Chapter Nine Kit #2
True sniffs at my boots, and I reach down to pet his forehead.
Instinctively, I move my shawl to cover more of my chest before I bend, though in Catharine’s body I don’t have to worry so much about the neckline flouncing open.
Her dress—even this simple, plain travel dress—is fitted, and her chest is smaller.
I realize I don’t have to be so cautious and let the shawl hang where it will instead of holding it in place.
I glance at Idris, to see if he’s noticed, or if he sees more than he should. To see how I feel about him seeing.
But he is sipping his drink, eyes closed.
The tightness in my shoulders eases. He isn’t watching me like prey, waiting for a bit of skin to be exposed in an unguarded moment.
It has been some years since I felt I could just sit in the presence of a man and not check my every movement.
But I feel strong in Catharine’s body. Maybe almost safe.
It makes me sad for the girl I was in my old body. For the girl I’ll be again when we switch back.
“Well, how can I help?” Prince Idris asks, putting down his now-empty cup. “There must be something my family can do to ease your stay here. Do you know how long … or what you are hoping …?”
He stops, and a blush turns his ears red. I feel the same heat spread over my face. I am in Catharine’s body, and he is wondering if we have come with the purpose King Byrne suggested—come to beg for a proposal.
“I don’t know how long we’ll stay,” I answer hurriedly. “But it must be kept secret. We cannot afford for the king or queen to find us.”
“I can promise for myself and Abram, at least.” He spreads his hands across his lap, palms up, exposing a network of small, crisscrossing cuts.
“Thank …” My gaze catches on one of the scabs that has broken recently, leaving a bright streak of blood.
Idris notices me looking and tucks his hands under his elbows self-consciously.
But I’m struck by an idea. I jump up and go to my bag.
Hardly daring to breathe for fear the barb in my throat will sense my intentions, I dig to the bottom, close my hand round my find, and return to Idris. I hold out the cravat.
“Give me your hand,” I instruct.
He stares at the strip of cloth and then at me. Slowly, he holds out the hand with the broken scab.
I begin wrapping the cravat round his wrist, then loop it up over his palm to his thumb and back again.
In my mind, I play through the steps he made only two weeks ago.
Wind and tuck. Tight enough to hold, but not to restrict.
I am clumsier than he was, and my fingertips graze his skin sometimes.
He is fire-warmed now, and a faint heat rises from him. My cheeks burn.
Finally—and yet, too soon—I finish. I tie off the bandage. Before I can step back, he closes his fingers round my hand. Not to hold me in place—just to ask. My breath catches, and I can’t move. I dart a glance at his face, but I can’t make myself meet his eyes.
His brows are drawn. Connecting, questioning. “A prince’s cravat?”
I repeat the line he told me: “Think of all the stories you could spin.”
Idris blinks. Slowly, he asks, “Kit …?”
A swell of gratitude warms my insides. I am seen. But the barb is back, scratching against my throat, close enough to pierce. I don’t dare shift, don’t dare lift my eyes to his. I stare down at our joined hands without answering.
“You cannot speak of it?” he guesses.
The barb presses tighter. I’m not sure if I imagine it, but I think I can feel a drop of blood slide down my throat.
The door opens, thrown out of Catharine’s hands by the force of the wind outside. It slams against the wall. Both Idris and I jump. I back away, nearly knocking over the second chair in my haste to make space between us.
“I apologize,” Catharine says, stepping in. True springs to his feet and dances round her. She backs away from the dog nervously but still manages to make a formal curtsy to Idris. She lifts her hand to indicate his brother. “I found Prince Abram.”
True pivots to his new favorite, leaving Catharine to relax. Abram has to stoop to get through the door. He gives a swift glance around the room but focuses on Idris. “Are you all right?”
Idris holds himself straighter. The serious glint in his eye has gone, replaced by a friendly annoyance. The line of his mouth has turned up in a good-natured expression that looks almost unnatural. It takes me a moment to realize there’s no dimple in this smile.
“I’m fine,” he says in almost a singsong voice. “And hello.”
Abram frowns at him. “Princess Kit said you were feeling poorly.”
“I only needed a drink.” Idris pushes himself up and stands with apparent ease.
If it weren’t for a moment where he leans, off-balance, before he corrects himself, I might have thought he was completely normal.
“I am now fully restored!” The grim expression returns to his face for a moment. “No sign of Jay?”
Abram shakes his head. “No. And the weather’s turning.”
I glance at Idris, wondering whether they are speaking of Mr. Jay Berd. But as neither has explained, I’m not sure it would be polite to ask.
Idris turns to me. “I should get back to the search.” He rests a hand on True’s back. “Is there anything I can do to help with your—situation?”
I choose my words carefully. “We are seeking remedies in stories and in the stories’ origins.”
Idris nods. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Abram shifts, perplexed.
Idris leans forward, and I stiffen involuntarily. He smells of the cold gale off the North Sea. Fresh and windswept.
Quietly, he says, “Abram reads more than me and might have a better idea of spells and such. Is it all right if I tell him what I, er, guessed?”
The barb does not cut into me when I nod.
“Good.” He smiles, and the dimples return. “Otherwise it would have been dashed confusing to keep your names straight when I talk to him.”
I can’t help a little laugh. Catharine’s gaze catches my attention—and I remember that I ought to be more formal. I try to school my expression into something polite and not too friendly. “We would value your discretion further afield,” I add.
“Understood.” Idris doesn’t look away from me. “Don’t worry, Princess. I’ll see what I can find out.”
I nod, grateful. But for some reason, deep down in my bones, I do not feel completely pleased.
A small, secret, twisted part of me feels—disappointed?
I push my thoughts away before I can be allowed to fully recognize them.
I want Catharine to be in her body, to be free of mine.
That is the right thing to want. Anything else would make me like my mother.
“Get some rest, Prince,” I say to Idris.
Abram nods to me. “It was, um, good to see you, Princess Catharine.”
The sweet shyness in his voice charms me. I try to give him Catharine’s more encouraging smile. “And you, Prince Abram.”
He ducks out, and Idris follows. True dashes after them.
Catharine closes the door, and I move to pour a drink for her.
“Kit?”
I turn at the whisper. Catharine is staring down at her hand. She is very still, almost as if she does not breathe.
“Is this … normal?” she asks.
She lifts her hand to me. The left index finger is bent. As I watch, she presses her lips together.
I reach out to touch her hand. “What’s wrong?”
Her voice is almost soundless. “It won’t straighten.”
The middle joint on the finger is swollen worse than I’ve ever seen it. I touch the inflamed spot, and Catharine sucks in a quick breath between her teeth. I don’t dare force the finger open.
“What happened?”
Catharine’s hand trembles in mine. “I don’t know. I didn’t even notice until I went to close the door. It just won’t—I can’t move it.”
I cradle her hand—my old, swollen, breaking hand. This has never happened before. I don’t know what to do or say, but I’m filled with the need to comfort away the panic in her voice. The panic I feel mirrored in my chest.
“We’ll wrap it up until Mrs. Westness returns,” I decide. “Maybe she’ll know what to do.”
I take a cloth ribbon from a basket by the chairs.
It wraps round the finger many times over, enough to add plenty of cushion.
Once I have it tied on securely, I usher Catharine to one of the chairs and give her a small mug that she’ll be able to hold with one hand. Then I collapse into my own chair.
“I never knew it was this bad, Kit.” Catharine lifts her gaze to mine. Her gaze that comes through my old face. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It wasn’t always.” I pull my shawl closer and nestle into the shelter of my woven chair.
My thoughts rush. The wasting seems to be getting worse, even though I’m safe now.
Catharine’s safe now. Byrne doesn’t have any power here.
Wasn’t that how it worked in my mother’s story?
My grandmother escaped from her terrible sister, and she got better?
Until she got worse, all at once.
I flex my fingers—Catharine’s fingers—and concentrate on the ease of the movement. On how nothing clicks or strains or pinches.
I need to find a way to put us back in our right bodies. Catharine doesn’t deserve what’s happening.
Neither do you, whispers a part of me that sounds like my mother—the mother who cuddled me when she read with me, the one who danced through the halls while we waited for my father to come home.
I long, suddenly, for her to be here. For her to brush my hair with the gentle, steady rhythm that never tugged or hurt.
I push the thoughts away. It’s my mother’s fault we’re in this situation. And I shouldn’t want her—not after what she’s done.
“I’ll get you out of this, Catharine,” I say. “I’ll find a way.”