Chapter 20
Twenty
A week later, Gertrude summons you to the palace.
“Forgive the delay,” she says. “I had to go back in my records.”
“For what?”
She sets a heavy pouch of coin in front of you.
“This is rightfully yours,” she says. “The Fair Queen paid it to me, but I think it should belong to you.”
“I can’t accept this.”
“You should. I doubt she ever paid you anything.”
You swallow. True enough, and yet—you hesitate to touch the pouch, as if miles and months of travel away, the Fair Queen might guess that you’ve taken her coin. Ridiculous, you scold yourself, and open the pouch to count the sum inside.
“It’s yours to do with as you please,” says Gertrude. “Though I wondered whether you would purchase a home and stay with us.”
“Would I be welcome?”
Her eyes barely widen, but you notice. “Why would we not want you, Hans?”
Because you don’t know what I am, you think, but then, even in your mind, you adjust that phrasing: You don’t know what she forced me to be.
Does the phrasing matter? Either way, the blood is on your hands.
There is no forgiveness or redemption. And you cannot speak it plainly—your gruesome deeds are a cavernous hole whose perimeter you must tread carefully, lest the noose tighten once more around your throat.
“I was so frightened to become a queen,” she says. “For so many reasons.”
You raise your eyes to meet hers. Hard as stone, but not heartless: determined, resolute. The strongest thing you’ve ever seen in your life.
“Of all the things I feared, the Fair Queen was not one of them. Do you know why?”
“Because she is kind and good,” you say at once. “No one has anything to fear from her.”
Gertrude’s little hm of laughter rings hollow and unsurprised. “Yes, I expected you to say as much,” she says. “Cyrus told me what happened. You may not speak the truth, but I can, and I will.”
She holds up her hands. White gloves, to match Cyrus’s white wing. Finger by finger, she tugs them off, and then you see what curse-breaking did to her. Gnarled, swollen, arthritic knuckles. A thousand tiny cross-hatched scars from wrist to fingertip.
“I did not fear the Fair Queen because I knew no magic would ever consider me more beautiful than her,” says Gertrude. “I had enemies, but she would never be one of them.”
What is there to say? You only nod.
“In a way, I’m almost sorry for it,” she says. “Because if you had come to kill me, I could have saved you from her so much sooner.”
You make a strangled noise in your throat. She knows. She knows.
Of course she knows.
“As it is, you saved yourself. Perhaps that’s better. Perhaps not.” She shrugs one shoulder and tugs her gloves back over her fingers. “But you’re here now, with us, and if I may speak plainly? I don’t care what you did. It means nothing to me.”
“Gertrude—”
“No, you must listen to me, Hans, because we have this in common.” Her voice sharpens.
“I let so many things… happen to me… because I had no choice. Not the wrong choice, but no choice at all. If I did not let the story happen, I would not be free. Cyrus would not be free. But the moment I realized I had choices… Hans, the moment I realized I could change the story… Do the specifics matter? I found my way, and changed it.”
She laces her fingers together and squeezes, straining under the weight of things she will never tell you. You’ll never make her say it. You know enough of murder to guess what she did. Husbands who die of broken hearts make marvellously romantic stories.
“I want you to know you needn’t rely only on yourself now.
Cyrus and I would both like it if you stayed.
If you choose to leave and make a home elsewhere, that’s your decision.
Our other brothers did that and we would hardly hold it against you.
But you are welcome here, Hans. There is no world where we would ever turn you away. ”