Cat Hellisen

“Dear Gris, if there's one thing I can't abide it's a bad poet.”

“Here is the last truth of Saints: We will always choose the path which brings us the most power. I spread my arms, and let the wind tip me.”

“All futures are tinted by the way in which you choose to view them.”

“Seeing into the future is not a straight line. You are given the choice of a hundred paths through a treacherous swamp. Some will lead you safely onwards, others drown you, and sometimes it’s hard to tell which is which,” my mother says.”

“Maybe I could have saved you once. Twice, even.” I want to reach up and brush back a lock of pale hair that has fallen over her face, but I hold my arms still. “In the end, we make our choices on our own. And no matter how stupid they are, we have to live—or die—with what we’ve done. Sometimes choosing our moment of death is the only freedom we have left.”

“Do you think I don’t care what happens to her?” He shakes his head. “No. I just think that you’ve forgotten what it’s like to have a friend instead of an agenda.” “Fuck off then,” Dash says. His anger is back, controlled, focused. “I hope you find her, but if you don’t, I won’t mourn either of you.” “I never expected it.” Verrel’s mouth twists in an awful parody of a smile. “I hope your scheme works, Dash, and that you get whatever it is you want.”

“You are not one of the heroes in your fucking street operas,” Dash shouts, his voice strangled. “You’re not.” Verrel pauses and looks back. “And neither are you.” “I never bloody claimed to be.”

“He’s twisting everything. He’s killing himself, killing innocents so that he can have his Gris-damned revenge on my brother. “This isn’t about saving the Hobs,” I hiss at him. “And it never was.” “No,” he says, and he grins. His eyes are frightened, giving the lie to his cheer. “But I did always love a good spectacle.”

“I pull my mostly dry shawl tighter around my shoulders and dip my head so that I don’t have to look into their eyes and see the thoughts there. Lammer-whore. I am not this thing. I raise my head sharply, and with my chin jutted out I walk alongside Jannik, willing these Gris-damned bats to say something, anything. The anger waits inside me, cold and ready. Even I know it’s just a façade. I’m so scared now that I have nowhere left to go. My armor is frost thin and just as useful.”

“Just because you are family doesn’t guarantee you’ll be friends.”

“None of them will believe me. I drop any attempt to explain myself and just gracefully accept that people are going to make assumptions and that the more I argue, the more it’ll look like I’m trying to hide something.”

“Are you asking me if I fuck my food?” The words sound overly harsh in the darkness. “I suppose I am.”

“Just sleep here.” At my sharp look he laughs. “I’ll take the floor, and I’ll get you to your job on time. I promise.” “You’re full of promises.” But the thought of sleeping in a soft bed with warm blankets is appealing. And I understand Jannik now. I’m his symbol of hope, his reason to believe that one day he too can throw off the shackles of his family.”

“He sits down on the edge of the bed. “I wanted to talk to someone who wasn’t food or family.” There’s no humor in his thin smile. “I wanted to talk to someone who had enough courage to take what she wanted.”

“She is somewhat”—I search for an appropriate response—“imposing.” “I think you mean terrifying.” “That too.”

“We’re going to watch the sun set,” he says. “I’m not sitting here any longer. Too much misery in this room. I need out.” Lils sneers. “And you want us to all traipse off to the garden and watch the sun set because you hate dealing with reality?” “I can deal with reality perfectly well,” he says back, grinning. “I just don’t see why I should.”

“I grit my teeth and wonder if it would matter if I strangled Dash in his sleep. Or poisoned his tea. I wonder what his neck would feel like under my fingers.”

“Every now and then one stands up and orates at length to the unfortunate crowd, after which he bows to their scattered applause. Personally, I think they’d be better served by plates broken over their heads than by hand-claps.”

“Someone here died, I realize. Someone these people loved and cared for. I’m not the only person in the world tangled up in grief.”

“Witch-sign, they said. Little eddies, like miniature storms breaking the surface of the ocean. Witch-signs rise up in great numbers, last a few minutes, and then disappear. When the whirlpools are gone, all that’s left is floating petals. Black sea roses. Anomalies. I’m not afraid. A queer chill settles into my bones, and I huddle, pulling my knees closer to my chest. What if Ilven’s death really did raise something up out of the waters? But those stories Nala is talking about—they’re just … fancies. There’s no real truth to them, they’re Hob tales. That’s what our House crake taught me. Of course, Ilven always did find the old stories fascinating and told me how she secretly wished that they were still real, that there was more to magic than just the scriv-forced power of the Houses. Oh Ilven. Bound now below the sea, caught in the kelp forests, nibbled at, her hair full of crabs and little ghost shrimp, a ghost herself. I choke on a sadness so sharp that it has sliced me in two.”

“Gris. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.”

“They really did you over,” she says, after peering at my bruised face. “This way, we’ll get you sorted out.” She’s not friendly, just abrupt and sharp, like she’s dealing with another problem in her long day.”

“Whether I’m working a street corner or a market stall, well, that’s none of their business unless they’re buying. The anonymity is comfortable, like going around draped in magic, hidden from view.”

“I will never let myself be caught like that—any marriage I make will be my own. A choice. A free one.”

“Let Piers and Owen make the wedding arrangements, just don’t expect the bride to be there like a dog called to heel. I’ll choose my own Gris-damned husband, thank you. If I even want one, and I’m not exactly certain of that. I want life on my own terms, not on the dictates of tradition and of haggling over power and land.”

“I picture my mother’s face when she must go out in public with Owen, the cold arrogant look she wears, as if the whole world is filth before her. It is an expression I’ve learned to copy well, and like all roles, if you can believe it, you can be it. I press my hands to my face and push, smoothing the worry and fear away. I’m better than them. Better than Owen, than Canroth Piers. They can never really control me because they cannot bridle my thoughts.”

“If there’s one thing my mother taught me, it is how to wear the perfect mask. Never show them what you’re really feeling because that’s how they hurt you.”

“This time I keep to the long shadows where the darkness gathers thickest, picking my way across the silvery damp grass until I reach the edge of the world. Below, the rocks and waves are grinding against each other, and the wind sucks at me, begging me to take one more step, to throw myself down. Sacrifice, the water says in its sea-witch voice, full of whispers and promises. Sometimes I have to wonder if the Hob belief that the sea is animate, alive and full of magic, is more than just primitive nonsense.”

“Like all high-Lammers, I am a lucky accident of birth, gifted with a talent that can be expanded by something as simple as a mineral. A mineral unfortunately rare and extremely addictive. This—this dust—rules our lives. Sometimes I wonder if it would be better had there been no magic at all.”

“My mother still deludes herself that the letters are written out of more than a desire to spend as little time in our company as possible. She likes to think he is still hers.”

“Carefully, I arrange the teapot, the little white cup, and the sugar bowl before me like an army. Defense? Or attack?”

“There’s a distinct bitter aftertaste of Lady’s Gown in the tea, and I welcome it. Anything to sleep without dreaming.”

“It could be a true future that Ilven saw—she’s a Saint after all. Was. Was a Saint.”

“I think I want to sleep,” I say. And I do, really, I do. The last thing I want is to be awake and to think about how Ilven escaped from the life she didn’t want. And why she never spoke to me, told me, warned me. Perhaps I could have changed her mind. It occurs to me that she never meant to meet me under the trees—that she knew me well enough to predict that I would wait only so long before I left—because then she could take the Leap without any chance of me witnessing her from my tower. My heart goes small, and every limb feels too heavy to lift.”

“If her death wakes something in the deep, then she will bring more shame down on her House with that one act than she could have accomplished in a lifetime of disobedience. They will hate her for it. I wonder if Lady Malker has already struck her daughter’s name from the family tree.”

“There will be whys—people gossiping and speculating as to what Meke-damned trial drove her to it. Whatever thoughts spurred her on, Ilven’s not going to spill them now. And any ill luck that comes to Pelimburg now will be blamed on Ilven’s dive, on the alchemy of falling girls and broken-glass sea.”

“That’s all Mother needs to say. Our estate and House Malker’s are built on the high cliffs along Pelim’s Tooth. The Tooth, like its mirror the Claw, is a pincer of land that juts around the mouth of the Casabi river, making a protected bay. But the cliff isn’t called the Tooth all the time. In fact, most people call it Pelim’s Leap. Not to our faces, of course. They don’t like to remind us that our House has brought the Red Death to Pelimburg’s shores before, that we have a history of suicides and ill luck.”

“No. You’ve talked about it. I just had to sit and listen. The only person I can talk to is Ilven. We grew up together, shared the same flight space. And now, if my brother is to be believed, she’s gone.”

“There’s no love lost between Hob and high-Lammer. The Hobs work our factories, sail our ships, wash our clothes. They are the beetle-back on which our city is built. And they do not have a gentle love for us.”

“What, after all that subterfuge?” Jannik steps back and looks at me from under his rain-damp hair. “Far be it from me to stop you, but all that hiding behind umbrellas and engaging in nefarious clinches is going to seem wasted.” He grins. He is not afraid to show me his teeth.”

“No one I know has ever seen the matriarch of House Sandwalker, although she’s rumored to be an imposing sort. For a bat.”

“I want to be far away from that, from people who hate me because I was born into the Pelim name. And what is a Great House? As Ilven points out, we’re merely the kings of the midden. The ranks of Houses below us do not understand that there is safety in powerlessness. No one is waiting for them to fall.”

“Pelimburg is a city of rain and mist and spray. It’s supposed to be my home, but a lifetime lived in my mother’s cage of a mansion means that I barely know it. I’ve only ever seen the city from the confines of a carriage; now I breathe deep, tasting how different the air is, how sweet the drops feel on my tongue. Up on the hillside, the rain seems bitter and darker.”

“Then again, I’ve never been overly fond of rational thoughts.”

“A going-away party. We dress things up with pretty words. My friend is not going on a pleasure jaunt, or a holiday upriver to see the ruling city of MallenIve. They are selling her off to some nameless man with arable land. They are selling her for caskets of wine.”

“I want to scream. My friend doesn’t mumble. She doesn’t walk with her head down. She doesn’t quietly accept that her education will be left in the hands of boys fresh from university. “Ilven?” I want to remind her that she is a person who kicks off her shoes and stockings to run across the green fields behind our estates, that she once helped me play pranks on my idiot of a brother, that we are sister-friends, that we have kissed and sworn eternal friendship.”

“There is something frosty about her, and when she talks I expect to feel her breath against my face like a winter sea-gale. Instead, her voice is calm and quiet, but hidden under it are snake-hisses and sneers. “Ilven will not be available for your games today, Felicita, dear.” There is a subtle emphasis on games and dear. Nothing overt—I am, after all, from House Pelim—but enough for me to know that Malker are determined to claw their way up to their old level on the social scale. It’s a warning of sorts.”

“Before, I would have been powdered and perfumed, my hair done in an elaborate style by the patient fingers of servants. The household crake would have written lines in my honor, my dress would have been new, and I would have been as beautifully turned out as glass sculpture from House Canroth. And as empty.”

“No matter what the results, it is my choices that define me. And I will fight for them, even when it seems that failure is inevitable. Perhaps most especially then.”

“In the end, we make our choices on our own. And no matter how stupid they are, we have to live—or die—with what we’ve done. Sometimes choosing our moment of death is the only freedom we have left.”