The Scorpio Races

badly.

Which means we sit in silence some more, the storm wind cutting through my blanket and my hat and ruffling the pages of my notes. I reach into my pack and take one of the precious November cakes – still warm – and offer it to Sean.

He takes the cake without saying thank you. But the thank-you is somehow implied. I’m not sure how he does it, because I wasn’t looking at him to see his face when he took it.

After a moment, he says, “Do you see the black mare? Falk’s? She’s excited to chase. If she were mine, I’d keep her just behind the lead so she’d stay motivated. Make my move late.”

I frown down at the beach, trying to see what he sees. The beach is a mess of fake races and aborted gallops. I find Tommy and his black mare and watch them for a moment. She’s a fine-legged thing for a capall uisce, and when she steps, her head bobs just a bit when her left rear hoof touches the ground. “Also,” I say, because I have to say something, “she is a bit lame in the left rear.”

“The right, I think,” Sean Kendrick says, but then he corrects himself. “No, left, you’re right.”

And I feel pleased, although he is only agreeing with what I already knew.

Now I feel brave enough to ask him, “Why aren’t you riding?” I look at him, too, when I ask, studying his sharp profile. His eyes jerk back and forth, following the movements down below, though the rest of him stays motionless.

“Racing is about more than riding.”

“What are you watching for?”

There is, again, a tremendously long pause between my question and his answer, and I think that he’ll just not reply, and then I think that maybe I only thought the question and didn’t actually say it, and then I consider that possibly it had been somehow insulting though by now I can’t remember exactly what it was that I said to double- check my words to be sure.

And that’s when Sean says, “I want to know who’s afraid of the water. I want to know who can track straight. I want to know who will tear Corr apart as soon as overtake him. I want to know who can’t hold their horses. I want to know how they like to run. I want to know who’s lame in the left rear. I want to know how the beach has worn this year. I want to know what the race will look like before it’s run.”

Down below, the piebald mare screams, loud enough that we both hear it, even up here on the cliff. I can’t believe that last night I was regretting not taking her on when I had the chance. I follow Sean’s gaze.

“And,” I say, “you think the piebald mare is something to be watched out for.”

“By you and me both.”

Just then, the piebald mare surges forward, exploding along the line of the aggressive surf. She angles sharply toward the sea and jerks back toward the cliff again as quickly. She is so fast that she’s gotten to the end of usable beach before I’ve thought to look at my stopwatch.

“Your brother is going to the mainland,” Sean says.

I hold my breath in my mouth for a long moment, and finally say, “Right after the races.” There’s no point in treating it as a secret; everyone knows. He already heard me talking about it with Gratton in the truck.

“And you’re not going with him.”

I’m about to answer he didn’t ask but I realize before I do that that’s not the reason, anyway. I’m not following him because this is home, and everywhere else isn’t. “No.”

“Why aren’t you going?”

The question infuriates me. I demand, “Why is it that going away is the standard? Does anyone ask you why you stay, Sean Kendrick?”

“They do.”

“And why do you?”

“The sky and the sand and the sea and Corr.”

It’s a lovely answer and takes me entirely by surprise. I hadn’t realized we were having a serious conversation, or I think I would’ve given a better reply when he asked me. I’m surprised, too, by him including his stallion in his list. I wonder if, when I talk about Dove, people can hear how I love her the way that I can hear his fondness for Corr in his voice. It’s hard for me to imagine loving a monster, though, no matter how beautiful he is. I remember what the old man said in the butcher’s, about Sean Kendrick having one foot on land and one foot in the sea.

Maybe you need a foot in the sea to be able to see beyond your horse’s bloodlust.

“It’s about wanting,” I say eventually, after some considering. “The tourists always seem to want something. On Thisby, it’s less about wanting, and more about being.” I wonder after I say it if he’ll think I sound like I have no drive or ambition. I suppose in comparison to him it must seem that way. I seem at once cursed to say precisely what I’m thinking to him and unable to tell what he thinks about it.

He says nothing at all. We watch the horses mill and surge below us. Finally, he says, not looking at me, “They’ll still try to keep you off the beach. It won’t have ended last night.”

“I don’t understand why.”

“When the races are about proving something about yourself to others, the people you beat are as important as the horse you ride.” His eyes don’t leave the piebald.

“But that’s not what they’re about for you.”

Sean pushes up to his feet and stands there. I look at his dirty boots. Now I’ve offended him, I think. He says, “Other people have never been important to me, Kate Connolly. Puck Connolly.”

I tip my face up to look at him, finally. The blanket falls off my shoulders, and my hat, too, loosened by the wind. I can’t read his expression – his narrow eyes make it difficult. I say, “And now?”

Kendrick reaches to turn up the collar on his jacket. He doesn’t smile, but he’s not as close to frowning as usual. “Thanks for the cake.”

Then he strides off across through the grass, leaving me with my pencil touching my paper. I feel like I’ve learned something important about the race to come, but I’ve no idea how to write it down.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

SEAN

The first thing I do when I get back to the yard is search for Benjamin Malvern. I feel the same slanting, groundless sensation that I felt while training Fundamental, after encountering Puck for the first time. That I felt after the mare goddess told me to make another wish. I’d never realized how changeless this changeable island was until it turned into something different than I’d ever known.

I find Malvern at the gallops with two men at his elbow. He’s got his head jutted forward like he does when he’s with buyers, as if he can bully them into buying. The other two men are standing huddled; they look cold and damp, cats left out in the wet.

The first thing I notice when I draw closer is the filly they’re looking at: Malvern Mettle, a filly with promising speed and heart. She’s generally willing to do more than she’s able, which is always better than the opposite.

The next thing I notice is that one of the buyers is George Holly. When he sees me, realization dawns on his expression. He says something to the other buyer and then to Malvern. Malvern nods his head, smiling but looking like he’s unhappy about it. He points them back toward the house, and George Holly shepherds the other buyer in that direction.

As we pass, Holly juts his hand out in my direction and says, “Sean Kendrick, right? Happy morning.”

I allow him to shake my hand as if we are strangers and I raise an eyebrow at his guile. Then he and the other buyer are gone, leaving me to Malvern.

I join Malvern by the rail of the gallop. He frowns in the direction of Mettle. One of the grooms is riding her, and she’s playing and lazy. Mettle’s got a peculiarly ugly face – ugliness and coarseness are traits that for some reason seem to accompany the fastest of the thoroughbreds – and right now she is flipping up her mule-like upper lip as she gallops. The groom’s not taking her to task, either; I’m not sure if he just doesn’t know what she’s normally capable of doing or if he’s disinterested. But either way, Mettle is taking him for a walk in the park.