“No, thank you,” I said as Sevas blanched. “Indrik, where are my sisters?”
I had been afraid that Papa would punish them in my stead, but I’d tucked that fear away like an earring in the bottom of a jewelry box, and only now did it shake loose again, shining. What if I had ruined them already? I began to feel the plan I’d made was foolish and doomed, and how would I manage to get up to the third floor and take Mama’s mirror at all, and even if I did could I find a broker to sell it, and what if Papa found me out before then?
There was a crunching sound as Rose stomped out from behind the black plum tree. Her hair was loose and knotted with briars and her hands and wrists were filthy all the way up to the elbow and she looked just the way I remembered her.
I had thought she would be angry. But to my great surprise there were tears rolling down her cheeks, and she came toward me and wrapped me up and kissed my temple and smoothed back the frizzing curls from my forehead. She smelled like soil and sour-cherry kvass. When she finally let me go she wiped her tears from her violet eyes and I felt like an imp, a scoundrel, for making my sweet sister cry.
“Marlinchen,” she said breathlessly. “I was so afraid you wouldn’t come back.”
My throat constricted. “I had to.”
Her gaze darted over my shoulder, to where Sevas stood. Her eyes narrowed. I saw Sevas run a hand through his hair, mussing it to intentional dishevelment, and begin to pin up his coy and beguiling smile. I wanted to tell him not to bother, that it would be like trying to draw blood from a stone. I had never met anyone more resistant to being charmed than Rose, and she looked at most men with beetle-browed disdain, as if they were nothing better than the squirrels and other pests that menaced her garden.
He was undeterred. “My name is Sevastyan,” he said, smiling brilliantly, and held out his hand. “Sevastyan Rezkin.”
Rose gave him a dour stare. “This one won’t last long here.”
Sevas’s smile waned, just a little bit. “I’m less fragile than I look.”
I dug a nail into the cut on my knuckle. “What has Papa done? In the meantime? And all the men . . .”
“Well, he was furious, of course.” I heard the edge of blame in her voice, and I felt like I had caught myself against the side of the counter, one brisk, hard blow to the belly. “So he raged for several hours, and turned one of the men’s leather boots into a yapping black dog and killed it. Dr. Bakay tried to soothe him, but Papa is resistant to being soothed.”
Sevas was no longer smiling. A powerful wind came through the garden, shaking big pink petals loose from the begonia plant, and nearly blowing up my skirt along with it. Hurriedly I pulled it down again, wondering if Rose had seen the dried blood there on my thighs, or if she had noticed the bruise on my throat in the shape of Sevas’s mouth, or if she had noticed that my corset was gone, abandoned to that broken-glass room. Was her magic good enough to sense the way I had changed?
“It was foolish to bring this man back here,” Rose said sharply. “Don’t you think Papa will remember how you swooned for him that first time? Don’t you remember his promise to turn him to a mass of black snakes at the door?”
Nearly all my certainty and bravado curdled under my clever sister’s stare. With difficulty, I said, “Papa’s spells were dismantled, to let the day laborers through.”
But Rose’s expression did not shift. “Do you really think you can trick him, Marlinchen? One night away has not made you into a powerful witch. If anything, you are less clever now than when you left. This dancer has just infected you with his foolhardiness.”
I shrunk back, but before I could reply, Sevas said, “Perhaps you’ve infected her with your gloom and pessimism.” I’d never heard anyone speak to Rose that way. “I’m not as daft as I look, either.”
I’d never heard his voice so cold before, either. I felt a bit like I had when I’d watched him kill the Dragon-Tsar for the first time, full of a strange bloodlust.
“Go on then, both of you,” Rose bit out. “Papa’s waiting. And he’s hungry. It’s all he’s been able to speak of since you left. How his stomach is eating itself in your absence.”
Another hard blow to the belly. I was swept through the garden as if by a very strong wind, trampling ferns and dandelion fluff that was sticking to the wet soil like a scattering of dirty snow. Rose was leading the way, her steps swift and sure, her gaze forward and knowing. Sevas gripped my hand and squeezed it.