Chapter Twenty-Seven
Seph didn’t know where Rhys had gone, but she knew he’d come back.
He always came back.
She did stay behind to help the staff clean up the turnip guts and stems and the char marks from her coal distribution efforts, even as they insisted she oughtn’t and attempted to shoo her away. She had only laughed and continued to help.
“Where I come from,” she told a maid, “if you don’t clean up your own mess, you are cursed to carry your filth like bad luck. So you must let me do it, for my own superstitions.”
It was complete nonsense. But people knew nothing and less about Travellers, so she’d always been able to use that to get what she wanted, even if what she wanted was just to assist in chores.
She went up to the rooms and changed into her bird pajamas, then carefully unpacked the two sets of bedroom slippers Rhys had bought in town today, arranging them a few steps apart and facing in opposite directions.
The bigger pair for Rhys faced the bed first, and the second pair the door, and her own two pair were opposites, the door, and then the bed.
Barefoot, she attempted the turns that would put on one pair, then discard them as she stepped into the others.
She did over and over again, her feet arched, toes pointed, until she couldn’t tell the difference between the plush carpet fibers under her toes or the embrace of the wool slipper entry. She had to discard each pair exactly where they’d started, using Rhys’s unused slippers as marker.
It was like a dance. A disguised dance that must only be read as natural movement, and as such, was more difficult than any quadrille or cotillion.
She didn’t realize Rhys had joined her until he’d stepped in front of her, his own feet bare, and mimicked the motions, his own steps more stilted and stiff than hers after many rounds of practice.
They did the turns half a dozen times before she finally stopped and slumped backward on the bed, landing with a little bounce. She stretched out her bare feet, rotating them at the ankles with a little groan of satisfaction.
He did the series twice more without her, counting softly under his breath, like he was measuring the tempo in a song only he could hear, then turned to her with a smile, slippers on his bare feet, and took a bow.
She gave him some lazy applause, laughing to herself, until he strode over and bent down, hands on either side of her, and dropped a lovely, soft kiss on her lips.
He sighed, twisted, and flopped down on his back next to her, staring up at the ceiling above them, slippers still dangling from his toes, and his hands folded over his ribs like a fancy corpse in a coffin.
“Seph,” he said, eyes still on the ceiling, “have you ever thought that it isn’t really a lie? The patter we do for this trick?”
“Hm?” she said, blinking thrice and turning to look down at him.
“Do you ever think,” he repeated, gaze still fixed away from her, “that we really are changelings? Or that I am, perhaps?”
For a moment, she was quiet. She did not answer right away because she could tell that the question was a real one, not the lead in to a jest, and that it merited consideration, not quick wit.
“I’ve been reading a book,” she finally decided to say, easing down to lie next to him, her head turned and hair soft on her cheeks where it had escaped her braid, “about changelings. I thought it would be whimsical and exciting, but mostly it is just sad, Rhys. It seems a way to abandon children who are odd.”
“Adults too,” he answered immediately, turning his head to face hers. “I’ve heard of men putting wives aside and using it as an excuse. ‘It’s not really divorce,’ they’ll say, ‘because that isn’t my Janice.’ Nonsense.”
She nodded, frowning. “It keeps making me think of …” She paused, licking her lips, uncertain if she was going to offend him. “Of your sister Hattie,” she finished quietly.
He nodded, his face impassive. “I have thought that too,” he confessed. “She doesn’t think or speak or act the way other people do. If Willa hadn’t discovered her, I shudder to think of how the world might have punished that, instead of celebrating it.”
“She might have remained a scullery maid,” Seph said.
“Plenty of odd folks are happy in service, especially the ones who like routine and order. But, Rhys, it doesn’t bear considering just now.
She is safe and happy. She has attended crowned heads and married a man who worships her. The worst didn’t happen.”
“The worst didn’t happen,” he agreed. “Not to Hattie, anyhow.”
She frowned, reaching out to take his fingers against her own, weaving her grip into his. “What has happened to make you think this way tonight?” she asked. “What brought it on?”
“Merlin,” he answered, managing to shrug even flat against the mattress. “Mortality, I suppose, brings all these things to the front. We had an odd conversation tonight, when I helped him to his room. Very odd. I will tell you about it later.”
“All right,” she said. “The slippers were a good idea,” she added. “I remember more than I thought I did.”
It made him smile, like tender shoots poking up through frost, just hints of happiness curling at the corners of his lips. “I suspected you would.”
“We should rehearse the kerchief and flower swaps tomorrow,” she said, rolling onto her side, their hands still entwined. “And you mentioned the patter. Do you remember it all?”
“I do,” he told her. “But I think I will change some of it, just a little. We have grown and our audience has too. But don’t think you’ll distract me with kerchiefs and flowers from the ropes. I know you brought the ropes.”
She felt her cheeks heat, torn between smiling at him and hiding her face. “I did bring the ropes,” she confessed. “But that is a different trick entirely. Are we going to do both?”
“We are going to merge them,” he told her. “Though now that I’ve seen you lead the turnip carving, I’m not certain we will ever do better than that.”
“Oh, hush,” she tutted, shaking her head. She paused, lifting up a little to look around the room. Only her turnip, grim and glowing, was there by the door, watching them across the room. “Where is yours?”
“With Merlin,” Rhys said, his tone sounding as though he’d only just realized it himself. “I forgot to grab it. Blast.”
“It’s all right,” she assured him. “I think I’ll put mine outside the door, anyhow. I don’t fancy it watching us if you get bawdy again.”
“‘If,’” he repeated, clicking his tongue. “What a silly word.”
She stifled a giggle as he shook his head and pushed himself back up to standing, striding across the room to eject the jack-o’-lantern in immediate order, facing out and away from their room, as if to keep any nosy spirits from knocking.
“When are we performing, by the by?” she asked after he’d come back in and kicked the door shut behind him. “I saw you chatting with Mrs. Winterstone about it.”
“Well, Madame Ivanova took Samhain itself,” he grumbled. “Which I suppose is fair, given her talent. So we are second to last. Penultimate.”
“‘Penultimate,’” she repeated. “Like Pendragon.”
He paused and chuckled. “Perhaps. Am I more of an Uther or an Arthur?”
“You are more of a Merlin,” she said. “And I think you know that.”
He scoffed with faux offense, prowling back across the room and leaping onto the bed, where he landed atop her with his arms and knees pinning her into place. “And you? Morgana?”
“Obviously,” she tittered. “Who else?”
“Do you think Merlin and Morgana ever …?” he wondered, leaning down to kiss her jaw, down to the hollow of her throat.
“Hmm,” she considered, reaching up to tangle her fingers in his curls. “I certainly hope so.”
“I suppose we ought to do it for them, in fact,” he murmured, drawing his knees tighter around her hips. “To honor their memory.”
“Oh, for certain, for certain,” she answered, giggling through her attempted somberness. “It is only right.”
He grinned, his mouth curving against her throat, and darted his tongue out to lick the hollow at its base. “See?” he said, kissing his way back up to claim her mouth. “I knew you could be sensible, if you ever really wanted to be.”
“Careful,” she told him, catching his lips as they descended, “or I’ll go back to being contrary, and what will you do then?”
“Ah, Persephone. Cariad,” he replied, laughing. “That is what the ropes are for.”