Wrenching pain blazes up my backbone. I can’t hold back a cry, bracing myself on the table. Emeric half rises from his chair.
I wave him off and straighten, awkwardly reaching to pat between my shoulder blades. Sure enough, my fingers find one hard knot of stone, then another. I won’t know for sure until I get to a mirror, but from the angular edges, I’m guessing a line of rubies now runs up my spine.
“It’s nothing,” I mumble, “just the curse.”
The stairs creak, and Umayya’s round face appears, peering down into the kitchen. “Is everything all right?”
“Fine,” I lie. “I’m leaving. Tomorrow you can expect a charity visit from theprinzessinso we can nail down the plan.”
Joniza stands abruptly. “I have a gig tonight in Südbígn. I’ll walk you as far as the Göttermarkt.”
I falter at that. “You don’t have to, Ragne’s coming with me—”
“I’m not doing it to be nice,” she says, reaching for her fox-fur coat. “I can get Gisele into the ball. But I’m not telling you how until I get one hell of an apology.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Try,Try Again
We walk toward the High Wall in silence for a minute or two, snowflakes drifting around us, Ragne riding on my shoulder as a black cat so she could leave her borrowed clothes behind. I’m trying to think through what exactly I’m supposed to be apologizing for.
The fact that there are multiple possibilities is, perhaps, part of the problem. Finally I clear my throat and take a guess.
“I’m sorry I didn’t try to get you work while I’ve been pretending to be Gisele.”
Joniza blinks at me, slowly. “Try again.”
Scheit.
“Uh,” I say. “I’m—I’m sorry I used what you taught me to steal.”
She lets out a little huff. “You think I give a single damn about those rich crapsacks? Try again.”
“I’m sorry I . . .” I’m running out of ideas. “I never finished paying you back for the hedgewitch? Hold on, I might have some change in my pockets—”
Joniza spins on a heel as I surface with a white penny and a fewsjilling, and I have to duck out of the way of the Sahalian five-stringkolistrapped to her back. “I nevercaredabout the money,” she snaps. Then she swipes the coins from my hand anyway. “That’s a lie. Give me that.” They vanish under the fox fur.
There is noTry againthis time. I brace myself.
“Do you know how scared I was when I arrived at Castle Reigenbach last year and they said Gisele didn’t want to see me?” Joniza asks, pacing in the street. “I thought that blond bastard had murdered you both, until I saw Gisele riding around in his carriage. Then I was angry. I thought I would have ahomehere with you and her. I barely had enough coin to keep off the streets. I worried myself sick about what had become of you.”
“But you were fine!” I insist. “I—I saw you in Trader’s Cross, I saw you every day for a week, and you were fine! You were fine without me!”
Joniza shakes her head. “You never learned, did you? I guess I can’t blame you, not with the hell we went through in Sovabin. Just because you can survive without someone doesn’t mean they’re unwanted. I was so afraid what that monster might do to you. Then, a month after I get here, therealGisele shows up at my door to tell me everything. And you know what? I understood why you did it.”
“You did?” I ask, startled.
For a moment Joniza just stares at the line of street lanterns leading to the High Wall. “No matter how bad it was in Castle Falbirg, the margrave would have been worse. You saw a way out and you took it. I don’t blame you.” Her gaze cuts over to me. “Idoblame you for thinking so little of me that you’d shut me out and try to do all”—she waves a hand vaguely at me—“thison your own. I could have helped you. And now look at the mess you’re in, cursed by a god and poisoned by a margrave and—”
“I know,” I groan.
“Don’tinterrupt me.” It’s the tone specifically calculated to remind me she’s a decade my senior. “And don’t sulk about being at the bottom of a pit you dug yourself. Nothing stolen is ever really yours. And you still have to answer for what you took, who you hurt. Including me.”
“That’s what people keep telling me,” I mumble. “They just never say how.”
Joniza lets out a breath that plumes in the cold, shivering despite her fur coat. She never did take to the chill. “Come on, I’m going to be late.”
Another stiff quiet falls between us. I think I’m supposed to apologize again, but I still don’t know what to say. I know how to beg forgiveness and curtsy and tug my forelock like a good little maid trying to keep her job, but I don’t know how to apologize like I mean it.
