Winterkeep

by Kristin Cashore

  Hava seemed to rouse herself. “Aren’t you an animal doctor?” she asked Quona, leaning forward with her chin in her hand. She did that sometimes—rarely—when she wanted to challenge someone with the strangeness of her mismatched eyes. She blinked at Quona, copper and red.

  Quona met her gaze. “Yes. I have an advanced degree in animal medicine,” she said. “It’s also my academic subject. I teach Winterkeep’s brightest future animal doctors.”

  “And isn’t your sister the prime minister of Winterkeep? Doesn’t your family usually go into politics?”

  Quona flashed a toothy smile. “Absolutely,” she said. “Politics, or airships.”

  “Why didn’t you go into politics or airships? Don’t you like your family?”

  “Hava!” said Froggatt in a scandalized tone, his first contribution to the conversation. Poor Froggatt. Giddon guessed he’d been crying this morning too; his eyes were puffy.

  “Don’t you ‘Hava’ me,” Hava snarled at him.

  “Hava,” said Giddon tiredly, before he could stop himself.

  “Oh, Hava asks a valid question,” said Quona. “I am, without a doubt, not what my family hoped I would be. I’m about as qualified to be a politician or an airship magnate as I would guess you are, Hava, to be Queen of Monsea.”

  Quona had no idea that Hava, like Bitterblue, was the daughter of King Leck, but it was the sort of offhand remark that could send Hava running. Giddon glanced at Hava nervously.

  “But don’t misunderstand: I’m very proud of my family,” Quona continued. “Like a true Scholar, Sara is devoted to the protection of the environment. She’s not the first Varana to be prime minister, nor will she be the last. And our family invented the airship, which is a zilfium-free technology and the fastest means of transportation in the world. The mixture of gases that keeps airships buoyant, varane, is named after us. Unlike zilfium, it’s environmentally safe. So,” she said, switching topics. “What do you all intend to do today? How can I help? No one will bother you. Keepish society knows not to come to my house without invitation.”

  “We have letters to write to our colleagues at home,” said Froggatt, “and meetings to set up here. We believe the queen would have wanted us to move forward with her diplomatic intentions.”

  “Good men,” said Quona, nodding grimly at Froggatt, Barra, and Coran. “And you?” she said, considering Giddon and Hava. It was interesting that she’d intuited, correctly, that the advisers were one team, Giddon and Hava another. Froggatt, Barra, and Coran knew little about the zilfium trick that had been played upon Bitterblue and nothing about her suspicions regarding the sinking of the Seashell. Nothing about Katu, either. The advisers were here to behave like diplomats. Giddon and Hava, in contrast, were going to sniff out those zilfium importers, and choke them.

  And yet, Giddon also had letters to write, to his friends, the people who’d loved Bitterblue the most, besides him.

  He couldn’t write those letters yet.

  “We intend to visit Periwinkle, the Lienid envoy, today,” he said. “At dinner last night, he suggested we stop by.” Periwinkle, who had dripped with tears all throughout dinner, would recognize the surnames on Bitterblue’s list of importers, and maybe he would know the given names that went with them.

  “Excellent,” said Quona. “The office of the Lienid envoy is in the Keep. Would you like to fly there in my airship? Avoid the ambles?”

  Giddon didn’t know what the ambles were, nor did he particularly care. Last night, they’d traveled to this house in Quona’s airship. How surreal it had been to float across the sky in a wooden ship attached to a balloon, with sails tacking and jibing like they did on water. So windy and cold, with sudden drops and climbs, as if the air was composed of invisible hills. When it had been time to land, one of Quona’s fliers had shot some sort of tiny anchor, attached to a line, into a net on Quona’s roof. A guard on the roof had disattached the anchor from the net, then attached a dock line to the anchor. The fliers had hauled the dock line up into the airship, then kept hauling on it to bring the airship down to the dock. It had been unlike anything Giddon had ever experienced. You would’ve hated it, Giddon thought to Bitterblue, suddenly furious that she’d missed the wonder of flying. She would’ve been amazed by it too. She would’ve asked a million questions, while clinging to Giddon and Hava and shrieking. She should have been allowed to have all those feelings.

  Giddon could sense that his face had turned to marble. “Is it a long walk to the Keep?” he asked, trying to banish the anger from his tone.

  “Perhaps an hour,” she said.

  “We’ll walk,” said Hava, in a short, unfriendly voice.

  “Shall I draw you a map?” she said.

  “We have a map,” said Hava.

  “If a fox were bonded to me,” said Quona, “I could ask that fox to direct you there.”

  “We have a map,” Hava repeated sharply.

  “I understand,” said Quona, an innocuous comment that nonetheless caused Hava to stand up and stalk from the room. The cat that had been lying on Giddon’s foot stirred, then moved away, leaving him feeling untethered.

  “I’m sorry,” Giddon said weakly. “She’s very upset.”

  “Of course she is,” said Quona. “Aggression is a natural tactic in her situation, if ineffective. And how are you feeling this morning? I understand that you were in the water yesterday for a very long time.”

  “I’m fine,” said Giddon, who didn’t want to remember.

  “Are you one of those people who pretends to be stronger than he is?” said Quona. “That’s a reasonable tactic too, of course. One must choose a path, then stick to it.”

  Punctured, Giddon spent a moment carefully folding his napkin. He blinked, baffled by his new inability to control his tears.

  You are not pretending, Bitterblue told him. You are strong.

  You don’t see inside me. You don’t see my small, mean thoughts.

  I am inside you, silly, she told him.

  * * *

  —

  “I hate this place,” said Hava as they walked to the Keep. “And I hate her.”

  The footpath to the city led first past the Cliff Farm, which, despite its beautiful, glass-windowed barns, smelled earthy and sour, just like farms at home. With a slow, deep breath, Giddon made a promise to himself to get through this day without saying “Hava!” reproachfully more than three times, including the time he’d already done so at breakfast.

  He said, “She is a bit—”

  “Braggy?” interrupted Hava. “Cat-obsessed? Nosy? I’m not going to be queen.”

  Giddon had been waiting for this. “Hava,” he said, “I promise that won’t happen.”

  “I won’t do it,” she said insistently. A tear ran down her cheek, then vanished. Giddon recognized the signs, the strange wavering in the air if you knew to watch for it, his own sudden disinterest in looking at her too closely. She was using her Grace, probably hiding more tears.

  He swallowed the gorge that rose sometimes, if you were too aware of what she was doing. Then he turned back to admire Quona’s house, as if it interested him, as if he weren’t trying to give her a moment to gather her composure. The house clung to the cliff, looking like part of the landscape. Its windows gleamed. On the roof, above a single, small window, sat Quona’s airship. Its balloon was long and gray, decorated with many tentacles, a representation of that creature that had some significance in Winterkeep. Some legendary sea monster? Giddon couldn’t remember.

  When he glanced back at Hava, she was still changing her face. “I know you won’t be queen,” he said. “No one knows who your father was, Hava. Even if they did know, they wouldn’t expect you to be queen. Bitterblue had protocols in place in case of her death, and they don’t involve you. You know that.”

  “I would leave,” she said, her voice cracking.
<
br />   “I know you would,” said Giddon. Then he used all the strength he had to keep from saying more. Not to beg her to stay, not to forbid her to run away; not to impose any will that wasn’t her own, because that was the surest way to lose Hava. But he needed her to stay. He needed it so badly that he clenched his fists around the map he was carrying, to keep from reaching out to hold her there.

  “It was an unfortunate thing for Quona to say,” he said. “But she said it in ignorance. It was also unfeeling,” he added, “to all of us, given the circumstances.”

  “I hate her,” she said again.

  “I’m not wild about her myself. But I think she means well.”

  “I don’t. I didn’t believe a word she said. Every word was insincere.”

  “Well,” said Giddon. “I do believe she likes cats.”

  Hava snorted. She was showing him her real face now, complete with tears. She raised a sleeve and smeared them away. “This is awful,” she said. “I hate this.”

  Giddon took another breath. “Yes. Me too.” What do I do?

  You could try giving her a job, said Bitterblue.

  He handed Hava the map, now slightly crumpled. “What do you think is the best route to the Keep?”

  * * *

  —

  The first part of the journey, down the footpath that ran along the cliff above the sea, was straightforward enough. Before and below them, the city of Ledra spread itself out, towers and domes, parks and gardens, taking shape as the day brightened. The footpath turned occasionally to short, wooden bridges that crossed over crashing water below. Some of the bridges moved when you stepped on them. You would hate the footbridges, Giddon thought. But you would love the views.

  “Do you notice there’s a fox following us?” said Hava.

  “There is?” said Giddon. “Whose fox?”

  “How would I know that?”

  Giddon shrugged. “With whatever magical power made you notice the fox?”

  “You mean eyesight?”

  “Is it actually following us,” said Giddon, “or just going the same way we’re going?”

  “It’s not like it’s carrying a sign announcing its intentions,” said Hava in a quelling tone.

  Giddon glanced around, but all he saw was the dramatic landscape. “All right,” he said. “Keep me posted.”

  Once they reached the city, it became more necessary to consult the map. At one point, winding their way through Ledra’s labyrinthine streets, they took a wrong turn. Then, when they tried to retrace their steps, two people in uniform at the base of a staircase asked them for their pass.

  “Pass? What do you mean?” said Giddon, in his most polite Keepish. “We just came down that staircase.”

  “You’re in the amble now,” one of the guards said. “You have to walk through in the same direction as everyone else, unless you have a pass.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand,” said Giddon. “What’s an amble?”

  “Royal Continent,” said one of the guards, nodding knowingly. “You don’t know our shopping areas. You enter at one end and exit at the other.”

  “An amble is a shopping area?” said Giddon. “Where’s the other end? Is it at the end of this street?”

  “No, it’s beyond that. Just follow the traffic.”

  From where Giddon was standing, the traffic didn’t seem to have a particular direction. There were more people on this street than on the other streets they’d walked along, all kinds of people, some speaking languages he didn’t know, but most were milling around what he now recognized as shops for clothing, fabric, flowers, food. Almost all the shops had counters open to the street, then a door that customers could enter if they wished to see what else the store had to offer. Now and then, an airship passed overhead. He wanted to board them, and go somewhere else.

  “Is the Keep accessible from inside this amble?” asked Hava.

  “No,” said the guard, “of course not. This is the Flag Hill amble. The Keep is over near the academy, to the east.”

  “But—” said Giddon.

  “Thank you,” said Hava, then grabbed Giddon’s wrist and started pulling him down the street.

  “Hey!” he said. “No grabbing!”

  Hava rolled her eyes and kept pulling him. “The Keepish sailors on the ship talked about the ambles. It’s like a maze. We’ll never get anywhere until we get out of it.”

  “All right,” he said, feeling hopeless and tired suddenly, because apparently he was in a city of invisible traps. He wanted to go home. But where was home? Once, this had been a difficult question; now it was unbearable.

  Hava let go of his wrist, then looked at him hard.

  “I’m fine,” he said.

  “Sure you are. Come on, I think the traffic’s moving this way.”

  Giddon followed her, resenting the beauty of the Flag Hill amble. The winding alleys and narrow staircases gave the city a character that, combined with glass windows, shiny brass lamps, neat painted signs for upscale shops, made it seem prosperous, expensive, in a way that Bitterblue City was not. At a tea shop, the drinks smelled bright, sharp, unusual. Bitterblue loved trying new foods and drinks. If she were here, they would stop. At a game shop, unfamiliar board games lay in a window open to the street, jeweled pieces lined up like cheery little soldiers. In different circumstances, Giddon might have bought one of the games for them to try later.

  Though he might not too, because at every cross street, guards stopped them from exiting the amble, asking for their pass, and this nettled him. He noticed that people were allowed to enter at those points, of course. You could get in, but you couldn’t get out.

  He wanted to know if people lived on these streets, people who had to weave through a maze every time they left home, maybe in the opposite direction from where they needed to go. The amble took turn after arbitrary turn down alleys lined with shops, sometimes up long staircases with shopfronts to either side.

  “How does anyone live here who can’t climb?” said Giddon, who was getting tired of going up and down stairs. “What happens when you get old, or break your leg?”

  “I don’t know,” said Hava, climbing beside him with an intent expression.

  “Do the people who live above these shops have to walk the long way through the amble?”

  “I think residents and businesspeople carry a pass,” Hava said. “Noa said something about it on the ship. She grew up inside one of the ambles.”

  “What if you have a medical emergency? What if you’re giving birth?”

  Hava clapped him on the shoulder. “I promise I won’t let you give birth alone.”

  “Brat.”

  “Bully.”

  The familiar teasing hurt. It was part of a happiness that was gone now. Giddon pushed on.

  At the top of another staircase, down an alley and around a corner, they reached an arch guarded by two uniformed people. A square was visible beyond.

  “Do you think we’ve made it through?” said Giddon.

  “I surely hope so.”

  “Proof of purchase,” said one of the guards as they approached.

  “Proof of purchase?” Giddon replied.

  “You must purchase something in the amble before exiting,” said the guard.

  “Are you serious?” Giddon said, startled by this. “If you enter a shopping area, you have to purchase something? Is this a law?”

  “It certainly is,” said the guard. “What part of the Royal Continent are you from, sir?”

  “But what if I have no money? What if I’m poor?”

  “Begging your pardon, sir, but you don’t look poor.”

  “I purchased something,” interrupted Hava, then handed an object to the guard that seemed to be a tiny, silver figurine of a fox, its eyes made of yellow diamonds. Giddon noticed that she was cha
nging how her face looked. Her eyes were gray, and Ungraced.

  “This looks like a game piece from a City game,” said the guard, fingering the fox. “A valuable City game. Is this from Bazil’s Game Shop?”

  “Yes,” said Hava.

  “And you only purchased one piece?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s odd, isn’t it?”

  Hava shrugged. “I only needed one piece.”

  “Hm,” the guard said doubtfully. “For all I know, you brought that game piece into the amble with you. I don’t need to see the purchase. I need to see the proof of purchase.”

  “Is this it?” said Hava, holding up her hand.

  At the sight of the bright, white paper with a colorful shop insignia held in Hava’s hand, Giddon glanced away, for it made his gorge rise.

  The man handed the fox back to her, a new disinterest on his face. “Very good,” he said. “Move along.”

  Giddon waited until they’d crossed the square. Then he allowed himself his second frustrated “Hava!” of the day.

  “Yes?” she said, tucking the shiny little fox back into a pocket.

  “What if he’d tried to take that proof of purchase from you?”

  “You saw that he didn’t.”

  “How did you even know what it should look like?”

  “Weren’t you watching the people in the amble? I saw a dozen shopkeepers hand a dozen proofs of purchase to people.”

  The main thing Giddon had noticed in the amble was that every small, dark-haired woman was Bitterblue to him, until she turned and showed the wrong face, or spoke in the wrong voice, or moved the wrong way. “You have money,” he said. “Why are you stealing from Keepish artisans?”

  “Because I wanted it,” she said, “and because I hate this place. It killed my sister.”

  The answer undid Giddon, who didn’t have a Grace to hide the tears that filled his eyes. He blotted them quickly with his sleeve. Bitterblue? he said. I’m afraid she’ll take anything I say right now as a reason to run away.

  I think you have to accept that she may run away, Giddon. It’s not in your power to stop her.