“She did. But I bring it for all of you.” One of his hands drifted toward the doorjamb for support.
“Please, magus. Sit down.”
He sank gratefully into the nearest chair. “I’m sorry. It’s the stairs, that’s all.”
“You made it up?”
“Oh,” he said, and his eyes slid away. “No, that part’s fine. It’s just a lot of climbing. I shouldn’t get winded, walking around the city as much as I do.”
“Maybe you’re coming down with something.”
“Maybe I am.” His gaze drifted in a way that tugged at her memory, but before she could follow the thread to its source, he said, “I’ll go home to bed. But I wanted to bring you the food. I told her I’d be back tomorrow, but I’m not sure I can get you more supplies by then.”
“Tomorrow?” She blinked, surprised. “Oh, of course not. We appreciate everything you do for us. Judah’s all right?”
“Fine.” He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again. “Eleanor, there was something I wanted to say earlier, and didn’t. I’m here on sufferance, because the Seneschal allows it, and it’s a bit—sticky. Sometimes I have to think carefully before I speak. But I’m on your side, as much as I can be.”
“We know you are.”
“I don’t think Elban poisoned Theron. I think it was the Seneschal. He came to Arkady’s manor a week or so before. It was the only time I ever knew him to do that. I can’t imagine Arkady taking any action the Seneschal didn’t approve. He always said the Seneschal held the reins.” The magus had a bandage wrapped around one arm. She hadn’t noticed it before. His hand went to it now. “Don’t trust him.”
The Seneschal had known Theron since he was a baby. Eleanor stood frozen in her own empty shell; as sweat beaded on the magus’s forehead, and he paled even more; as he said, “I must go,” and did. Still she stood, the bag limp in her hands. The sun began to sink behind the Wall and the parlor grew cold, and she did not stoke the fire and she did not put anything on for dinner.
The light in the room faded from gold to gray.
Wake up. Find a way to survive.
* * *
She hadn’t been to the workshop since she’d brought Theron food after the hunt, and not for years before that. She and Gavin had been so busy training with their respective weapons, axes for him and protocol for her, and what good was any of it now, Eleanor thought, as she made her way through the old wing in her patched, dingy dress. She didn’t care that the dress was patched and dingy. The dress had come by its wear honestly. She liked her own competence, she liked finding solutions to problems, she liked building their paltry winter store. She had deluded herself, perhaps, into thinking that she was happier now, that she had more freedom. But they lived at the Seneschal’s mercy, all of them, and he’d tried to kill Theron and marry Judah and he wanted to send her away, back to Tiernan and Angen. She could do nothing about any of it. Judah could do nothing about any of it. But they could do nothing together. They could...not be alone.
In the base of the tower, the staircase wound up and up. The magus had been right. There were a lot of stairs. Carefully, she stepped onto the first one. Instantly, she became aware of the empty space next to her. Instantly, the solid stone under her foot felt like slender wood and bark. Her head began to spin and her skin broke out in cold sweat and she heard Angen’s voice calling up from the bottom of the tree, sweet and musical and cruel.
What will you do for me if I let you down, little kitten?
Angen was far, far away. Angen could not hurt her. It didn’t matter.
Will you play nicely, and not whine like last time?
She pushed his voice away and called up into the growing gloom, “Judah? Can you hear me?”
The words echoed and died, and there was only silence.
The last time she’d stood here, she’d worn lovely embroidered slippers with ice-slick soles, just the thing for careful gliding steps over flat marble floors. Now she wore Theron’s old boots, like Judah always had. They were sturdy and strong and she could climb anything in them. She forced herself to put one of them on the next step.