Once, I might have called Ordorio’s house gloomy. We poked our noses into portrait galleries lined with people frowning out from cracked paint and heavy wooden frames. And perhaps the tapestries had once been vibrant and beautiful, but now they were faded, slowly disintegrating on the walls. I suspected most of the furniture had been built by people wearing starched ruffs, who did not want their descendants to be any more comfortable than they were.
Nevertheless, there was a difference between a house full of mold and uncomfortable furniture and a beautiful house where sad secrets permeated the very walls. The absence of taxidermy was a comfort, and I saw very little evidence of sorcery. Ordorio probably had a library somewhere where he kept his books and artifacts, but it wasn’t spilling all over the house like a warning that someone dangerous dwelt here.
“More paintings!” Erris said with dismay, pushing open the next door. “Were his parents art collectors?”
“With rather poor taste,” I said. The men had beady black eyes and fiercely pointed beards, and the women fared no better; unnaturally rosy cheeks and huge bosoms seemed the fashion.
“They must have brought them over from the Old World,” Erris said. “These are no doubt heirlooms, but nevertheless I feel sorry for him if these are his ancestors. And I’m not looking for paintings.”
I would have been happy to stroll the moldy old portrait gallery with Erris, making jokes about the antique faces, laughing in the intimacy of shadows. “What are you looking for, then?”
“A piano, of course.”
“Did you ask Celestina if there is one?”
“No, I like the hunt. I wonder what’s up these stairs?”
I hoisted the lantern. “Let’s see.”
Erris followed, briefly grabbing my elbow with a steady hand when I stumbled on a crooked step. “I feel like a bandit, snooping around without anyone who lives here,” he said.
“I’m glad we can snoop. Clearly, there’s nothing to hide around here.” In Hollin’s house, I had found Annalie’s hidden quarters on the third floor.
But most of the doors on the third floor here were locked. I rattled them all stubbornly, trying to force them open, until Erris pulled me away. “These are probably Ordorio’s quarters. I’ll bet he locks them to keep Violet from poking around with magic. I wouldn’t worry about it. Although, if
Not long after, we found the piano. It was not far from the dining room; we had just ventured in the wrong direction. Music has an uncanny ability to chase away misery, at least for a time.
“It’s in tune too,” Erris said. “Whoever Ordorio is, I could kiss him.”
“That wouldn’t be fair. You haven’t even kissed me yet.”
He smiled slightly, which wasn’t really the response I yearned for, and left me feeling silly for attempting flirtation.
He played a few notes. “How about it, Nim? ‘In Springtime Blooms the Rose’?”
I laughed. “Anything but that!” That had been one of the only songs he could play when he was stiff clockwork trapped at a piano, and it was hardly cheerful under any circumstance, about a man who goes to war, leaves his love behind, and never returns.
“I should learn to play the songs that you know from your home,” Erris said.
“It seems we have all winter. I can teach some of them to you.”
He played a soft little tune, his long fingers light across the keys. I sat on the edge of the piano bench, like I used to when he was trapped. I loved to watch his hands move freely.
We had fallen in love without being able to say much to each other. I think it was still hard for him to say the things in his heart. Jokes came easier. But he could speak through the piano, even now. His song remained slow, and it grew more melancholy. It could be that I ascribed things to the music that he didn’t mean, but I didn’t think so. I heard his regret that things had gone this way for him and for us. I heard him miss his family. I heard his desperation and his fear.
If he would share all of this with me, it couldn’t be hopeless for us. Not quite.
He began to sing quietly in another language, the foreign syllables rolling soft from his tongue. The notes sounded like winter, beautiful but cold. And then he sang,
He stopped. “I’m winding down,” he said. “Time for bed.”
We stood. “Good night.”
He left without waiting for me, without lantern light. I did not go to bed right away, but sat at the piano for long moments, my mind full of equal parts waking dreams and nightmares.
Chapter 6
I woke to a foggy morning, with the tops of evergreens just piercing the gray blanket out my window. It felt more cozy than gloomy. I exchanged my nightgown for a dress from my trunk and went to wake Erris, key in hand.
But when I walked into his room, Violet was there breathing raggedly over Erris’s body. She snatched her hands to herself like I had just caught her at something.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded.
“I wanted to see you wind him.” Violet pulled her oversize robe closer around her neck. The collar touched her cheeks. “He
“What makes you think he would want you to see him wound?” I said sternly. “He wishes no one had to wind him at all. The least you could do is ask him first!” I was ashamed for Erris, and perhaps in some way, ashamed for myself. I never forgot that I was the one who had done this to him. My anger overflowed, but a wave of sense rushed in behind and stayed my hand.
She seemed taken aback by my emotion. “I don’t see what the trouble is,” she said, sounding haughty but still hesitating.
“Because,” I said, “how would you like it if you couldn’t wake up in the morning until someone wound you? How would you like it if beneath your clothes, you weren’t flesh and blood? Would you want people to know, and look at you? Would you feel like yourself?”
She glanced quickly at the keyhole in Erris’s back, and her lips pinched in. She tossed her head and left the room at a hurried shuffle. She ought not to even be out of bed, I thought. But if she wanted to constantly endanger herself, well, I didn’t care.
I frowned. It was true-no one would care if she endangered herself except her absent father. She likely never left this house, and never had visitors. Violet was as much a secret as Annalie had been, except she had no spirits to keep her company.
Well… that wasn’t my affair either.
I found Celestina in the kitchens, wearing a linen shirt, men’s trousers, and boots, which she nearly jumped out of when I said good morning.
“My goodness. You scared me. I’m not fit for company yet.”
I smiled. “I don’t care. Where I’m from, girls, even queens, wear trousers. Of course, they’re more likely to be made from colorful silk than brown wool, but either way, I don’t care if you dress like that all day.”
“Really?” Celestina flipped her frying bacon. “Because, when Mr. Valdana’s gone, this is exactly what I do wear all day. You know how long it took me to come to the door when you first knocked? It’s because I was scrambling into a dress.” She laughed.
