She took off her boots and carrying them in one hand and her bulging satchel in the other, she tiptoed up the stairs to her bedroom. The door was unlatched and Yvienne felt a twinge of worry. Not that Alinesse had ever been so maternal as to creep in and check on her sleeping daughters, not even when they were children, but this would have been the night she would have felt the need to, and she would have found one daughter missing.
Or rather, both daughters. Even in the dark, Yvienne could tell at once that she was alone in the room. She lit a small candle stub and set it in the candleholder. The flickering light confirmed what she knew – two cleverly disguised lumps under the bedclothes. Tesara had flown the coop too. She, however, had not left a note.
Just as well, Yvienne thought. She set to work, hiding the pistol with its mate under her side of the mattress, along with her ill-gotten gains. She shed her clothes and shoved them to the back of the wardrobe, frowning as her fingers encountered a soft package. But she was cold and tired, and her whole body and soul wanted nothing but rest and sleep. She would ask Tesara about it in the morning. Yvienne got into her night gown and her socks, pulled on her cap, and snuggled down into the cold bed.
Drat Tesara, she thought, even as she yawned. Now it would take forever to warm up enough to go to…
Tesara rapped the front panel of the coach and the coach drew up. In a moment the Saint Frey coachman came round and opened the door.
“Thank you ever so much. I can walk from here,” Tesara told the man as they reached Emery Place. It was but a few minutes’ walk to Kerwater. She had no wish for him to tell Jone where she lived.
“Are you sure, miss?” the coachman said. “It’s a cold night and you don’t want to be out by yourself.”
It was kindly meant, but Tesara detected a busybody edge to the man’s voice.
“It’s not far,” she told him. “I live on a cul-de-sac, and it’s difficult to turn and back a coach. Our coachman curses it terribly,” she added. He raised a skeptical eye – then why didn’t your coachman drive you to the party? And you live in this part of the city, no less? – but, evidently used to the vagaries of young ladies, he didn’t argue. He rolled out the step and gave her his hand.
The city was dark and foggy here, with the clamor of fire wagons and constables muted in the distance. She watched the coach roll off into the fog, disappearing into the lamplit mist. Then she gathered her skirts and hurried home, wishing nothing more than to be in her bed and to forget the last few minutes at the party.
After her moment of shock at coming face to face with Trune, she had closed her eyes and continued to hug Jone and Mirandine, and when she opened them again, Trune was out of her line of sight. She knew better than to think that he had disappeared entirely. She stayed by Jone’s side until her coach came, and then he handed her in, and she waved to him and Mirandine until she couldn’t see them any more. With her heart in her mouth, she settled back into the coach, the warm brick at her feet, and wished that she could rid herself of the sick, unsettling lump in the pit of her stomach.
Trune had recognized her, that much she was sure of. He knew she had posed as a servant, and he would gleefully use that against her and the family. I need my powers back, she thought. I need them to protect my family.
As if in response to her desperation, or perhaps because she was a bit drunk, entirely tired, and despairing, she felt a tiny frisson of energy rise out of her fingertips. A promise – or a tantalizing reminder of what she had lost?
Tesara groped for the key hidden in the crack in the doorjamb, and let herself into the kitchen. She hurried up the stairs, stumbling a little as her feet slid inside the shoes. Some of the cotton had escaped, and they were once more too big for her. At the noise, she heard someone – her father or her uncle – snort and then snore once again. A bed creaked as someone turned over. She waited, barely breathing, until all was silent.
Then Tesara was in her room. She could feel the presence of Yvienne, lying on her side, a dark lump under the covers. Tesara undressed quickly, tumbling the gown into the back of the wardrobe, telling herself she would shake it out and blot it the next morning. Shivering, she got into her nightgown, socks, and bed cap, and slid into the other side of the bed. Moving as silently as possible, she stuffed Mirandine’s purse under her side of the mattress.
The bed was warm from Yvienne’s body heat. Her sister said not one word, by which Tesara knew she was wide awake and had heard everything.
“Yes,” Tesara said out loud, her voice just above a whisper so as not to travel beyond their small, damp bedroom. “You do have a lot explaining to do.”
There was a pause, and then
