Erris returned with greens overflowing from his basket. Celestina showed him to the kitchen to help prepare Violet’s dinner and took me upstairs to see the bedrooms.
She apologized that she had not aired them out. The room she offered did smell musty, but I assured her, quite honestly, that it was nice just to have a cozy room, with a canopy bed and clean linens. I didn’t say it aloud, but it was also nice to be in a house that didn’t feel so heavy with secrets and sorrow. There was a touch of it here, but nothing like Hollin Parry’s mansion, where I had lived before Karstor’s-where I had met Erris.
“Do you need anything else, Nimira?”
“Well… if you have pen and paper, I’d very much like to write letters to let our friends know we’ve safely arrived.”
She nodded. “Just don’t mention Violet. We try to avoid much in the way of paper records of her.”
“Why is she such a secret?” I had little patience with secrets and vague excuses these days.
“Without the enchantment, Mr. Valdana says she would surely be killed by humans or fairies who fear the restoration of the house of Tanharrow. Or, on the other hand, taken by the fairies who want to restore the house of Tanharrow. He just wants a normal life for her, at least until she comes of age.”
“Normal? But does she have any friends?”
Celestina looked solemn. “No, no friends. It would do her good, but circumstances just don’t allow for it.”
“No friends, no mother, and her father is gone from fall to spring?”
“He has to travel, to serve the Lady. In exchange for the powerful magic that protects Violet.” Celestina raised her brows. “The long and short of it is, be very glad that you’re not a fairy princess.”
“Well, I promise not to mention her in my letters.”
I wrote Karstor first. I missed him, although I didn’t feel like I knew him well enough to admit it. I suspected it was really my father I missed, but my father felt so lost to me that it was easier to miss Karstor. And Karstor had always seemed so sad. During the day, he made little jokes and went to work for long hours as the new ambassador of magic, but sometimes I found him sitting in a dark room staring off into space, and once I had heard him weeping very softly, just for a moment, but long enough that I couldn’t sleep for thinking about it. I had never imagined that powerful men shed tears. I thought of all this, but I kept the note short and friendly. I hoped it would bring a spot of cheer to his day.
Next I wrote Hollin’s wife, Annalie, and her ladies’ maid, Linza. Annalie was cursed, pained by the touch of light on her skin, but she seemed content enough to spend her days in a dimly lit room, speaking to spirits and writing. Her life should have been tragic, and yet she didn’t seem to need anyone, as if she were halfway to dwelling in the spirit world herself. It was difficult to think what to say to a woman like that. Linza was easier to talk to in person, but her lack of education showed when it came to letters. Still, they should know we had safely arrived.
I wanted to write Hollin, but wasn’t sure if he had moved on. Hopefully his travels abroad were all that he hoped for, even if the circumstances weren’t quite what he wished.
Hollin. I didn’t want to miss him. He had committed so many wrongs-from wooing me while he already had Annalie hidden away, to his inability to stand up to Smollings until the very last moment. It was Erris I loved-or tried to love, if he would have me-but it was Hollin whom I best understood. Hollin had told me once how he had been close to his mother and his uncle Simalt, who had traveled the world. Both had died, like my mother, and I don’t think either of us had known what it was to be cared for ever since.
I had finished my letters and was sitting quietly, brooding upon unpleasant matters, when Celestina told me dinner was ready.
In Hollin’s house, I had changed clothes for dinner like a lady, but no one seemed to expect it here. Celestina wore her stained apron, and my clothes bore the grime and scent of travel. A man sat at the table who I knew must be Lean Joe, not just through logic but because he was indeed very lean and weather-beaten, with a nick in his ear like a stray cat. He squinted at me, not with hostility, but curiosity. He had probably never seen a girl from Tiansher before. I was equally surprised to be eating with the help, but it seemed to be the way of things here. I suppose with Ordorio gone, they kept Violet company.
Violet sat at the head of the table, clad in a thick robe that must have belonged to her father, arms crossed around the turned-up sleeves, and wearing the pout that sat so comfortably on her lips.
Erris burst in from the kitchen with a plate of finely chopped greens, nuts, and apples, all raw and lightly dressed in vinegar.
Violet took one look at it and shoved the plate away from her so it crashed into the butter dish. “I won’t eat that. It looks disgusting! It looks like food people would eat if they were lost in the forest and starving to death!”
“It’s the kind of food we ate all day while we were out playing as children,” Erris said, sounding almost delighted at her protests. “Your mother and me and all the rest of us. We didn’t even have vinegar to make it exciting. And you will eat every bite of it before you have any sausage.”
“No!” she cried. “I thought you were going to be nice! Father would never make me eat something I hated. How could anyone think vinegar was exciting? Celestina, this is unfair.”
“Don’t you want to get well?” Celestina said in a rather automatic tone.
“These plants are fresh from the forest,” Erris said. “They are full of good things for animals and people.”
“You’re talking like I’m a child!”
“Well, I promise to stop if you give that poor salad a chance,” Erris said. “I don’t need to be a doctor to know that the human world is making you sick.”
“It’s not! And I’m half-human!” Violet obviously realized she wasn’t going to win. She stood up, shoved her chair over so that it hit the floor with a bang, and stormed off, with one last shout at Lean Joe, who started laughing heartily.
Once she had left, we could hear her coughing all the way down the hall.
“I hope she doesn’t hurt herself, with all this commotion,” Celestina said, poking a sausage with her fork.
“She won’t,” Erris said. “Anyway, once she’s calmed down, I’ll bring her an apple.” He looked at the salad hungrily. “If any of the rest of you would like some… I don’t think it will keep long.”
“It might keep through tomorrow,” Celestina said. But she took a little, obviously out of guilt. Erris couldn’t eat, and it was strange to eat piles of sausage and potatoes smothered with gravy while he had no plate or even a cup. The desire for food was constant in his eyes whenever I ate anything, even the stale roll I packed for the train.
“Why aren’t you eating it?” Lean Joe asked.
“I’m not sure you’ll want to know,” Erris said. “I must apologize in advance for being so unnerving.”
Lean Joe scoffed. “Unnerving? Why, I’ve been to prison. Not much you can say to unnerve me anymore, especially something that starts with eating rabbit food. There’s men in there that would eat a lot worse.”
“Like what?” Erris asked, but I kicked his leg.
Celestina started laughing. “Joe, at least give them a day before you tell those stories!”
“You can laugh, but there was a cannibal in that prison!”
“He never saw cannibals,” Celestina said. “He was in prison for conning people out of their money selling fake medicine. They don’t put murderers in the same place. And he’s reformed now, aren’t you?”
Joe nodded solemnly. “That’s right, I’ve had my fun. I’m no fool. Best to shape up before you’re dead.”
“This house isn’t much like Hollin’s, that’s for sure,” I told Erris after dinner as we strolled the house. Celestina had encouraged us to explore while she attempted to coax Violet into eating the salad. I had shown Erris our guest rooms, and we roamed from there. I was happy to have him to myself again.
“I never did see Hollin’s house, but I can imagine his gardener wasn’t a con man.”
“No. It was much more proper. Although, I think I like this place better.”
Once, I might have called Ordorio’s house gloomy. We poked our noses into portrait galleries lined with people frowning out from cracked paint and heavy wooden frames. And perhaps the tapestries had once been vibrant and beautiful, but now they were faded, slowly disintegrating on the walls. I suspected most of the furniture had been built by people wearing starched ruffs, who did not want their descendants to be any more comfortable than they were.
Nevertheless, there was a difference between a house full of mold and uncomfortable furniture and a beautiful house where sad secrets permeated the very walls. The absence of taxidermy was a comfort, and I saw very little evidence of sorcery. Ordorio probably had a library somewhere where he kept his books and artifacts, but it wasn’t spilling all over the house like a warning that someone dangerous dwelt here.
“More paintings!” Erris said with dismay, pushing open the next door. “Were his parents art collectors?”
“With rather poor taste,” I said. The men had beady black eyes and fiercely pointed beards, and the women fared no better; unnaturally rosy cheeks and huge bosoms seemed the fashion.
“They must have brought them over from the Old World,” Erris said. “These are no doubt heirlooms, but nevertheless I feel sorry for him if these are his ancestors. And I’m not looking for paintings.”
I would have been happy to stroll the moldy old portrait gallery with Erris, making jokes about the antique faces, laughing in the intimacy of shadows. “What are you looking for, then?”
“A piano, of course.”
“Did you ask Celestina if there is one?”
“No, I like the hunt. I wonder what’s up these stairs?”
I hoisted the lantern. “Let’s see.”
Erris followed, briefly grabbing my elbow with a steady hand when I stumbled on a crooked step. “I feel like a bandit, snooping around without anyone who lives here,” he said.
“I’m glad we can snoop. Clearly, there’s nothing to hide around here.” In Hollin’s house, I had found Annalie’s hidden quarters on the third floor.
But most of the doors on the third floor here were locked. I rattled them all stubbornly, trying to force them open, until Erris pulled me away. “These are probably Ordorio’s quarters. I’ll bet he locks them to keep Violet from poking around with magic. I wouldn’t worry about it. Although, if his wife is secretly alive up here… well, I could only wish.” He motioned me back toward the staircase.
Not long after, we found the piano. It was not far from the dining room; we had just ventured in the wrong direction. Music has an uncanny ability to chase away misery, at least for a time.
“It’s in tune too,” Erris said. “Whoever Ordorio is, I could kiss him.”
“That wouldn’t be fair. You haven’t even kissed me yet.”
He smiled slightly, which wasn’t really the response I yearned for, and left me feeling silly for attempting flirtation.
He played a few notes. “How about it, Nim? ‘In Springtime Blooms the Rose’?”
I laughed. “Anything but that!” That had been one of the only songs he could play when he was stiff clockwork trapped at a piano, and it was hardly cheerful under any circumstance, about a man who goes to war, leaves his love behind, and never returns.
“I should learn to play the songs that you know from your home,” Erris said.
“It seems we have all winter. I can teach some of them to you.”
He played a soft little tune, his long fingers light across the keys. I sat on the edge of the piano bench, like I used to when he was trapped. I loved to watch his hands move freely.
We had fallen in love without being able to say much to each other. I think it was still hard for him to say the things in his heart. Jokes came easier. But he could speak through the piano, even now. His song remained slow, and it grew more melancholy. It could be that I ascribed things to the music that he didn’t mean, but I didn’t think so. I heard his regret that things had gone this way for him and for us. I heard him miss his family. I heard his desperation and his fear.
If he would share all of this with me, it couldn’t be hopeless for us. Not quite.
He began to sing quietly in another language, the foreign syllables rolling soft from his tongue. The notes sounded like winter, beautiful but cold. And then he sang,
When winter comes, birds fly home
When winter comes, birds fly home
The soil sleeps
The spirit rests
When winter comes,
The birds go to their nests
And we fly home
To those who we love best.
He stopped. “I’m winding down,” he said. “Time for bed.”
We stood. “Good night.”
He left without waiting for me, without lantern light. I did not go to bed right away, but sat at the piano for long moments, my mind full of equal parts waking dreams and nightmares.