Painted Devils, page 43
Emeric is still inside at the long table, though, working on a bowl of soup and an intimidating stack of paperwork. He’s more than happy to shove it aside as I ladle myself a bowl. “Miss Ragne said to tell you she will be very angry if you disappear on her for another three months.”
“Funny, Joniza said the same thing.” I sit across from him. Ragne stuck around until this morning, but she’s been anxious to get back to Minkja and her probably-wife, and I’m sure it’s been a long fortnight for Gisele as well. Helga, too, will be gone until the feast tonight, though she’s just at Auntie Gerke’s house in the woods. I don’t know if she’ll live there on her own or move into Hagendorn to be closer now that she’s the only trained midwife.
“How are you feeling?” Emeric asks. “I can’t imagine Leni was an enjoyable conversation partner.”
“It cleared some things up for me.” I poke at my soup. “But … it’s hard, seeing how much damage Marthe did just—just to hurt me.”
Emeric starts and scribbles something in his notebook. “That reminds me, I’ll need to formally take your statement after lunch. But you shouldn’t blame yourself. I—I know that’s not easy—she trained you to feel responsible for her choices—but this isn’t your fault.”
I make myself swallow a spoonful of soup before I mumble, “I know.”
It’s harder to believe it.
It’ll take time, slowly peeling each finger off my throat. I want to let her go. That doesn’t mean she wants to release me.
“At least this should, incredibly, be a fairly cut-and-dry case after all,” he says, tidying his paperwork. “I’m sending the documents off this afternoon to … in layman’s terms, to officially declare that you are not complicit in the profane fraud. There will still be a ceremonial trial for the Finding, but you may not even need to testify.”
A weight rolls off my back. “That’s it? I’m in the clear?”
“You’re in the clear,” Emeric confirms. “So … have you considered what you want to do after the Finding?”
I swallow. “When the prefects say you’re supposed to be single for a year?”
“And I remind them that’s a terrible tradition?” He shakes his head. “No, that’s my fight. I’m asking what you want. I know I’ve said it before, but I do think you could have quite the lucrative career consulting for the prefects. I’m personally going to see if we can open a case into Prince Ludwig, which you might enjoy.”
My mouth twists. “I feel like I owe it to Hagendorn to help put things back together first, at least for a bit.”
And—there’s more to it.
We made it out, amazingly enough. We’ve made it past the day I thought might be our last. But that problem for Future Vanja has finally, like the witch-ash, caught up.
The law is supposed to help people. More often than not, it doesn’t—because there are loopholes you could drive a cart through, because the powerful and privileged are held to different standards, even because of simple human mistakes. And maybe people like Gisele, like Abbess Sibylle, can right those problems over months and years. I can’t write laws; I certainly don’t have the diligence or integrity to enforce them without turning into a monster. (Can you imagine? Me, answering to Justice for all the rules I’ve broken in the span of a year? We’d both die of old age before I got to the end of the list.)
But the law is failing people now. They’re hurting now. And those people—they’re who I can help.
I just haven’t figured out how that’s supposed to work, exactly, with my cheerful, necessary, and absolute disregard for the law … and a prefect for a suitor.
But if anyone can figure it out, it’s Emeric.
After everything, if anyone can make this work, it’s us.
At least, that’s what I’m telling myself: That this isn’t a crown at the bottom of an old, deep wound. That we haven’t spilled this much blood chasing something that will always be out of reach.
He rests his chin on his knuckles, elbow propped up on the table. “I think Hagendorn would appreciate your help,” he says slowly. “What about your family? Do you want to spend time with them too?”
“I—I do—but I don’t want to hold you up,” I stumble. “We have to go to Helligbrücke for all the Finding ceremony stuff, right? And for them to finish your prefect mark?”
“I have to do that.” He gives me a crooked smile. “And Helligbrücke is just a few days away. I can wait for you there, until you’re ready.”
My throat catches. We’ve been through a lot since I veered from the road we’d agreed to, but—“Even though that didn’t go so well last time?”
Emeric just reaches across the table, takes my hand in his. “I trust you, Vanja.” Then his smile tilts even more. “And if you’re with your family, now I’ll know where to look.”
* * *
The May-Saint Feast kicks off with a faint strain at sundown. Ordinarily the food is made in advance, the garlands hung and the ribbons tied the eve before, and the day is full of sweets and sweethearts, posies and prancing about elaborate Maypoles.
Tonight, everyone is tired from another day of work, the feast itself is a bit slapdash, and the flowers just remind us of the Scarlet Maiden.
But then someone from Glockenberg breaks out a pipe, and Sonja’s eldest child produces a fiddle. The innkeeper rolls out a keg he managed to keep hidden from the cult, and it’s officially a party. Sweet beer flows, a warm breeze stirs the oncoming night, and soon the square is full of dancers laughing and singing almost in defiance of the nightmare of the past month.
And Emeric and I have never been able to resist a dance.
He whirls me over the hard-packed dirt and through the fray, one hand clasping mine, the other firm at the small of my back. We laugh and spin as, one by one, stars pierce the deepening blue. Then—there’s a moment in a lively reel when he lifts me by the waist into a giddy twirl, and—
I know.
It’s the way he holds me, his laugh, the firelight gliding over his face, the safety and the thrill I feel in his arms. We’re both cracking up, pressed close and winded, and before I can catch my breath the reel calls for another lift and twirl.
It hits me solidly this time, a rush in my blood, a hunger in my heart. I know what I want.
There is no deadline, no pressure, no embarrassing mark to erase, nothing to measure up to. There’s only the love I have for him, uncomplicated desire.
The song winds down, and I tug Emeric out of the circle of dancers as he gives me a quizzical look.
I ask in the only way I know how: I open his hand and trace a circle in his palm.
His face turns earnest and solemn all at once, gaze locking on mine. I don’t know whether firelight is catching in his dark eyes, or if he burns as I do.
Then he folds his fingers over mine and raises them to his lips, answering me in the way only he can.
Hand in hand, we quietly slip away to my lean-to room and shut the door.
We are ungainly, fumbling, overeager.
But we take our time, make this just for us.
And in all the ways I need it to be, it is perfect.
* * *
We find beauty and more in each other, again and again. When we are spent, we lie on the barren mattress, entwined in matched crescents of jumbled limbs and dizzy reverie, relishing even the strange new aches, the way my back still sticks to his chest as if denying even the slightest distance. It was a surprise to me, that it didn’t hurt the way I’d been warned. But we took our time getting here. Maybe that’s all I needed.
I know I should get up and find blankets for us before the room cools and a chill falls, but I don’t want to leave this sweet, drowsy now, the rough pillow under my cheek contrasted with his arm curled over me, his lips resting—just resting—against the nape of my neck. The only thing that could be better is the prospect of the morning, when we’ve rested and can do this all again.
His murmur is so soft and low, I think at first that I’m dreaming: “Still awake?”
“Mm,” I hum noncommittally, more asleep than not.
There’s quiet, for so long I think he’s passed out mid-query. Then he shifts. I feel his lips against the side of my throat.
“I love you, Vanja Ros,” Emeric whispers. “I’ll say it better in the morning.”
He eases back down to the mattress, his breath evening out. In moments, he’s dozed off.
I, on the other hand, am wide-awake, heart pounding.
He loves me.
It’s not that I didn’t know, really. It’s that he said it first. Even if he thought I was sleeping, even if he thought I might not hear—
His heart is in my hands, by his own design. And what a fearful, resplendent thing it is. What a horror, what a delight.
What a terrible power to hold, even if I surrendered the same to him weeks ago.
I gave him the power to ruin me with a word.
Instead, he told me I’d make a beautiful bride.
Is this what it’s like, to see a road before you and want it? To want the impossible and find—it’s actually within reach?
Is this what Marthe believed when she married my father? Is this why she hated the idea that I might get it?
This bed is a haven, but the room beyond is colder. It’s not all existential metaphor either—just because it’s May doesn’t mean nights in the north are balmy. Emeric lets out only a half-formed huff as I slip off the mattress to get us that blanket.
It’s cooling in here faster than I thought. I opt for stronger measures and open the iron door set into the chimney.
Voices, hushed and furious, immediately carry over the embers. I have to lean to hear, but the words are clear enough.
“—can’t believe you’d still push for this!” That’s Helga. She must be back from Auntie Gerke’s. “Does Conrad know you intercepted his paperwork?”
Kirkling’s nonanswer is calm and dry. “If you weren’t rummaging through my belongings like a thief—”
“You left it on the table.”
“I wasn’t expecting anyone but your brothers, and they’re still at the feast. But I don’t know why you’re surprised.”
“I’m surprised,” Helga snaps, “because Vanja isn’t guilty.”
I bite my tongue so hard, I taste iron.
The axe was right in front of my face, and I still didn’t see it fall.
Of course Kirkling didn’t have some miraculous change of heart. She only started being helpful after she found out the Scarlet Maiden wasn’t a real god, and for one reason alone:
She knew she’d already won.
“Aspirant Conrad has to try her as an accessory to profane fraud, at the least. He made the decision to give her critical details of the case, which any suspect could easily use to steer his conclusions. With the Scarlet Maiden’s material anchor destroyed, the only evidence to Ros’s innocence is her own testimony. Perhaps ‘my mother tried to become a god to spite me thirteen years after her death’ is enough for you, but the court has higher standards.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s why you lot have Truth attend the trials,” Helga retorts.
“That’s not the point,” Kirkling says stonily. “It’s a matter of impartiality—”
“You danced at our brother’s wedding. You’ve had a month to see Vanja for who she really is. When is that enough?”
I hear parchment shuffle. “This isn’t personal. It’s merely how I am required, by duty, to advise the court. And now I ask you to leave, so I can return to my work.”
“If this is your idea of duty, you should have stayed retired.” Helga slams the door on her way out.
I look to the bed. Emeric is still asleep, his face almost heartbreaking in its peace.
And just for a breath, I think, maybe—one more time, we’ll find a way out.
It’s the two of us, after all, undefeated, still here. We’ll find our way. As long as we’re in this, we’re in it together.
But I know, in my bones, that this isn’t the end.
It was always going to come to this. This is what we’ve been shepherded to.
I am back on the shore of the Kronenkessel, the walls closing in.
I am on the low stone bridge, and this time I know I cannot leap. Not without dragging him with me.
It is as my mother said after all.
I could swear off crime right now, and it wouldn’t change a thing. Not to anyone who wants to use me against him. Not to Kirkling, who will not stop until Emeric has to—
To choose.
All she wants him to do is choose. He doesn’t get to have it all.
And even if we outmaneuver her, there’s the next time. It might be another prefect who wants to knock Emeric down a peg. It might be the backlash from openly flouting the first-year rule. It might be a city official he’s crossed, who decides to expose his double standards for the laws he held everyone to—everyone but me.
It might be Emeric himself. I never wanted him to choose between me and being a prefect. Before this month, it was because I was afraid he’d take the dream he’s hunted for ten years.
Now I’m afraid he will keep his promise and choose me.
And there will be more girls like me, like Agnethe, made every day, because no one with the power to help them will listen.
I can be selfish, cruel, deceitful, untrustworthy. But even I know what the right choice is.
And—I can’t let him choose me.
I don’t know what I deserve, but that—that is too much to ask.
He will be the dream I drown, the one just beyond reach.
I have—
No—
I have to let him go.
I move in a fog about the darkened space, quiet, creeping, quick, while the numbness of this desolation holds me together. I pull on a shirt, stockings, a pair of breeches. I empty my satchel of the amnesty token, the message-mirror, anything from the prefects.
I know these will only haunt me, but I take the ribbon I have left, the luck charm from Minkja, the folded draft of a desperate letter, the notebook he gave me—still blank, because I’ve always been too afraid of spoiling it. I pack them all into my rucksack still heavy with rubies, and am wadding one more change of clothes at the top when he stirs.
“Roses?” Emeric’s voice, fuddled and tender, rips my heart in two. “Come back to bed. It’s cold.”
I set the rucksack down, sit on the edge of the bed. Lay my hand along his cheek, trying not to cry. He senses something’s wrong and frowns, reaching for his spectacles, mouth opening to ask—
“Villanelle,” I say brokenly. Every syllable a betrayal he will not forgive.
He falls back, silent.
I bend down, shaking, and kiss him one last time.
“I love you, Emeric Conrad,” I whisper, knowing he will never hear the words. “I won’t let myself be your ruin.”
Through my tears, I cover him with a blanket. I pull on my boots, my cloak. Sling the rucksack over my shoulder. I realize, as I touch the doorknob, he might try to rationalize this, somehow, as anything—anything else. A kidnapping, sleepwalking, even Brunne’s debt—no, I never got around to telling him of that.
But I need him to know this was premeditated. Not greed, not revenge, not my mother’s hate, not my own fear. Now I understand how a terrible crime can be done for love.
On the empty pillow, I lay a single red penny, crown-side up.
And I then leave Hagendorn the way I arrived: miserable, lost, alone. There is but one difference this time, and it is that I know I’ve made the right choice.
The clamor of ongoing festivities covers my exit, but not well enough. I’ve made it to the mouth of the road out of town when Kirkling’s voice arrests me on the spot:
“So. Running away from the consequences.”
“Sure,” I say dully.
“Conrad told me how much witch-ash you drank.” This isn’t the angle I expected Kirkling to take. “That much should have killed you within the hour, yet here you stand.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” It’s the truth.
“Don’t trifle with me. What are you?”
I slough off a wretched half shrug. “Maybe Death just refused to take me.”
“How long are you going to keep lying?” Kirkling spits. “How many lives are you going to—”
“Don’t you fucking say ‘ruin,’” I snarl through my tears, finally whipping around to face her. “You want to tell me about ruined lives? You know what I figured out? You don’t give a single damn about me or anything I’ve done. Not a one.” I hurl the words at her, a wild slash of a bitter knife. “This was never about me. You don’t blame me for Klemens’s murder. You blame Emeric. You were Klemens’s partner; you were supposed to retire with the man you loved, and then he chose Emeric. And you’ve been using me to torture him for it. You won’t rest until he loses either me or his future as a prefect. Until he suffers like you.”
For once, there are no sneers from Kirkling, no denials, no deflects. She only gapes at me, cut to the bone.
“Congratulations,” I half sob. “You win. I’m choosing for him. But even after everything, he still looks up to you. If you have any respect for me at all, then forget this conversation. Let him believe you were right, let him think I abandoned him out of my own mess, let him pass his Finding and move on. I’m giving up everything for him, for you. So just do that for me.”
Kirkling takes a step toward me. “Stop—”
If I waver now, I will yank out the dagger pinning me to my own resolve. I can’t. Not for him, I won’t.
Instead, I look up to the night sky, find the stars I’m chasing. Five points, like a crooked home.
“Brunne,” I say, eyes on the Lantern, “I’m ready to pay my debt.”
In a flicker of moonlight, a glowing hand reaches for mine—
And we’re gone.
THE FIRST LIE
