Neither of us spoke for a moment. In the silence, I added up the cost of a ship and a crew and food for all of us, and tried not to imagine how many more public fields would lie fallow to cover the cost.
“Am I really supposed to marry a boy I don’t know?” I asked in a whisper. “Is that what I’m going to have to do?”
Althea sighed. “If I knew who your suitors were, I could help, but that’s a secret half the Council doesn’t even know.” I raised an eyebrow at this, but my godmother just smiled archly.
I didn’t know who my allies were. But secret allies were better than enemies on every side.
“Thank you,” I said softly.
Althea stood. “Stay safe, sweet girl. Be good. Be wise.”
I nodded, and she kissed me on the forehead.
“Rest, if you can. Your bags will be at the harbor in the morning.”
Outside Saint Christopher’s, I knelt beneath the hazel tree I’d watered with my tears not an hour before. Unpinning the ivy circlet from my hair, I set it in front of my mother’s headstone.
I miss you.
I scooped a little dirt from her grave into the damp handkerchief Godmother Althea had given me, tied it off, and put it into my pocket beside my rosary. I left the graveyard with my limbs weary, my head throbbing.
There would be no rest for me tonight.
7
Dawn broke as I reached the harbor, bitingly cold and swathed in a haze that seeped into the fabric of my dress.
Somewhere far away, a rooster crowed. Though I’d left them sleeping a couple hours before, the cows would be stirring in their meadows and in the barns, the sun rising over the fields. Any other day, I would already be on my hands and knees, acquainting myself with my morning chicory coffee, letting damp earth cradle me as I began to work.
But today, a few people on the pier and a rookery of ships waited for me instead. The ships hovered on the foggy surface of the Potomac, their white sails folded like albatross wings.
And as I approached the river, another figure appeared in the mist.
Carved into the prow of one of the ships was a girl. Her long arms were flung wide, fingers splayed, and apples and olive branches rippled like hair around her shoulders. Sinuous carvings like ocean waves hinted at a flowing gown, with high-heeled shoes visible beneath, but she was ready for battle: a sword and a bow and arrow were crossed over her chest. Her face was blank but for enormous stars etched where eyes, ears, and a mouth would be.
Overhead, a tough-looking, tanned girl in black scaled the rigging to fit Potomac’s blue-and-gold flag above the crow’s nest. Sails unfolded like daylilies around her as two East Asian men, one young, one older, secured the ship’s lines. Striding over the deck with Homer Maionides and a stocky, boyish-looking sailor with black hair was Captain Lang.
This must be the Beholder.
Lang caught sight of me staring and waved. Homer and the boy turned to follow his gaze.
My cheeks burned. My dress was damp and dirty, my hair disheveled from the night I’d spent walking through the humid air, saying goodbye to all the places I would miss. My remaining shoe I carried in one hand; I raised the other arm, stiff and cold, in reply.
At a tap on my shoulder, I spun, and met Peter’s eyes.
My mouth opened and closed. I didn’t know what to say to him. I wondered now if I’d ever really known what to say to him.
Hadn’t I seen how sparse words always were between Peter and me? Hadn’t I known it was a sign of everything else that was lacking?
I dropped my gaze and crossed my arms over my chest. “So everyone knows I’m leaving,” I mumbled. “I’m surprised you came.”
“My dad told me this morning. I wanted to catch you before you went.” Peter lifted a hand to my shoulder, uncertain at first, and then solid pressure. I reluctantly met his light brown eyes. “Selah,” he whispered again, “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t feel sorry for me.” I tried to smile, to get the words out quickly, but my voice cracked at don’t.
“I know you want to know why, and I wish I could explain it.” Peter quietly cleared his throat. “I can only tell you that it wasn’t about you. That I had to make a choice for my family.”
The hollowness I’d felt the night before swelled inside me again, so bare and cold I thought the wind might echo through me like a reed.
“Can you ever forgive me?” Peter asked. He knitted his long brown fingers together, eyes sincere, lips pressed tight and unhappy.
He’d said this, over and over again, the night before. As if I wanted an apology instead of his affection.
As if he’d done me wrong, rather than return me to reality from the fantasy I’d been privately living.
I tried to see him standing there as Godmother Althea had insisted he was—cute and kind, a perfectly ordinary good heart. Just another boy.
I saw what she’d been trying to show me. But I also still saw him the same way I always had. He was perfect to me. A star of a boy. A king of a boy. The only boy I’d ever cared for.
Maybe a little distance wouldn’t be a bad thing.
“Peter, believe me when I tell you: there’s nothing to forgive.” I forced another smile and peeled my heart from the hands that had held it without knowing for so many years.
We both turned at the rattle of wheels and the clop-clop-clop of horse hooves. A carriage stopped at the edge of the pier, and Daddy and Alessandra climbed down.
My smother took in my appearance with a roll of her eyes before leading my father aboard.
“I have to go,” I finally said. “Take care.”
“Take care,” Peter said gently. And then he turned to go.
As Peter walked away, I dug my toes into the earth that had raised me, feeling Potomac’s soil beneath my feet for the last time for I didn’t know how long.
Then I crossed to the pier and trudged up the gangplank after my father and stepmother.
Up on the forecastle, Alessandra exchanged goodbyes with Sir Perrault. I couldn’t catch their words, but my stepmother spoke in low, icy tones, and Perrault looked pale—almost seasick, though we’d hardly left solid ground. I almost pitied him.
Almost.
Godmother Althea and my father waited a little space away. On my way to Daddy’s side, Alessandra intercepted me. “You couldn’t change?”
Heat splotched my chest and cheeks. “I like this dress.” I gripped one elbow with my free hand, my shoe dangling from the fingers of the other. “And I was short on time.”
“And a shoe.” She rolled her eyes again and nodded at Perrault. He carried a slim folder. “Those are your suitors. Prepare to meet them as you see fit. But fail the Council, and the Council may fail you.” She glanced at my father, looking thin and breakable in the early light. “I think you know what’s at stake.”
I clenched my fingers around my arm, staring first at the folder in Perrault’s hands, then at Alessandra’s abdomen. At the child she’d made my enemy before I could ever become its friend.
“I’ll do what has to be done,” I said.
Not that I knew what that was. Not that I knew what it would cost. Not that the words would mean the same thing to Alessandra that they meant to me.
But when I looked at my father, at my godmother, at the little brother or sister I already cared for, at the banks of the land whose absence I already felt in my bones—I knew I’d do what was necessary to come home and protect them.