Elban’s solstice speeches tended to follow the pattern of the one he’d just given the Wilmerians: so much conquest already, more to come, steadfast in the face of evil, glory and glory and riches and glory. When the speech was done, the four of them were herded out onto the balcony. If she listened closely to the cheers from the gathered masses, she could pick out voices calling Gavin’s name, and Elly’s. Sometimes, for reasons she didn’t understand, she might even catch her own. Rarely poor Theron’s, but she didn’t think he’d ever noticed. The crowds and the noise made him feel sick and it was all he could do to stay on his feet. The height did the same to Elly and Judah had her hands full, keeping the two of them upright. Gavin claimed to hate solstices, too—although he always seemed to stand a bit straighter when the crowd chanted his name—but even so, they all had to appear. Protocol, the Seneschal said. Gavin said it was to prove they were still alive.
There were no crowds beneath her now, and the air that blew in from over the Wall, wherever it blew from, was crisp and alive. From here she couldn’t hear the calls of the coachmen who waited in the courtyard to carry the city-dwelling courtiers back to their manors, or the rattle of their wheels on the cobbles. After the crowds and heat of the hall the cool silence was a relief. She felt the scratch on her wrist and ignored it again.
In time, the terrace door creaked open behind her, and she heard the faint hush of silk. “How did you manage to get away so quickly?” Elly said.
“Misdirection.” Judah leaned against the railing. “Ducked out when the dancers came in. How’d you escape?”
The blonde girl, whose dress fit perfectly and whose hair was dressed with rubies, didn’t step through the door. The railing was high and solid and the terrace itself much wider than the balcony over the Square, but Elly still preferred to stay inside. “Gavin told the Seneschal I was sick from the wine, and he let me go. He said I have to work on building up my tolerance, though.”
“He didn’t give you a bottle to get started on that, did he?”
“He did not.”
“You should have taken one anyway. You were drinking Sevedran up there. Down in the pit, we were practically drinking vinegar.”
“It all tastes like vinegar to me.” Elly yawned. “Gavin said to stop ignoring him.”
“Being ignored is good for him.”
“I’ve always thought so. You’re lucky you got out when you did. I had to dance with the Guildmaster. He smells like a sick sheep.”
“How do you know what a sick sheep smells like?”
“I grew up in Tiernan. I’ve forgotten more about sheep than you’ll ever know. Anyway, you’re the one he should have danced with. He was full of questions about you.”
“Did he ask you if I stole Lady Clorin’s soul?” Judah said.
“Not in so many words.” Elly arched her back in a stretch, or as much of one as her dress would allow, and groaned. “Gods, I’m so glad they’re leaving. My mother would be horrified to learn that she sent me five hundred miles away from Tiernan and I still ended up doing blackwork until my hands ached. I’ve never been so glad to see the back of anything as I was that altar cloth.”
“I suggest being talentless. The Seneschal never asks me to make state gifts.”
“Only because people think they’ll end up cursed. By the way, there’s some cake inside for you. It’s good, it has that cream in the middle.”
“Thanks.”
“Also by the way,” Elly said, and her voice sounded so casual that Judah knew that whatever she was about to say had been on her mind for the entire conversation, “who was the courtier sitting next to you tonight?”
Oh, but think of the rumors. Judah remembered the nastiness in the corridor and suppressed a shudder. “No idea. Why?”
“He was watching you,” Elly said merrily. “And he left at the same time you did. I think that’s why Gavin was so desperate to know where you were. He thought you had a new friend.”
Judah grimaced. “Blech.”
“It’s nice to have friends.” Elly’s voice was gently mocking, but Judah couldn’t tell if she was making fun of Gavin, or the courtier, or Judah herself. Pulling her shawl more tightly around her, Elly said, “Well, my face hurts from smiling. I’m going to bed.”
“I’ll stay out a while longer.”
“Don’t bother waiting up for Gavin. When I left he was surrounded by courtiers.” Elly lifted a hand in a wave, then went inside.
The scratch came again. More insistently this time. Down in the great hall, Gavin was drawing a fingernail against the blue-veined skin on the inside of his wrist, a complicated swirl that meant, simultaneously, Where did you go? and Are you okay? and Can I stop worrying about you?
Judah sighed, pulled up her own sleeve, and scratched. Fine. Home. Bored.
The response came almost immediately. Good. Stuck here. See you later.
Once, she would have waited for him. Once, he could have been counted on to come back before dawn. The terrace was quiet and peaceful, and she couldn’t quite shake the memory of the Wilmerian’s voice.
They say you’re witchborn. They say you stole Lady Clorin’s soul.
* * *
She’d been carried into the House in a midwife’s basket. Lady Clorin had been laboring with Gavin for three days, and the midwife was supposed to be the best. The maid who recommended her said she brought special skills, unsurpassed. And Clorin had survived, so maybe the midwife did bring special skills, but she’d also brought the newborn Judah, wrapped in an old piece of toweling and still wet with blood. Lady Clorin had lost five babies by the time she’d had Gavin—two dead in their cradles, one born dead, and two more not even making it that far—and she was softhearted. She’d asked the midwife what would become of the tiny baby girl.
The midwife shrugged. “Nobody wants girls. Might be able to find a brothel to take her in. Otherwise, the Brake.”
Clorin told the old woman to leave the baby with her instead. The Seneschal saw no harm in it. Elban didn’t care, so the Lady of the City was allowed to keep the new baby as if it were a kitten. Judah and Gavin slept in the same crib, fed from the same nurses, played with the same toys. Even when Judah’s hair turned its disturbing garnet color and her infant-blue eyes deepened to black, Clorin delighted in her two babies. Judah couldn’t remember who’d told her that, but she had the distinct impression that it was true.
When Judah and Gavin were barely two, Theron had been born, and Clorin had died of it. This, nobody had ever talked to her about, but Judah suspected that probably, by the time Theron came along, Elban and the Seneschal had realized they’d made a mistake. She suspected that was probably why Theron had come along, when by all reports Clorin was frail even before Gavin, and never fully recovered from his birth. Nobody would have considered it strange that two infants who slept in the same crib would share the same illnesses, but the books Judah had read on the subject suggested that well before two, babies could walk, and fall down, and bump into things. Well before two, then, someone would have noticed that when Judah fell down, Gavin’s knee bruised, too. She wondered, sometimes, how they must have confirmed it: had they snatched her from Clorin’s arms and put her in a snowbank to see if Gavin shivered? Had Clorin watched as they cut Judah’s tiny heel to see if Gavin bled? She wondered also about the nurse who’d been keen enough to notice (because it would have had to be a nurse; nobody else would have spent enough time with them): who she was, how long she’d been allowed to live. If they’d killed her quickly, or if she was among those silent members of the House staff who’d had their tongues cut out for convenience’s sake, creeping about doing tasks that didn’t require speech.