CHAPTER TWENTY #2
He lifted a dismissive shoulder. “Do you know how much blood it takes to force a liver twelve decades old into the shape of a twenty-year-old’s?”
“Enlighten me.”
“A great deal,” he said dryly. “Particularly when the attached stomach and tongue are so fond of brandy and foie gras.”
His words rang true; and even if they didn’t, the effects of his work on his body were plain to see. But his bitter humor was too calibrated. His voice too fine-tuned.
“That isn’t it,” she said. “That’s part of it. But not it.”
At her words, he stared at the mark on his hand for so long she gave up on getting an answer.
Then he moved closer, sat beside her, and held it up for her to examine.
He had let her see it when he gave her his gloves, but now she really looked at it.
It was a mess of markings, one on top of another.
Far more complicated than the spells she had watched him draw.
Something about it reminded her of the markings on Mira’s arrowhead.
It was the way they seemed to suck light from the air, she decided.
He watched her studying it. “Do you know how this works?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t think anyone does, except the scribes who composed it.
It binds me to the king. From wherever I am, he can summon me.
Summon. It sounds very polite, doesn’t it?
The kind of word one can discreetly mention over tea without spoiling anyone’s appetite.
” He nodded, as if to himself. He wouldn’t look at her.
“What it really means would spoil teatime quicker than curdled cream. It means my body isn’t my own. ”
Anya felt her stomach clench, felt a pinprick of fellow feeling as she watched his fingers curl shut. “You don’t just mean your blood. Do you?”
At that, he did look at her. He thought a moment before answering. “When he calls, it hurts me. I must answer and obey to make it stop. The more I try to resist it, the worse it gets. The one time I tried to defy him directly, I thought I would die from the pain. Or end it myself.”
“Why? Why did you defy him?”
He stared at the notes he had made. “Edgard is cruel. He performs well enough in public to keep the nobles from plotting his overthrow. But behind his palace walls…he hurts people. Takes their choice, their speech. Their faces, some of them. And even with the respectability my education has earned me, even with this hanging over my head,” he said, brandishing his hand, “I know I’m not above such treatment if I make him angry enough. ”
She watched his throat work as he swallowed.
“So I have learned more indirect methods of defiance. I won’t do certain things, and so there are certain compromises I must make.
You asked why I must have the phoenix. This is my last chance, my only chance.
If anyone else gives him the spell he seeks, if anyone else wins the prize, then I’ll remain stuck, tied to his will until the day I die.
And Anya, I am afraid of what he will ask of me without even the mere specter of death hanging over him. Of what I will be unable to refuse.”
She wanted to reassure him, but found she couldn’t speak.
“I don’t have anywhere near the worst of it. I’m lucky. I know it. But…” He let out an ironic breath. “But I don’t want to hurt. And I don’t want to hurt anyone else. And yet it seems I can’t escape it.”
“You’re talented. Take on wealthier clients,” she said, aggravated on his behalf, on her own, wishing she could solve it for them both.
“I do,” he said without rancor. “I did. It wasn’t enough. It has never been enough, and it never will be. It took me far too long to realize, but now I know – I don’t think he ever meant me to be free. Someone from my background – it was always a castle in the sky. A trap. And I took the bait.”
“It’s why you do charity instead,” she realized. “But…it isn’t charity, is it? Not if you’re getting paid.”
He turned his amber eyes upon her, somber but wary.
“Sabina told me,” she admitted.
Half a smile turned his lips. “You asked about me?”
“She brought it up,” Anya protested, warming. “She wouldn’t stop going on about the damned gloves.”
“She knows I wouldn’t give them up for just anyone.”
There was a quality to his voice that hadn’t been there before; one that made her heart speed. Anya flexed her fingers and put her chin on her knees.
“What has the witch asked you to do, Anya?” Though his voice was still gentle, his words carried a slick edge. “What is the penalty for your disobedience, that you obey someone you so clearly despise?”
“If I do this thing for her,” she said carefully, “I will be free.”
“And so it is for me. Free of the king. Free of…”
“Free of the game,” she finished.
“Free of…spite.”
“None of us will ever be free of that.”
“You’re right. I don’t want to be free of, I want to be free to. Free to paint because it pleases me, to eat for pleasure and not to become a more perfect machine. To fail without an axe over my head. To–”
“To what?” she whispered.
“To live. To breathe. To rest. To help others do the same. I know you won’t believe me, but I did not enter this profession with hopes of riches, nor of aiding Edgard’s cruelty.”
The words ripped out of her. “It isn’t right. So you make peace with it. We hurt each other. We help when we can. It’s the way of the world.”
“Yes, I keep hearing that. But it shouldn’t be.”
“Should or shouldn’t doesn’t matter when you need your next meal or a respite from the cold.” Emotion closed her throat. “It doesn’t matter when should but can’t is all you know, when shouldn’t but must means another sunrise.”
“I need more than that,” he said, shaking his head. “I need more than should or shouldn’t. I need more than life or death. We all do. Even you. You especially.”
She barely registered his last words, still reeling with emotion – too many emotions to name. “You ask for too much.”
“You’re right. I do. I ask for life itself. Bread and beauty. Comfort. Love.” Her breath hitched. “I ask for the priceless. I demand it.”
She laughed, exasperated – with him, with the world, both of them immovable, both of them treacherous. “Far better to demand what you can earn for yourself.”
“The way of the world,” he echoed ironically. “To use and be used. To use it all up.”
“To survive,” she said, facing him. His gaze scrutinized, seared, and she turned away.
“If I do this,” he said slowly. “For the king. He’ll live forever. Then nothing would ever change.”
“No,” she agreed, thinking of her own contract and its arbiter.
“Nothing,” he amended, “for the women he hurts, or the soldiers thrown to his next war, or even for the other scribes. But it would change for me.”
“Yes,” she agreed, thinking of her own freedom.
“It’s all I can do. All I can effect. My own fate.”
“Yes,” she said. Rotten luck. Evil luck.
“I know you need it, Anya.” His voice was full. “I cannot let you take it.”
Hers was empty. “No.”
“And you cannot let me.”
Though her mouth was very dry, she swallowed. “No.”
Suddenly animated, he withdrew his pen. “Your curse. Let me try. Magic is magic.”
She shook her head against her knees. “There’s only one way to break it.”
“There must be something–”
“You said your magic only works on humans.”
The air between them grew thick as her words took root. “Surely, you don’t mean–”
“Less than I was yesterday,” she said, her voice short and ragged. “More than I will be tomorrow.”
His pen fell but his voice was still adamant. “I only need the spell. That’s all. Once I’ve figured it out, then I’ll give the bird to you.”
“I only have until midsummer’s dawn,” she said. Three days. “There isn’t time.”
He nodded. He put his pen away. When he turned back to her, he was flushed. “There is tonight.”
She hadn’t heard him right. She lifted her head. “Tonight?”
“Tonight, we are in neutral territory. I propose an armistice.”
“Sy,” she said, “I can’t.”
Time seemed to slow as he reached for her; as he brushed his knuckles against her cheek. “Only for the night.”
Her body understood before her mind did. She felt her heart pounding against her breastbone. She felt her chest tightening, her navel alight like a flame.
“Only for one night,” he said again, his fingertips spreading against her skin. This time, there was no imagining. He held her, looked at her, like something beautiful. Something necessary. No longer hopeless, though still desperately sad, and reckless.
He put his other hand on her waist.
Anya froze, utterly lost. This, this was uncharted territory. There was no map for this.
She was frozen, but she willed her tongue to move. She had to say something, something to get herself back on the right track.
What it said was frightful, and true, and absolutely humiliating.
“It would make tomorrow impossible.”
He withdrew his hands. They had not been warm, but she felt their lack like a cloudy day in spring, resisting the urge to touch where his fingers had left her cheek. She thought her skin was not as warm as it should be, either. He studied her, like a painting he might want to recreate.
She swallowed. “I’m not doing any of this by choice.”
His sand-gold hair shifted as his head tilted forward; his amber eyes absorbed her, savored her, and she felt each place they rested. Her eyes, her neck. Her lips.
“None of it?”
The flame in her navel throbbed. She wet her lips; diligently avoided staring at his. She wanted to push his hair behind his ears. She wanted to see it plastered to his forehead. “None of it.”
“You’re right,” he said, his voice soft. “It will make tomorrow impossible.”
Disappointment clawed at her throat.
Then his fingers drifted to the tip of her sternum. She sat silent and still, taking small, short breaths, a doe caught in his sights.
“But that is for tomorrow.”
“Sy,” she said again, really more of a choked whisper, as he had started pulling loose the laces holding her jerkin closed.
“Tonight,” he went on, starting on the buttons of her shirt, “there is one thing more impossible.” Delicately, he parted the folds of her shirt.