Torn, page 33
I had the key to removing the curse, but no way to fit it to the lock.
The door to the atelier banged open, and a gust of cold wind swept all the way into the back of the studio. I couldn’t imagine what customer would visit any shop save a chocolate seller or confectioner while the Festival of Song was under way, but I was still surprised to see Jack Parry waiting for me in front of the doorway, his large frame ill at ease and his boots dripping icy water onto the floor.
“Jack,” I said, edging against the counter. Why was he here? This couldn’t be a mere social call, even if social calls were common at Midwinter. A dark thought crept into my mind like the cold draft snaking up my skirts—was he here on Pyord’s orders, to silence me even as carolers passed by the window?
“I guess you’re here alone?” he said.
My heart rising into my throat, I nodded. Lying could do me no favors now.
He relaxed slightly, and swept the red cap from his head. “Good. I wanted to talk to you without anyone overhearing. It’s …” He strode toward me and threw his cap on the counter. I didn’t move. “I wanted to warn you.”
I sighed, my heartbeat slowing slightly. “I don’t need the warning, Jack. I know what’s coming. I know more than I want to. After all, you know what I did,” I said, and he nodded, looking chagrined. “And I know about my brother,” I continued, as calmly as I could. “What he did. Did you know?”
“Not at first. I know the whole mess now,” he said, avoiding my searching look. “I guess that’s part of why I’m here, too. I wanted to apologize. I wouldn’t have gone along with that. Lying to you, making you use dark magic? I wouldn’t have gone along with a few things, but they’re past changing now.” There was fear in Jack’s voice, I realized. One of the leaders of the movement, afraid of what he’d done? “The revolt is under way. Not coming—it’s started. Those Red Caps in the square—that’s not a demonstration for anyone’s benefit but our own, one last gathering before we strike.”
“I thought that was what you wanted.” I fought to keep my voice level. “I thought the idea was to strike quickly and force a compromise, to force your demands.”
“It was, at first. But we disagreed, in the end. I was happy with compromise, with reforms, but Pyord convinced Niko and your brother that we need to start fresh. That reforming a broken system won’t work, that the nobility can’t be reasoned with. Pyord’s lined up reinforcements because this won’t end with what happens tomorrow. Midwinter will be the beginning, but it won’t be the end.”
“An extended revolt,” I said.
“In the end, more like civil war. The Crown’s soldiers against the people and the Kvys mercenaries we’ve hired. Might as well confirm that—your noble friends already assumed, didn’t they?”
I nodded dumbly, finally finding words. “Troop movement at the border, yes—I don’t know that they have any confirmation about what they’re doing.” I felt numb, and even the cold draft from the door, still ajar, didn’t affect me. “And I thought a cursed shawl was frightening enough.”
“Your part in the whole business is still true—that the curse and the attempt on the king’s life go together, and that assassination will create chaos in the nobility. But Pyord’s not talking about a coup made in one night. He’s made sure that we’ll have more troops at our disposal once more of the Crown soldiers show from the garrisons outside the city.”
I could feel the warmth drain from the room and the blood from my face. “I suppose I should have guessed,” I admitted. “That the idea of a coup alone was …”
“Idealistic?” Jack said with a snort. “If we’re lucky, it will be over quickly, but I doubt we will be. It’s too late to change anything about it, and maybe I wouldn’t even if I could. Maybe Pyord and your brother are right—that there’s only one real way to do this thing.” There were dark circles under his eyes, I realized, creases in his forehead, a far cry from the confident man I’d argued with outside a tavern at the close of autumn. Short months separated the gentle arbitrator of tavern brawls I had known from a conflicted member of the revolt’s leadership, someone who counted stockpiled weapons and ran some sort of rudimentary arithmetic pitting untrained dockworkers against the king’s soldiers.
“Why are you telling me this, Jack?”
He squared his broad shoulders. “Like I said, I wanted to apologize. If I had known where Kristos was, that he was in on it with Pyord the whole time, I wouldn’t have gone along with it.”
My breath was shaky. “I’m glad you didn’t know. You might not be alive if you’d argued.”
Jack considered this. “I never cared much for Venko. He talked over my head, seemed to think he was better than us. But we needed him. Now he seems like maybe he doesn’t need us.”
“You may be right,” I said. “I know it’s too late to tell you to be careful, Jack. But take care of yourself as best you can.”
“You, too, Sophie. There’s still time to get out of the city. I thought maybe you should.”
“As a general precaution or because I’m in some particular danger?”
He stared out the window, his eyes fixed on some far-off point. “It’s pretty likely that the nobility, down to the most minor, will be targeted. I don’t like it,” he said quickly, as though pleading with the light snowfall outside the window. “That’s … that’s more Niko’s side of things, he’s more of a strategist about the fighting itself and I’m just …” Jack brought his attention back inside, back to me. “And along with the nobles, anyone who sympathizes with them. Niko insists that once the dogs are out of the cage, they’re going to bite anyone they think has beaten them.”
“His words?”
“His words,” Jack sighed. “I know you’ve got noble friends. If I was you … I would call in a favor and get outside the city, somewhere protected.”
I wondered what it cost Jack, in pride, in lost hope, in sleepless nights, to come to me. “Thank you for warning me, Jack.”
“It didn’t seem right,” he said. “The mob that showed up here—that wasn’t right, either, and I had nothing to do with that. Niko’s right that we can only do so much to control people once they’ve got a taste for revolt.”
“I suppose that’s true at this point,” I said softly. It was too late to change the course that the Red Caps had chosen, but I couldn’t help but wonder if, somewhere, sometime early in the germinating revolt, another path was available and ignored. Who was culpable if I traced back that far—those members of the Red Caps who steered toward violence, or the blithely ignorant nobility? Both, I acknowledged. And, I considered, those like me, too, who tried to force a changing world into a mold that it had overfilled already.
Jack cleared his throat and continued. “You might not be with us, but you’ve never been against us. If the Red Caps hold the city after tomorrow night, you’ll be counted as an enemy because of your work, because of who you have lunch with. No one knows what you did for us.”
I looked away. “Under duress, Jack. What I did under duress. Because it turns out no one can stay neutral in this, can they?”
“Just stay safe, then,” he said. He reddened even more, bent down, and kissed my cheek. I let him.
“You too, Jack.” He let in another bitterly cold gust of wind as he left.
A knot tightened in my stomach. I could leave the city. If keeping myself safe was the only thing that mattered, I could be on board the next ship out of the harbor, or hire a coach. Keeping myself safe, I admitted, had been my goal ever since discovering that Kristos was not only safe but never in danger to begin with. Now that I had stopped protecting him, what was I protecting? No longer any ideals or ethics, but myself.
Despite my efforts to learn how to undo a curse, I had no way to effect any real change in Pyord’s plans. After all, how could I get into the palace, see the shawl, and undo my part in the plan without admitting my guilt? I had neither invitation nor entry to the Midwinter Ball or anything else in the palace. The knot grew larger, pulling more of me into its grip. If I confessed, I could be tried for treason and hanged. My shop, my trade, my craft—everything I had built, everything I staked my pride on—all gone in a moment.
Theodor claimed he loved me, but would he love me after he knew what I’d done?
If I didn’t confess, the king and queen would very likely die, and perhaps others with them. And that was only the start—the revolution Pyord and Kristos imagined wouldn’t stop at regicide, but would spread to the streets, to the citizens. What they called revolution would result in civil war, and not merely of common people against nobles and Crown soldiers as Jack had described. The split had been evident even in my shop—Penny supporting the advancement of new government at any cost, Alice resisting the violence and lawlessness that would surely accompany any coup.
And I believed I could stay neutral, I thought, sinking into the knot, letting it tie me up and force me to see the truth. I thought the worst was over, that I would have to carry the guilt over what I did, but that I could untie myself from the forces that were moving through the streets, the city, through all of Galitha. That I could survive unscathed. I couldn’t. I had to decide now.
I wiped a tear off my cheek. I already knew what I had to do. It was a risk—there was no way to mitigate that any longer.
The door opened, softly, with a plaintive creak.
“Alice,” I said, voice hollow.
“That was the worst Festival of Song I’ve ever been to,” she said mildly. There was more, I knew. She was searching my face. “What’s wrong?”
“Plenty,” I answered. “Did you go to the square?”
“For a little while,” she said, and hesitated. “It was overrun with Red Caps. More than I’ve ever seen—I mean, I didn’t even know there were that many.”
“They’re growing an army,” I said. Alice’s eyes widened, but she didn’t disagree.
“Sophie,” Alice began, and then stopped.
“You saw Kristos?” I guessed.
She started. “Yes. So you knew—”
“I saw him, too. Twice.”
“So it’s true, that they held him in the Stone Castle? Did they make him write a false letter to you? How did—”
“No, none of it is true,” I said. “It was a ruse the Red Caps created.”
“Penny is with him.”
I nodded. It didn’t surprise me. “Alice,” I said slowly, “I have to … there is business I have to attend to. If I am not back in a timely manner, I want you to … handle things here.”
Alice’s lips pursed as she considered this. “Why wouldn’t you be back? Where are you going?”
“Not far,” I said with a wan smile. “But if I am delayed or … Take care of the shop.” I tossed Alice the key. Her cheeks blanched as she realized what I meant.
I plucked my cloak from the peg and left before she could decipher my meaning.
Then I went to Theodor and told him everything.
43
I GRIPPED MY HANDS TOGETHER IN MY LAP, WORRYING THE calluses worn into my fingers by the needle and scissors, willing Theodor to speak. To forgive me, to condemn me, to yell at me, to say anything.
“You should have come to me sooner,” he finally said.
“I know,” I said carefully. “But I—I was afraid.”
“You should be,” he snapped. I cringed but didn’t allow myself to turn away. I deserved this.
“I was afraid for myself. I still am. But I was afraid for you, too.”
Theodor paced to the other side of the room, a parlor in masculine deep gray as somber as our conversation. He leaned against the windowsill and stared through the glass as though he could see some answer on the street below.
Maybe I shouldn’t have come, I thought with a shiver. Maybe it’s too late.
No, I told myself forcefully, fighting the darkness rising in my thoughts, whorls like the dark sparkle I had seen in the curse. At this point pessimism was just as deadly as a curse, I reminded myself.
“I’m not here to confess for my own good, Theodor. I’m here to try to stop this.” I hesitated before I spoke again, but what I was about to say was true. “I could have kept quiet. I could have slipped away and allowed all this to happen. But I’m not doing that. I’m here. So you have to listen to me.”
“I listened!” Theodor turned back toward me with fire blooming in his hazel eyes. “But what are we supposed to do now? If I go to the Lord of Keys, you’ll be arrested. And probably killed.”
I realized what I’d asked Theodor to do, and tears sprang hot into my eyes. “Then do it. Or I will.”
“No,” he whispered, pacing back across the room. “No, don’t ask me to do that. I …” He stopped in front of me, and my breath stilled when he looked at me. “I love you, Sophie. What I said last night—I should be furious that I said those things to you, that you were keeping this from me then, but I’m not.” He pursed his lips. “I wouldn’t ask you to condemn your own brother.”
I wiped the tears from my cheek with the back of my hand. “And a lot of good that did.”
“What now, then?”
“If the only way to stop this is to tell the Lord of Keys … well.” I waited, watching hurt curl in his face, then pressed on. “We don’t matter compared with the whole country, do we? I don’t matter.”
“Every person matters.” His voice was flat. “Every person deserves a fair shot. I thought that was a central tenet of the revolutionaries.”
I sighed. “I’m not with them. I never wanted to be.”
Theodor softened. “I know. But we have to figure this out together, no involvement from anyone else.” I began to argue, but Theodor shook his head. “It’s the only way I’ll even entertain this. So what do we do?”
I started with what we knew. “There’s something planned for the ball,” I reminded him. “An attempt on the king’s life.”
“What’s planned?” Theodor asked. Understandable question.
“I don’t know,” I answered. For as closely tied as I was to the plot, there was plenty I had never been told. Plenty, I assumed, that most of the Red Caps hadn’t even been told. “All I know is that Pyord was insistent that the queen wear the curse at the Midwinter Ball.”
“So it could be an outright attack or he could be poisoning the soup,” Theodor said, eyebrow raised. “There’s no way to cancel the event without having you arrested by the Lord of Keys and on the gallows before you can say ‘pass the salt.’”
I ignored the nausea that rose in my belly at this. “If I told the queen not to wear the shawl—”
“And then she’d know something was wrong with it, wouldn’t she?”
I sighed. “Yes.”
“And there would be an inquest, and like as not you’re arrested, gallows, the whole bit. I can’t let that happen,” he said, pulling my hand into his and gripping it fiercely. “Is there anything else we could do?”
We—there was so much comfort in that word. I had felt so alone for weeks, forced into silence and secrecy. There was hope in having someone beside me. “I can undo curses. Remember, I said Nia had been killed because …” I couldn’t finish. “But I learned from what she translated. If I can undo the curse on the shawl, the king and the royal family will have a much better chance,” I said. “I can do it. If I am there.”
Theodor nodded. “I can take you to the ball with me. That will help, won’t it? If the curse is gone?”
“Yes,” I said. I now had access to the lock with the key Nia had given me. “But it’s more than that. If they’re fomenting an entire revolt, how will we stand against that?”
“We rely on the soldiers. If it were only revolt, there would be no need to curse the king. An assassination removes the legitimate head of power.”
“Creating a vacuum,” I remembered. “The plan has to be twofold—an uprising and a direct attack on the king.”
“And what do we do about the revolt?” Removing the curse could prevent, or at least diminish the chances of, regicide, but in the face of a Red Cap uprising I was completely powerless.
“No one has yet been able to ascertain the timing of any planned coup or uprising. That alone helps.”
“And how do you explain how you came by that information?” I asked. “An informant happened to walk into your parlor and hand over the information, and no one asks you who?” I managed a wan smile.
“The Lord of Keys can be reasonable. You could come by that information far more innocently than planting a curse on the royal family.” He pressed his lips together. “Though, in that case, how do we keep you safe? If Pyord has any hint that you’ve turned on him …”
I bit my lip. He was right—I was as good as dead if Pyord suspected treachery. Another body in the river, another victim of his revolution. A thought bloomed in my mind. “Arrest me.”
“What?”
“Have me arrested. Publicly. If he thinks I’m in the Stone Castle, he won’t be able to hurt me.” I tried for a smile. “Being First Duke must have some privileges—I’m sure you can order the City Guard to arrest a simple seamstress for … well, make something up.” I shrugged. “Maybe arson. Or counterfeiting coinage.”
“Yes, that’s almost believable,” Theodor said with a soft smile. “Why can’t we just arrest this Pyord and be done with it?”
“It’s not only him. There’s other leadership as well. I—” I stopped myself. Even now, I wouldn’t give Jack’s name. Or, even, Niko’s. “The Red Cap network is so wide across the city—I think the plan may work even if he’s not involved.” The way Jack spoke, the trigger had already been pulled, and there was no unloading the rifle now.
Theodor nodded. “You’re probably right. And the plot has to be attempted and fail, from a political perspective,” he said. I watched him, curious what he’d say next. “The people want change, but I have a feeling many would be horrified by regicide and violent revolt. If it’s attempted and does not succeed, many will turn against the rebels. Not to mention, our allies have to see us in a position of strength. Soundly defeating a revolt will do that. We have to be decisive and keep these … reinforcements from assisting the rebels. There’s time to warn the fortresses just outside the city and that’s about it.”
