a warm mug on a cold night. He sat on the other end of the sofa, but he didn’t seem to know what to say.
It wasn’t easy to talk about nightmares and insomnia and political coups.
“Thea, I—”
She looked at him expectantly.
“I feel like I haven’t seen you much lately,” he said.
“I’ve been around. You’ve been busy, if you haven’t noticed.”
“I’ve been too busy to notice. But…I wondered if maybe you feel differently about me since you found out who I am.”
She tugged nervously at the bow, ruining her earlier attempt to fix it. “It was a surprise.”
“I’m still the same person,” he said, the slightest undercurrent of desperation running beneath his casual tone.
“Of course. It just—it does change some things.”
“Does it? It doesn’t have to.”
“I guess it depends on how we felt about each other. To begin with.”
He coughed like he’d swallowed his cocoa wrong. “I…I want to say that when we danced, that one night, I know we were both enchanted. I was trying to figure out what Ingrid had done to you—that is, I had a sense of dread even though I couldn’t think straight to place it.”
“I remembered you mentioned feeling haunted.”
“Yes. Well—I just want to say, I liked dancing with you. And I’m always happy to see you.”
She looked at him shyly, pleased that he was flustered.
He continued, “I know I threw a lot at you as soon as you lost your hand, suggesting you go back to work in public. I thought about when I lost my leg and I hid in my room and moped for some months. I didn’t feel better until I started doing things again. Maybe it was presumptuous of me—”
“No, you were right,” she said. “It helps to have a goal.”
“Good.” He gazed at her a moment, and shifted his hand a little closer, like he was thinking of touching her face. “Thea, I—”
She smiled a little. “Sebastian…”
“I think Freddy is a good sort. We have a lot in common. And I certainly wouldn’t want to get on his bad side, with powers like his. I don’t want to say anything to you when I’m not sure where you stand with him.”
She looked down. “I did have feelings for him. I mean, I still do. But it’s different with you.” She had never liked Freddy so much that she felt sick to her stomach like she did now.
Sebastian put down his mug, and then he took hers and put it down, too. Thea’s skin tingled as he leaned in closer and kissed her. He slid his fingers into her hair and around her back, and his warm mouth met hers. Her body seemed to know just what to do even though she’d never kissed anyone like this before. Her leg draped over his knee, and he leaned into her, his weight comforting as she fell back against the arm of the couch. She ran her palm across his rough cheek and then she clutched the dark hair that fell, a little too long for fashion, to his collar. This felt so wonderful it frightened her.
She had already lost so much.
When he pulled back, her mouth felt bruised. He looked at her, a wicked spark in his eyes. “You…”
“Me? You started it.”
“Yeah, I did.”
“You’ve probably kissed a lot of girls like that before, when you were Mr. Ski Daredevil.”
“Nah. I’m actually shy with girls.”
“I can’t tell.”
“Well, Mr
. Ski Daredevil was only sixteen. I didn’t know how to make a move. And when you’re heir to the throne, girls—and their mothers—are often scheming to get close to you.…”
“I see,” she said, sobered by the reminder of his position.
“I don’t want that anymore,” he said softly. “I’m not sure I even want to unite the countries and lead them. That was Ingrid. She whispered those things in my ear.”
“Really? But you seem to genuinely like being a leader.”
“I do. I like the work. That’s why I work too much. I am genuinely interested in how the UWP is currently handling the rebuilding of government, and thinking about what I want to do differently, and strategizing the impending war. But the position? That I hate.” He rubbed his face like he was trying to snap out of a bad dream. “I didn’t think I’d admit that to anyone. Don’t talk about this.”
“Never.”
“If so many people weren’t counting on me…” He leaned back, but slung his arm around her. “Well, I can’t back out now.”
“You could,” Thea said. “You’re not at the forefront right now. Why not just support the UWP? Stick with political writing?”
“I’m fickle, Thea. I want to call the shots, I just don’t want the attention. Sometimes I feel like Prince Rupert is another person who has been hunting me down for years, and I never know when he might find me.”
“Sometimes anticipation is the worst part, though. It’s like going to work after losing a hand. At least, I hope the anticipation is worse.”
“It is, I promise. You’re right. We build up these things in our minds.” He took her left arm and held it to his chest, much the same way Freddy had. This brought back a new surge of guilt and worry. She didn’t want Freddy to be hurt. She knew that day when he came back and found out what had happened, he had reached for her arm because he wanted her to know he still found her beautiful. Freddy was kind and brave and empathetic and strong, and she didn’t know why he paled next to Sebastian. She felt like a terrible person, especially for having kissed him. It would be a little easier had she not made that bold move.
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