by C. L. Polk
He tilted the mirror up, showing me my own face. And something more; two points of light hovered over my head. One was a soft pink, the other green like spring leaves, nestled in the blue-green light outlining my body. My witchmarks, as Grace called them. Blemishes on my aura.
“What are those?”
“The reason why your kind are called Starred Ones. You didn’t know? I watched Nick bind his power to you when he died.”
“The green.”
It wasn’t just his power. He’d given me his soul. He’d bound it to me instead of floating off to rest and rejuvenation in the Solace. I would have staggered if I’d been standing. Why give me such a sacrifice? I was a stranger. Whatever Nick had been investigating, he’d given up everything on the chance that I would help.
“Yes. You already had the first. Who does it belong to?”
I wanted to disappear. “I don’t know.”
I lied. I knew whose soul had bonded with mine.
“You do,” he said. “They died. You were there. You were touching; they poured their being into binding to you, and then died.”
I closed my eyes. I squeezed them tight, but I couldn’t close my ears, unhear what he said. Tristan caught my hand. I should have pushed him away.
“Miles,” he said. “You remember. Who bound their soul to you?”
My chest ached. My throat closed on the spiny lump blooming there, robbing my voice. I licked dry lips and told him.
“My mother.”
Memory showed me the fine red spray she had coughed on my father’s suit before she fell, and the bleeding inside her body when I tried to save her. She had squeezed my hand, smiling at me with bloody teeth. The rosy light around her body slid off the shell of her skin and rushed over mine, wrapping me up as tight as one of her hugs. Then the light left her, and I was alone.
Had she seen what I had done with my life? Did she forgive me?
I didn’t see how she could, when I hadn’t.
* * *
“Doctor?”
We’d been sitting together in silence while I gazed at the rose-gold globe of light hovering near my ear. My witchmark. I had been trying to hear her, or sense her presence, but all I had was the light, shining in the mirror.
Tristan shook my knee. “Miles.”
“Hmm?”
He peered at me. “Maybe you don’t need any more morphine. Do you want to go to bed?”
I blinked. “What time is it?”
He levered himself off the fainting couch and hauled me upright. “Come on. It’s time for bed.”
We made it upstairs with my left arm slung over his shoul der, and I hardly stumbled, for my part. He guided me into the cheerful mismatched guest room and stood back. “Can you manage?”
“Hmm?”
“The buttons.”
“Oh.” I reached for the top one and winced as I tried to twist it free. Tristan brushed my hands away, fingers on the covered button, and he unfastened it.
Cool air snuck under my collar, turning my skin to gooseflesh. “Mr. Hunter.”
“Four more,” he said, his voice quiet in the dark.
I stood still. “Go on.”
His fingertips never touched my skin, but I burned for it. Dizzy and gone with morphine, with my wrist grumbling complaint, I stood still while he sought each button by touch, sliding each silk-covered disk through its hole until my dressing gown fell open and I was undressed before him.
But that was all right. I was in a bedchamber.
He stayed in reach of my good left hand and held me with the intent gaze of a man who has exactly what he wants in his sights. For ten heartbeats, he stood right where I could lay my hand on his shoulder and waited.
I lifted my hand and his mouth opened, just a little, as I drifted my fingers over his cheek.
“Tristan,” I said. His eyes flared wide. I would never tire of saying it, not when it put such a light in his eyes. “I should go to sleep.”
His throat moved as he swallowed. “Sensible Miles.” He turned his head and dropped a kiss on my palm. “Pleasant dreams.”
He gave me one last intent look before leaving me to privacy. Sensible, responsible, stupid Miles. I let the dressing gown pool on the floor when he left.
THIRTEEN
A White-Handled Knife
I woke up in the dark. My splinted arm ached; my head pounded. I could only see vague shapes, darker shadows among gray: My hatbox perched on the tea table, and my uniform hung on a hook on the back of the door. It was parade day. Sixteen patients sent home, and those beds would be full by the time I returned to work on Firstday.
I tried flexing the fingers of my right hand. A little stiff, but it could have been worse. It had been worse, and I needed to watch my back. But I couldn’t stay in bed, or hide, or abandon my responsibilities. Hunted or not, I had to keep going. At least I could sleep in tomorrow.
I groaned. Not tomorrow. I had to go back home. I couldn’t stay here tonight. I didn’t want Grace to know anything more about Tristan, let alone where he lived—
“Blast.”
I’d staggered straight to Tristan’s house from the accident. Idiot! What if I’d been followed? What if they knew where I was right now?
I had to warn Tristan. What if they came after him, if they targeted Mrs. Sparrow?
I flung the coverlet off and planted my feet on the floor.
The scarlet gown was just where I’d left it, and I rose from my bed and scooped it off the carpet. I belted the sash over the unbuttoned front and found my way downstairs. Tristan lounged in the parlor, still dressed in waistcoat and shirtsleeves. He read with his peculiar speed until he noticed me. He looked up and set the book away.
“Good morning,” he said. “How is your wrist?”
“It was fractured. Now it’s stiff,” I said. “Listen. After the accident, I came straight here.”
“You’re worried you were followed.”
“Yes. I should have known better. I should have thought of it.”
“I’ll be careful. And I’ll tell Michael. He’ll look out for Mrs. Sparrow.”
I’d put them in danger. Tristan and Michael wouldn’t let anything happen to her. But if I’d stopped to think, this wouldn’t have happened.
“Miles.” Tristan interrupted my thoughts. “Don’t borrow trouble. Are you hungry?”
“Yes.” I could eat a house. “Er. I need to eat. Quite a lot—”
“You used your own reserves before you tapped into your souls, Starred One,” Tristan said. “Do you always do it that way? Draw on your personal energy until there’s nothing left to give?”
“I guess I do,” I said.
“We’ll have to fix your technique,” Tristan said. “But another day. Come into the kitchen before you fall down.”
I sat in what was becoming my chair. He set a thick slice of apple tart in front of me and kept the food coming: eggs, leftover chicken, all the coffee I could guzzle.
He joined me once he’d dished up a small mountain, a cup of chocolate next to his plate. “Do you suppose our man with the mustache is our poisoner?”
“Yes. But I don’t think he’s our murderer.”
Tristan gave me a quizzical look. I held up a hand while I swallowed some eggs.
“I mean I think he’s our murderer’s man.”
“Ah. Someone too influential to get his—her? —hands dirty.”
“Exactly.”
He tilted his head and nodded for me to go on.
I gulped down sweet black coffee. “The Minister of Defense. Sir Percy Stanley. He’s one of us. A mage, I mean.”
“A powerful man.”
“I don’t know how we could bring him down, honestly.”
“Oh. Leave that to me.” Tristan’s smile bared his teeth. The light in his eyes made me shiver. “Toppling him will be a pleasure.”
Part of me exulted at the idea, but the rest rushed to speak. “You can’t. Not until we have proof. Not that I like the man, I don’t,
but—”
“For you, I will wait until you’re convinced.”
For me. He’d hold back on meting out justice until I gave the word. He entrusted his vengeance to me, and it made my palms tingle with warmth that spread to my chest. “Thank you.” I laid my fork down and rubbed my chin. “Damn it. I need a shave.”
“You do,” Tristan agreed. “Leave it to me. I’ll be ready when you’re done with bathing.”
* * *
It took longer to brush my teeth, and bathing without my right hand went slowly. I went downstairs in a new dressing gown left for me outside the door.
Tristan didn’t have a barber’s chair, but he had a seat with a reclining back and a basin behind it. A small table held the tools of shaving as neatly as any of my surgical trays, and he stood beside it, rolling his sleeves to the elbow.
Tristan gestured to the chair. “Sit.”
He helped me rest my head with one hand at the back of my neck. The top of the chair was high enough so my head hung slightly back.
“I can manage.”
“Indeed you can. Let me do it.”
“There’s so much to do.”
“Not right now. Close your eyes.”
The scent of shaving oil came close, and Tristan’s fingers massaged my cheeks, lightly covering my beard before he wrapped a hot towel over my face. His fingers were in my hair before I could say anything, firm fingers massaging my scalp. “Forget about everything. Just relax.”
I kept my eyes closed against the heat of the towels. It felt glorious—every last trace of my headache erased by his firm hands. “You’re good at this.”
“I could open a shop.”
I kept my eyes closed, but I smiled. “You’d make a good valet.”
He scoffed. “More money in owning the shop. How did you wind up a veteran?”
Tristan scrubbed his fingers through my hair. I barely bit down a moan, covered it up with an explanation. “I ran away and joined the army. It seemed like a good idea. I could do what I was born to do: heal people, fight death.”
The teeth of a comb scraped gently against my scalp. “But then the war broke out?”
“Aeland invaded Laneer just as I was finishing a surgery fellowship.”
The towel came away, and he rubbed lather into my beard. “And so you went over.”
“It’s what I signed up for.”
Water splashed behind me as he washed his hands in the basin. “You’re brave.”
“You stepped in front of an arrow.”
“Well, I’m brave too,” Tristan said. “I’m one of the Queen’s Hunters.”
“What does that mean?”
“We’re bodyguards. But more than that. We’re truth seekers and justice bringers.”
“That’s why you’re here, right?”
The tiniest pause elapsed before he said, “Essentially. Are you ready?”
“Do your worst. If you cut my throat, I can heal it now.”
He quirked up one corner of his mouth. “Good.”
He planted his thumb high on my cheekbone to stretch the skin. Tristan’s razor was a single naked blade, honed to a breath. The edge never skipped or bit into my skin, and the blade floated over the pulse of my throat. Could he see how fast it beat? He had to.
He tilted my chin up, stropped the blade, and my beard scraped against the edge as he shaved. I fought a shiver that would cut my throat, and he lifted the razor away.
“All right?”
“Yes. I…”
“Relax. Breathe, slow.”
My hair stood on end. Just his voice near one ear made my skin tingle. I breathed. He touched every inch of the space where my beard grew, going over it with the razor if it wasn’t smooth enough for his liking. The razor cut through my beard with a crackly scraping sound, and I breathed. Slow. Even. And when he carefully daubed away the last traces of soap from my cheeks, the corner of my mouth, I nearly moaned again.
He ran his fingers across my cheek, circled my chin with his fingertips, and nodded once.
“A handsome shave.”
I could reach up and pull him closer, bring his head down to where I could taste his fennel-scented mouth for myself. My fingers twitched.
“I appreciate it,” I said, surprised at the hoarseness of my voice. “It was very kind of you.”
“I can be kind,” he said. “I am often kind.”
He kept the veiling spell on, but I couldn’t look away.
“You should dress,” Tristan said. “Can you manage?”
I knew what would happen if I said I couldn’t. A vivid guess bloomed in my mind’s eye, down to the morning sunlight shining off his hair.
My heart pounded. I licked my lips. “Tristan—”
The front door opened and Tristan stepped back, cleaning the soap off his razor.
“Good morning, Mrs. Sparrow,” Tristan called. “I’m afraid I’ve demolished the kitchen.”
* * *
I retreated upstairs, leaving Tristan to assure Mrs. Sparrow we would manage the week’s end alone. I leaned against the door of my room to clear my whirling thoughts. The week’s end, alone, after we had come so close to—
I couldn’t pretend I was imagining it. I knew enough about how a man carried himself around someone he wanted. If I reached out my hand, Tristan would take it. And he’d stay in reach, putting the burden of resistance on me.
I shrugged into the band-collared shirt that went under my uniform’s dress tunic. There were stories of what happened to mortals ensnared by an Amaranthine’s enchantment, what happened when the Amaranthine grew bored and left them. He hadn’t enchanted me, but Tristan was leaving. That was enough reason to refuse anyone.
The buttons were a trial, but I could twist my right hand around to push them through the holes. When I discovered I’d buttoned my shirt askew, I cursed and undid them.
“Doctor,” Mrs. Sparrow called. “Do you need any help with your uniform?”
“There are too many buttons, Mrs. Sparrow.” I opened the door to admit her. “If you could help?”
Mrs. Sparrow came right in. “Barrel cuffs were too much for you, Doctor?”
“Yes. Tristan already made me breakfast,” I said. “I think he stayed up all night.”
Her eyes came swift up to mine. “How did you sleep?”
“Like a log, shortly after supper.”
She did up the doubled row of buttons, clasped the standing gold collar at my throat, and stood back to admire the effect. She eyed the embroidered circles on the tunic’s left breast and said, “You’ll need help with your medals.”
I would have pinned them on the jacket first, but too late now. “Yes, if you’d please help.”
“Of course.”
I had two racks of medals. Each one held three. I never looked at them. “The one with the olive green ribbons first.”
“A Beauregard Star,” Mrs. Sparrow said. “You were first to fight.”
“First and most foolish, Mrs. Sparrow.” I gave her a smile and pulled the collar away from my throat. “The others are the Kingston medal and the Order of Healers. I got those for showing up.”
She knew what the other rack meant. A silver coin with the Queen’s face in profile was my medal for serving at the front. The golden cross and crown was my reward for crawling through muck and dismembered parts to fetch a boy who was still alive after they’d dumped him on a hill of corpses. His medal had been awarded posthumously.
The last medal, an oval copper coin, bore an engraving of shackles broken; the motto ENDURANCE curved along the left half of the coin, and COURAGE along the right. Mrs. Sparrow stared at it, her eyes glittering with tears.
“I’m here now, Mrs. Sparrow.” I’d put a handkerchief in my left pocket, and I dabbed at the trails spilling down her cheeks. “You only get to walk around in that medal if you survive it.”
She wouldn’t ask me what they had done. Most of us never speak of it. She reached up and patted my cheek, a brave and watery smile on
her face.
I squeezed her hand. “I appreciate your help with my uniform.”
I followed her downstairs with my peaked cap tucked under my left arm, kid gloves held in my right. The uniform tugged me to stand taller.
Tristan stood up when I entered and smoothed his hands over his waistcoat. “You look dashing, Doctor.”
“Thank you.”
“Michael will take you to the hospital, and we’ll arrive at about four.”
“And then we’re off to the Star?”
“Yes. The appointment is at four thirty. It’ll be close.”
“I’ll be ready.”
* * *
Beauregard Veterans’ woke up early to get dressed. Oiled canvas bags rested on the feet of made beds, their patients lined up in the bathrooms to shave cheeks and comb mustaches into tidy curls. The corridors filled with the gray uniforms of soldiers and the scarlet tunics of officers, and I wished I could go to my office and do paperwork until it was all over.
But they saw. They all saw.
We could construct the story of someone’s tour by the medals on their chest. I did my best to go about my business, but Kate Small saw my copper coin and brought me coffee. Young Gerald’s face wound up, and he bit his lip to keep it from trembling. People patted my shoulder, squeezed my hand, and told me they were glad I’d made it.
But Bill asked flat out. “How did you do it, Doc? Why aren’t you in one of these beds? How?”
“You all need me,” I said.
“Minerva needs me.” Bill looked up at the ceiling. “But here I am.”
I rubbed my tingling hand on my trousers. I couldn’t help him. I didn’t dare. The cloud spread deeper down Bill’s spine. Drawing spinal fluid was painful. I didn’t have a clear reason to run this test, and Dr. Crosby had his nose in my files.
“We’ll get you out of bed, Bill. Don’t give up.”
But Bill was already staring at the white-painted ceiling.
I went back to the nurse’s station and did my best to fill out charts. Kate brought me a Lost or Stolen Equipment and Medication form, and filled it out for me while I dictated the answers.
“What a shame your bag is gone,” she said. “All your tools.”
I agreed it was and took the form up to the Materials office, where the clerk looked over my papers and asked, “Engraved with M.H.S. on the plate, embossed with balm leaves, tobacco brown leather?”