“Katalin,” I say, my voice dropping like a stone kicked off a cliff. “Her name is Katalin.”
I see Gáspár’s face shift from bewilderment to realization, and then, abruptly, it hardens. “The girl who tormented you. The one who gave you that scar.”
His thumb brushes my left eyebrow, split by white scar tissue. Memories of blue flame bubble up, but they don’t wound me like they once did, now that I know Katalin is sitting in the king’s dungeon, perhaps even fettered in the same cell that I was.
“If I let her die, then I might as well admit that Virág was right,” I say. The confession of it feels shameful, poisonous, but Gáspár’s expression doesn’t change. “That she was right to cast me out, and that all of us wolf-girls are nothing more than warm bodies. Besides, it’s the same thing I told your father: a seer’s magic is not what you think. It will give the king only a fraction of the turul’s power.”
“évike, think of what you’re saying.”
“I am,” I bite out, anger and despair washing over all the pain. “Don’t you understand how much I have thought of it? If I save Katalin, I will lose any power I have in this city, any sway over the king’s mind, and any ability to protect the Yehuli. To protect my father, I . . .” I can’t bring myself to admit what I am thinking: that when Zsigmond told me the story of the clay-man, he was begging me to be the one to save them this time. “You have no idea how much I have considered the weight of my words.”
Gáspár pulls away from me, lifting his chin. For a moment, his eye is as hard as obsidian. “You think I don’t understand? You were the one who told me, so long ago, that we were the same. You wielded that revelation like a weapon against me. My every action is a choice between honoring my mother and serving my father. You would be hard-pressed to find anyone who knows this strife better.”
Mortified, I press my lips together. I hadn’t thought he would remember my words so well, the words I hurled at him in anger, not knowing how much they would sting.
“I’m sorry,” I say, staring down at the floor. “For that and a thousand other petty cruelties.”
Gáspár doesn’t reply, but I hear the shift in his breathing. I feel like a blacksmith, everything I know laid out in pieces in front of me, and somehow I must forge a weapon from them. But any blade that I make will be double-edged. I cannot help Katalin without hurting my father. I cannot save the pagans without damning the Yehuli. And the only thing I know that might be strong enough to stop Nándor is a hundred miles away in Kaleva, just an orange flyspeck on the gray horizon.
I don’t know when I have become something so burdened by other people’s hopes and loyalties and lives. It almost makes me weep to think of it, how many people will die or be thrown out if I choose wrong. My head bows over my bent knees, pain still crawling up my arm like a glut of blackflies.
“The worst thing Nándor will do to the Yehuli is banish them.” My words taste so bitter I think I might die before I finish speaking them. “But he wants to burn Keszi to the ground.”
Gáspár gives a slow nod. His hand inches toward mine, but it only brushes the absence of my pinky. The space between us feels smaller than it ever has. If he knelt before his father to beg for my life, it seems only fair that I should humble myself to him now.
“Please,” I say. But when I raise my head, I see from the look on his face that he has already agreed.
Long shadows chase us down the hall, wraithlike fingers snatching at my wolf cloak. I don’t know if Nándor has already realized that I am gone, but I can’t waste the time turning around to check. I don’t stop until we’ve reached the top of the stairs that lead down into the dungeon, and even then, it’s only for a moment, to catch my breath. The wound on my shoulder is burning like a brand. I half walk, half stumble down the steps, reaching out for Gáspár to steady myself. My eyes keep fuzzing over the pinpricks of torchlight on the wall.
Katalin is in the same cell that I was, huddled against the mold-slick wall. Her pale hair is damp and tangled, and there’s another bruise pulsing on her perfect cheekbone. When she sees me, she rises, eyes sapphire bright and full of embattled loathing.
“What are you doing here?” she asks, voice low. “Come to deliver me to the king? How long were you in the capital before you decided to kneel to him?”
Her cruelty makes me regret my decision, but only for an eyeblink. I cannot watch another wolf-girl die, not even Katalin. I step forward and wrap my hand around the iron bar of her cell, ?rd?g’s threads going taut around my wrist. I close my eyes, and when I open them again, the bar is gone. I’m holding on to nothing, but my palm is orange with rust.