he seemed surprised to learn that other people occasionally spoke. “I was down by the aquifer. It’s quiet there.”
The parlor fell quiet, too, as it always did when Theron made one of his observations. “Yes, it is,” Gavin said.
Chicken pie, that night. Despite Elly’s initial attempts, the sleeping arrangements were more or less permanently altered: Theron slept in Gavin’s bed, and Judah took his dusty little cot, which wasn’t that much different from her own dusty little cot so she didn’t see that it mattered much. Most nights she managed to slip away herself, anyway. The thing she and Darid had together was strange, not like the love affairs she’d read about in stories. She liked being with him. She liked feeling his arms around her, being close to him; she had never felt that close to anyone except Gavin, which was so entirely different that it hardly compared, except she had nothing else so she compared it anyway. They did not use Elly’s sachet, although Judah kept it in her pocket. If her reluctance frustrated Darid, he didn’t show it. The world wasn’t perfect, he said. Some nights, they barely spoke. Some nights, they just lay together and watched the stars move across the sky. But sometimes they also moved across each other and those times, it was her body that felt like it was full of stars, the sachet felt like a second sun ablaze in her pocket and the next step seemed so obvious, so clear.
Then she would catch sight of the curlicue scars Elban had left on her arms, and she would remember that she didn’t belong to herself anymore. All the more reason, she would think, resentfully, but she always pushed that thought away. The bargain with Elban had been her idea. Knowing that didn’t keep her brain from drifting toward the future she didn’t have, for all she scolded and berated it. If she couldn’t berate the gloomy mood into submission, she would kiss Darid goodbye and go back to the House. There was no point wasting what little time they had together sulking.
On one such night, she returned to the parlor and smelled tobacco smoke. The bedroom doors were closed, but the terrace door stood open; Judah barely had a chance to slip out of her boots before Gavin appeared there. “Caught you,” he said. She put a finger to her lips, and he shrugged. “Theron’s gone, Elly’s asleep. Come sit with me while I finish this cigarette?”
So she slipped her boots back on against the chill—in Highfall, the nights were only truly warm for a few weeks in summer—and joined him, leaning against the terrace railing.
Then, the words practically bursting out of him, he said, “You know I feel everything you do, right?”
His voice was merry but she didn’t feel like laughing. “Turnabout is fair play.”
He grinned. “We should be careful about our timing, though. I mean, there are distractions, and there are distractions. And some of us can’t hide it as easily as others of us can. Now, Jude, don’t make that face. I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself. I admit to being a little surprised at how much you’re enjoying yourself, though. Who would have thought Firo had it in him?”
“Stop,” she said, irritated. She didn’t feel like being teased.
“Sorry.” He lifted his cigarette, and examined the orange coal of it. “Can we talk about Firo, actually? Just for a moment? I know it’s none of my business. Elly only tells me so sixty thousand times a day. And I am really glad you’re happy.”
“But?”
“But he’s a courtier. And not a neophyte, either. He’s been around for years.”
“People do like to remind me that he’s old.”
“It’s not that at all. Don’t tell Elly, but the first woman I was ever with? Was there the night we were born. In an honorary capacity, not a hands-covered-with-blood capacity.” He shook his head. “The world is weird. You never know who’s going to catch your eye, or whose eye you’re going to catch. And I know the Seneschal doesn’t want you to be with anybody, but—”
He stopped. “But,” Judah said. Again.
“But.” There was a note of reluctance in his voice, in the tilt of his head. “I may not have to lock you in a prison anymore, but I don’t know how much joy your life is going to bring you. It’s not my fault, but it also is.” He reached over and put his hand on hers. It wasn’t the sickening experience it