Page 21 of At The End There Was You

“The midwife?”

She nodded, watching him still playing with her hair. “My parents refused to name me. Refused to see me for a few days after, too, because I almost killed my mother during childbirth. They told the nurses and the midwives to name me as they wished.”

He’d never felt anger sear his veins like at that moment. He grit his teeth and somehow managed to calmly tell her, “They did well.”

“I think so, too. After I heard the maids in our house tell each other the story, I visited them behind my parents' back and thanked them. They remembered me. One of them had saved a few souvenirs over the years and one of them belonged to me. A handprint in ink. It was so small and adorable. I thought my mother would love it, I'd seen mothers gush over their babies and newborns. But when I gave it to her, she sobbed and tore it apart. It took her a while after for her to talk to me again. Father convinced her when we were about to leave for a ball held by Katra’s mayor whom my father worked with. He said it would make us lose face with them if we behaved as if we couldn’t bear to be next to each other. That night, my mother pretended she loved me.” She fiddled with the corner of her robes. “On my eleventh birthday, I wished my mother would pretend more often.”

A moment of silence fell between them. Winter did not say anything because she was still choked up, and Azriel was feeling the need to choke someone—someone who was smart enough to die before he came to learn of this.

“How is your headache?” she quietly asked, her small voice breaking the quiet.

He let go of her hair and stood. “Get up, Winter.”

For a second, she just blinked at him and then quietly stood, placing the book back and righting her robes. “Now what?”

“You said chamomile helps with headaches. What tea helps with heart pains?”

She thought about it for a moment, and sniffled. “Jasmine?”

He nodded and turned to leave, only stopped by her hand clasping the edge of his jacket sleeve. One little move and he’d be holding her, touching her. “Where are you going?”

But she needed a remedy for her sadness more than he needed one for his anger. “To get some jasmine tea for you.”

Her lashes fluttered fast. Her hand that was still grabbing onto his sleeve, tightened its hold on him. “No,” she said, shaking her head and moving ahead of him. “I’ll find some, you stay here.”

Winter did not let him respond; she was already running away from him.

She needed more time alone, Azriel understood that, though he preferred she was somewhere within his reach. Perhaps it was better that she was not. Something worse than hatred had gripped Azriel around the throat.

He let out a deep frustrated groan when the piano spook began playing an overly dramatic rendition of something usually played during a horror theatre show. “Enough.”

The piano groaned and notes briefly flew haphazardly in the air before stopping entirely.

Winter was hiding from him again. Only because it had suddenly struck her that she’d admitted one of her worst moments in life to a man she’d known for four days.

Clara waved a hand before her face. “Shouldn’t you be going back? You’ve been in the kitchen for at least twenty minutes now.”

Winter grabbed her chapped hand covered in cracks and calluses. “Why did Miriam send you to the kitchens again for the third day in a row?”

She lowered her head and started peeling the potatoes again. “I’m not good at anything else. She had us copy the holy sermons so we could give them out to the villagers, and I’d made about a dozen mistakes in each page.” She shut her eyes tightly and sighed. “I don’t know why I keep messing things up. It all seems fine in my head, the words seem fine, the letters seem fine.”

Before she could help it, Winter mouthed a curse followed by Miriam’s name. “You’re messing up nothing, Clara. And we have typewriters, I don’t understand why that woman is so against using anything from this era.” She grabbed Clara’s hands again and put them on her lap, tearing a rectangle from the side of her robe to wrap around her wrists that she’d massaged at least twice in the past five minutes. “Besides, to punish for mistakes goes against what she preaches.”

“Didn’t know you paid attention to what we learn.”

“Can't help it. Her voice seeps in sometimes when I daydream.”

Clara giggled. “Maybe you can get me some paper and a pen from the library so I could practise at night in my room. You could help me. I don’t want to die not knowing how to write properly.”

Winter’s pertinaciousness on the matter did not dissolve, but she did soften at her little friend’s glazy blue eyes. “Or we can just tell Miriam to go fu—”

“I agree.”

Both of the girls spun towards the kitchen door where Azriel stood. Clara gulped so loudly that Winter winced at the sound. “I was just about to return.”

His eyes fell to Clara’s wrists still on her lap and then at Winter’s torn robe. “Go to the infirmary and get a bandage and salve for your friend.”

“Miriam does not allow us,” Clara shot out, and then clamped her lips shut.