Panic grips my throat until I see a familiar weight in the pocket of my dress. At least I remembered to button the pearls in there, loopy as I was.
Hushed murmurs seep up from below the floorboards, too muffled to make out the words. I think I remember hearing something about taking me to the Gänslinghaus, but it’s too quiet—unless it’s later than I know.
I slowly, painfully lever myself from the tub. Part of me very much wants to sneak out, run from the reckoning I’m due. But if I saw anything with the Augur’s Tears, it’s that I can’t make it out of this mess on my own.
Getting dressed is harder than I expect, and going down the stairs is even harder. The muted conversation falls quiet at the first creak of the steps.
Two faces are turned my way when I hobble into the kitchen, lit only by lantern light and coals: Ragne, sitting on the counter in another nightshirt, and Gisele, standing over a steaming kettle at the stove. There’s a huddle seated at the long table that I’m fairly sure is Emeric, asleep in a mysterious pile of folded papers.
“Tell me he didn’t undress me,” I croak.
“That boy passed out about a minute after he dragged you in.” Joniza doesn’t look up from where she’s seated at the other end of the table, frowning at a paper, her mass of gold-trimmed braids piled atop her head. I know that thoughtful scowl; she’s working on a new song. “Though since hedidsleep in the tub Monday night, you could say you were in his bed.”
“Ew,” I mutter.
“You are better now!” Ragne says brightly, then hunches, sheepish. Her voice lowers. “I’m not supposed to be loud.”
“You’re fine. The children should be well asleep by now.” Gisele smiles, her cheeks rosy from the stove. Then she turns to me, and full winter turns her stone-cold. “Is there anything you’d like to say to Joniza or me before I wake upMeisterConrad?”
Joniza glances up. The look on her face says very plainly,Do not involve me in this.
My belly tightens with an old, resentful ache. I know I did this to Gisele, but she has no business acting like I didn’t do thisforher too. I remember her exact words on the muddy riverbank a year ago. I remember how she begged.
The pearls bump silently against my thigh.
“I drank poison meant for you,” I return, just as frosty. “Fromyourfiancé. That’s what I have to say.”
“Tea, anyone?” Joniza asks innocently, pushing back from the table.
“Yes, please.” All of us jump as Emeric sits up, accidentally knocking over a stack of paper. He pushes his spectacles into his hair and rubs his eyes.
“Me too.” I hang my cloak on a hook and head for a mug rack on the wall. A soot-mote pops out of the first one I take down, scuttling behind the stove with a hiss. I suppose there’s nokoboldhere to keep them out.
Gisele shoulders past and pointedly pulls off a single mug. “I’ll make my own.”
If I could roll my eyes any harder, you’d hear it all the way in Sovabin.
A minute later, I slide tea over to Emeric as I sit down across from him. (Does he need to know he got the soot-mote mug? Absolutely not.) He lifts his head from his hands, bleary-eyed, and rasps, “Thank you. Any . . . ill effects?”
“Don’t ask me to do cartwheels anytime soon,” I say dourly. “What happened to you?”
“I’m not technically supposed to do magic until I complete my initiation rites as a prefect,” he admits, and settles the spectacles back on his face. “The witch-ash we use has a, a kickback of sorts. You only get the charm to minimize itafterthe second initiation, to keep fools like me from throwing it around two days in a row. It’s for emergencies only, and”—he pinches his nose—“between thenachtmahrand the Augur’s Tears, there have been an unprecedented number of emergencies.”
“That was rather brave of you, then, to risk it for Vanja’s sake.” Gisele drops into the chair beside him.
He shakes his head as Ragne settles on the stool next to me. “Very kind of you, but I don’t believe in bravery, just unpleasant alternatives.”
“Notthatunpleasant,” Gisele mutters into her tea.
“I don’t have to be here,” I shoot back. “I don’t owe you anything.”
Ragne cocks her head at me. “You were dying,” she says, as if explaining it to a small child, “very bad, a lot.”
“Fine, yes—”
“You were poisoned, and you almost drowned, and if you had not come here you probably would have frozen—”
“Igetit, Ragne.”
