“If only there were magic words you could utter to render all those pieces finished in a second,” Bran groans sleepily. “If only.”
“People like us don’t have the luxury of magic,” I reply softly. “Not anymore. You know that.”
“Who believes any of that hogwash anyways?” Bran asks. “Seems like it’s mostly superstitions. A bunch of old hearth tales, that’s all. There’s always a good lesson or a bit of truth in them, like the stories you perform in your wagon. But real spells? Words with power? It’s always struck me as funny that the Margraves are so fearful of such things.”
My heart constricts at his words. Gephardt always asserted our Margrave is the strictest of them all; Erling considers it a great honor to lock up or burn any supposed conjurer. It was his great-grandfather who started the whole trouble in the first place, that first unruly king of Elinbruk who recklessly destroyed most of his family, nearly wiping out his line.
Closer to home, the story of Old Josipa still rings in my ears. When I was just past what my father marked as my twelfth birthday, a Tavian healer known as Old Josipa was out gathering herbs, bits of bark and roots for her poultices and salves. A child happened to follow her and heard her chanting. The child came running back, telling all who would listen that the old woman was speaking to the earth. In return, plants rose up from the ground, their leaves leaping right into her basket.
Even though the medicines Old Josipa collected were the very things needed to soothe a fever or calm an upset stomach, and she only used her magic for the good of others, it mattered not. When the child’s tale made its way to the Margrave’s ears, Old Josipa was seized and made an example, her poor body lashed to a pole and tossed on a burn pile like a dried shock of wheat. I’d had nightmares for months after, fearing that Old Josipa’s fate would someday be my own.
I must have fallen quiet for too long, for the next thing I know, a hand extends toward me, breaching the empty space between our walls. I sit up and stare at it. Bran wiggles his fingers, and I instinctively drop the little ballerina and place my hand, callused and small, in his own eager and warm one.
Looking at the spaces between our treasures, I can see only parts of Bran, mere slices of the fabric of his face, a strip of eyes shaded by serious brows and then below that, a firm and sympathetic mouth. He squeezes my hand and a flicker of heat trails up my arm. For a moment, he looks like he wants to say something, but isn’t sure how to form the words. Bran usually has no trouble finding words when he needs them.
“Pirouette, I …”
I watch him search for what comes next, very aware of his hand holding mine. I marvel that, in the two years since we first opened this cupboard, Bran has somehow become my dearest friend. I can’t imagine my days without his quick and easy smile, without noticing the way his hair curls up at his collar when his mother gets too busy to give him a haircut, and the way it looks endearingly ragged when one of his sisters does it for him. Bit by bit, like a scrap of sandpaper wearing away a rough edge, Bran has worn down my defenses, all the stiffness, shyness and quietude of my earlier years. By all accounts, he knows me best, at least, as much as you can know someone without truly knowing their past.
Papa long ago instilled in me the consequences of revealing my origin to anyone else; it would only endanger them as well as me. Of course, Bran’s heard the yarn my father told when, out of the blue, a quiet slip of a girl appeared at his side: my mother died in childbirth and I was sent away to be raised by my grandmother until I was old enough to join him in his shop. Gephardt repeated the fable so many times and with such confidence that my newly formed ears absorbed the words like truth, and I repeated it as my own. I’ve always paid a price for it. Whether it’s a misfiring of the magic that made me or a natural effect of my wooden origins, I’ve learned that anytime I tell a lie, there are consequences. Painful consequences.
“Pirouette.” Bran nudges me. “You … you know that you can trust me, right? That I care about you, more than I have the words to say.”
In spite of his sweetness, all I can think is that if Bran really knew, knew that something about me is both human and other, he would be afraid.
Afraid for me.
Afraid of me.
I can’t bear that.
Bran sighs again, circling the back of my hand with his thumb. My breath catches in my throat.
“Just don’t forget that I’m here. Wooden soldiers or not. Margrave or not. Someday, I’ll have enough to strike out on my own, and you and Gephardt will never need worry about money. I’ll help, I’ll—”
“Bran.”
“We could be—”
“Bran.” I cut him off, half-delighted and half-terrified of what he might say next.
More than anything, I want a future with Bran, a chance to be loved the way the milliner loves the milkmaid, with a heart that feels full to the brim of happiness. But it always seems happiness only ever hovers near, a wisp of flame ready to vanish with my next breath. Bran deserves a girl who is fully human, not one whose very existence could condemn him to the Keep.
He looks at me expectantly through the shelves, waiting.
“This is just work,” I reassure him. “It’s not forever. Surely the Margrave and the duke will run out of room to hold all their toys. Soon our days will return to normal.”
“Maybe, Piro,” he leans in, gripping my hand, “but normal or not, I want more than this for you.”
I dare to read from the hungry look in his eyes that he wants more from me, too. My heart swells with something dangerous and thrilling.
“Bran?” I ask, a smile on my lips, offering him the only thing I can right now: the comforting words that have closed every clandestine meeting between our cupboard since we were sixteen. “See you tomorrow. Same as always?”
“Always,” he repeats softly, eyes shining in the candlelight.
With regret, he releases my hand and waits for me to be the first to close the cupboard door. I shut it slowly, feeling the same sense of loss I always do when the knob locks into place. Placing my hand over the door, I leave it to rest, foolishly hoping to feel Bran’s pulse from the other side.
My heart wants Bran Soren. I can’t deny it. But the danger of loving someone is that the closer you get, the more exposed you become. And just like a single lie will work itself out through my skin, I fear the truth will do the same, splintering apart anything good we might have. Far sharper than any lie, I’ve learned the truth has a way of coming out. Always.
CHAPTER 4
I BEGIN MY USUAL MORNING DUTIES BY TYING ON MY apron, unlatching the front door and dusting the shelves. Papa hasn’t come downstairs yet, he must still be asleep. I’m glad. I don’t like the feverish look in his eyes, the sweat I’ve seen beading his brow.
I linger on the marionettes today with duster in hand, adjusting a crooked arm here, draping a tangled string more loosely there. Each one is so unique, so lovely, it almost pains me to look at them.
“We are not so different, you and I,” one of my wise-bearded wizards advises when I tug his handle to make him sit up straight. The tip of his pointed hat knocks the shelf above. “You have strings, too,” he mumbles. “Strings you cannot see, but that move you all the same.”