36. Thirty-Six - An Interrogation
Thirty-Six - An Interrogation
Ana
The woman speaking with Penny is stunningly beautiful.
I still and stare at her from the threshold, unable to do anything more than take her in.
Impossibly long eyelashes flutter as her gaze shifts from Penny to me and her eyes—so like Viggo’s and yet so different—take me in.
“Ana, may I introduce you to my sister, Kirra. Kirra, this is Miss Anastacia Eventide.”
She turns and I glance at her gown. It doesn’t look like it costs more than the manor.
It’s gorgeous and I want to touch it, but I imagine Misses Scoggins and her girls could make it if I gave them an hour to look at the original…
The cape-like creation behind her... that looks like it might cost a fortune. Gilded brocade falls all the way to the floor. But climbing up from the floor, in waves of dark and bright white, are rows on rows of feathers.
Feathers from owls like the ones perched on the wooden structures at the cape’s shoulders.
I can’t imagine how many of them are sewn into the fabric.
“It’s lovely to meet you.” I say, dipping in a little curtsy. “Thank you for coming all this way.”
Her laughter bobbles the cameo necklace at her throat. “It’s never so far a distance when I need to come check on my baby brother.” She glances at Viggo for a bare moment before she turns back to me. “I hope it is lovely to meet you as well, Ana.”
She takes my unoffered hand and turns me toward the couch, drawing me down to sit with her and paying no more attention to either of the men in the room.
“Now. Tell me who you are?”
I blink and start to turn to them, but she shakes her head. “Don’t look at my brother for help. You are the one who knows who you are. Tell me.”
“I’m just a potion maker. There’s not really anything to tell.”
“If there wasn’t anything to tell, my brother wouldn’t be standing like there was a pole tied to his spine.”
“He stands like that because of you, not because of me.” Maybe I shouldn’t say it, but, “I know they asked you here, but you are the reason they’re uncomfortable right now.”
She smiles brightly and glances at them again. “Yes. You’re right.”
Holding up her hand, one of the owls flutters to her.
“This is Parin,” she says, stroking its feathered head and letting it nibble on her finger. “Do you know why I love owls?”
“I do not.”
“They are creatures of the night that no one really fears.” It hops up onto her shoulder and preens her hair.
“Do you know what I hate about owls?” She tips her head and the owl nuzzles the side of her face. “How short a time they live. Parin is twenty-four and I hope he will be with me for a while longer yet, but…”
I glance at the rows of feathers around that cloak…
“I look at you, sweet girl, and I see pain far greater than the loss of one of my dear friends.” She pets Parin’s chest. “How long did your grandmother live? How long did her mother?”
I swallow and force myself not to look at Viggo or Penny. Because despite all my other concerns, I had skipped past the idea of myself with them when I am old and they haven’t changed.
“I don’t know, after a while, Eudora stopped counting.”
Kirra nods and glances away from me. “Food for thought.”
Blicks appears at the doorway her focus has turned to and tells us that dinner is served. Penny leads her in and Viggo takes my arm.
I don’t ask him if he’s thought about the future his sister fears. I don’t bring it up again at all.
“You are one of the Queen’s companions?” I ask when my food has been placed in front of me and Kirra’s cup has been filled. “That sounds like it could be an amusing pastime.”
“It can be, assuming she is in a good mood. The Queen’s melancholy affects us all.”
“What does she have to be melancholic about?”
Kirra blinks at me for a moment and then glances at the two men before saying. “The war.”
“Oh. The war happened so far from here that I sometimes forget just how much it scarred others.”
“Were you even born then?”
“I was, my father left for the front and I was born nine months later.”
“Did he come back?”
“Yes.” I smile despite the sharpness of the memory. “I’m told he was a different man on his return, but I obviously didn’t know him before it.”
She looks at her cup, sadness digging a deep crease between her brows. “I’m glad. So many of your kind didn’t.”
“Perhaps you fought alongside him,” Viggo says into his goblet.
“If I did, he would not have enjoyed it.” Grimacing, Kirra dips her head in apology. “I was a part of the Night Cavalry. No one enjoyed when we arrived. Neither our side, nor theirs.”
I look at her a little closer this time. She doesn’t look like a great warrior.
She just looks... sad.
“I’ve always wondered how the Night Cavalry worked…” I say, voicing a question I’m sure many others have had before me. “Your enemy would only need to hold you until day break.”
“It never took that long.”
There’s something dark in the way her lips curve. There is no joy in that smile. It is an ugly and cursed thing. “Men like your father held the line in the day. And when dusk came, we broke that line... if we were called to a battalion’s aide... that battlefield was won before the moon started to dip in the sky.”
Viggo shifts uncomfortably and I look at Penny whose eyes are locked on his food.
No one at this table likes the place my questions led.
“Well, I am glad you returned from the battle as well.” I take another bite and am grateful when Kirra asks Penny about a book.
I doubt she cares about his trees, but it is a welcome diversion.
Viggo catches my eye and offers me a soft smile.
And by the time we are done with dinner, Kirra has told us the latest fashion craze in the Queen’s city, about the highwayman who was very sad to have come upon her friend’s coach one night a few weeks ago—ogresses aren’t easy to steal from, even when they are ladies of the court.
When we are done, and Viggo has firmly told her she cannot read his latest poems, Penny stands and pulls out her chair for her.
“I would like to speak to Ana alone.”
Viggo freezes, his hand gripping mine. “I don’t think that’s necessary.”
“It is, if you want me to help you out yourself to the quaint citizens of Petalfall.”
“It’s fine.” I pat Viggo’s hand and he releases me. “She won’t bite and I won’t stab.”
Viggo doesn’t look happy, but he eases a little—a very little—when Penny takes his hand.
Kirra leads the way back to the same drawing room we met in and I let her close the doors behind us.
“I have some questions,” she says, her owls fluttering to her and she pets them, much the same way Mina pets the feral cats that live behind the inn.
I sit, taking one of the chairs this time. “I figured you would. If it’s to be an interrogation, we might as well get it over with now.”
Her lips purse and I realize... she doesn’t want to have this conversation. She doesn’t want to disapprove of me.
“Do you love them?” she asks.
I should have expected it... Swallowing, I sit a little taller. “I don’t know.”
When she looks at me in disbelief I say, “I know that I could love them. Very easily. But I don’t know if I do, yet.”
She dips her head, looking at me as if she can see into my very soul. The concern she wears is one I can easily imagine myself wearing if Mina was in a similar position.
“At least you’re not a liar.” She fidgets with the cameo at her neck.
“My brother wants to reveal himself to the village so that he can court you... so that he can have the possibility of a real life with you. A shared future—however short that ends up being.” She takes a deep breath and sits in the chair across from me. “Will you help keep him safe from those who will hate him simply for being born a vampire?”
“Of course.”
She glares at me. “Promise me.”
“My little sister happened upon us and Viggo wiped her memory when she had an... adverse reaction to him. I have been changing her mind about your kind since that day. And I would let him wipe her memory again if it meant keeping him safe.”
“Would you kill her to keep him safe?”
I suddenly understand the meaning of the phrase “blood running cold.”
I clench my fist and it’s my turn to glare at her. “That is not a question I will ever need to answer.”
Her head tips to the side. “Why not?”
“The only reason I would need to kill someone to keep him safe is if that person was the one trying to kill him. Mina would never.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“Do not come into your brother’s home and pretend that loving your brother would be greater than the love I have for my sister. It is different. Don’t insult either of us by pretending you don’t know that.”
“You have a little vinegar in you. Good. I was beginning to think it was only sugar and spice.” She pets Perin’s head with a single finger. “You are going to need it when Viggo becomes a permanent fixture.”
“I think the village deserves more credit than you give them.”
“Your own sister had an adverse reaction... whatever that means. If the butcher’s reaction involves a cleaver... what then?”
“Mina’s only introduction to Vampires was my father’s stories about the Night Cavalry and my mother’s dislike of you in general. But she is a very open-minded child and I believe a second meeting will have completely different results.”
Kirra dips her head in concession, but her lips twist. “Why does your mother hate us?”
“I honestly don’t know. Her motivations have always been a mystery to me.”
“Find out.”
I nod. The command isn’t one I like, but she’s right. I should know.
“You’ve seen Viggo’s eyes. You know that when people don’t understand something their first instinct is often to eradicate it... You said you’re a potion maker.”
“Yes.”
“Do you have matchthistle on hand?”
“Of course not it’s…” a poison that burns human flesh like a sunburn. “Is that what happened to him?”
She nods and then, from one of the copious folds in her skirt, she pulls a pouch of something from her pocket. “I don’t know what will happen when we make our debut in your quaint little town, but... From now on, I want you to have that on hand at all times.”
I open the bag, and the sharp cinnamon and rosemary scents make my nose wrinkle. “What is it?”
“Night fairy. It’s what saved his life then. He won’t carry it. But you will.”
“Of course. Where does it grow? If I can cultivate it here—”
For the first time since we’ve been alone Kirra smiles. It’s a soft and sweet thing... a different kind of sadness.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Maybe you are a liar after all.”