I remember how much I railed against Virág’s decision to send me to the Woodsmen, how much her betrayal tormented me. It felt every day like a different wound, my mind forever conjuring some new way for it to ache. Watching Virág paint my hair silver in her hut, Katalin had finally gone quiet. Even she had been cowed by Virág’s unimaginable coldness, a hurt worse than any she could ever cause.
If I let Katalin die now, I might as well admit that Virág was right to cast me away. That the life of one wolf-girl is no more than a brittle shield to throw up at the slightest threat or provocation. That we all have been reared only for the Woodsmen’s axes.
A soft knock on the door makes me jump. But it’s only the shivering servant girl, Riika, holding out a bolt of deep plum silk. When she unfurls it, I see that it’s a dress, with long pooling sleeves and gold stitched up the bodice.
“The king had this sewn for you,” she says. “So that you could attend feasts without attracting so much attention as a—”
The word wolf-girl dies in her throat. Anger steals over me, and I snatch the dress out of her hands. I toss it in the vague direction of the hearth, even though it’s not lit. It flutters emptily to the floor instead, bodiless as a ghost.
“Tell him I have no use for his dresses,” I spit. “If he thinks I’ll uphold my end of our bargain if he doesn’t care to—”
A sudden, taut cord of pain laces through my arm, splitting the gristle of my shoulder. I turn around slowly, the room tilting on an uneven axis. Riika lets a small dagger drop from her hand, the blade of it thick with my blood.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “He didn’t want me to have to do it.”
I sway on my feet, the ground lurching toward me and then shuddering away again. I don’t need to ask to know that she doesn’t mean the king.
“What did he offer you?” I bite out as my vision starts to ripple and fray.
Riika’s eyes mist. Her lower lip trembles, jutting out beneath the icicle edge of her teeth.
“Nothing,” she replies softly, voice tipping up so that the word is almost a question. “He just said it would make him very happy, if I were to help him, and that Godfather Life would reward me too.”
I hear the sweet melody of her voice that half sings the words, and I see the flush in her cheeks, and I know that she is in love with him. I want to scream and shake her and tell her what a fool she is, this pitiable Northern girl, for thinking that Nándor might love her back. But I am too dizzy to speak.
Pressing down on the wound with my right hand, I push past her. The pressure of my fingers only makes it worse, so I tear a scrap of fabric from Jozefa’s dress and knot it over the wound, fingers slick and trembling. I should kill her, I think, but I can’t bring myself to. I am as stupid as she is, for coming to the capital at all, for believing that I was strong or clever enough to survive here.
A million thoughts gutter through my mind, each more terrible than the last. I drop to my knees and scramble to find the dagger before Riika can get to it again. I curl my bloody fingers around its hilt just as the door swings open, Nándor’s boot steps calm and soft upon the floor.
Chapter Twenty
I try to stagger to my feet, but Nándor places a gentle hand on my shoulder, squeezing my wound with just enough force to make me gasp. Pain blankets my vision in white.
“Stay down,” Nándor says. “I like the way you look when you’re kneeling.”
His nails feel as sharp as knives. I draw in a breath and reach for him, but before I can wrap my fingers around his wrist, he steps backward. The inertia sends me tumbling forward, catching myself on my hands. The floor is slick with my blood.
“How terribly heroic,” I bite out, “to send a serving girl to do your ugly work for you.”
Nándor stands up and walks over to where Riika has pressed herself against the wall, trembling. He runs a red-dyed finger down her cheek, and her face softens like challah bread fresh from the oven.
“I have friends everywhere, wolf-girl,” he says, looking at me while he grips Riika’s chin. “You should have figured that out by now.”
Friends in the Woodsman barracks and in the king’s council hall. I remember Count Reményi’s knifepoint eyes, sharpening as they found me in the dark. I remember Zsigmond shaking under Nándor’s stare, and the rabbi freezing like a frightened deer, and all the Yehuli children weeping. Anger cleaves through the pain.
“Then why did it take you so long to kill me?” I manage.