The Unwilling

by KELLY BRAFFET

“Deathbed?” Nate swallowed. “Do you think I’m going to die?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “It does to me.”

  She shook her head. “God, you’re stupid, Nathaniel Clare,” she said. “Not that you had any hope of turning out otherwise, with Caterina fawning all over you like some precious little prince instead of the disappointing cross of two lines that weren’t more than decent to begin with. Tried like hell to beat it out of you, but small hope of that when she was always there to pat your little head afterward and tell you how special you were.” She thumped the end of her cane on the floor. “Hear me now, Nathaniel: you are not special. You are not important. Live or die, you don’t matter. All that matters is the Unbinding.”

  Nate’s mouth was dry. “I’m not going to fail.”

  Derie rolled her eyes. “Oh, for—give me your arm, you sad little wretch.”

  He wanted to say no, but there was no point. He had never said no to Derie. He wasn’t sure he could. He gave her his arm. She no longer made any attempt to be gentle, but the knife didn’t bother him. What did bother him was the way she shuffled his brain, pushing everything in it further away than she ever had. Normally, things that mattered reasserted themselves after a while, but this was different. Nate could only watch as she tore at his most precious memories one by one, shoving them behind a veil where he could barely even see them. Caterina, Anneka, everything. Charles. His whole history. The stars over the Barriers, the sea by the Temple Argent. The dirty skin of Judah’s hand pressed against his lips. All meant nothing. He clung to Bindy for as long as he could, but Derie snatched her away like everything else, and soon after that nothing bothered him anymore. It was all gone.

  When it was over, he didn’t feel sick. There was a pounding in his head, but he felt clearer than he had in a long time. The great city around him had been pared away; only one wide avenue led forward, lit to daylight.

  Across the table, Derie wound a cloth around her bleeding arm. “Well, Nathaniel Clare,” she said, “what are you, now?”

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “And you know what to do.”

  “Yes.” The pounding wasn’t in his head, but outside of it. The door.

  “You fail,” Derie said, “come back here. I’ll send you off like I did Charles.” He could feel her contempt as clearly as he could hear it. “Now go open the door before the wenchlet breaks it down.”

  So, as Derie left out the back, he went to the front door and unlocked it. Bindy burst in breathless, eyes scanning the front hall as if expecting it to be full of bandits. “Magus,” she said, “are you all right? I heard screaming.”

  “Did you? Must have been somebody next door.”

  “But you’re bleeding.”

  She pointed to his arm. Her concern was meaningless. “I cut myself,” he said. “It’s nothing.”

  * * *

  He found the Seneschal outside the Wall, waiting with a half-dozen guards. Some carried bundles of wood and rope; others, knives and swords. “She comes down today,” the Seneschal said.

  The tower wasn’t visible through the Wall—it wouldn’t be from the inside, either—but Nate could feel it even if he couldn’t see it. The avenue in his head led there. “Give me two hours,” he said.

  “No.”

  “One, then.”

  The Seneschal shook his head. “I expect the builders in less than an hour,” he said. “You have until they arrive.”

  Only one guard accompanied them through the Passage; the others remained outside. To go from the relative clamor of the Square to the silence of the courtyard was like entering a tomb, it always was, but this time Nate barely noticed. He noticed his failure to notice, but it meant nothing.

  At the last door, the Seneschal said, “See you soon, magus,” and went back through to the Square, locking the doors behind him. Nate followed the glowing path. It led down to the mildewed kitchen, and from there to the pantry, where he found a lantern. He lit it with a match and continued down, along the damp stone passages to the aquifer. He had never been there before, but whatever Derie had done to his head, whatever she’d cleared away... He no longer remembered what was missing, but its absence left a great deal of space. He could feel things he had never felt before. The tower; Judah within it, like the heart of a candle flame; and the object of his current search, a mess that offended his sense of order and must be tidied before he could proceed. If only he had been like this from the beginning. If his brain had been this cool and uncluttered, perhaps he could have developed some real skill. Perhaps he wouldn’t have been quite so nothing. He would have liked to be powerful like Derie. To be smart like her, capable; to make decisions, to make things happen. To be of consequence. To matter.

  No point thinking about it now. Everyone was what they were meant to be and he was nothing. He was not sure if that was his thought or Derie’s, because he knew she was with him; he couldn’t be trusted alone. When he came to the aquifer, he could feel all that water, reaching into the caverns, filling deep wells of rock that no human had ever seen. He stood at its edge for a moment and then turned toward a particular dark place. Where the mess was.

  The darkness moved. Theron stepped into the light.

  For a breath, he and Nate stood in silence. The boy really was mangled inside, Nate saw. A hopeless, disordered jumble. “How did you know I was down here?” the boy said. Even his voice was only half there.

  “Eleanor told me.”

  “You’re lying.” Theron didn’t sound like it mattered much.

  “All right, then. I could feel you.” Nate paused, and then added, “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  Theron sighed. “More lies. It’s now, isn’t it?”

  Nate could feel his own heartbeat, hear his own breath. “Yes. I’m sorry,” he said, and he was. But it was a distant sort of sorry, like a memory of sorry. He could feel Derie scoff at it all the same.

  In the dim lantern light, the boy’s gaze drifted. Maybe Nate was boring him. “Don’t be. It’s frustrating not to be—whole. I used to be—” He stopped, let out a long breath. “I’d actually rather you get it over with. Is Judah going to die, too?”

  “I hope not,” Nate said, and realized that he did. Faintly. Derie had left him that; just a touch of it. “But I don’t know.”

  “If it could be me, I’d do it. But you need him, don’t you?”

  “I need Elban’s heir.”

  Theron nodded. “That’s Gavin. I was always an afterthought.” His eyes were bright with clarity. “You don’t have to do this, you know. You believe you do, but you don’t. Nothing you’ve been told is true.”

  “All of this was drawn long before you or I were even born.”

  Theron shook his head. He seemed as unafraid as Nate himself. “I’m not strong enough to stop you. I’m sad for Elly, though. I’ve tried to help her as much as I can. It doesn’t feel as though there’s much of me here these days.” Thoughtfully, he added, “There’s not much of you, either.”

  Nate stepped close to him. “I have opium. For the pain.”

  “Oh,” Theron said, “I don’t think it will hurt. You know how to get to the tower from here?”

  “I can find it,” Nate said. Then he took a fistful of Theron’s hair, flicked out his springknife and plunged it into the big vein in the boy’s throat. Theron’s eyes went wide, but he didn’t make a sound. Nate had a vial in his pocket and he filled it at the wound with blood, like water from a spigot. When the blood slowed, he let go. The body slumped to the ground and Nate kicked it into the aquifer. No bubbles rose from the boy’s white face. It blurred and wavered; sank into the depths and was gone.

  * * *

  Judah lay on the tower floor, motionless.

  Every part of her hurt. Her arms and legs might as well have been fused to the floor, for all that she could move them. The light playing on t
he arched stone was the limpid blue of morning, which meant she’d slept. Which meant it was time to start over: force herself to move, to eat, to go back into the Work and rip out the stitches the magus had woven into her. Pass out. Wake up. Do it again. She had lost count of how many times the cycle had repeated. Every stitch she destroyed lessened the tower’s hold on her, but ripping out the weaving hurt so much, and she just wanted to sleep. She wanted her fingers not to be cold and her stomach not to be empty. Even now she could feel the tower wrapping itself around her, coddling her in soothing waves of numbness.

  She would never make fun of Elly for being paralyzed by heights again.

  She forced herself to sit up. Every muscle screamed and she ordered them to be quiet. No muscle had ever sprung loose through the simple act of sitting up. Morning light had never struck anyone blind and her lungs could not inhale enough air to explode. The urge to lie back down and sleep was nearly overwhelming.

  Stupid. All stupid.

  She opened her eyes, all the way this time.

  “All right,” she said to the gap of clear blue sky in front of her. “Here we go.” And she slipped into the Work and began ripping.

  * * *

  Nate heard Gavin and Elly arguing in the parlor from the end of the corridor. From the pitch and color of their voices, they’d been at it a while. It didn’t matter.

  “—no good to her dead,” Eleanor was saying. “And dead is exactly what you’ll be if you try to—”

  Gavin cut her off, growling and angry. “I’ve been training for combat since I was ten years old. You think I can’t climb stairs?”

  “I think you can’t climb those stairs. Not in the shape you’re in. Five minutes ago you were unconscious, Gavin! If that happens on that staircase—”

  They were standing toe-to-toe. The top of Eleanor’s head barely reached Gavin’s chin. His fists were clenched tight at his sides; hers were pressed into her hips. Both of their pale Highfall faces were red and angry.

  “And why do you think I’m having those pains? She needs me,” Gavin said through gritted teeth.

  “Yes, but—” Then Elly noticed Nate, watching from the doorway. Her back stiffened and her mouth snapped shut. He knew it was nothing to do with him, personally; it was the argument she didn’t want him to see. But the unfriendly look Gavin gave Nate was entirely personal. Even though Nate knew that Elban’s last living son could not sense the vial of his dead brother’s blood in the satchel, he found his hand wanting to go to it anyway.

  Although—all those years linked to Judah. Who knew what the stupid ox of a boy could sense?

  “What do you want?” Gavin’s tone, belligerent and nasty, reminded Nate of every farm boy who’d ever come after him because Nate lived in a wagon instead of a hut.

  Nate ignored that. He ignored Elly, too, focusing all of his attention on Elban’s son. “You need to come with me to the tower. The stairs will hold. I can show you where to step. But we have to go now.”

  Elly, who didn’t like being ignored, stepped in between them. “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t bother,” Gavin said. “He’ll only lie to you.”

  She glared at him. “What?”

  “He hasn’t given Judah any of your notes. That’s why she hasn’t written back.”

  Elly’s anger became hurt and betrayal. The part of Nate that no longer fully existed made note of how quickly all the food he’d brought her ceased to matter; how quickly she’d turned on him, with nothing more than a word from Elban’s son. “Is that true?” she said to Nate.

  “You wouldn’t understand.” Nate turned back to Gavin. “We don’t have time to discuss this. The Seneschal wants both of you because of the bond. When he gets here, he’ll torture you until she comes down.” He let himself hesitate. “Which I’m not sure she can do alone. But if you come with me, we can get her down together.”

  “What about Theron and Elly?” Gavin said.

  “The Seneschal doesn’t care about them.”

  The ruined girl stepped back—unconsciously, Nate suspected—so that she was between Gavin and the door. Her eyes were on Nate. “Can you really get him up the stairs?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then go,” she said to Gavin. “Theron and I will stall the Seneschal.”

  “How?”

  “I’ll figure out a way.” Nate could feel her fierceness even from the doorway. “You said she needs help. Go help her.”

  One of Gavin’s hands went to her arm. Slowly, as if he wasn’t sure it belonged there. “Elly—if the Seneschal finds you and not me, he’ll hurt you. I might not be able to feel it, but I’ll be able to...hear—”

  “You’ll be able to hear me screaming.” The girl was disturbingly calm. “Yes. But the Seneschal might be underestimating what it takes to make me scream.”

  Gavin shook his head grimly. “If he hurts you enough, you’ll scream.” Then, like the Lord of Highfall he would never be, “No. If I can’t get up those stairs without help, the Seneschal and his guards can’t, either.”

  “They’ll bring boards and rope,” Elly said. “Go. I’ll stall him.”

  “Listen to her,” Nate said.

  “How will you stall him?” Gavin said, paying no attention to Nate. “By yelling at him? His guards will move you aside like a doll, Elly.”

  Elly’s smile was cold. “You underestimate me, too.”

  Gavin turned his head. Although Nate didn’t think he knew it, he was facing the tower.

  “You know you want to go,” Elly said softly. “So go.”

  He turned back to her. Nate, impatient, didn’t know what he was thinking and didn’t care. All that mattered was that Gavin did what Nate needed him to do, and in the end, he did. With a curt nod to Elly, he pushed past Nate and out of the parlor.

  Nate followed him. Elban’s heir would make it up the stairs. The tower would make sure of it.

  * * *

  Every ripped stitch hurt more. Was it the anticipation of how bad it would be that made it worse, or was the tower holding on more tightly to what remained? She could feel the stifling weight of it around her, could feel it reaching into her, trying to pull her back down into torpor. She had managed to drag herself to standing when the door opened; the sight of the magus filled her with hatred and pity as she stood swaying.

  But then he stepped through the door and behind him, she saw Gavin. Somehow, impossibly; too thin, but so essentially himself that she felt him like a heat source. He pushed the magus aside, came straight to her, and threw his arms around her. She met them gladly.

  “I’m here,” he said. “I came for you.”

  Behind him, she could see the magus kneeling on the floor, rummaging through his satchel. He didn’t seem to be paying them any attention, but Judah knew better. She felt the hot prickle of tears in her eyes. “It’s not that simple.”

  “No,” the magus said, standing up. “It’s not.” He’d rolled up his sleeves. On one of his arms, he wore the tooled leather cuff Judah had seen in Caterina’s memory, a bloody blade protruding from it; on the other, he’d opened a long gash. In the hand of the bleeding arm he held a small bottle, just like the one Theron’s antidote had come in. As Judah watched, he switched it to the knife hand, and poured whatever was inside over his wound. The new liquid was blood-colored, too, but it was darker and seemed to flow unevenly. With a practiced flick of his wrist, the bloody knife blade disappeared back into the cuff. He tossed the vial aside.

  Then he began to draw on his own arm. This was wrong. The surface needed to shine, he’d told her. It was all a crutch, an empty ritual, but he believed in the rules.

  Gavin made a small strangling sound and fell to his knees next to her. His eyes were wide and panicked, his lips parted. She could see the tip of his tongue poised to speak. No part of him moved. He didn’t even blink.

  “There,”
the magus said, sounding tired but satisfied. He dropped down onto the small sofa, as if his legs wouldn’t hold him.

  Judah looked back and forth between his limp, exhausted form and Gavin’s unmoving one. “What did you do?”

  “He’s fine. He just can’t move,” the magus said. “I’ve been practicing. But I’m not strong enough to hold him for very long. We have to hurry.”

  * * *

  How will you stall him, Elly?

  It was a valid question. Eleanor stood in the parlor and considered it.

  She didn’t know exactly what was happening, why the Seneschal was coming for Judah or how the magus planned to stop him after he and Gavin retrieved Judah. And why hadn’t he passed along her notes? And why had Gavin been awake all night in agony, and where was Theron? She hated not knowing. She was used to feeling like a pawn, and that was bad enough, but now she no longer felt like she understood the game, and that infuriated her.

  But she wanted all of them together, where they belonged. Gavin and Judah were together; Eleanor wanted Theron. Gavin and Judah could put up a fight, and they had the magus. Theron had nobody. Theron was a lost kitten. Theron may or may not even notice that another person was in the room. She was not going to leave him at the mercy of the Seneschal’s guards, and maybe he could help stall the Seneschal, and how was she going to stall the Seneschal, anyway?

  As her eyes scanned the room—for Theron, for an idea, for a stray army that had somehow escaped her notice—one of her fingers went to her mouth, the hardened cuticle between her teeth. Her gaze fell on the old stack of books she’d brought from the Lady’s Library: herbals, cookery books. One of them had a recipe for a salve to put on sore cuticles. Another to keep children from biting their nails. None contained an army. Although—

  Eleanor had spent so many hours reading the diaries of long-dead ladies that they had started to seem alive to her, with all the quirks and faults of living people. Silly Lady Berla filled the pages of her diaries with descriptions of her wardrobe, Lady Agatha with equally exacting descriptions of her physical ailments. Bound by tradition to keep a journal but clearly uninterested, Gavin’s mother had—disappointingly—kept only the most perfunctory of notes about her day. (One page, fixed in Eleanor’s memory, read simply, Lost baby. Seneschal kept E away.)