“I. . can’t,” she said, after a moment.
Jane nodded levelly. Winter searched her face.
“It’s not that I don’t want to,” Winter said. “I do. I mean, with you. Just not. . now. It’s hard. I’m sor-”
“I told you to stop apologizing,” Jane said. “It’s all right, really.”
“I’m just. . tired.” Winter took a deep breath and got a grip on herself. “Just give me some time to get used to things.”
“Of course.” Jane stood up and extended a hand. “Come on. We’ll find you a room.”
Winter took her hand, tentatively, and allowed herself to be led out into the hall, wobbling like a drunk on her way home from the tavern.
She barely remembered the room they’d put her in, or undressing. It might have been the best night’s sleep she’d ever had, dark and silent and blessedly free of dreams.
MARCUS
The heavy Armsmen carriage rumbled down Fourth Avenue, toward the intersection with Saint Dromin Street. Marcus twitched aside the curtain to look at the houses going by and wondered what the hell he was doing.
Here, at least, he didn’t require an armed escort. This was the far north of Northside; too far from Bridge Street and the Island to be truly fashionable, but well insulated from the teeming crowds of Southside and the poverty of Oldtown. It was a neighborhood of big, low houses with well-landscaped grounds, with flower gardens and small groves of birch and willow. The buildings were set back from the street, behind screening trees and gravel drives flanked by stables and carriage-houses. The people who lived here were moderately well-to-do merchants, as Marcus’ father had been, or the upper crust of well-payed artisans and professionals.
Marcus was accompanied only by his driver and Staff Eisen, fresh from the cutters’ care. The young man looked only a little the worse for their attentions, with his left arm neatly trussed in a linen sling and swathed in bandages. Looking at him reminded Marcus of Adrecht, who’d lost an arm to a similar wound at Weltae-en-Tselika. He suppressed a shudder.
“You’re certain you want to take up your duties so soon, Eisen?” Marcus said. “If it’s a matter of money, I can make sure-”
“No, sir. I mean, yes, sir, I am, and it’s not about money. I don’t like sitting around, sir.” He touched his bound arm. “The cutter told me it wouldn’t be a problem. No bones broken. Not much of a wound at all, really. I oughtn’t to have passed out.”
“Just shock,” Marcus said. “It happens, if you’ve never been shot before. Not your fault. And you still didn’t have to come all the way out here with me.”
“Vice Captain Giforte assigned me to look after you, sir,” Eisen said, as though that explained everything.
Marcus wondered if the Staff’s enthusiasm was genuine, or if he was simply buttering up the new captain. He’d never been good at telling the difference. Another new problem-nobody had bothered to cozy up to him in Khandar. He shook his head and looked out the window again.
“Did you grow up in the city, Eisen?”
“Yes, sir,” the Staff said. “Not so far from here, as a matter of fact.”
“Really?” Marcus glanced at him. A position in the Armsmen, especially starting from the bottom, was an odd choice of career for the son of a wealthy family.
Eisen cleared his throat. “Servant’s boy, sir. My mother was a housemaid; my dad was a coachman. I used to help out with the dogs until I got sick of it and signed up to wear the green.”
“I see.” Marcus paused. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-three, sir.”
That would have made him four at the time of the fire. Just about Ellie’s age. The carriage lurched as it turned the corner onto Saint Dromin Street, revealing-
History. The street unrolled in front of him like a memory, as though it had been days instead of years. The landmarks of his childhood flashed past the windows-the beech he’d fallen out of when he was ten and nearly cracked his head open, the raspberry bushes where he’d found a mother cat watching her kittens, the stretch of cobbled street where he’d first learned to ride-
He rapped on the wall, and the carriage slowed to a halt. Before he was quite aware of what he was doing, he’d hopped down, with Eisen following awkwardly behind him.
It even smelled the same. Marcus took a deep breath, inhaling the mixed scents of cut grass from the lawn and fresh dung from the horses in the street. Carriages rattled past, giving the Armsmen vehicle a wide berth, and a few pedestrians looked at him curiously. Marcus ignored them.
“A long time since you’ve been home, sir?” Eisen said, at his shoulder.
“Nineteen years,” Marcus said. “Give or take.”
Eisen gave a low whistle. “Think you can still find your way around?”
“Of course.” Marcus pointed. “Our place was just up this way, past those beeches.”
There were three of the trees instead of four, and they were a bit larger, but there was no mistaking them. They’d belonged to the Wainwrights, whose children had played with Marcus nearly every day in the precious few hours between lessons and dinner. Veronica Wainwright had been the first girl he’d ever kissed, in the darkness behind her father’s woodshed, the day before he left for the College at sixteen. There had been tears in her eyes, and he’d promised he’d come back and marry her when he finished his training and became an officer.
He hadn’t thought about that in years. Hadn’t thought about any of it, in truth. After the fire, he’d walled off that whole section of his memories, shut them away and thrown away the key, hoping to keep out the pain. Coming back here had opened it all up again, and he was surprised to find that it didn’t hurt as badly as he remembered.
Marcus hurried down the street, past the beeches, until what had been the d’Ivoire estate came into view. Two visions of it competed in his mind. One was the real thing, as he’d last seen it, with ivy creeping up the stone walls and the ancient leaded glass his father preferred to the modern kind. The other was something he’d constructed in his mind over the intervening years, a blackened ruin of scorched beams and tumbled stone.
Instead he found himself looking at another house entirely. It was squarer, larger, higher-ceilinged than his old estate, with big single-pane windows and a high, arched doorway. The grounds were the same-even the ancient oak, its limbs spreading above the roof-but someone had replaced the house itself with an imposter. Marcus stared at it for a moment, blinking.
Of course it’s different. He’d been stupid. The old place had burned, but prime land in Vordan City never went idle for long. Someone else had bought the property, cleared the ruin, and put up their own house. He’d had the vague idea that he could poke around, discover something in the wreckage that everyone else had missed, but of course that was ridiculous. After this long, it’s not even wreckage anymore.
Ionkovo told me to come here. Why? The Black Priest agent might have just been having a laugh at Marcus’ expense, of course. But he doesn’t seem the type. He wanted me to find something.
“So what the hell am I doing here?” Marcus said.
“Sir?”
He shook his head and looked at Eisen, embarrassed to have spoken aloud. “Nothing. I thought there might be something left, but that was stupid.”
“I’m sorry, sir. It must be difficult.”
Marcus turned, scanning the surrounding houses. “I can’t imagine many people still remember much of the fire, either.” So what’s the point? He felt like going back into the cell and throttling the smirk off Ionkovo’s face. He knows something, but all he’ll give me is riddles.
“Are you looking for information on what happened, sir?”
“I suppose.” Marcus shrugged, feeling defeated. “I’m just not sure there’s anything to find.”