Chapter Sixteen
The first stocking is under Baldr’s bed.
The second is hanging from one of Snowpetal’s horns.
I stand in the doorway between our rooms and look at her.
She looks back from the middle of my blanket.
“Give it to me.”
Snowpetal lowers her head.
The stocking stretches across her nose and hangs past one white ear.
“That’s not yours.”
Her tail club strikes the mattress.
Asta takes the stocking from her before either of us can make the situation worse. Snowpetal allows this because she respects Asta and enjoys making me negotiate for everything.
“Thank you.”
Asta gives it to me. “You left the other one in his room.”
“It came off.”
“Did it.”
I sit on the edge of the bed and pull it over my foot. “He helped.”
“I heard.”
The storm covers the windows and the walls remain thin. A very unfair arrangement.
Snowpetal attacks the ribbon at the end of Asta’s braid.
Asta catches the little white paw without turning around. “No.”
Snowpetal tries the other one.
“Also no.”
I pull on the second stocking. “Baldr was gone when I woke up.”
“He’s been downstairs since dawn.”
“You knew?”
“Somebody came for him. The roof crews needed help.”
I heard none of this.
That may explain Asta’s face.
I find my blue dress across the chair and put my arms through. One sleeve has turned itself inside out. I fight with it until Asta takes my wrist, fixes the fabric, and pulls my hand through.
“I can dress myself.”
“You’re proving that.”
“The sleeve was mad.”
She starts fastening the back.
Snowpetal jumps from the bed to the windowsill and pushes her nose against the shutter.
“She wants outside,” I say.
“She had outside. She came back with your stocking.”
“That doesn’t tell us where she got it.”
Asta stops at the fifth fastening.
We both look at Snowpetal.
She licks the shutter.
No answer there.
Asta finishes the dress and reaches for the brush. I sit at the little table beneath the window while she works through the knots in my hair.
She gets through the first one.
I make a small noise.
“Hold still.”
“You pulled.”
I look at her in the mirror.
Asta’s face stays perfectly composed.
“You’re unkind in the morning.”
“I have been awake longer.”
“That should have improved you.”
Snowpetal wedges one paw into the gap beside the shutter and pulls.
The wood opens an inch.
Wind throws snow through it.
I jump up.
Asta catches the brush before it falls, closes the shutter, and looks at the white patch melting across the floor.
Snowpetal purrs.
“Menace,” Asta tells her.
Snowpetal jumps down, steals the loose ribbon from the table, and runs through the open door.
“She has your ribbon,” I say.
“She’s made her choice.”
“You’re not going after her?”
“I’m trying something new.” Asta sets the brush on the table.
I open the shutter again, carefully this time.
The morning is grey. Snow fills the lower yard and keeps coming, though the wind has lost some of last night’s anger. The practice fence barely shows above the drifts. One lantern still burns beside it.
Asta comes to my shoulder.
“The path’s gone,” I say.
“It will be dug out.”
“Baldr’s outside in this?”
“Baldr is carrying roof beams.”
Right.
One dark shape lies near the fence below us.
I lean closer to the glass.
An arm.
Black shirt. Bare hand. Long braids half buried beneath fresh snow.
“Asta.”
“I see him.”
Eirik is face-down in the practice yard.
His coat hangs over the fence behind him. One sleeve touches the snow. The ground around him has been destroyed by boots, knees, and several patches dark enough to be blood.
He doesn’t move.
“Someone left him out there all night.”
Asta shrugs. “Ketill, most likely. He’d know the cold can’t finish a Dróttin.”
I turn.
Asta grabs my arm.
“No.”
“He may be hurt.”
“He is a hungover Dróttin who made poor decisions in his own yard.”
I pull against her grip. “He’s face-down.”
“That may be helping.”
“Asta.”
Her fingers tighten. “You’re not responsible for him.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
I reach for my purple cloak.
Asta lets go long enough to put both hands in the air. “Fine. Go collect the six-hundred-year-old man from the snow.”
I fasten the clasp. “Thank you.”
“That wasn’t permission.”
“Your delivery still needs work.”
She points the brush at me. “I’m not coming.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“You were going to.”
I was.
“Where are you going?”
“To do something that doesn’t involve Eirik, frostbite, or explaining either one to Baldr.”
“That sounds secretive.”
“It’s called having a morning.”
I pull on my boots.
Behind us, Snowpetal races through the passage with the ribbon trailing from her mouth.
Asta closes the door.
The side passage gets me near the lower yard. A rope has been tied from the hall to the nearest workshop, bright red against the snow. I hold it with both hands and make it five steps before sinking to my knee.
Excellent.
My left boot stays behind when I pull free.
I dig it out, put it back on, and continue with smaller steps.
The storm pushes at my hood. The cloth keeps most of it from my face. Snow gets down my neck anyway.
Eirik remains where I saw him.
Up close, this looks worse.
His shirt is soaked. Snow has settled across his back and filled the shaved sides of his head. The silver mask is pressed into the drift, runes dark except for one weak purple line near his cheek.
His bare fingers have gone pale.
“Eirik.”
Nothing.
I crouch beside him and touch his shoulder.
His hand closes around my wrist.
Fast.
I gasp.
One eye opens against the snow.
Purple.
Bloodshot.
Annoyed.
Good.
“You’re alive.”
“A crushing disappointment.”
His voice comes rough through the mask.
He releases me and closes his eye again.
“You need to come inside.”
“No.”
“You’re lying in the snow.”
“I hadn’t noticed.”
Cranky.
Very cranky.
I stand, retrieve his coat from the fence, and shake the snow from it.
“Do not.”
I lay it over his back.
Eirik turns his face far enough to get the mask out of the drift. Both eyes open now. The pale-green one has a dark bruise beneath it. Dried blood marks the edge of the silver near his jaw.
“Did you come down here to be irritating?”
“I came to see whether you were dead.”
“And now that your curiosity has been satisfied?”
“Inside.”
He pushes onto one elbow.
The movement stops there.
His fingers dig into the snow. The split skin across his knuckles has already closed, but red lines remain between them.
“Did somebody hit you?”
“Several.”
“Why?”
He drags a hand down his face. “Fewer questions.”
Eirik gets one knee beneath him. The coat slides. I catch it and put it around his shoulders before he can object again.
He stands without my help.
Mostly.
One hand catches the fence. The wood complains beneath it.
I pretend not to see.
He notices me pretending.
“Go back to my brother.”
The words are sharp.
They also come out tired.
“He’s fixing a roof.”
“A task suited to him.”
“You need coffee.”
“I need you to stop deciding what I need.”
“You can do that after the coffee.”
I take the red rope and start toward the hall.
Eirik doesn’t follow.
I turn around.
He’s still holding the fence.
“I’ll stand here until you come with me.”
“You’ll freeze.”
“Then Asta will come collect both of us, and she’ll be very upset.”
His purple eye closes.
“There are easier ways to die.”
“Yes. Inside.”
He follows.
The walk back takes longer.
Eirik uses the rope with one hand and keeps the other inside his coat. I slip twice. He catches the back of my cloak the second time, holds me upright, and lets go before I can thank him.
The side door opens before we reach it.
A guard sees Eirik and moves out of the way, then sees me and starts to smile.
“You didn’t see him,” I tell him, and the smile falters—“no, no. Smile, please. It’s a good smile.”
His eyes light up, and he keeps it.
The kitchen is warm enough to hurt my face.
Four people are working around the long center table. One kneads bread. Two are filling covered trays. An older woman stands by the hearth with a wooden spoon and an expression that says Eirik has disappointed her before.
She looks at his wet shirt.
Then the blood.
Then me.
“Sit,” she tells him.
Eirik sits.
Oh.
Interesting.
The older woman points me toward a smaller hearth near the back wall. A pot of coffee rests beside it.
“Fresh cup is there.”
“Thank you.”
“Made it strong.”
She takes the spoon and leads the other three through the dining-room door with their trays.
Eirik watches her go. “Tyranny.”
“She seems nice.”
“You’d think so.”
I pour coffee into the cup. Steam reaches my nose, dark and bitter.
“Sugar?”
“No.”
“Milk?”
His eyes meet mine.
“That was a normal question.”
“Black.”
I carry it to the table.
Eirik pulls one wet glove from his coat and looks at it.
He leaves the glove on the table and puts both bare hands around the cup.
I sit across from him.
“What’s wrong?”
He looks at me over the cup. Doesn’t answer.
“Your hands are scraped, your face is bleeding, you slept outside, and you look terrible.”
“Your care becomes cruel.”
I put my elbows on the table. “Do you hurt anywhere?”
“Everywhere you’re looking.”
“Can I do anything?”
His hands stop around the cup.
Both eyes settle on me.
He stays that way long enough that the fire pops behind me.
“You should know better than to pity me.”
“I don’t.”
“No?”
“No.”
His fingers tighten.
“I killed a woman in front of you. You watched me feed from another. Which part suggested I required saving?”
There it is.
This should sound the same as breakfast.
It doesn’t, though.
Breakfast was aimed exactly where he wanted it. This is a wounded man throwing whatever he can reach.
I look at the cup in his hands.
“The part where you were face-down in the snow suggested coffee.”
He says nothing.
“Coffee doesn’t forgive you,” I add. “It’s coffee.”
The purple eye stays on me.
“You hurt her.”
His hands go still again.
“I know.”
That answer is quiet.
“And you embarrassed me.”
“I know.”
“I’m still angry about it.”
“You hide it beautifully.”
He looks down. Not at the floor. At the cup.
Up close, with no one to perform being terrible for, he just looks tired.
It’s annoying.
The kitchen door slams open.
Snowpetal comes through at full speed with Asta’s ribbon wrapped around one horn.
“Snowpetal.”
She hits the center table, scatters three wooden spoons, and launches onto the sideboard.
One spoon lands in the wash basin.
Another strikes the floor.
The third disappears beneath Eirik’s chair.
Snowpetal runs along the sideboard, knocks a folded cloth into the hearth water, and reaches the butter.
“No.”
She puts one paw in it.
“That was very clear.”
I stand.
Snowpetal jumps to the shelf behind Eirik.
He doesn’t move.
She steps onto his left shoulder.
One white paw crosses the back of his neck. Then another. Her tail club passes close enough to the mask that I stop breathing.
Eirik watches her from the corner of his pale-green eye.
Snowpetal walks across both shoulders, jumps to the table behind me, and grabs a strip of drying meat.
“Put that down.”
She runs.
I catch her around the middle before she reaches the door.
Snowpetal turns boneless.
The meat stays in her mouth.
“You can’t steal from every room you enter.”
Her back paws catch my skirt. One talon hooks the fabric.
I shift her higher, grab the meat, and miss.
Snowpetal twists.
The ribbon comes loose from her horn and falls over my face.
“Stop helping.”
She purrs.
I get the meat on the second attempt.
Snowpetal catches it again.
When I turn around, Eirik is gone.
So is the coffee.