Chapter Thirteen #2
Milady was seated at the little table in her room, picking at a honeycake of her own. “My dear,” Milady said. “Please sit. Tea?”
“Yes, please.” It would give me something to do with my hands. I sat, trying to look relaxed, but feeling my body clenched tight as a fist.
“You did very well last night,” Milady said, pouring a cup. Despite myself, I felt a glow of pride—a holdover from my days with Mother, when I had fought so hard for her notice and approval. Milady did resemble her, after all.
“You were quite the talking point.”
My face grew hot. I buried it in my tea.
“Sip, Netta. Sip. No need to gulp it down.” Milady put down her own cup and steepled her fingers. “Yes, quite the talking point. There was a lot of interest in you. From several quarters.”
I said nothing, but sipped at my tea. Where was this going?
“A success, I think.” She stirred her tea again, unnecessarily, striking a pleasant chiming note against the china. And then: “Sawl Morin has offered for you,” she said, with no change to her usual low, perfectly modulated tone.
“Offered what?” I said absently, thinking about Mother and the book. There had to be a way I could leave here with Mieka without Milady knowing.
“Marriage.”
I froze.
“Ban Morin?” I repeated faintly.
“A great honor,” said Milady. “He is second in rank only to the king himself.”
She took another sip of tea.
I wasn’t stupid. I was being sold. What had the Book Man said about magic practitioners and marriage? Many nobles seek out magic-skilled partners in an attempt to strengthen their wealth and position at court, and the marriage bond is an excellent way to bind that power to you forever.
“But I don’t want to get married,” I said. “I’ve only been here for two days. We’re meant to be looking for Mother.”
“Of course, of course,” she said. “But there is plenty of time for that. And you can search for her just as well once you are married to Ban Morin—better, in fact. Yes, I think this is really a marvelous turn of events.”
“I won’t do it,” I said.
She looked up from her tea.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I won’t do it,” I repeated. I stood. “You can’t make me do it.”
“Make you do it?” she said, raising a delicate eyebrow. “My dear, I am not a barbarian. I would never dream of making you enter a marriage against your will. Although you do disappoint me.”
I let out a long breath.
“There was one thing,” said Milady. “On that second passage.”
My throat convulsed, suddenly too dry to swallow. “Yes, Milady?”
“You missed three words on the fifth line,” said Milady.
I scanned my memory. It was unusual for me to miss words, but it could happen sometimes if I was very tired or overwrought.
“I’m sorry, Milady,” I said weakly.
Milady sighed. “It pains me to do so, especially as overall you did quite well, but if I fail to discipline you for your mistakes, you might grow complacent. It is in your best interests. I hope you will come to see that.”
She gestured for me to stand before the fire, where a book was again open on the porcelain lectern.
“Hands,” said Milady.
“I don’t have the gloves,” I said.
“For this, we do not need them.”
My throat thudded with my heartbeat as I extended my fingers.
I rested them on the open book, trying to control their trembling, but they shook so violently that the lectern rattled beneath them.
Milady, face impassive, laid her own fingers over mine to still them and started to read from the book.
When she had finished the passage, she tapped one finger against her perfect lips, thinking.
“Hmm. Just two this time, I think. After all, it was a small error.”
“Two what?” I asked.
She did not reply, but took off her own gloves. Her hands were as exquisite as the rest of her, with long fingers and perfectly polished nails.
“Stand still,” she said, “and do not move your hands.”
She rested her own hands on top of mine again and resumed reading.
My hands trembled, and, oddly, my nails seemed to start quivering in their beds.
I swallowed.
“Milady, please …”
I made as if to lift my hands, but I was frozen in place. No part of me could move, save my face. I started to panic, thrashing my head about—and I noticed then that my Hair was similarly frozen and lifeless, heavy against my spine.
“What did you do to me?” I shouted.
“Please lower your voice,” she said calmly. I opened my mouth to retort—but no, I did not, because now my mouth was paralyzed as well. Only my darting eyes were alive. The rest of me might as well have been a statue.
Milady continued to read from her spellbook. My hands quivered, then burned.
It was an odd sensation, the loosening of my nail beds. The skin at the base turned warm and liquid, then cooled. When Milady reached out to grasp the nail’s protruding edge, I took a deep breath and held it.
I closed my eyes, but I saw every second of the process as if it were imprinted on the inside of my eyelids.
The slow slide of the nail out of my finger, surprisingly long under the skin.
The smarting of the raw, red flesh below.
The initial slow drag, and then the throb, and then the burning.
I bit the inside of my cheek and tasted blood.
“And again,” said Milady. The whole hideous process repeated itself. My eyes would have filled with tears if they could, but my tears seemed frozen as well.
When Milady had finished, I opened my eyes and saw that one of her nails—the one on her index finger—had turned gray.
As I watched, it fell, leaving clean new skin beneath, and Milady caught it in her other hand and placed it in a painted ginger jar on the dressing table.
I did my best to breathe slowly through the bright haze of pain as spots danced before my eyes, not wanting to show her how much it hurt.
“I didn’t want to have to do that, Netta,” said Milady.
Her voice sounded muffled through the ringing in my ears.
She started to read again, starting the equally excruciating process of growing them back, millimeter by millimeter, my very bones seeming to creak in protest as the hard nail pushed itself back out of the wound.
When the terrible motion finally stopped, I let myself breathe again.
“That will be all,” said Milady. She poured a little water from a pitcher into her basin and washed her hands, drying them thoroughly on a cloth before lovingly replacing her gloves. She stepped back, gesturing to me to do the same.
“And Netta,” she said. “As you can see, I will always correct your mistakes. Your errors of judgement.”
I was panting, still half frozen.
“Not marrying Ban Morin,” she continued, “would be a grave error of judgement.”
Back in my room, Mieka held me while I cried, brushing the Hair gently back from my face.
“Nails,” she said. “Nasty.”
I splayed out my hand, making sure the nails really had grown back. They looked just the same, save a slight bluish tinge around the cuticles. There was nothing to show the terrible pain. And the fear.
“I didn’t think she would really do that,” I whispered. I looked into Mieka’s face. “Mieka. In the Book Man’s shop—remember I said I found fingernails on the floor? A lot of them. Do you suppose she …”
Mieka pressed her lips together. “Don’t think of it,” she said.
“We have to get out of here. She will make me marry Ban Morin. I don’t know why, but she won’t take no for an answer. What she did today—that was a threat.”
“I know. Patrick …”
I pulled away. “I know you trust him, but I do not.”
“Netta. He sent me here to take care of you. He has done nothing but watch over you. What has he ever done that makes you think he means you harm?”
“He hates my family.”
“Well, maybe. But to be fair, I hate your family, too. At least, the only one of them I’ve met. She’s hardly a paragon of virtue, is she? If it’s something Milady told you …” She shrugged. “I’d take that with several barrels of salt.”
“Mother told me, too, though.” I stared into space for a moment. “I will think of something,” I whispered. “I have to.”
Knowing I would have to see Ban Morin again that night was excruciating. Would an announcement be made? Would I be expected to sit next to him—to be affectionate with him? I cringed at the thought.
My Hair was worse than ever that night. It frizzed out around my head in spiky chaos, resisting every attempt the maids made to subdue it—even Mieka.
In the end, I sent them away and gave it a tortoiseshell comb to chew on.
It seemed to enjoy tangling itself around combs and breaking off their tines, like a dog gnawing on a bone, and it could keep itself occupied that way for an hour or more.
By the time I had finished dressing, the Hair had calmed down enough for me to braid it over one shoulder, shuddering once or twice but eventually lying still enough.
Last of all, I put on the gloves. I still did not fully understand their purpose, but I knew it was nothing good.
They seemed to shrink and expand according to Milady’s will.
They lay still enough on my skin now, but I knew that, at a word or a glance, they could tighten, making my hands not entirely my own.
When I entered the drawing room, Ban Morin smiled.
I was uncommonly aware of his mouth now, knowing that I might have to deal with it intimately in the near future, and the slightly protruding tooth and the shine of spit along his lower lip made my stomach churn.
His hands, too, richly beringed and strong, with long nails polished to a sheen—these I would have to learn, as well, if I were betrothed to him.
I swore to get out of here, one way or another, before that was a possibility.
The way he looked at me hadn’t changed—that knowing, penetrating look, with a slight smile, as if he saw all my thoughts and found them amusing. I knew I had a thin-skinned face, easy to read.