Page 108 of The Court of Venus

“They were emboldened.”

“Yes. They whispered to the king while we were away, drawing up the charges. Convincing him. The next day was to be the final round of the magicians’ tourney. Me against Oliver in the great hall. I heard talk—well, Wyatt let slip—that we were to wrestle for control over a woman. I’ve seen a tourney like that before.”

A memory drifted from his mind. A tournament held years ago, in Lionesse. Marguerite rendering a girl lovestruck, while a Mars made her so repulsed she then attempted to wrestle out of Marguerite’s arms. She cried out and screamed and kissed Marguerite’s face in such rapid succession the crowd quaked with laughter. Roland looked away, thought such entertainment should stay in yards or pits, not in the terrain of a woman’s mind.

Now his lips thinned in anger. “I was being shaved in my room when the guards and Miranda arrived. Edward pressed the razor against my throat. They said I was under arrest, that any use of magic would only add to the charges, and submitting willingly was my only hope for a pardon.” I shivered as his fingers swept lazily along my nape. “Oliver won the contest by default since I was … indisposed. He’s been appointed the king’s private secretary.” His eyes narrowed. At first, I thought it was Oliver who had angered him, then realized his wandering hand had found the arrow wound on my shoulder. “I’m unsure whether to thank you or say sorry first.”

“Aren’t you angry at me?” I asked.

“Do I feel angry?”

He sighed when I nodded, because there was a lingering spark in him. I’d just felt it, and anger rarely stemmed from only one source. “You’ve saved my life more times than you’ve betrayed me,” he said. Another sigh against my neck. “I was far angrier at Hal than at you. Envious you shared something without me. I always hated being jealous of Hal. I tried not to be if I could help it, and I could never stay mad at him for long. Do you remember how he smiled when he knew he’d done something wrong? I can imagine him now, smiling at me until I finally forgave him.”

“Or how he’d tap his middle finger and thumb together when he was thinking?” I lifted my hand. “Like this?”

“Yes, I had forgotten that.” He huffed a laugh. “How it annoyed you. Do you remember?”

Do you remember? Yes. Always. Everything. Hal would be truly lost when these small gestures were forgotten.

Roland hummed thoughtfully. “What did you truly think of me, when we were young?”

“You know already.”

He settled deeper into his pillow, folding his hands together expectantly. “Tell me anyway.”

I hesitated, then settled on: “I loved you, I revered you, and I hated you. All at once.”

“And now?”

“I respect you too much to let you give the crown to the Guildfords. Or to Fulke Roet.” I rolled into his chest and said, very softly, “And I love you, I revere you, and I hate you. All at once.”

I felt him smile against the crown of my head. “When you were in Bastian, you saw Hal, didn’t you? What did you tell him?”

“That I loved him and missed him. That I would avenge him. And … about you.”

He froze for a moment, then tried to sit up. “What did he think of us?”

“You’ll open your wounds again. Stay still.”

He rolled his eyes as I rose to soak more fabric, laying the strips on his skin. My arm still ached whenever I moved it. Yet he’d used all his strength to heal me before himself, and so his body was a patchwork quilt of tears, of pains. As I soaked and wrung and pressed, I showed him my memory of Bastian so he could also relive Hal’s moment of death, wondering if he noticed anything I hadn’t. But he only shook his head, yelping when I dabbed one of the cuts on his shoulder. “We are different men,” he murmured after. “He could stand to see you with someone else. I could not. If I were a ghost, I could not.”

“Roland—”

His change of subject was swift. “What happened in the chapel, Mouse?”

I glanced over my shoulder, twisting more cloth in the basin. “I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do. Before, you could only transform your own body. Now, I’d wager you could change any person or any object into something else, if you worked hard enough at it.”

“Let’s test that.” I dropped the cloth into the water and held out a smooth river stone I’d stolen from the banks of the Snake. I’d leaked blood onto it, and it wouldn’t wash off entirely. The stone was so off-color, I worried it would mark our trail. “What shall this be?”

“Gold. For the wager.”

I concentrated on the stone in my palm. When I shifted my own appearance, I sought to embody a person or creature. To imagine their life, to step inside it.

What was a stone? For many years, it must have been pushed through the earth, then tossed around the river before settling on the banks where Roland and I walked. What was a coin? It would be passed between hands, a simple meal to some, an entire month’s wage to others.

The stone shimmered and flattened into a golden crown in my palm. I tossed it to Roland.