Demir moved away from the mews, shifting to sit across from Thessa with his back to a chimney. She stretched out, tapping his feet with hers. For the first time he noticed that she was clutching a sheaf of papers. “Did you have a chance to look over the contract?” he asked, guessing at what they were.
“Ah.” She lifted the papers, handing them across to him. “I had Breenen draw up a copy. All signed.”
“No alterations?”
“None. The contract is perfect. If anything, it favors me by a large margin.”
Demir stared at her signature for a few moments, then at the place where his own would go, before he went to bed. They’d already shaken hands on their deal, but he’d nursed a pervasive worry that she would back out at the last minute. “A partner isn’t quite the same as a client-patron relationship, but all the same: welcome to the Grappo guild-family.”
To his surprise, Thessa gave a happy little shudder. “Oh! So strange. I knew a day like this would come eventually, but I expected it was a decade off.”
Demir regarded her for a moment. Perhaps it was the high emotion of facing down a crowd, or the fact that Thessa was finally wearing a sleek tunic that fit her properly, but he felt like he was looking at her with different eyes. She looked so young, but everything about her was old – her poise, confidence, professionalism. She didn’t just have the skills of an experienced siliceer, she had the body language of one too. It was, as much as he hated to admit it, deeply attractive.
“I don’t mean to pry,” she said shyly, “but I saw the mausoleum in the hotel garden. A few of the porters lit candles there while I was working. Is that … where your mother is?”
“It’s where all the patriarchs and matriarchs of the Grappo get buried,” Demir replied. He looked up into the sky, staring at the glittering of the stars, his thoughts turning to that purple-and-white marble. “I think I might be the last one.” He looked sharply at Thessa, immediately regretting the words – and the glimpse into his fears that it gave her – but she was also staring into the sky.
“You don’t think you’ll have children?” she asked.
“I’m twenty-nine. If I had a child next year I’d be ten years too late on creating the brood for a new generation of Grappo. At least according to most guild-families.” Demir felt a spike of anger at all the responsibilities and expectations piled on his shoulders, but forced it back down. “You?”
“Hah!” Thessa blurted. “Most female siliceers don’t even start thinking about kids until their thirties. The opposite of you guild-family types, I suppose. Until a week ago my plan was to finish my tutelage under Kastora and start my own glassworks. Maybe even inherit his. I’d think about a family after.” A half smile formed on her lips. “You know, I’ve always preferred men, but figured I’d end up with a woman. Easier that way. Cleaner. We’d just adopt, and I’d never have to worry about the rigmarole of pregnancy.”
“Smart,” Demir commented, watching her carefully. The conversation had turned more personal than he’d intended. Was that by happenstance? Or was she probing? “Does business come into it?”
“Business always comes into it,” Thessa replied, “as I’m sure you know better than I.”
Demir snorted. “It’s what’s expected.” He paused, biting his tongue, knowing he should guard himself. He barely knew Thessa, and she was his new business partner. He needed to remain closed off. “The truth is, I don’t want to make a deal with some guild-family for a wife. That’s what they all do and it sickens me. I’d take her family prestige, she’d take my money. We’d have misters and mistresses on the side and grow to hate each other over cold dinners in empty dining halls.” Demir swallowed a mouthful of bile. “I think I’d leave again before it came to that.”
“Even though that’s what everyone does?”
“Especially because that’s what everyone does.” Demir tapped Thessa’s boot with his own. “The thing is, I know that there are good people among the guild-families. Interesting people. Intelligent people. If you gave me a week I could probably come up with a dozen women in Ossa who I could live with, and even enjoy. But it’s the trappings of it all that I hate. The expectations. The coldness of the contracts.”
“I would never have pegged you as a romantic.” Thessa was grinning now, and it made Demir laugh.
“Maybe I am. I’ve always liked the idea of the world being better than it really is. Comes from not being allowed a proper childhood, I suppose. I never got to grow out of childish ideas.”
Thessa’s grin slowly faded, and Demir wondered if he’d said the wrong thing. After a few moments of silence she said, “Mine was cut short too.” Demir waited for her to explain further, but she just stared at her hands. “I don’t know where Kastora is buried.”
It was an odd non sequitur. “I’m sure we can find out. Might have to wait until after the war.”
She seemed relieved by this. She continued, “I’d like that. I still don’t know where my parents are buried. I’d already been sent to study under Kastora when they died and I just … never returned.” Demir peered at her. Not a non sequitur after all. Thessa paused, looking thoughtfully over Demir’s shoulder. “I wasn’t there, and I blamed myself for that for a long time. It’s funny, I have nightmares about their deaths even though I didn’t see it. I sometimes wonder if my imagination is worse than the event itself.”
“How did they die?” Demir asked, his curiosity getting the better of him. She just shook her head, but Demir got the distinct impression that they’d been killed. He put his hands in his pockets, his attention returned entirely to Thessa. “Why did you blame yourself?”
“Because,” she said with a shrug, “I … I’m not even sure. I guess I felt like I could have done something. But I was a thirteen-year-old girl. How crazy is that?”
“I could have done something to protect my mother,” Demir said unhappily. His mirth was gone, and he regretted it. “I’m a glassdancer. Six thugs with cudgels would have been a pile of meat before they could have struck her.”
“Only if you’d been there,” Thessa pointed out.
“But I might have been. If I’d been in the capital at the time, I probably would have walked her home from the Assembly. I used to be on the Assembly myself. I…” He trailed off. “I guess I technically am still. You know, I’ve been thinking about her death every day since word arrived. What I would have done. The pain I would have inflicted on the people who wanted to hurt her.”
“Those people,” Thessa said softly, “were not stupid. You’re a glassdancer, and they would have made sure to do it when you couldn’t defend her.”
Demir didn’t want her to be right. It was easier to think poorly of himself, to give in to recrimination and anger, than it was to face reality. He knew because it was the same thing he’d done inside his head for years. “You’re far too wise for your age,” he said.
“And you’re far too haunted for yours,” she replied. She swallowed hard, her eyes widening slightly, as if realizing that she might have stepped over the line.
Demir knew he should be irritated. She had overstepped her bounds, and any other guild-family patriarch would have put her in her place. But as before, he just couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. “Oh? What’s that supposed to mean?”