cracked. His breath puffed around my side—he must have been kneeling next to me—and he ripped the hood off. I blinked and flinched. My eyes took time to get used to the light.
“You—” He closed his eyes and covered his mouth with a hand. His skin was sallow, stretched across his round cheeks as if he hadn’t slept in days, and the whites of his eyes were as red as the chewed skin around his fingernails. “I turned you in because you were putting people I care about in danger. It wasn’t personal.”
Endure.
I didn’t even scowl. No anger leaked into my tone. I was flat and cold, and he was beneath me and my fury. “My father used to say it was never personal, which seemed odd since his politics only affected people who weren’t like him. Of course it wasn’t personal. He didn’t consider them people.”
It was good that he was dead. My mother wouldn’t have been able to fix Marais if he were alive.
“I’m not here to argue politics. Demeine needs to change. It does,” Sébastien said, “but you put Charles and Laurence in danger by involving them in this.”
“Charles involved himself,” I said. “He’s capable of making his own decisions.”
Sébastien shook his head and laughed. “He makes terrible decisions. He needs looking after, and you must tell them it was all you. Officially. Clear Laurence and Charles.”
“What did they offer you, Sébastien?” I asked softly. “Or is this your moment to be better than your brothers and make your parents love you?”
He pulled away as if I had hit him, and I knew it was true.
Sébastien left and didn’t return, but neither did Waleran or his people. They moved me from the room to the back of a wagon, my pale skin burning in the hot sun. After another day, we crossed the Pinch, and I was left hooded and shackled in the hay-filled stall of a barn somewhere in Monts Lance. The next morning, one of the guards made me drink beef broth and water till I thought I might be sick. Another loosened my shackles.
“Madame,” someone said, too far away for me to really answer, but another voice did.
“Who are you again?” my mother asked, voice so steady and even, I could picture the exact expression on her face. “If you are so worried about her escaping in my care, perhaps your true concern should be how poor a chevalier that would make you. She’s not even a half-trained hack, my artistry lies in minor illusions, and you are an apprentice to Chevalier du Ferrant. What could we possibly do?”
The guard muttered something, the blush evident in his voice, and hurried footsteps tore toward me. The hood flew off my head.
“Emilie?” My mother touched my face, my neck, ran her hands down my bruised arms and rattled the shackles, and wrapped me in a hug. The spectacles bit into her neck, I knew, but she didn’t seem to mind. Her tears soaked my collar. “Are you all right? Are you hurt?”
“No,” I said. “I’m fine.”
She didn’t smell of flowers. She always smelled of flowers, always dabbed perfume along the pulse of her throat and wrists. She always wore freshly cleaned clothes and her mother’s silver, but her dress was wrinkled and dusty from the road. Her hands were bare.
“It’ll be all right.” My mother swallowed. Nothing in me knew the tense, empty expression on her face. “I can’t get you out of here yet, but they have very strict instructions about your care.”
She touched my scratched cheeks. My bruised hands.
“It’s fine,” I said again, and instead of looking at her face, I closed my eyes and urged my body to heal. It was easy, even without my hands to guide the magic. “See?”
She kissed my scalp again. “You can do all of that, even with these on?”
“It takes longer. I’m not used to it. What are you doing here?”
My mother shrunk, shoulders rolling down and hands retreating to her lap. They curled into fists. “You are my daughter. Of course I’m here.”
“No, really, why?” I shrugged and nodded to our surroundings. “I have done everything you wanted me to avoid, so why are you here?”
It made no sense. I had dishonored the family legacy. Finally.
As we both knew I would.
“Of course I’m here. I love you,” she said, crying and softly laughing all at once. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m not as oblivious as you think I am.” I sniffed. “I am nothing like you