The King Slayer Part 3

"I know. But I still don't want you-"

"I don't want you fighting, either," I interrupt. "I know you can, but that doesn't mean you should. You're a healer. I already said this, but fighting isn't what you do."

"And I told you before, things are different now," he replies, an edge slipping into his voice. "I will do what I have to."

"But it doesn't make any sense."

"Things stopped making sense a long time ago. I don't see why they should start now."

"John-" It's all I manage before a familiar voice interrupts.

"John, may I speak with you?" Chime stands off the dirt path, under a tree by the gates. She's dressed in a cerulean-blue silk-and-velvet gown, the same color as her eyes. Real, live b.u.t.terflies adorn the shoulders, their wings blue and edged with black, fluttering softly. Her jet-black hair is pulled off her face into a loose knot and adorned with blue-jeweled b.u.t.terfly-shaped pins.

The whole effect is beautiful, ethereal, just as she is. I can easily see what John saw in her, even though he says when they were together he was too drunk to see much of anything. Fifer says she's trouble and while that may be so, I can't imagine she's more trouble than me.

"Of course." John arranges his irritated expression into something resembling calm.

"In private, please?" Chime glances at Fifer, then me. "If you don't mind." Her voice is high and soft, warm and melodic, the sound of a summer's day.

"Not at all," I say. John gives me a small smile before the two of them turn and walk down the path together.

"We'll be waiting," Fifer coos. I shoot her a look; she jabs me with her elbow. "Why'd you let them go off together?" she hisses when they're out of earshot.

"She just wants to talk," I say. "There's no harm in that."

Fifer purses her lips but doesn't reply.

John and Chime stop under the tree at the end of the path. She appears to be doing most of the talking; John watches her intently, and every now and again he nods. Seeing them together, I feel a sharp pang of jealousy, but there's something else, too: inevitability.

Chime touches her hand to John's, says something in parting. She glances at me, those deep blue eyes sweeping over me, her face carefully neutral. She ignores Fifer entirely. Then she turns and walks away to join her father. Lord Cranbourne Calthorpe-Gough nods at me, then John, before taking Chime's arm and leading her away.

John walks back to us, his face expressionless.

"What did she want?" Fifer demands.

"Nothing," he says. "Well, not nothing. She wanted to talk to me about her grandmother. She's very ill." John turns to me. "She's my patient; I've been treating her for years. It's actually how I know her. Chime, I mean."

Fifer purses her lips again.

"Anyway, she was asking me if I could come by and spend some time with her grandmother before things got under way."

Fifer makes a noise partway between a scoff and a snort. "Can't it wait until it's all over?"

"Fifer," I say, my voice reproachful.

"It really can't," John says. "And it's better if I do it now anyway, just in case."

"In case what?"

"In case something happens to me."

"Nothing is going to happen to you," Fifer says.

John smiles a little, but it doesn't reach his eyes. "I don't think anyone can promise that."

THAT EVENING, PETER AVOIDS LOOKING at me during supper, too busy beaming at John as if his son had managed to fulfill all the fatherly dreams he'd held for him, all in one afternoon. In turn, John avoids his gaze, too intent on trying to catch mine, the echo of our earlier disagreement still hanging between us. I want to fight; John doesn't want me to. Peter wants John to fight; I don't want John to. John is angry with me, for reasons I understand, and I'm angry with him, too, for reasons I don't.

I avoid looking at both of them entirely, staring down at my trencher of beef stew and bread, which goes largely untouched.

"You'll wait for your summons, but I expect it'll be here within the week." Peter waves his gla.s.s of brandy around, his third-a celebration-and continues. "You're to report in when you do. Straight to Rochester Hall."

Rochester Hall. Lord Cranbourne Calthorpe-Gough's home, Chime's home. Where camp is to be set up, where training is to take place, where the troops from Gaul, when they arrive, are to be stationed. Where John and I, as new recruits in the fight to protect Harrow, are to live for the foreseeable future.

"Is Rochester Hall well suited for a camp?" I pick up my bread, tear off a piece. "Does it have adequate grounds? s.p.a.ces for people to live? To train?"

I think of Blackwell's home at Greenwich Tower. Hidden behind forty-foot walls, guarded day and night, protected on one side by the Severn River, on all sides by a moat. And I think of all the magic inside: As much as inside Harrow, I realize now. Magic used to train us, to frighten us, to harden us into soldiers, all done by the hardest and most frightening man I know.

John and Peter exchange amused glances, and I feel my irritation grow.

"Quite so," Peter says. "Fitzroy's grandfather, the Fourth Earl of Abbey, he was a prophetic man. Not a seer, mind, just observant. He foresaw trouble with magic, foresaw that it would no longer be tolerated. He founded Harrow, you see. Most of the land we're living on belongs to the Cranbourne Calthorpe-Goughs."

I'm surprised, though perhaps I shouldn't be, that Chime is heir to all of Harrow.

"Some of it he sold to Nicholas, some to Gareth, and I own some, of course," Peter continues. "But the majority of the men who live in Harrow are tenants. Fitzroy, he's a hard man, but he's a good man. He won't conscript them to fight if they do not wish it."

"Unlike Gareth," John mutters.

Peter nods. "Even so, conscription isn't necessary. We've got plenty of volunteers. Messages have been pouring in all afternoon, since the trial." He gestures to his desk at the stack of letters half a foot high. "Men to hold the line, to stop the attacks until the troops arrive." Peter touches his snifter to John's goblet, a toast. "And a girl, too, of course," he says to me, as if I'm an afterthought.

Finally, it settles into me, with clarity, what I'm angry about: I'm an afterthought in my own fight.

"Of course" is all I can manage.

To an outsider, this exchange is innocent. Pleasant, even. But with the intuition John has, part of that healer's magic he possesses, I know he senses the tension simmering beneath the surface. He's on his feet, a beat before me.

"It's late," John says to Peter, but his eyes are on me. "It's been a long day, and I'm tired. I'm sure Elizabeth is, too."

"I'm fine," I say. "I want to clean up first." Since I arrived at Mill Cottage, and since I've been able to, I've helped Peter and John with the cleaning and cooking. They don't do it, not well anyway, and though they don't ask and most of the time they try and stop me, I do it anyway.

"Leave it," John says. I throw him a sharp look and he adds, "At least until tomorrow. All right? You need to get your rest."

I s.n.a.t.c.h the dishes off the table and stomp into the kitchen with them, ignoring John's advis.e.m.e.nt completely. I don't need to rest. What I need to do is to get strong again, to start training. I need to learn how to fight-and to fight well-without my stigma. I can't do any of that if I'm resting.

Peter and John give me a wide berth, doing and saying nothing as I grab up linens, rattle around cutlery. Finally, I finish. The dining room is clean now, and awkward in its silence. Nothing but the crackle of the fire in the hearth, the ticking of the clock on the mantel, the rustle of branches on the trees against the mullioned windows. I can almost feel the weight of the pair of matching dark eyes on me, watching me.

I don't know what to say to either of them. I'm embarra.s.sed by my outburst, but not enough to apologize for it. Angry, but too much to ask for forgiveness. After a moment I settle on "Good night," pus.h.i.+ng past them both, out of the dining room and into the foyer, then upstairs to my room. Soon enough I hear the creaking of footsteps on the wood staircase, the careful shutting of John's door across the hall from mine. The sound of it is somehow lonely.

I'm not tired, but I change into my nightdress anyway. Something else Fifer gave me: pale green linen with a square neckline and wide sleeves, both trimmed with dark green ribbons. Almost too pretty to sleep in. I move to the dressing table in the corner of the room, sit in front of the mirror. Pull a brush from the drawer and begin to run it through my hair.

Once again, I don't recognize myself. Six weeks ago, I was deadly. Today, I am cautionary. My reflection confirms it: Pale. Fragile. Weak. The loss of my stigma took more than just my strength and my ability to heal-it took away my ident.i.ty. I don't know where to find it, or even where to begin looking.

I cram the brush back into the drawer, slam it shut. As I do, a piece of parchment slips from the bottom, flutters to the floor.

After I woke up but before the weather cleared enough for us to spend our days outside, John and I spent all night writing notes and pa.s.sing them to each other beneath our closed doors. Peter was adamant we not see each other after dark; he still is. But to John's way of thinking, it didn't mean we couldn't speak to each other.

It was simple. He fas.h.i.+oned a loop of twine, one end slipped under my door frame. He had the other end. He'd write me a note, fold it around the twine, then give his end a little tug. I'd reel it around, read it, and write back, then give my own end a little tug. Back the note went. Sometimes we'd have several pieces going at once, so neither of us was waiting on the other.

I pick up the note, unfold it. The page is filled with a series of botanicals, carefully etched and labeled in Latin. Angelica sylvestris, a fine-petaled plant with a spray of white blossoms. Salvia officinalis, a gray-leafed shrub full of deep purple flowers. Berberis vulgaris, another plant marked by spiked leaves and fat red berries. The delicate beauty of each rendering is a stark contrast to John's crooked, nearly illegible scrawl.

He drew them for me, in part, after I teased him about his penmans.h.i.+p. The other reason, he said, was that these were some of the plants he used to heal me. They were beautiful to him, he said, because they brought me back to him.

I drop my head into my hands, the parchment fluttering to the floor. I don't have a lot of experience with what it means to be with someone the way I am with John. None, in fact. I don't know how to navigate waters in which half the time I feel as if I'm drowning. But I do know there are better ways of treating someone who loves you than by flinging beef stew at them, falling into stony silence, then storming out of the room.

A cool breeze snaps in through the open window, rattling it against the frame. I get up to close it, glancing at the dimly lit gardens below. Most of John's carefully cultivated plants are dormant now, pruned back for winter. But the trellis that snakes up the stone wall is choked with winter honeysuckle, wild and flowering, the scent heady even in February.

The trellis.

In less than a minute I'm out the window and over the edge, down the wall and on the ground. A quick glance through the blue-paned window of the front house shows Peter at his desk, busy with his letters. I duck beneath it and pa.s.s to the other side, my bare feet crunching in the narrow gravel pathways until I'm standing in the garden beneath John's window. There's a trellis here, too, full of the same winter honeysuckle.

I start to climb.

Within seconds I'm at the top, peering into his window. John is sitting at his desk, propped up on one elbow, his head resting in his hand, reading. He's tired, I can tell; his eyes are at half-mast and even as I watch him, they slide shut and his head bobs forward.

I tap on the window.

His head snaps up, eyes wide. He glances toward the door.

I tap again.

John whips his head around, catches sight of me outside his window. I smile at the way his jaw drops open, shocked. He's on his feet in an instant, crossing to the window, pulling it open, and tugging me inside. I clamber over the sill, clutching my nightgown around my legs so it won't tangle.

His eyes travel from my hair, loose and hanging around my shoulders, down to my bare, mud-stained feet then back to my face, but not before lingering slightly on the low, square neckline of my nightgown that shows more than it should.

I really should have changed.

"Elizabeth," he starts.

"Before you say anything, I need to talk to you." I step away from him, out of reach of his arms, of the way his s.h.i.+rt is unb.u.t.toned too low, his hair that looks like it's had my hands in it. The way he looks at me, a half smile bordering on a smirk, and the way he smells, lavender and spice and something unmistakably him. My insides do a long, slow twist.

He takes a step closer.

I hold my hand up. "You stay right there. I can't have you distracting me."

John sighs, running a hand through his already-disheveled curls. Then he points at the chair at his desk, the one he was sitting and almost sleeping in moments ago.

"Please, sit."

I do.

"I'm sorry," I say. "For how I acted today. Earlier. Downstairs. You know." I shake my head at the ineptness of my apology.

"It's all right."

"No, it's not," I say. "I was terrible. You didn't do anything. And I never even thanked you for what you did do. Standing up for me at the trial. Agreeing to fight with me. I know it couldn't have been easy."

"You're wrong." John sits on the edge of his mattress facing me, resting his bare feet along the dark wooden bed frame. "It was very easy."

"I know that's what you think now," I say. "But nothing about this is going to be easy."

"I only meant that the decision was."

"You say that only because you have the stigma," I say.

"It has nothing to do with that." John considers. "No, you're right. It has everything to do with it."

"I don't regret giving it to you," I say quickly, before the seed of the idea can take root. "I never regret that."

"But you do regret not having it," he says.

"Yes," I say. And there it falls: the truth. "I would be lying if I said I didn't. It would make what I have to do... doable. Because right now it isn't. Right now it seems impossible."

John falls silent, in the way that tells me he's thinking something he doesn't want to say. So I wait for it. For him to tell me I can't kill Blackwell. To tell me, as he's done so many times before, that it's too dangerous, that I'm not strong enough.

"I know you think I'm going to try to stop you from doing what you want with this," he says finally. "But I'm not."

"You're not?" I enjoy a second of relief before it falls into distress. "Oh. Is that because... you don't want, you know, you, and me, and..."

"No!" He gets to his feet, takes my hand, and pulls me off my chair and onto the bed to sit beside him. "Of course not. That isn't it at all. Do I wish I could lock you away until this is all over? Yes. But you would hate me for it, and anyway, that's not who you are. And I never want you to be anything different."

I blink. "No?"

"No."

"And... that's it?" I say. "No arguments, no fighting?"

John huffs a quiet laugh. "Would you prefer I pull a sword on you? Duel it to the death?" I smile, and he goes on. "I've got your stigma, but I'll be d.a.m.ned if I'm not going to protect you with it. As much as I can, however I can. I won't stop you. But I don't want you to try to stop me, either."

I hesitate, but only for a moment. The conditions of the truce he's offering aren't ideal, but they're unlikely to get any better.

"I guess we're in this together, then."

He grins. "That's what I've been trying to tell you."

I laugh at that. I can't help it.

John s.h.i.+fts a little, moving closer to me. The light in the room is dim, the tired candle on his desk having already extinguished itself. The last one sits on the table beside the bed, the flame bobbing softly in the night breeze. He slides his hand into my hair, cupping my neck, his thumb skimming across my cheek. I lean into him and I don't know who kisses who first but it hardly matters.

We half push, half pull each other down onto the bed. We're tangled together on the sheets, kissing and fumbling and tugging at each other's clothes. I don't remember deciding to take off his s.h.i.+rt but there it is, off. His hand moves to my bare leg, sliding up to my hip and taking my nightgown with it. I let out a little gasp; he kisses me harder.