Dearest (10 page)

Elisa tiptoed toward Friday and gently touched the inside of her elbow. “Yes,” the princess said to Elisa. “I will. Thank you.”

Elisa’s suggestion had apparently been that Friday sit, for she did so. Elisa and the rest of his brothers gathered around her like children waiting for a story. Tristan crouched, but kept his distance.

“The young man outside the door is Conrad. He’s my squire . . . of sorts. I don’t know much about how things like squires work.”

“If you ever do want to know, I’d be happy to teach you,” Christian offered.

Friday smiled at him.

Christian had a gift of setting people at ease, one of the few ways in which he surpassed their eldest brother at leadership. Tristan had never been jealous of that before now.

“Why . . . ?” François started, but then stopped, no doubt in light of Tristan’s order to cease their collective inquisitive onslaught. Poor François. With his busy brain, he was possibly as much of a torture for Friday as Elisa was while speaking her silent words.

“Everything today happened so fast,” said Friday. “I am not the storyteller that my father and queen-sister are, so this is all going to come out a jumble. Please forgive me.” Their nods seemed to appease her, so she went on. “A man came to us this evening. He calls himself Henry Humbug.”

“Sounds like a false name,” said Sebastien.

“We suspect it is,” Friday agreed. “But this man’s identity, while strange, is not the issue at hand. Suffice it to say that he has shown his good faith by saving the lives of me, my squire, and my king-brother on separate occasions. He seems to possess incredible knowledge that we do not. I’m not sure how this is, but we suspect it’s sorcerous in nature.” She said the last bit to François specifically, as if she’d read the question off the top of his mind. Perhaps she had.

“It was Mr. Humbug who made us aware of Mordant’s intentions. He sails from the east even now, and should arrive three days hence.”

Tristan’s hands clenched at hearing this, as did the hands of each and every one of his brothers. The only news Tristan ever wanted of Mordant was the announcement of his death. For days, even months after their escape, Tristan had closed his eyes every night and seen the image of himself impaling Mordant on his father’s sword. Failing that, Mordant deserved to be trampled by a kelpie or blinded by a naiad. That snake had taken what he wanted and forfeited his right to any more of Elisa’s life.

They had found a sort of peace and a glimmer of hope. It should have come as no surprise that Mordant would be hot on their heels, sniffing the air, intent on tainting their happiness like the vicious dog he was. Like his brothers, Tristan couldn’t be angrier that Mordant was painting himself into their picture again.

But he was also afraid. Not of what Mordant would do to him, but what he might do to Friday. She sat there beside his sister, with her silver-blue dress and silver-gray eyes, a spot of color against the stones like a flower plucked fresh from the field, beautiful in her wild innocence. He had already lost his home and his parents to that usurper. He would not lose Friday as well.

This was it, then. This was the end. The end of the curse. The end of Mordant, or the end of Tristan. One of them was not getting out of this alive.

“He won’t be alone,” said Sebastien. “He’ll have his sorceress with him.”

“Gana.” Philippe spat to cleanse his mouth of the name.

Gana. She was as bad as he—she had been the instrument of Mordant’s curse, but he had been the one to give the command to slaughter their friends, family, and loyal subjects. She deserved to live out the rest of her life in a torture of her own making; Mordant just needed to die.

“The woman who cursed us,” Christian explained to Friday.

“Was it she who found us?” François couldn’t help but ask.

“Mr. Humbug suspects that it was my discovery of you that alerted Mordant—or more likely this sorceress—to your location. It seems there are many layers of spells in and around this castle, spells whose origins died with the generations past. Some are as old as the foundation itself.” Friday looked at Tristan. “And some are stronger than others.”

So your sister’s spell brought us together and broke through the Wind Gods’ protection of our family,
Tristan thought at her.

It would seem so,
she thought back at him.

Tristan’s eyes widened. “I . . . heard that. I heard you. In my head.” The feeling was indescribable, both intimate and intrusive at once. Is this how she communicated with Elisa? Was there anything this girl couldn’t do? And if Friday’s sister was reportedly even more powerful, what did that make Wednesday—a god?

Realizing what he was doing, he forced his mind to be silent.

“Well, there’s another new thing about me.” Friday’s voice was cheerful, but her demeanor said otherwise. Even the words she had thought at him had been optimistic in tone. How did she manage to put on a happy face for the world when confronted with such insanity? Magic was a romantic thing when told in stories, but when one was faced with the grim reality, magic took on another guise entirely. His own family’s troubles had been enough to depress him for years; he wasn’t sure Philippe would ever recover. Tristan was having a hard enough time resisting the magic that drew him to Friday, that urged him to take her in his arms again and never let her go. And yet, this girl shone in the gloom of adversity so brightly that she cast rainbows.

Practice,
she thought at him in answer. He swore he could hear laughter in her words.
My family is just as strange as yours. For different reasons, of course. Before any of this, I found magic in love and hope. And I still do.

“This is all my fault,” Friday admitted to his brothers. “My presence here, my bond to Tristan: these weakened your gods’ protection and made Mordant aware of your location. I would throw myself off this tower if I thought it would make you forgive me, but I’ve already tried that.”

Christian and the twins cracked a smile.

“My family thinks it best if you remain unseen by those who still do not know you. Mr. Humbug fears that bending the curse more than we have may hasten Mordant’s arrival or endanger your lives.”

“None of us wants that,” agreed Sebastien.

“Your curse will be coming to an end,” said Friday, “and soon enough that we don’t really have time to plan. We have no choice but to act.”

“Good thing we are men of action,” said Rene.

“Speak for yourself,” said Bernard, stretching his long body out on the stone floor beside his twin.

“But the nettles.” François showed remarkable restraint by not posing a question.

“Your brilliant sister has already solved that problem.”

Elisa sat up straight; Friday patted her on the back and Elisa beamed. Tristan couldn’t remember ever seeing his sister quite so happy—another kind of magic, but one he knew Friday would take little credit for.

“Not only has she been tending Cook’s herb garden, but she’s been nursing the wild meadow behind it. This meadow is now almost completely overrun with nettles.”

“Pestilent weed,” said Bernard.

“Someone should really get rid of those,” said Rene.

“And so we shall,” said Friday. “The whole crop is being harvested and brought into the kitchens as we speak.”

“The kitchens?” asked Christian.

“The greens themselves are edible, a good thing in a palace with too many people and too little food.” Friday hugged Elisa tightly. “Thanks to her foresight, your sister might have saved all who call Arilland home for the time being.”

Friday held up one of the picture frames. “But now she must get to work.”

Tristan amused himself at the thought of the ghost whose portrait had been cast aside for this strange venture. If there was as much magic bound to these stones as Friday would have them believe, surely some spirit from the netherworld was clicking his or her tongue right about now.

He hoped his parents’ spirits were not similarly bound to the palace in Kassora. After all the chaos Mordant had created, his father and mother deserved their peace.

“Tonight I will teach you how to weave something more substantial than wind,” Friday told Elisa. “We will start with simple yarn. The staff will strip down what nettles they can tonight, and we will spin them in the morning—if the curse allows it.”

As always, Elisa cringed at the thought of discussing Mordant.

“I’m sorry, my dear, but I need to know more about the spell, so that I might know best how to help you break it.”

“We have always preferred high, out-of-the-way places like this,” said Tristan. “While we still lived in Kassora, just after the curse, we would meet Elisa in the topmost tower there. Every night before we went to sleep, we would pray to the Four Winds to deliver us. We did not expect an answer, but we prayed every night all the same. In time, a response came.”

“The gods showed themselves to you?” Friday tried to imagine how she would react to receiving such a blessing.

“Yes,” said François, with pure conviction.

“We’re not sure,” said Tristan. “There are four gods of the wind but only one person appeared to us, a blue-skinned man in white robes. He appeared on the wind, instructed us on exactly how to break the curse, and then disappeared the same way.”

Tristan knew the words of the remedy as if they had been burned on his soul, but it had been so long since he’d thought about them . . . softly he began to say the words aloud, and then realized that all his brothers were doing the same.

“Gather stinging nettles if you will, though they will burn your hands and your fingers will bleed. Weave them into seven shirts with long sleeves, throw them over your brothers, and the spell will be broken. But from the moment you undertake this task until it is done, you must not speak nor laugh nor cry, though it may take years. The first word that passes your lips will strike your brothers’ hearts like a knife, and you will all remain as you are, forevermore.”
A poetic and haunting recipe of doom.

Friday rubbed her upper arms briskly, though Elisa had allowed no breeze to penetrate the protective barrier she’d set up to shield them from the rain. “Your sister is worried about the exact letter of the remedy,” Friday addressed the brothers. “As am I.”

“As are we all,” said Sebastien.

Friday nodded. “Mr. Humbug assured us that we can bend the rules around the remedy, so long as we follow its exact words. Elisa has not spoken a word since the spell was cast, so we don’t have to worry about that part. My concern is the making of the shirts.” Friday turned back to Elisa. “Unfortunately, my dear, it looks as if all of the weaving is up to you and you alone. But it seems as though you may receive aid in all other areas.”

“But she has to pick the nettles herself,” said Christian, and Elisa pointed to him.

“Gather stinging nettles if you will,”
quoted Bernard.

“‘If,’
” said Rene. “Sounds optional to me.”

“What about her hands hurting and fingers bleeding?” asked François.

“You don’t think she’s bled enough?” argued Philippe.

“She will have to weave seven shirts in three days,” said Friday. “Don’t worry. Her fingers will bleed.” She took Elisa’s hands in hers. “I will do what I can to ease the pain for you, all right?” Elisa humbly nodded her acceptance of the princess’s offer. “I’m also sorry about the sleeves. I was hoping we could get away with fashioning crude tunics, but those words are precise.”

“We seem to be getting away with an awful lot as it is,” said Sebastien.

“True.” Friday punctuated her statement with a large yawn. “Forgive me. There has been plenty to do this past day, and plenty little time in which to do it.”

“You should rest,” said François. “I could make a pillow for you here by the door.”

Tristan would be damned if he let Friday fall asleep next to anyone but him. Friday must have heard his thoughts; she smiled at him but directed her answer politely to François.

“You’re very kind. But before I rest, I must first teach Elisa the rudiments of weaving so she can practice before she gets the nettle fiber.”

Elisa nodded, resigning herself to her sleepless fate with a determined grin.

“That sack is full of yarn. We can use these old picture frames as looms.”

“And what would you have the rest of us do?” asked Christian.

For the first time since Tristan had met her, Friday looked taken aback. So she
could
be surprised. Either her deep concentration distracted her from every other emotion in the room, or the brothers were quickly becoming adept at restraining their feelings.

“I . . .” she started. “I’m sorry, I . . .”

“It’s all right,” Sebastien said with a measure of reserve that he normally used only for Elise. “We just want to be of use.”

Philippe harrumphed.

“Well,
some
of us do,” Sebastien finished.

“I’m quite handy at being idle,” said Bernard.

Rene swatted him in the arm. “We’re at your service, milady. What do you need?”

“You are welcome to sort through the yarn and food we’ve brought,” Friday answered. “I carried a few more books up as well, so you wouldn’t all have to share with François.”

It was so sweet, how she innocently assumed the best of them. Tristan wondered if he’d ever been so innocent in his life. Predictably, François laughed at this. Sebastien and Christian looked at each other. Rene and Bernard simultaneously found the crumbling walls fascinating. Philippe glowered. Tristan was the only one brave enough to meet the princess’s eyes, and when he did so he merely shrugged, for lack of anything better to say.

“You’re joking,” said Friday. “Can’t
any
of you read?”

Sebastien and Christian raised their hands halfheartedly. “Well enough in the language of the Isles,” said Christian. “But not much of your Common tongue.”

Friday put her hands on her hips. “The heir and the spare . . . to be expected, I suppose, but I have to say that I’m disappointed in the rest of you. Shameful!”

“How’s that?” said Bernard. “We don’t need to read to lift a sword.”

“Or shoot an arrow,” added Rene. “Or climb a tree. Or paint a picture. Or seduce a woman . . .” Rene elbowed his twin at this last item and they giggled like prize idiots.