“So go.”
“I am. I’m going.” He stood up. Then he stopped. “Jude—last night, after you left...you felt sort of strange.”
She put on a puzzled expression. “Strange, how?”
“Your heart was beating fast.” He shook his head. “I don’t know. Strange. You’re sure everything was okay?”
“No. I had to go to a state dinner and sit between a courtier and a zealot. It was horrible.”
“Duly noted. Anyway, that’s why I sent Elly after you. Not that she minded leaving—but I wasn’t just being nosy.” Leaning down, he took an apple from the bowl on the table, and kissed the top of her head. “See you later.”
“Don’t get hit with anything,” she said.
“Talk to Theron for me,” he said in return.
* * *
The House didn’t feel as empty as it had the night before. Their rooms were in one of the older, more run-down sections, but there were still guest rooms nearby, and the halls were full of kitchen staff and skittish pages rushing by with trays. Judah even passed a few courtiers, who either ignored her or sneered at her. Those who were truly talented at courtcraft managed both. Many of them believed the story about the midwife was a lie, that she was a Southern Kingdom hostage or some illicit offshoot of Elban’s, but even if there’d been no mystery about her origins, the courtiers would have sneered. They made it quite clear that the least she could do was dress decently, even if she couldn’t actually be decent.
The courtiers could sneer all they wanted. Elban was healthy and strong, but when a man waged war the way he did it was wise to keep on the good side of his heir; Gavin wanted her left in peace and, with the exception of the occasional unpleasant incident like the one with the Wilmerian, he was mostly indulged. So was she. She wore what she wanted—the plainest dresses possible, Theron’s old boots, Gavin’s old coat—and didn’t always bother to braid her hair, even though she knew how much the color disturbed people when she let it go wild. She left state dinners early, didn’t bother with lessons, and wasn’t asked to make the traditional crafts of her home province for visiting dignitaries. What province would that be, anyway, and what arcane and frightening crafts would it produce? Nobody knew, and nobody was quite sure, and even though nobody officially believed in witchcraft anymore, nobody was willing to risk it.
Judah made her way to the oldest section of the House, which stood at the building’s proper center, like the hub of a wheel. More than one ruling family ago, the hub had been the entire House; later Lords had built around it, wanting more spacious rooms with better views and smoother glass, until it was completely surrounded. The last Lord to actually occupy the old section had been Gavin’s several-times-great-grandfather, Mad Martin the Lockmaker: Mad, because he spent the last years of his life defending himself against imaginary assassins, and Lockmaker because in his madness, he’d covered every door and cupboard with beautiful, intricate locks that opened with spinning brass wheels or complicated patterns of glass gemstones or even musical notes. After Mad Martin died (of old age, reportedly) his heir had tried and mostly failed to open them. Then he’d tried to remove them, and when that failed, too, he’d had some of them hacked apart, leaving huge axe-shaped gashes in the doors. Eventually he’d given the job up as too much work, built the new council chamber that Elban still used, and abandoned the old section entirely. By then, most of its windows had been bricked over, anyway. The old part of the house was dark and old-fashioned, and nobody much minded losing it. With no particular ceremony—at least, none that was recorded—the wooden door that had once been the front entry was closed for the last time and sealed with a big, clumsy lock.
Which Theron had picked, effortlessly, when he was ten. Back then, on cold or rainy days, they’d stolen food from the kitchen and spent hours wandering the abandoned halls, where nobody ever thought to look for them. But as the years passed, the empty rooms and decaying towers that had inspired such excellent imaginary adventures held less and less appeal. Theron was the only one who came here now. Theron loved puzzles and devices as much as Mad Martin had, and he soon set himself to opening all of the elaborately locked cabinets and boxes. Most held nothing but dust and dead mice, but in others he found strange clockwork devices, which he took back to the room he’d claimed as his workshop, and tried to fix. If pieces were broken, he repaired them. If pieces were missing, he experimented with shapes and materials until he found a replacement. Elly had a music box in her room that he’d actually managed to bring back to life, a lovely golden nightingale perched on a branch. When the key was twisted, the leaves on the branch waved as if in the wind, and the nightingale sang. The song was halting and in an uncomfortable key that nobody used anymore, but the music box was Theron’s greatest triumph.
The door to his workshop was hidden behind a tapestry. Judah had never had the heart to mention the pointlessness of the gesture; the marks left by Theron’s repeated passage from the main door to the workshop were obvious, anyway, and even if they weren’t, nobody ever came to find him but the three of them. Nonetheless, Theron wanted the door hidden, and so it was. Even if most of the time, as now, the door was propped open and the tapestry tied back to let in air. Inside, Judah found Theron bent over his workbench, his glasses slipping down his nose and some complicated metal thing in front of him. His coat lay across a high stool. Each individual lump of spine was visible through his thin shirt. She coughed and scuffed her boots loudly and still, when she said, “Hi,” Theron jumped.
“Don’t sneak,” he said crossly. “You startled me.”
“Sorry.” Startling Theron was as easy as breathing. Judah leaned on the bench next to him and watched him poke at the metal thing. It was all spinning gears and colored glass bits. The glass bits seemed to wink like eyes and the whole thing made Judah think of a patiently crouched spider. But Theron gazed down it with all the fervor and devotion of a guildsman. His hands, so often fumbling and uncertain, were quick and sure as he adjusted a cog inside the body of the thing with a tool that appeared to be, and probably was, a sewing needle fixed onto the handle of a dinner knife. “What’s that?” she said.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“What’s it do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then how will you know when you’ve fixed it?”
“I won’t,” he said, “unless you shut up for five seconds.” Theron was long and thin from head to toe. There was something of a bird about him, normally; not the carrion crow that Elban made her think of, but something sparrowy and quick to flit away. Folded onto his stool as he was now, he reminded her more of a stick insect. His blue eyes were stormier than his brother’s but warmer than his father’s. Behind their long lashes they shone with intelligence and, at the moment, irritation. The workshop was the only place where Theron felt confident enough to risk being annoyed. Judah loved him this way, and so she waited.