He moved faster than I had ever seen, nearly overturning his desk as he caught me just before I hit the ground. The candelabra spilled from my grip, clanging against the floor, the flames going out one by one, but Cartier held me to him, his eyes riveted to mine. I watched that Valenian elegance and poise dissipate from his demeanor as he took in my blood, as he took in my wound. Fury darkened his gaze, a fury found in battles and steel and moonless nights.
Gently weaving his fingers into my hair, he asked, “Who did this?”
I saw the Maevan in him rise, saw it overtake him at the sight of me bleeding in his arms. He was ready to crush whoever had hurt me. I had seen it before, in Jourdain and in Luc. But then I remembered that I was half Maevan. And I let that part of me answer.
“It’s not deep,” I murmured, taking hold of the front of his shirt, taking the helm of this problem. “I need you to undress me. I did not want to call the servant girl.”
We stared at each other. I watched my words expand in his mind—he was about to take off my clothes—and his fingers loosened in my hair.
“Tell me what to do,” he finally said, his gaze straying to the complicated mystery that man calls a woman’s dress.
“There are laces . . . at the back of my gown,” I panted, my breath coming short and shallow. “Loosen them. The gown comes off first. . . .”
He turned me in his arms, his fingers finding the knotted laces, unraveling them quickly. I felt the gown begin to loosen, felt him pull it off of me.
“What next?” he asked, his arm wrapped around my waist to support me.
“The kirtle,” I murmured.
He slid it off, my body beginning to feel light. Then he unlaced my petticoats; they fell to my ankles in a wide hoop.
“My corset,” I breathed.
His fingers fought with the stays, until my corset at last relinquished me and I could sag and breathe. I forgot all about the Stone of Eventide until I heard the wooden locket clink among the layers of fabric at my feet.
“The stone, Cartier . . .”
His arm tightened about me; he spoke into the tangles of my hair, “You found it?”
I heard the desire and the fear in his voice . . . like the thought of the stone being so close was as terrifying as it was marvelous. I leaned back against him, drawing on his strength, and smiled when I realized that he was feeling two conflicting things at once.
And then reality seemed to weave between us; he was holding me, and I was wearing nothing more than my undergarments, and the magical stone was somewhere at our feet, hidden in my clothes. I didn’t know which one was more astonishing. By the pressure of his hands on my waist . . . neither did Cartier.
“Yes. I’ve been hiding it in my corset.”
At once he knelt and took the locket, setting it on his writing desk. I was amazed at his disinterest in it, that he treated it like any other piece of jewelry. Until his gaze returned to mine, to my wound, and I saw how pale he was, how stressed.
All I wore was my sleeveless chemise, which reached my knees, and my woolen stockings, which had itched their way down my calves. And my blood bloomed bright and angry over the white linen, which I couldn’t lift to examine unless I wanted to utterly bare myself to Cartier.
He must have read my mind. He moved to his wardrobe and brought me a pair of his breeches.
“I know, these are far too big for you,” he said, holding them up to me. “But slip them on. I need to examine your wound.”
I didn’t protest. He guided me to his bedside and turned his back to me, leaving his pants in my hands. I sat on the mattress, unbuckled the dirk from my thigh, and began to pull my legs through his breeches, wincing when the pain echoed through my abdomen.
“All right,” I said. “You can look.”
He was at my side in an instant, guiding me to lie down over his blankets, resting my head on his pillow. Then, gently, he rolled up my chemise to expose my stomach, his fingers carefully probing my wound.
“It’s not deep,” he said, and I watched the tension ease from his face. “But I need to stitch this.”
“I think my corset saved my life,” I breathed, and then laid my head back and laughed.
He did not think that was amusing. Not until I had him fetch my corset, and he held it up. We both saw that the thick material, torn and bloodied, had taken the brunt of the blade, had protected me from a deeper piercing.
He cast my corset back to the floor and said, “I was about to empathize, for society dictating that you wear a cage like that. Not anymore.”
I smiled as he walked to the desk, rummaging through his leather satchel. My eyes half-closed, I watched as he brought forth a pouch of herbs, as he sprinkled them into a goblet of water.
“Drink this. It’ll help with the pain,” he said, easing me up so I could drink.
I spluttered after the first sip. “This tastes like dirt, Cartier.”
“Drink it.”
I glared at him. He returned the glare, until he ensured that I had swallowed three more mouthfuls. Then he swept the goblet from me and I lay back down so he could clean my wound.
“Tell me,” he said, kneeling at my side, threading his needle. “Who did this to you, Brienna?”
“Does it matter who did it?”
Cartier’s anger kindled, his gaze like the blue heart of a flame. That Maevan lord had returned; I saw it in the set of his jaw, in the taut muscles of his posture, in the vengeance that gathered about him as shadows. In my mind’s eye, I could see him standing in his reclaimed hall with a circlet of gold upon his head, walking through morning light, and beyond the windows his green meadows flourished, brightened by the Corogan flower. . . .
“It matters,” he said, breaking my vision. “Who stabbed you? And why did they do it?”
“If I tell you, you must swear not to retaliate,” I said.
“Brienna . . .”
“You will make it worse,” I hissed impatiently.
He dabbed the blood from my skin and began to stitch me. My body went rigid at the bite of the needle, at the pull of my flesh as he brought me back together.
“I swear I will not do anything,” he promised. “Until this mission is over.”
I snorted. It was suddenly difficult to picture him holding a sword, returning the favor to Rian. Until I remembered that day in the library, when Cartier and I had stood on chairs with books on our heads. He had bled through his shirt.
It might have been the shock, or the northern air, or the fact that he and I were reunited. But I lifted my hand and traced my fingertip down the sleeve of his upper arm, where he had once bled. He stilled as if I had charmed him, pausing halfway through the stitching, and I realized this was the first time I had ever touched him. It was wickedly delicate; it was fleeting, a star moving over night. Only when my hand returned to the quilt did he finish his stitches and cut the thread.
“Tell me your secrets,” I whispered.
“Which one?”
“Why did you bleed that day?”
He rose and took the needle and spool of thread to his desk. Then he wiped the blood from his fingers and drew a chair to the bedside. He sat down, folded his hands, and looked at me. I wondered what crossed his mind at the sight of me lying in his bed, my hair spread out over his pillow as I wore his pants and his stitches.
“I cut my arm,” he answered. “During a spar.”
“Spar?” I repeated. “Tell me more.”
He chuckled. “Well, long ago, I made a pact with my father. He would let me study to become a passion as long as I also took sword lessons. I continued that promise, even after he died.”
“So you must be very proficient with a blade.”
“I am very proficient,” he agreed. “Even so, I still get cut from time to time.”
We both fell quiet, listening to the crackle and pop as the fire burned in the hearth. My wound had gone numb beneath his careful stitches; I hardly felt the pain anymore, and my head was beginning to feel airy, as if I had breathed in a cloud.
“So . . . how did you not know that I was Amadine?” I finally asked; it was the foremost question that continued to sift through my thoughts. “And why were you absent for the first planning meeting?”
“I missed the first planning meeting because of you, Brienna,” he said. “I had just discovered your disappearance. I forced myself to wait all summer, I forced myself to stay away, thinking you did not want to see me after my letters began to go unanswered. But I finally roused the courage to go to Magnalia, believing that I had time before I needed to be in Beaumont for the meeting. The Dowager informed me you were gone, that you had left with a patron, that you were safe. She wouldn’t tell me anything more, and I spent the next week searching Théophile, thinking you were there since it’s the closest city to Magnalia. It obviously made me late.”
I stared at him, my heart twisting in my chest. “Cartier . . .”
“I know. But I couldn’t rest if I didn’t at least try to find you. I originally worried that your grandfather had come for you, and so I went to him. But he had no inkling of your whereabouts, and that only quickened my fears. There were so many nights that I thought the worst had befallen you, and the Dowager was merely trying to shield me from such a blow. All the while, she kept insisting that you would contact me when you were ready.”
“And so you finally gave up the search, and came to Beaumont for the second meeting,” I murmured.
“Yes. And Jourdain sat across the table from me and said he had adopted a daughter, a young woman named Amadine, who had passioned beneath Augustin House, who had inherited the memories we needed to find the stone. I was so worn and vexed, I took it all for truth, not once suspecting he was feeding me your alias.”
“But I still don’t understand,” I softly argued. “Why wouldn’t Jourdain tell you who I was, where I came from?”
Cartier sighed and leaned deeper in the chair. “All I can figure is Jourdain didn’t wholly trust me. And I don’t blame him. I had evaded him for the past seven years. He had no idea I had taken the name Cartier Évariste and was teaching at Magnalia. And when I missed the first planning meeting . . . I think he worried I might bolt on the mission. So when the plans were divulged to me, I volunteered to be the one to infiltrate Damhan under pretense of the hunt. It was supposed to be Luc, but I offered myself, to show my commitment.”
I thought on what he had just told me, the pieces finally coming together. Slowly, I sat up, propping myself on the pillows, and eased my chemise down, covering my stomach and wound.
“Now,” Cartier said, “tell me your side of the story.”
I told him everything. I told him about each of my shifts, I told him about the Dowager’s decision to contact Jourdain, of arriving to Beaumont and desperately trying to force another bond. Of my discovery of who Jourdain was, of the planning meeting, of my fever and my crossing of the channel. Of recovering the stone.
He didn’t say a word, his gaze not once straying from me. He could have been carved from marble until he suddenly leaned forward, his brows pulling in a frown, his fingers brushing over his jaw.
“You tried to tell me,” he whispered. “You tried to tell me about the first shift. The last day of lessons. The Book of Hours.”
I nodded.
“Brienna . . . I am sorry. For not listening to you.”
“There is nothing to be sorry over,” I said. “I didn’t exactly give you details.”
He remained quiet, staring down at the floor.
“Besides,” I whispered, drawing his eyes back to mine, “it no longer matters. You and I are here now.”
“And you have found the Stone of Eventide.”
The corner of my mouth curved with a smile. “Don’t you want to see it?”
A mirthful glimmer returned to his gaze as he stood to retrieve the stone. Then he came to sit beside me on the bed, his thumb opening the locket. The stone writhed with gold, with ripples of blue and petals of silver that wilted to red. We both watched it, mesmerized, until Cartier shut the locket with a graceful snap, gently easing it over my head. It came to rest above my heart, the stone thrumming with contentment through the wood, warming my chest.
“Jourdain should arrive to Lyonesse tomorrow morning,” Cartier said quietly, his shoulder nearly touching mine against the headboard. At once, the mood shifted in the room, as if winter had chewed through the walls, coating us in ice. “I have a feeling that Allenach may keep you here. If he does, you need to ride with me to Mistwood, in three nights.”
“Yes, I know,” I whispered, my fingers tracing the locket. “Cartier . . . what is the story behind Mistwood?”
“It was where the three rebelling lords gathered with their forces twenty-five years ago,” he explained. “They emerged from the forest to ride across the field, to reach the back castle gates. But they never made it to the gates. That field is where the massacre occurred.”
“Do you think it foolish that we are planning to ride out from the same place?” I questioned. “That it might be unwise for us to meet there before we storm the castle?” I knew it was the superstitious Valenian speaking in me, yet I couldn’t wash away the worry I felt over this arrangement, that we were storming from a cursed forest.
“No. Because Mistwood is more than the ground where we first failed and bled. It used to be a magical forest where the coronations for the Kavanagh queens were held.”
“They were crowned in the woods?” I asked, intrigued.
“Yes. At dusk, just when light and darkness are equal. There would be lanterns hovering in the branches, magical flowers and birds and creatures. And all of Maevana would gather in the woods, woods that seemed to never end, and watch as the queen was crowned first with stone, then with silver, and last with cloak.” His voice trailed off. “Of course, that was long ago.”
“But perhaps not as distant as we think,” I reminded him.
He smiled. “Let us hope.”
“So when we gather in Mistwood in three nights . . .”
“We gather on ancient ground, a place of magic and queens and sacrifice,” he finished. “Others who want to join our rebellion will inherently know to meet there. When you spoke MacQuinn’s name at the royal hearing, you began to stir not only his House, but mine, and what little remains of Kavanagh. You stirred people beyond our Houses. I don’t know how many will appear to join us in the fight, but Mistwood will undeniably draw them, especially when you bring the stone there.”
I wanted to ask more—I wanted him to tell me of those ancient, magical days. But I was exhausted, as was he, each of us feeling the weight of the days to come. I shifted on the bed until the breeches tried to slip farther down my waist.
“Let me return your pants, and then you can escort me to my room,” I said, and Cartier rose to angle his back to me. I removed the breeches, refastened my dirk, and carefully set my feet on the floor, my chemise tumbling back down to my knees. Those herbs he had given me must have spread into my blood, for the pain was but a dull itch in my side.
We gathered the pieces of my gown, and then Cartier took a candelabra and I led him through the winding inner passages, showing him the way to the unicorn chamber. Only when I had opened the hidden door to my room did he say, “And how did you discover these doors and secret paths?”
I turned to look at him through the candlelight, one foot in my chamber, one foot in the inner passage, billows of my gown crumpled to my chest. “There are many secret doors around us, in plain sight. We just don’t take the time to find and open them.”
He smiled at that, suddenly looking worn and tired, as if he needed sleep.
“Now you know where to find me, should you need to,” I whispered. “Good night, Theo.”
“Good night, Amadine.”
I closed the inner door, smoothed the wrinkles from the tapestry. I changed into my night shift, hid my bloodied clothes at the bottom of my trunk, and crawled into bed, the Stone of Eventide still about my neck. I watched as the fire in my hearth began to fade, flame by flame, and thought of Jourdain.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow he would return home.
I closed my eyes and prayed, prayed that Lannon still had a merciful bone in his body.
But all my dreams were consumed with one chilling image I could not break: Jourdain kneeling at the footstool of the throne, his neck being severed by an axe.