Annette’s words—so similar, so long ago—came back to me. She had been asking me if I was a lady, and I hadn’t understood, had never heard the words or thought on them. How isolated I had been. How foolish.
Henry XII wasn’t only attempting to corral girls, but anyone not like him. Even outside of magic, anyone who didn’t fit neatly into the ideals of Lord Sun and Mistress Moon—and only ever those two options—wasn’t really a part of Demeine.
“My parents are overjoyed they have a son, and I am lucky I found dear friends in Sébastien and Laurence. They, and now you, are the only ones who know outside of my family. You are all the only ones who can know right now. Though, I am hopeful that the future I am working toward won’t always be like this.” He took a slow, long breath and exhaled, hand held up between us so I wouldn’t interrupt. “I want us to be friends. I think, given time, we could be good friends, but considering where we are going, I wanted to make that clear in case anything happened. I hope I am right in thinking I can trust you.”
“I want us to be friends too.” I didn’t say anything else. I let the moment sit and tried to think of anything, the best thing, to say, but what was there I could offer that he hadn’t already heard?
Being a boy’s not that easy. I would know. You don’t understand.
Edouard was right. I didn’t.
“It would really help,” Charles said, “if you said something.”
“Sorry. I’m sorry.” I shook my head and held out my hand for him to take if he wanted. “Something someone said to me just made sense. I was too much of an ass to listen to him before.”
Even without gathering magic, I could hear the frantic panic of his heart.
“Oh. Good. I think a slight subtraction of ass would do us all good.” Charles took my hand, threading our fingers together.
I squeezed his hand. “Thank you for trusting me and also still wanting to be my friend. Perhaps my initial temperament was spurred by some small jealousy-like feelings I harbored, given my own desire to be a physician.”
“The terrible truth comes out.” He unlaced our fingers and smiled, still nervous. “Perhaps I antagonized you due to some choice comments.”
I winced. There must have been so many people Demeine had discounted and erased who had come before me. If only scrying allowed me to punch my past self, then perhaps I would be interested in learning it.
“We are our own,” I said. “Do you think the Laurels mean that more broadly? That we get to decide who we are, not Demeine, our parents, or the king?”
“Probably,” he said, “and I imagine that anyone Demeine has cast aside would find a home with them.”
Another thing I had never thought to ask.
“I won’t let anyone find out, and if anything happens, I’ll help,” I said slowly.
He sniffed. “Good.”
We lapsed back into silence, and I shifted.
“I’m not good at reading moments emotionally—my mother always said I had the emotional depth of a puddle during a drought—so this might be off, but do you want to find a practice hog and work on our surgery skills?”
“Absolutely.” He raised one ruddy eyebrow at me, and his starry cheeks dimpled as he smiled. “Have you ever worked on facial wounds?”
“No, not really,” I said and leapt off my stool. “Why?”
“Because I’m going to be so much better at it than you,” said Charles. “They bleed atrociously and are common to see in the field. We need the practice.”
“You’ve had a whole year more than me to practice,” I muttered. “You won’t be better for long.”
He hummed. “We’ll see.”
Charles was much, much better at it than me. We worked for a good while, Sébastien eventually joining us around supper. By dusk, we were lagging, and Sébastien slapped Charles on the shoulder to pull his attention away from his stitchery.
“You have to write your parents before you leave,” Sébastien said, “or they will murder us both.”
Charles blinked up at his friend. “Don’t be ridiculous. Laurence would save us.”
We said our goodbyes until the morning. I walked slowly, not wanting to interrupt Rainier and Madeline’s time together. I had never had a sibling or even a friend closer than an acquaintance, but Madeline might have been that if we had more time. Rainier too.
“Thank you,” Madeline said as I entered the room. She was sitting on her bed with Rainier next to her, several leaves of paper between them, and she patted the bed next to her. “We’re writing letters home.”
“And to each other, in case we die.” Rainier handed me a blank scrap of paper as I sat on Madeline’s other side. She leaned her head against my shoulder. “Join us.”
I fiddled with the pen, hooked an arm through Madeline’s, and nudged her head off me. “No peeking.”
She laughed but turned away.
I wrote the only thing I could think of to both of them to read in the event of my death.
Please, do not follow me.
Twelve
Annette
It was easy being Emilie des Marais. I hadn’t been before. I’d only been using her name and wearing her clothes and drifting through her life like a fake ghost in an ill-fitting costume, but I was Emilie des Marais here. I was a comtesse. I was powerful.
Madame Bisset cleared her throat, a thick ledger in her hands. “Now, what would you do with the leftover funds?”
I could afford the fall.
“Stop charging rent on my estate and hire a full-time surgeon for each area in the province.” I had spent the last ten minutes working out the numbers, and Emilie des Marais could do that and still be making money every year. Not as much money, sure, but what else was she going to do with it? “Maybe a physician for the ports.”
“Emilie,” Bisset said in that calm, smiling voice most folks used for toddlers. “Why?”
Least she didn’t question my calculations.
“Because I can,” I said. “The point of living in a society is taking part in society. We make sure roads and bridges are well cared for, but not the people who need them? Not the people building them? Not the people doing all that work for me?”
“You already pay them.” Bisset sighed. “The order of the world is as it is, and I don’t know why you are so hung up on this aspect of your education.”
I didn’t shrug or scowl or do any of the things she would’ve used against me. I simply turned my head slightly and tilted my chin up. “I don’t know how to explain that I care about other people’s well-being.”
I got in trouble, of course, but it was nothing compared to back home. I was a comtesse! They made me polish silver.
Not that we’d silver for me to polish at home, but it wasn’t much of a job. Vivienne had written Emilie’s mother. I almost felt bad about that.
Emilie, please, darling, stop misbehaving. I know you are unhappy, but I promise this is for your own good.
Emilie seemed to be getting up to about as much trouble as me. She was incapable of brevity, though.
I don’t have much to say. There have been some curious goings-on here, and I suspect something big is about to happen. I cannot fathom a guess as to what, however, and while I am pleased that you have started studying under Estrel Charron, please do not send me any more of her research. Laurence was quite cross when he saw what you sent last week.
That had been the first page.
Of five.
And I got a talking-to from Vivienne about respect and elders and using my position responsibly, and I’d not even nodded to let her know I was listening. Emilie wouldn’t have.
“Mademoiselle Gardinier,” I said softly. “I appreciate how much you care for us, but I’d rather be responsible than respectful.”
Vaser had asked for things. We’d asked nicely. We’d begged on bended knees. We’d been respe
ctful when refused. But we couldn’t ask nicely in the face of death. Respect only served who was being asked, and if they expected it, they’d reject any request as disrespectful.
“Are you going to hold people accountable the way you wish to be held accountable?” she asked.
I froze. That was a saying from one of Laurel’s new pamphlets.
“Go to class, Emilie,” she said softly. “Please do not fight with Estrel. She’s far more likely to kill you, and it’s only your first lesson with her.”
I met Isabelle and Coline outside of Estrel’s quarters. Isabelle paced, her gloved hands fluttering at her sides. Coline, too, was nervous.
“You’re late,” she said with a snap.
I snapped back at her. “Does snapping make me get places sooner?”
“Hush.” Isabelle stepped between us, hands raised. The gloves were delicate little things of silver lace and white leather, and Coline had given them to her this morning. The wounds were well, but the scars were there to stay. “What’s Estrel like?”
“Smart,” I said. “More amused by what I did than angry. She talks like she’s smart, and I couldn’t understand all of what she said. She’s flighty too.”
“She’s not what the court expects of women.” Coline crossed her arms. “Laurence du Montimer once called her the worst sort of hummingbird.”
The door to Estrel’s laboratory opened, and she leaned in the doorway. “It’s because hummingbirds are gorgeous creatures.” One auburn eyebrow arched. “If you’re going to gossip, at least gossip about the fun stories.”
“Fun stories?” Coline spun the locket—the only jewelry she ever wore—and ran her short nails around the edge. “Like when you showed up to a party you weren’t invited to?”
“To be fair, that party was a funeral Laurence du Montimer threw because he thought I was dead, but no one ever talks about that part.” She opened the door wide and beckoned us in. “Wonderful food, though.”
The room was mostly as I remembered. Soft, warm light crept in through the high windows on the western wall, dusk settling over the countryside like dust after rain. Estrel gestured for us all to sit at a long table in the center of the room that hadn’t been there before, and I took a seat facing the window so I could follow the slow sinking of the sun beneath the twining body of the Verglas. Coline and Isabelle crept in slowly, glancing around at the boards and skeleton and tapestries. The glass top of Estrel’s desk was half-covered in a mostly marked-off list of things to do. Isabelle sat across from me. Coline took the seat next to me.
“Now, I know your names, but I want to know what each of you can do.” Estrel stalked to her desk, none of Vivienne’s easy gliding, and picked up a set of four small bowls. “Why are these wooden? Why is the tabletop stone?”
I lifted my hand and left behind a greasy print on the marble.
“It’s less bouncy,” I said. Divinations I’d done in wooden bowls were smooth and clear, but in metal, they rippled. The magic jumped about between the littlest pieces of metals.
Estrel nodded. “I see what you were going for, Emilie. Thank you. Would anyone else like to try?”
“Metal conducts magic, more so than stone or wood.” Coline’s low tone sounded more like a reading from some old tome she found unbearable and boring, than from her. “The ethereal makeup of wood, the way its smallest parts are organized, prevents conduction and stops the midnight arts from leeching out of the bowls and weakening our arts.”
Isabelle and I stared at her.
“As good an explanation as any.” Estrel poured water into each of our bowls. “Power breaks the bonds of the world—the ones holding iron and carbon together to form steel, and the boundaries of time—which is what allows noonday artists to transform a sword into a shield or midnight artists to divine a possible future.”
Estrel showed us the old scars on her hands. “Power breaks bonds and corrupts what it flows through, including mortal bodies. That is why many artists use hacks, but there will be no hacks here. Scry for me now. Show me what you can do.”
We did nothing but scry—what color ink Estrel was holding behind her back, how many fingers she was holding up, what the note on the very top of her desk read—and I saw none of it. My hands shook against the bowl, and a cold pit opened up in my stomach. I felt as if I were continually falling. Sweat pooled along my forehead and chin. Estrel laid her hand on my shoulder.
“Stop. It’s all right,” she said. “Let’s discuss portents.”
Estrel pulled out a chart on different divination forms from hares to doves to snowy owls. We each had an eye to a telescope and were staring at the stars by the time she sent us on our way. Isabelle was painfully studious, trying so hard and channeling so much power without thinking, I worried a cut in my lip. Coline stared at me until I changed out of the fancy dress I wore during the day and into the plainest dress Emilie had.
“What’s wrong with you?” Coline asked.
I shrugged, and that only made her frown more. “I can’t divine.”
We went to the baths and studied in our room, and after Coline and Isabelle had turned in for the night, I went to see Yvonne. The door to the kitchen was open, and she had divided the small building in half. One side was covered in glass stemware and narrow burners, jars and vials full of bubbling, sticky substances littering the tabletops. Each was labeled, and the controlled chaos of what she was doing lived in the taut line of her mouth as she measured the rate at which a clear substance bubbled in a vial. I waited for her to finish her notes.
“What is it?” I asked.
We hadn’t spoken since I met Laurel.
“Nothing,” she said far too quickly. “Let me show you this!”
She pointed me to the other side of the room and lifted a domed glass cover from a beautifully decorated three-tiered cake covered in thin white icing and peppered with edible petals. Balanced precariously on the top tier was a sugar-work moth that glittered as if made of glass.
“You’re a pâtissier,” I said, dying to know what the cake tasted like but wanting to save that moth forever. “And an alchemist who makes poisons?”
I turned and pointed to the apricot kernels she had boiling in alcohol.
“I have many talents.” She reached behind the cake and the moth’s wings moved.
I whistled. “Is it weird if you’re my friend and my hero?”
“No,” she said, blushing. “Hero worship does lovely things for my complexion.”
“I know I’m not supposed to be looking at that,” I said and rolled my eyes to the alchemistry setup. “But can I scry while you work?”
“I don’t really have time to talk,” she said. “Or make you food.”
“You don’t have to do any of that, and you can tell me to leave.” I reached for Alaine’s necklace and found nothing. My fingers itched. “I just need normal company.”
One of her eyebrows arched, and the flour stuck to it snowed across her cheek. “Then by all means, Madame, scry away.”
I scryed at a little stool and table in the corner of the room, thyme and rosemary branching above me, and the thick scent of yeast heavy in the air. It was almost like I was home, tucked in the root cellar, but there’d never been the threat of alcohol fires in Vaser. I muttered guard rotations and news for Yvonne to pass onto Laurel.
I slept uneasily after that, but the days fell into a steady pattern. I woke in the morning and bathed with Gisèle, Isabelle, and several other girls—Coline didn’t like waking up earlier than she had to. Estrel slipped the gold-tinted spectacles over my face each morning, wearing hers as well so I wasn’t alone, and they kept me from being constantly assaulted—Stareaters scattering against a blue sky, boots splashing though a thin stream, blood seeping through crooked teeth—each time I looked at silver. In class, I started answering when the teachers asked questions, especially in mathematics and hous
ehold management. Gabriel, still alive, was a blank image whenever I tried to scry him.
Estrel kept me after the evening classes were over. The spectacles tempered my power, she said, and I needed them because, like her, I was very good at seeing the magic in things. Divining had always come easily to me, but not in useful ways. Estrel set me in the comfortable chair in her laboratory and shook her head. She didn’t push me to scry.
“What on earth have you been doing?” Estrel turned my hands over in hers. “Your nails are purple.”
I told her I’d helped Yvonne make red ink out of beets. She’d laughed, clapped, and asked me how we’d done it. Yvonne seemed pleased about that when I told her. She baked and titrated and passed on my news to Laurel. Sometimes we worked in silence, the comfortable type, and I caught her watching me in the reflection of my scrying bowl. Sometimes we talked about life.
I told her about my mother and that she hadn’t tried to talk to me.
And sometimes, I tried to scry Macé, but all I saw was the magic-gilded smear of Serre, all the power held there too bright to let me gaze at it. He must’ve been a varlet by now. I hoped he was happy.
I didn’t try to scry Vaser. If I saw them in some future, happy without me, I didn’t know what I’d do.
My fourth day training with Estrel, I got a note from Emilie.
A dear friend has taught me how to scry, and while I have not accomplished it well, I will attempt it on the next full moon night at twilight.
Which was tonight. Letters were worthless; we had to figure out something faster. I wrote out a little note to her—If you can read this, you’re scrying—and left it on my desk. At twilight, I sat before it.
An hour later, I scryed her and caught the end of her laughing about it. She looked well, if not tired, and on her bed was a glass tablet that read: I know you’re scrying this. Thank you.
And that was how we spoke from then on. It went like that, day after day, classes in the morning, the midnight arts with Estrel in the evening, and Yvonne’s warm company at night. Every night at twilight, Emilie and I scryed each other and exchanged quick notes. I made her scry first, and I spoke during her time, hoping she’d figure out the right amount of power to be able to hear me. She only ever caught bits and pieces, though. She was channeling too much power into the silver. It made the scrying harder to control.
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