Chapter Thirteen #3
“Take off your gloves,” he said. I glanced at Milady, who nodded. Immediately I felt them loosen and peeled them off, flushing a little. Ban Morin watched me greedily, with an odd intensity, and that made me all the more self-conscious of my bony, raw knuckles and ragged nail beds.
“Wonderful,” he said, taking my hands in his, rubbing his thumbs slowly against the backs of them. He meant it to be soothing, perhaps, or even pleasurable, but it made my skin crawl.
“I suppose Milady has told you of our arrangement,” he said, not stopping that soft caress.
“Yes,” I managed to say through a tight throat.
“It must come as a surprise,” he said, with a slight smugness that suggested he imagined it must be a good one.
“It was,” I said, swallowing hard. “If you don’t mind me asking … Why?”
“You are modest,” he said. A courtly pleasantry and entirely unhelpful.
There was that low laugh again. I snapped my head round, trying to pinpoint the sound.
The room was filled with brightly dressed noblemen, mingling and talking, but I was looking for something in particular—and I found it.
That patch of strange, unfocused air upon which my eyes were reluctant to alight.
It felt like trying to blink away water, or to clear your eyes of the day’s first bleary haze upon waking.
I concentrated, but the best I could make out was a darkly dressed male figure, a moth among the butterflies, before my eyes lost their tenuous purchase on him and blurred once again. Patrick.
“Netta?” Sawl Morin was saying.
“I’m sorry,” I said automatically, turning back to him.
“No need to apologize,” he said. “I see that I was being a bore.” His tooth glinted.
“No, not at all,” I said, stumbling over my words. “I just …”
“It has been a momentous day,” he said. “For both of us. I do not blame you for being a little flustered.”
He rested his hand on mine again, making it look like a pale, weak little animal caught in a trap. I could feel the cool metal of his rings.
“Your rings are beautiful,” I said, for something to say, and immediately cursed myself. He would think that I was thinking of his wealth, the jewels that would soon be mine.
“That reminds me,” he said, withdrawing his hand. He reached into a pocket and drew out a little engraved box, holding it out to me. I hesitated, then took it.
“What is this?”
“Look inside.”
There was an intricate little lock on the box, made of a contrasting wood, and it took me a moment to manipulate it correctly. When it unlocked, it snapped open with some force, startling me.
“Do you like it?” he said.
Inside the box was a ring. An engagement ring, I supposed, although it was heavier and clumsier than I would have imagined a woman’s engagement ring to be.
The metal was yellow gold, with a flat face like that of a signet ring, engraved with letters and studded with gaudy gems: rubies, emeralds, and a purple stone I didn’t know.
As usual, the letters slid and slithered under my gaze.
“It’s beautiful,” I said weakly, even though “beautiful,” wasn’t really the right word for this bright, vulgar thing. It looked like a golden toad squatting on its velvet pad.
Ban Morin took it from me and slid it onto my ring finger with a smooth, decisive motion. It could have been my imagination, but I thought I felt it squeeze and tighten around my finger when it reached its destination. Like Sawl Morin’s own rings, it was cold.
“It suits you,” he said.
I couldn’t think of anything less suited to my thin, pale fingers, but I smiled anyway.
“I look forward to hearing you read again tonight,” he said. “And one more thing.”
He reached his hands around the back of my neck, as if he were about to clasp a necklace there.
Instead, he grasped the ends of the ribbon that was keeping a tenuous hold on the Hair and pulled it free.
The long red strands floated out from their braid, some curling around my face and neck, some sending questing tendrils down my back.
Ban Morin reached a hand for one of them, and it flinched away. Something flashed in his eyes, but he smiled and lowered his hand. “There is plenty of time yet, after all,” he said as if to himself—and then, to Milady: “So unspoiled. Like a blank page. You spoke truly.”
“A true innocent,” said Milady, flicking her eyes to me before smiling at Ban Morin. The word “innocent” sounded like something foul in her mouth.
He leaned forward and pressed hot lips to my cheek. I hadn’t been expecting this and almost flinched, but Milady’s eyes on me made me stand still. Though his mouth was chastely closed, his kiss was damp and left my cheek cold when he pulled away.
“Wonderful, my dear,” he said. “I am very much looking forward to taking you to your new home.”
“You must be wed first, of course,” said Milady. “I expect a quiet ceremony would be preferable? We have a small chapel on the grounds. It could be ready by the end of the week.”
The end of the week?
“Of course,” Ban Morin said. He smiled at me again. “And then we will leave for Morin House. We will have a few days to get to know each other—and I imagine you will have some packing and preparation to do.”
The room seemed to close in on me, and my ribcage suddenly felt like a vise tightening about my lungs. I had to get out of the room, or I would scream.
“Please excuse me, I … the water closet,” I managed to say. Milady made a face of distaste, but I barely registered it. I had to get out. I had to breathe.
As soon as I was outside, I leaned against the paneling, gasping for air. My room felt too far away. Black spots danced like a swarm of flies before my eyes. I groped along the wall until I found another door and opened it, eager for any respite, any concealment, no matter how temporary.
I was in the library again.
I slid down the wall until I was on the floor and tried to slow my breathing.
The books did calm me—it felt rather like having the Book Man there.
When I had recovered enough to stand, I ran my fingers along them, taking comfort from the familiar sensation.
The up-and-down of the spines felt like a row of knuckles.
I didn’t know how long I had even been away from the drawing room—too long.
But I couldn’t bring myself to return. Let Milady send someone to search for me.
I looked again at the ring Ban Morin had given me.
It was so heavy, so impossible to ignore.
I hoped that I would grow used to it, in time, as I was supposed to wear it every day.
I started to twist it on my finger and winced.
Was it my imagination, or had it stung me?
A thread of blood snaked out from beneath the cold metal.
I tugged at it again, more vigorously, and cried out at the pain.
There was no mistaking it now—something about the ring itself was injuring me.
I held my finger close to my eye and squinted, trying to see the underside.
A row of tiny, pin-thin teeth ran around the lower edge, hinged intricately so that they would lie flat when the ring was slid onto a finger and then bite into the skin when you tried to pull it off—something like a fishhook lodging itself in a cheek.
Feeling panic opening its dark petals in my chest, I tugged at it.
The ring did not move, but it felt like the flesh might slip off my finger like one of Milady’s gloves.
I gave up and stood still, panting.
This was not a ring.
It was a shackle.
I heard a noise and spun around, wondering if Ban Morin had followed me in. The door was shut, and I could see no one. I heard it again and squinted into the gloomy corners until I identified a familiar silhouette and heard a familiar raark.
Baldbeak had sneaked in. Into the library.
It was bound to have happened eventually, I suppose, but if Milady found out Baldbeak was in here, she would have him killed for certain.
I had to get him out, somehow. In the middle of a party.
Wearing my best, fanciest and most delicate dress, which would not respond favorably to claws in its shoulder or a streak of bird droppings down the back.
How had he gotten in, anyway? There were no windows in the library, lest the light damage the books. He must have come in through another room and somehow made his way in. I prayed to all the gods I didn’t believe in that he hadn’t done any damage, or there would be hell to pay.
“Baldbeak!” I hissed, trying to keep my voice low while still allowing it to carry. “Come here!”
He must have gotten flustered on his journey through the house, however, because instead of fluttering to me as he usually would, he simply puffed out his feathers and let out a muffled squawk. He was perched up high on one of the bookshelves. Why wasn’t he talking to me?
“Get down here!”
I would have to carry him out under my dress, somehow, because the library had no windows through which to let him out. Baldbeak shuffled a little and made a movement as if to fly down, but at the last second shifted his trajectory and plopped down on top of another shelf, still up high.
“If Milady finds you here, she’ll kill you!” I shout-whispered. “Oh, for Plague’s sake.”
I didn’t have much time. I briefly considered leaving him there until the party was over and coming back for him, but I couldn’t risk him making a mess or damaging any of the books.
If Milady saw so much as one raven feather in here, she would send out the groundskeeper to shoot every last one on the grounds, I just knew it.