I lay out the cards. “You know the rules, no free questions. Find the Lady.”
He picks the middle card again, because the odds favor a new card. And I left the knight there, because that’s exactly what I thought he’d do. He gives me a narrow look. “This is a very one-sided interrogation.”
“Well, hopefully this will be short.” I collect the cards and look him in the eye. “We’re cooperating for now, but you still took thePfennigeistcase.”
He holds up a hand. “Don’t waste your question. I don’t want you to feel the way you did this morning,everagain. As long as we’re in this, we’re in it together. You have my word.”
Together. Once again, he’s caught me in the throat.
“Oh” is about all I can muster. Then I shake my head. “I—uh—that wasn’t my question, exactly. Even if this all ends with Adalbrecht and Irmgard in a dungeon and me surviving the curse to laugh at them . . . what happens after?”
He gives me a long look. Something’s flickering in it like a signal lantern, like there’s so much more to say.
“You want to get out of the empire, right?” Emeric asks.
“That’s the plan.”
Another crooked smile ghosts across his face. There’s a challenge in his voice, bone-weary but warm as the wine. “Then I give you a decent head start.”
This is when I realize: I want that. I want him to chase me.
But it’s not just the chase. I want it to behim.
There’s a shimmering, intoxicating kind of thrill to it, this game between us. I am his puzzle and he is my lock, and it’s an arms race to solve the other first. But somewhere in all the knots and twists and trapdoors, he turned to an arsonist, leaving his embers in my veins, smoke on my tongue, a fire burning softly in my heart.
And it will not die easy.
I want him to chase me. I want to know what it feels like to be caught. I want to burn with him.
Oh, saints and martyrs. I’ll be damned.
I think I want him to kiss me.
I’m staring. I’mpanicking.
I duck my head. “Fair enough. Next question.” I splay out the cards, hoping that, between the wine and the fire, my rising blush has an alibi.
He picks the Page of Grails, so we both take a drink. That has to be it, right? It’s the wine making me notice the lines of his throat, how he missed the top button on his shirt in his haste. It’sonlythe wine gathering the firelight along his narrow jaw, the way his black hair falls over his brow, into something I find handsome.
(It’s not the wine. I don’t want to talk about it.)
I deal the cards a little too fast. I’mprettysure I know where the queen is.
Then he flips the card over, and I was right. Ugh. “What do you want to know?”
He hesitates, then asks, “What happened with Irmgard von Hirsching?”
“Nothing you haven’t already heard.”
“I want you to tell your own story.”
My stomach clenches, but this was my idea. And part of me, dry and cold as the moraines in Sovabin, aches to be known.
So I tell him a story of a princess, a loyal maid, and a monstrous little countess. I tell him of ruby rings and white pennies. I tell him of Death and Fortune and a deal I had no say in.
And Emeric listens. When I’m done, he runs fingers over his mouth, thinking. Then he asks, “When is your birthday?”
“December thirteenth.”
