It was one of the boldest things I had ever said to you. I expected you to snap at me, but instead you raised your eyebrows and nodded. Almost as if you had stumbled across a newfound respect for me.
“And I’m not saying he can stay forever,” I went on, fingers shaking as I gripped them together behind my back. “I don’t need a little brother, or a child to nurse back to health.”
Even then, I knew I was lying. I watched him juggle wax apples as Magdalena cheered, the lines of his ribs showing through his thin skin, and I wanted very much to run my fingers through his hair as I held a cup of broth to his lips. I wanted to lay out a feast for him, let him recline on my lap and tell him to eat as much as he wanted.
I had a weakness for weakness, just like you.
“Of course,” you said, in your voice specifically made for placating me. The one you made such fragile promises in. “We would have to all agree on something like that.”
You swept back over to Alexi, who looked every inch the mythical Ganymede in his drapery. That was probably why he had caught your eye in the first place. You had a dispassionate appreciation for aesthetics; after such a long life only the most perfect symmetries could stop you in your tracks. Still, there was a romantic streak lurking in your rational mind, and you loved to be surrounded by beautiful things while you worked, whether it was the scenic backdrop of an ancient city, the baroque interiors of a fashionable apartment, or the lovely faces of your consorts. You loved to collect and show us off like a tsarina might show off her family jewels.
You carried on a brisk conversation with Alexi while the painter grumbled and tried to capture the curve of Alexi’s throat, the inviting divot over his lips. Alexi did his best not to smile or color under your gaze, but he didn’t have much success. His eyes kept skittering over to Magdalena and I with a boldness that was almost scandalous. He had no shame, this one.
You caught him looking and gave him a secretive smile. It seemed to give you a particular pleasure, watching him watch us.
“They tell me you have no family to care for you,” you said. “Tell me, did you ever wish for sisters?”
Alexi gave a nervous laugh, but I saw a little shudder go through his stomach at your implication. He knew exactly what you were talking about. I wondered how many times you and he had met before. If you had already made him dark promises with your lips on his neck and your hand under his shirt. I shoved this thought down as quickly as I could. You wouldn’t do that to us. You had learned your lesson with Magdalena; I was just being paranoid.
“Would you like to leave?” you asked in his ensuing silence. I knew that tone. I had heard it before, in the mud and blood of my home country, and then in Magdalena’s palace. It was a quiet double entendre, a question that covered up a much weightier one.
If possible, Alexi colored even more.
“With you?”
“With us.”
Magdalena’s breath caught next to me, and I felt her heartbeat kick up in the tight grip she had on my hand. I realized that my own breath was fast and shallow. What were we doing? What was I allowing? And why did I feel like I was powerless to stop it?
Alexi swallowed and then nodded, a glazed look in his eyes.
“How much did you pay for him?” you asked the painter, breaking your scorching eye contact with Alexi for only a moment. “What was his sitting fee?”
The painter told you. You produced three times that amount from your purse and pressed it into his hands.
“For robbing you of such an inspiring subject,” you said by way of an apology.
You held out a gloved hand to Alexi, welcoming him through an invisible door that Magdalena and I had already walked through. My heart battered wildly in my chest. Part of me wanted to throw myself between you and Alexi and tell the boy to go home, to forget all he had seen and heard. But another part of me wanted to welcome him into our warm carriage and hand-feed him berries until he was sated.
Alexi let the bolt of fabric slip from his shoulders as he stepped down off his dais. You shrugged off your winter coat of sealskin and draped it around his shoulders, and he swayed under the weight of all that finery. Magdalena grinned at this game and stepped forward to claim her prize, removing her mink stole and draping it around his neck. I went last, tugging off my winter gloves as I walked towards the boy whose life I was either about to save or ruin irrevocably.
Alexi’s skin was so warm that the tips of my fingers burned when I took his hands in mine. I delicately tugged the fabric over his wrists, feeling the small bones of his hand, so close to the surface. When I met his eyes he was looking at me with absolute reverence, the way a child might look at a statue of the Madonna.