There’s no room for error with a waterfall. My foot slides, then I slide, and before I can even scream, I’m gone.
It’s not a long drop, but it’s horrifically cold, and the sledgehammer of the waterfall drives me right to the stony bottom of the river. My lungs contract on their own from the shock, trying to drag in air but pulling in choking froth. I thrash and push up until I break the surface, spewing, and manage only half a breath before I’m torn between two currents, sucking me back to the waterfall and pushing me away at the same time. My lungs are burning, boiling, and all I want to do isbreathe, some animal part of me is panicking—
A distant part of me feels the slightest bit guilty for wishing this on Emeric. I don’t know what’s more annoying: that I might actually die here thanks to my own series of terrible decisions, or that with the Augur’s Tears in my blood, I know this guilt isn’t a lie.
Something about that annoyance steadies me out.Don’t panicmight as well be carved into my bones, and that, at least, I can count on.
I need to get away from the waterfall first, or I’ll never get out. I splash and kick until the waterfall’s pull lessens. Something presses against my spine, helping me rise faster. I break the surface.
I hear voices over my own violent coughing, and I’m dimly aware of being pushed toward a nearby dock. Then hands reach down to pull me out. Beneath the water I see the dark blur of an otter’s snout, glowing red eyes. Ragne found help after all.
I’m hauled up onto the sturdy planks of a dock, where I collapse in a sodden heap. A comically large cloak is wrapped around my shoulders.
I make the mistake of letting my eyes fall to the wool.
I see a bear of a man passing through a town by the sea as the trees spill gold and red leaves into the wind. I see a boy stopping him on his way out of an inn, clutching a knapsack much too large for a child of eight, hair neatly combed and dark brown eyes sharp as flint behind their oversized spectacles. I hear the boy say he has a petition for the Godly Courts.
I see the boy leave with the man, the youngest recruit in the history of the prefects.
And other recruits won’t let him forget it. The boy can follow the threads of a crime, connect what no one else sees, but he can’t puzzle out how to get his classmates to eat with him. He doesn’t understand why his teacher barely hides a sigh every time his hand shoots up, because shouldn’t he have the answers? He doesn’t know to watch his steps until the third time he’s tripped in the library, and everyone watches him pick up his broken charcoal sticks, snickering into their books.
This is how he learns having the answers is not enough.
I see the man hand off his cloak and uniform jacket years later, when the boy makes history again, the youngest to pass the first rite of initiation.
I see the cloak and jacket stay with Emeric until he reaches Minkja.
Shame rushes through me. Ishouldn’tsee this. It’s not mine to know.
“. . . Schmidt. Can you hear me, Miss Schmidt?”
“She needs to get out of the cold as soon as possible.” A firm grip on my shoulders keeps me upright, even as that voice sends one more chill through my gut.
If there are two people in the Blessed Empire who Idon’twant to see the full truth of, they would be Emeric Conrad and Gisele von Falbirg.
My teeth chatter as I clap my hands over my eyes. I try to find the words, but they come out strangled and stunted: “I can’t—I can’t look at you.”
Emeric curses under his breath, and I can hear every emotion in it like it’s been dissected on a table: vexation, distrust, urgency, concern, fear. “The poison’s gone too far. She won’t make it back to the Gänslinghaus.” I taste-smell a whiff of juniper oil and witch-ash. “Miss Schmidt, this . . . isn’t going to be very pleasant, I’m sorry. But you have my word that it’s going to help you. All right?”
“What will I owe you?” I slur.
I can hear his confusion in the silence. Finally he says, “Nothing,” the same way Ragne said people help each other, like it ought to be plain as the nose on my face. And the ugliest truth tonight is that I wish I could understand that.
I’m not a good person.
I don’t know if I said that aloud. Everything feels like it’s slipping away.
“Miss Schmidt—” One hand is peeled from my face. “Really. You are far too aggravating to die here. I’m going to make a small cut on one of your fingers, understand?”
I make myself nod, shivering, eyes squeezed shut. There’s a sharp dart of pain on the tip of my left forefinger. I hear Emeric pull in a breath, as if bracing himself. Then he says, “Iswearthis will help. And it should be over fast.”
Have you ever felt the sting of a sliver, looked at it, and realized it’s going to hurt almost as much coming out?
Have you ever pulled a loose thread, only to see the cloth bunch and wrinkle?
Have you ever looked at the veins and arteries in your hand and wondered how many of them branch through you, fragile and immeasurable as roots in soil?
Now imagine that delicate network of blood vessels is full of splinters, and they areallbeing pulled out the way you would pull on a loose thread, and your nerves are the cloth crumpling in their wake.
