Painted Devils, page 18
The countess cooed, “I want you to say it. Show me you’ve learned. Say you’re ugly.”
“I’m ugly,” the maidservant said, for she knew what she was.
“Say no one will ever want you.”
“No one will ever want me,” the maidservant repeated, in a voice that cracked like her scabs, for in her thirteen years of life, no one had. Her mother had left her to her godmothers, and her godmothers had left her to the von Falbirgs, and the von Falbirgs had left her to the whipping post.
“Say you don’t deserve to be loved.”
The maid told herself this much was a lie. Even so, the words didn’t taste like one; there was only blood on her tongue when she said, “I do not deserve to be loved.”
With a vicious twist, the countess tore one last ribbon of scab free. “Remember your lesson,” she hissed in the maid’s ear, and by the time the pain had faded enough for the maid to see again, the countess was gone.
* * *
That night, I was startled to find the precious jar of salve still hidden beneath my bedroll by the hearth; I’d thought for certain Irmgard would take it. The hedgewitch and her salve had cost Joniza all the month’s wages she hadn’t already sent to her family in Sahali. Nevertheless, when I had tried to work through the sums and figures for how much I could repay her each month, she only waved her hand. “My father would say your name is not in my ledger. Pay me when you have the money.” On our meager earnings, we both knew that would take a very, very long time.
But after Joniza had sucked her teeth in anger and sympathy at my rebloodied back and began carefully salving the marks once more … that was when we learned Irmgard’s game. Joniza was nearly done daubing the dark paste over the gashes when the salve began to burn everywhere it touched. Even Joniza began to curse, shaking her hand to no avail. She rushed to wipe the salve off us both with a wet rag, but still it burned and burned and burned.
The hedgewitch would later tell us someone had mixed in soot and the juice of starch-root berries. The juice was for pain; it raised blisters on the broken skin.The soot was to leave a permanent stain in my wounds. A reminder of what I was.
At the time, I knew Joniza could not afford to replace the salve. Neither would I ask more of her. After all, Irmgard was right: I was already abandoned, already too ugly to be desired. Nothing a hedgewitch brewed could salvage that.
You would think Irmgard wouldn’t let me bring a hot iron anywhere near her the next morning, but once again, she insisted I curl her hair. And I did it, meticulously winding the locks around scalding metal just inches from her bare neck. She smiled at me the entire time.
She never once believed she was in danger. She had no fear that I might “slip” and burn her, might swing the iron into her jaw, might inflict on her even a moment of the torment she bestowed on me.
We both knew I wouldn’t do any of that.
We both knew I would remember my lesson.
We both knew what I was.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
FLAME TO FUSE
Sister.
The impossible word is a fist around my throat. No, no, it’s wrong. It can’t be.
I tear my hand free from this stranger’s. “I don’t know you,” I gasp.
“You were so little when we lost you,” the stranger—Eida?—says in an urgent, ecstatic rush, “I used to braid your hair every night, Katrin Little made you a rag doll you called Strietzelina, like the bread—”
Maybe if I’d known, maybe if I had time to think, I could have steeled myself, but I can’t—she’s so happy, and I don’t know what to say, how to tell her what I am—“I don’t know you,” I repeat helplessly, trying to step back and colliding with Emeric as I do.
Eida babbles on: “You carried her everywhere, you cried for a whole day when one of the horses bit her and—”
I don’t know what to do, I don’t know if this stranger is really my sister, I am terrified she is and terrified she isn’t, I should be weeping with joy, I’ve already ruined it—
“Enough,” I hear Helga bark.
“Luisa had to pretend to be a hedgewitch who healed her—”
“Enough, Eida!”
I think I hear Emeric say my name; I am shrinking inside myself, haunting my own skull. The world is a blur, one I am moving through like a ghost, untouched and untouchable.
It was a routine, comfortable ache, the hole where my idea of a family had been. I knew I wanted answers. I just wasn’t ready to ask the questions, not yet.
When my head clears, the first thing I’m aware of is the anchor of Emeric’s hands wrapped around mine, resting on a tabletop. We’re in a quiet corner of the dining room.
Eida is gone. Helga is maneuvering around tables and chairs, heading for us.
“What,” Emeric asks tautly when she comes into earshot, “was that?”
Helga runs a hand over her face, then fixes her squint on me. “Vanja? Are you back with us?”
“Sorry,” I mumble. “Yeah.”
“No, it’s not your fault. That wasn’t supposed to…” Helga drops into the seat across from me, chewing on her bottom lip. “Eida is an old acquaintance of mine. Her youngest sister, who happened to be named Vanja, went missing when they were very young. I knew the chances were slim, but she lives a little north of Welkenrode, so I wrote her to suggest setting up a meeting between you two when we get there. Instead she arrived here an hour ago and wouldn’t leave. I told her this was too sudden, but…”
I don’t know what to say. It still doesn’t seem real. It can’t be this easy.
“Either way,” Helga continues, ire rising in her tone, “she’s not coming back unless you tell me you want to speak to her, all right? She won’t ambush you again.”
“Do you know how many siblings she has?” Emeric asks. “Where the family’s from?”
Helga’s mouth purses. “She has three sisters, apart from the lost one,” she says after a pause. “The family’s from Kerzenthal.”
My stomach wrenches. I spit out a sick little laugh, angry with myself for my dismay as much as for my infant hope. “Then she’s not my sister. I had twelve siblings. And I was abandoned in Sovabin. I doubt my mother walked all the way across the empire to do that.” I stand abruptly, feeling like a fool, like this corner is a prison cell. “I’m going to bed.”
“Vanja—” Helga starts.
“I appreciate the intent,” I bite out, “but I’ll decide when I’m ready to find my family.”
I hear Emeric say something to her as I head for the stairs to our room. He falls in step behind me and doesn’t speak again until we’re inside, the door shutting behind us. There’s a rustle of a gesture, and the candle on the nightstand lights, shedding just enough light to see by. “Do you want to talk about it?”
I’ve wandered into the middle of the room, my cloak hanging loose in my hands, and I can’t think of why, can’t think of anything but how I’m almost certain I’ve seen Eida’s face before. How I’m just as certain I’m deluding myself so I can believe someone would drop everything and ride for days to see me.
How I want more than anything to hear my mother made a mistake that midwinter night, and how I thought, for a moment, Eida could tell me.
“No,” I say, hoarse.
Everything I’ve felt today is swelling again, shame like a baritone, brassy anger, piped riffs of euphoria, and forlorn strings, straining at the drumbeat seam of fear, a cacophony I can’t shut out.
My back warms as Emeric draws close, runs his knuckles down my arm. It’s meant to be comforting, but it’s touching flame to a fuse.
The hairs on my neck stand as he says softly, “Whatever you need.”
I need to not talk, to not think. I need the anchor of him, to feel like I belong somewhere, to someone.
I turn and pull him to me, into a kiss that draws a faint startled sound from him. It’s followed by another when I rake my teeth along his bottom lip. He matches me after a moment, his fingers flexing against my back with each shudder when my nails press into the sides of his throat, but he breaks away long enough to gasp, “Vanja, are you sure this is—”
“Yes.” I shrug off my satchel and let it fall to the floor with a thunk, then pull his over his head and let it follow suit before grabbing his krebatte to bring our bodies flush. This, this is simple, this is easy, this is good, and I need that right now.
I half push him onto the bed, half let him drag me there, too, both of us awkwardly kicking off boots. He keeps his mouth on mine as he goes to work on my stolen waistcoat. It feels like its own kind of magic—at least until I shrug it off and he makes a face at me. “How do you have a whole dress on under there?” he grumbles. “That’s not fair.”
“Thought you’d mind the breeches more,” I admit.
Emeric shakes his head, a faint hazy gleam in his eyes as a flush stains his cheeks. “The breeches are … they look … I like them.” The last words come out in a stilted hurry. His hands run down my sides, lingering at my hips. “But can they, er … go?”
“Trade you,” I return. “My breeches, your shirt.”
His grin is positively unholy in the dim candlelight. Then I feel fingers on my waistband and forfeit the ability to think a coherent thought. “Dress?” he murmurs, and I nod, a little too addicted to the feeling of being undone. I’m left only in my linen shift when he sits up, and as I pull his shirt over his head, he sucks in a breath. A hand grazes my bare knee. As it slides higher, it’s my turn for a startled noise and my turn, too, to double it when he bows his head to trail kisses down my collarbone, each one longer, more insistent, than the last.
Then we’re shifting again, Emeric’s weight bearing me into the mattress this time, our legs tangling in a way that somehow feels lush. His lips return to mine, and we slide into something almost like a rhythm—
I think we both realize what’s happening at nearly the same time. He pushes himself up on an elbow to look down at me, a soft desperation in his eyes, somewhere between hope and apprehension. I know it because it’s thrumming through my bones. Neither of us seems to have the words, a long, volatile pause expanding between us.
Then Emeric lifts my hand in his, eyes never leaving mine. Slowly and deliberately, he traces a circle into my palm with his thumb.
I know exactly what he is asking.
This is faster, sooner than I thought it’d be, but I might be ready. I know I want more—I want to know what happens with nothing between us—
But I will have nowhere to hide.
The thought knifes through the haze, straight into the part of me that may never leave Sovabin. The candlelight is meager, but it is not enough to cover my back, my scars. I know Emeric cares for me; I know he has said again and again that he wants me as I am. But this is not a fear that listens to reason. It’s a fear borne of saying No one will ever want me and having only silence answer.
Then a whispery rattle of a voice trickles up from the floor: “If you are going to commence conjugal relations, you may wish to turn me to face a wall.”
The heady bubble of intimacy between us unceremoniously pops.
It turns out there are few things that kill the mood faster than realizing you have a haunted doll for a voyeur.
“I regret to be so forthright,” Lady Ambroszia adds as Emeric and I stare at each other, teetering on the precipice of unbridled hysteria. “There just seemed to be quite a lot of personal matters being addressed, and then you took up with each other so quickly, I scarcely had time to remind you of my presence.”
My gaze slides off the bed, over to the floor. Sure enough, Lady Ambroszia is lying half out of my satchel, both her painted eye and the glowing white light in the missing one fixed on us.
“Thank you,” I croak, “for bringing this to our attention.”
Emeric presses a brief kiss to my fingertips, then lets go, pushing off the bed. “Privy,” he tells me under his breath. “Be right back.”
“You needn’t worry about offending my sensibilities, young man,” the doll calls after him. “I merely wished to advise you that I am at an unfortunate angle to observe your activities. Low Gods know I engaged in salacious intrigues aplenty in my youth.”
I take a moment to collect myself, both disgruntled and … relieved. Relieved? That can’t be right.
It’s tossed onto the growing list of things I’ll dissect later, once my head’s less of a muddle. I roll out of bed, brushing off my shift, and pick up Lady Ambroszia. “I think that’s the end of that for the night, but I’m guessing you’d rather be looking elsewhere anyway.”
The light in her eye socket blinks. “Indeed. We shall discuss privacy arrangements in the morning, but for now, you may place me to gaze out the window.”
I get her set up in a window overlooking the street outside. “Tell me if you see anything juicy.”
“Most assuredly.” After a beat, she adds, “Earlier it seemed that you had your concerns, but that boy is really quite smitten, you know.”
I can feel my entirely undignified, revoltingly sappy smile. It feels good to be honest for once when I say, “I know.”
* * *
The next morning starts off infinitely better than the day before: I wake up curled against Emeric again, but this time I stay that way, content just to feel the rise and fall of his chest under my cheek.
Part of me can’t help but wonder how this would be different if we hadn’t stopped where we did, if Ambroszia hadn’t been here. Would I still feel this safe, this wanted? Or would I be replaying every moment, trying to pinpoint when I lost him?
Maybe … maybe that’s where the relief came from.
I thought I was ready. No, I thought I might be. But so much happened yesterday. I know I wanted to shut everything out, I know I wanted to disappear into something, anything.
Emeric deserves so much more than to be used as my escape. And I don’t want to think I’m ready; I want to know.
But the red fingers of the handprint on his chest shiver with every heartbeat below my cheek, a cold reminder: We have just over two months to track down the four remaining Ros brothers, or I’ll have to stake my own claim on Emeric, ready or not.
Emeric goes still a moment, then draws in a long breath through his nose. He opens an eye to peer at me. “Good. You’re here. I have an idea.”
“Good morning to you too,” I huff, flustered. Apparently abandonment issues are still on the agenda. “What do you mean, ‘you’re here’?”
The worry dissipates as he rolls over, flops bonelessly onto me, and plants an onslaught of kisses on the side of my face. “Rude,” he mumbles between deliberately obnoxious smooching, “now I’m not telling you my idea.”
I make an entirely insincere effort to stop giggling and push him off, more for dignity’s sake than anything. “You like it when I’m rude.”
“I do. It’s very inconvenient.” He relents and reaches over me to get his spectacles from where they sit next to my ribbons on the nightstand. “And what I meant by ‘you’re here’ was, last night Miss Ardîm told me she’d be meeting you here for breakfast at seven o’clock sharp. Unless I’m mistaken, that should be…” He pauses, holding up a finger.
A moment later, the seven o’clock bells begin to chime.
I gawk up at him. “No. You can’t just decide you’ll wake up at seven.”
He shrugs, smug and unrepentant as he settles the spectacles on his face. “It’s a gift.”
“You’re a monster.”
“Only when called for.” He whips the blankets off me as I yelp. “And you’re late.”
I put a pillow over his face and scuttle out of bed, grumbling. Only then do I realize Lady Ambroszia isn’t on the sill anymore; she’s seated on the floor, near our discarded clothing, flipping awkwardly through Emeric’s notebook with her stiff porcelain hands. It seems her mobility’s increased since yesterday. “Oh, good morning, your ladyship.”
“Ambroszia will do,” she says distractedly. “One tends to surrender the need for formality after observing one’s companions in the throes of passion, however truncated. Young man, is this all of your documentation concerning the situation with the Red Maid of the River?”
Emeric’s eyebrows rise. “Not precisely. My supervisor, Proctor Kirkling … suggested I leave some of my notes in her custody overnight. I’m going to report to her shortly if you’d like to join me.”
“Thank you, I would indeed.” She turns a page. “I should like to assist you as best I can. My Nibelungus may not have taken me traveling as much as I wished, but I still found ways to be useful in life and will continue to do so now.”
I frown, wondering where I’ve heard that name before. Emeric provides the answer a moment later as he teeters to his feet. “You mean … Nibelungus von Wälft?”
“Prinz von Wälft, if we were nasty.” She chuckles upsettingly. “I mostly called him ‘Nibsi.’ You may have seen some of my statues around the hunting lodge.”
I stop in the middle of tying on the first kirtle I could find. “You were his mistress?”
“Not the first,” she says haughtily, “but certainly the last.”
Emeric tugs on one of my braids. “I hate to interrupt, but Miss Ardîm is waiting.”
“Then you’d better get my ribbons,” I return, reaching for my boots.
“Oh. Right.” He puts on his best calm-and-collected front as he fetches them from the bedside table, but I can’t help noticing him stand a bit straighter, a pleased quirk in the corner of his mouth, while he ties the bows.
I stand on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “Meet us downstairs after your report. And maybe kick Kirkling in the shin for me.”
“Done.” He cocks his head. “Minus the kicking. I suspect that would result in considerable setbacks all around.”
“Ugh.” I duck out the door, calling back, “It’d be worth it!”
Joniza is, in fact, waiting for me downstairs. Thankfully, she doesn’t have the crease in her brow that comes with waiting long. She’s also dressed more plainly than usual, in a long tunic of Sahalian make, practical woolen leggings, and sturdy boots, her twisting locks arranged in a simple knot atop her head and secured with a cloth headband. The stage cosmetics are gone; only hints of golden paint are under her fingernails.
