family. My father had daughters enough without the added trial of trying to marry off one who wears a boy’s haircut.”
“I would have taken care of you, Liz. Of your whole family.”
“Oh, aye. My whole family. And the cousins, Jav? And their babies? And the hangers-on and the families down the block who were related by blood three generations back? Until you had all the poor of Lutetia in your chambers, maybe. Maybe then you’d understand what you can’t. It isn’t your fault, Jav. You come from places that are too high.”
“And you won’t let me walk in the low ones, Liz.”
“No,” Eliza agreed. “Because you can’t save us all. You can’t even save one of us.”
He reached out to touch her hair again. “I saved you.”
“And my mother and three sisters died, Jav. Sacha and Marius should never have brought me to the palace.”
“You had the fever, Eliza. What were they to do, let you die? They would have brought you all. They say your mother refused. That she only let them take you because you were so very ill. I remember the second time, too, Liz. You looked so damned fragile, so pale and sick. They were afraid your hair took too much of your strength, and you needed it all to live.”
“And I looked like a shaved skull when I woke up. My mother thought I was Death come knocking on the door when I went home.” Eliza fell silent. “And she was right, Jav. They all died.”
“I would have tried to save them,” Javier whispered. Eliza sighed and put her hand over his. Belinda flinched, feeling the warmth of the woman’s hand on hers, and jerked her gaze to her own hand before looking back toward Javier and Eliza.
Eliza had long fingers, her hands nearly as big as the prince’s, for all that he was a half-hand taller than she. He turned his palm up to lace his fingers with hers, holding on hard for the few moments that she let him.
“I know, Jav. But we all have our pride.” She stared down at the river. When she spoke again her voice was carefully neutral. “It left me barren, you know that? The fever. I used to dream of marrying a prince.” Her smile had no humour in it, only years of resigned sadness. “I knew it was only a dream. Royalty doesn’t marry commoners, no matter how pretty they are. But still, I dreamed. Then the month after the fever my blood didn’t come, nor has it in the five years since. Not just common, but common and barren. No dream can survive that.”
“Eliza.” Cold flooded Belinda’s hands, Javier’s horror her own. He tightened his fingers around Eliza’s, uselessly, and she flashed him another sad smile.
“Sacha knows, can you believe that? I got piss drunk a few years ago and he asked me point-blank, I don’t know why. And I told him. Made him swear not to tell you. Then we fucked. It hasn’t happened again, so he thinks I don’t remember, but I do. Nineteen, I was nineteen and despite looking like this,” she jerked her hand from Javier’s so she could gesture at herself, “I was a virgin.”
“Really?” Javier’s voice broke with surprise and he glowered at the black river below. Eliza laughed without real humour.
“Really. I’d wanted-” She shrugged, stiff, and leaned on the railing, her elbows hyperextended with the pressure she put on them. “I’d make a fine rich man’s mistress, Jav.” She strove to keep her voice light, stretching her throat long to do it. “He’d never have to worry about by-blows.”
“You’re better than that, Liz.”
She smiled and turned to him, putting both hands on his chest and patting her fingers against the soft fabric of his doublet. “Yes.” She sighed and dropped her hands a few inches, putting her forehead against his chest for a moment. Then she stepped back, holding her right hand up. Gold coins glittered between her fingers, then jumped as she flipped her hand over and bounced the coins, three of them, across her knuckles. “I am.”
Javier clapped his hand to his purse. “Eliza!”
She laughed, popping the coins over to land stacked in her palm. Javier picked them up, scattering them across his own palm; they were all faceup, all imprinted with the same year. “How do you do that?”
“Practise,” Eliza said with a shrug. She bent her wrist in and fetched a fourth coin from inside of her sleeve, holding it up between two fingers. “Practise and a healthy disregard for other people’s belongings.”
Javier snatched the coin out of her fingers, grinning. “Are there more?”
Eliza spread her arms. “You’ll have to look.”
“Eliza…”
She dropped her hands and shrugged. “It’s your coin, Jav. I don’t mind making it my own. Call it the cost of setting me on your lover.”
“You’ll do it, then.”
She eyed him, turning back to the river. “Sacha told on me, didn’t he. He told you my father found out what I’d been doing.”
“Yes.” Javier put his backside against the railing and studied his feet.
Eliza’s mouth quirked and she shook her head. “Darling Sacha. I don’t need your protection, Jav. I have enough money hidden away to make a fine life for myself.”
“And yet you don’t do it.”
“Of course not. Your mother would never approve.”
Javier frowned. “What?”
“Come on, Jav. Your streetside friend suddenly makes good? All of Lutetia would think I’d given into your wiles and you were putting me up in style. The prince’s mistress.”
“Is it such a terrible facade?”
“No.” Eliza pressed her lips together, leaning more heavily over the river. “But I won’t climb the ranks on rumour of royal bed, Jav. I’ll find a way by myself or not at all.”
“Let me help. Take the position in Beatrice’s house. It’s a place to begin, Liz.”
“You’re a hard man to say no to, Prince Javier.”
“I know.” He bumped his hip against hers, smiling. “And you won’t, will you?”
Eliza’s shoulders dropped. “I’m not a lady, Jav.”
“You will be.” Javier twisted to put his arm around Eliza’s waist, kissing her temple. Belinda felt a sigh go through him, relief that the argument had ended without him making his plea an order. Below that lay gladness, not just that Eliza had agreed, but that he’d spoken earlier with Belinda, choosing his battles in the right order. Not, Belinda knew, that she could have refused the prince any more easily than Eliza could have. “I have to get back,” he murmured against Eliza’s hair. “Someone will miss me.”
“She’ll miss you.”
“No. I only spend the night with one woman at a time. She’s not in my chambers tonight. Tonight was yours.”
“Charmer.” Eliza turned her head to kiss his cheek. “Good night, my prince.”
Javier left her on the bridge, less alone than either of them might think. Eliza watched the river until the bells tolled the half hour after Javier’s departure, nothing of her emotions readable to Belinda’s weary investigations. Only when Eliza slipped away did she let the power go, staggering under the onslaught of stars after so many hours hidden in shadow. She reached for the railing, leaned heavily on it, forcing herself to shallow gasps when she wanted to drag in half-panicked lungsful of air. It would not do, would not do, to show weakness from use of power. Belinda curled her lip, barely an expression on the outside, but focusing all her remaining strength through it, forcing all her disdain at her own faltering vigor into it. A lifetime’s training straightened her spine, steadied her breathing even when her legs trembled and her heartbeat scampered with speed and lack of air. This was what the stillness was for: to forbid anything external from seeing her frailty. The stillness had nothing to do with the power she’d used to excess; it was her own gift to herself, studied and learned. The witchpower might enhance it, but the stillness was not born of the witchpower, and Belinda would not allow herself to soften in its use now. She spread her fingers against the bridge railing, light gentle touch that forbade her leaning, and slipped a smile into place as she gazed out over the quiet water.
No wall stood in her mind any longer, the odd, inexplicable flavour of her father washed away, his barricade destroyed. The desire to act was no longer separate from the ability to do so, golden strength finally her own. What was left of it? The day’s exercise had drained that pool so thoroughly she could only feel the emptiness where it belonged. She cupped her hands together as if she would call the witchlight to her, but in truth made no
