At that she smiled, almost laughed. "You've made me feel better. I thank you."
He gave her her hands back then, carefully, as if he were afraid they might drop to the roof and shatter. He smiled at her softly.
"You never used to look at me straight, but now you do," she said, because she remembered it, and was curious.
He shrugged. "You weren't real to me then."
She wrinkled her forehead. "What does that mean?"
"Well, you used to overwhelm me. But now I've got used to you."
She blinked, surprised into silence by her own foolish pleasure at his words; and then laughed at herself for being pleased with the suggestion that she was ordinary.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The next morning Fire walked to Nash's office with Musa, Mila, and Neel to meet the royal siblings and Archer.
The gala was only weeks away and the extent of Fire's involvement in the assassination plan was a matter of ongoing debate. To Fire's mind it was simple. She should be the assassin in all three cases because she was far more likely than anyone else to be able to lure each victim to a solitary and unguarded place, and she might also manage to learn a great deal from them before killing them.
But when she stated her case Garan argued that Fire was no sword fighter, and if any of the three proved to be strong-minded she would end up on someone's blade. And Clara did not want the assassin to be a person with no killing experience. "You'll hesitate," Clara said today. "When you see what it really means to stick a knife in someone's chest, you won't be able to do it."
Fire knew herself to be more experienced than anyone in this room save Archer realised. "It's true I won't want to do it," she responded calmly, "but when I have to, I will do it."
Archer was fuming darkly in a corner. Fire ignored him, for she knew the futility of appealing to him – especially these days, when his attitude toward her ranged from high dudgeon to shame, because her sympathies and her time were tied up with Mila, and he sensed it, and resented it, and knew it was his own fault.
"We can't send a novice to kill three of our most fearsome enemies," Clara said again.
For the first time since the topic had been broached, Brigan was present in person to convey his opinion. He leaned a shoulder against the wall, arms crossed. "But it's obvious she must be involved," he said. "I don't think Gentian'll give her much resistance, and Gunner's clever, but ultimately he's led by his father. Murgda may prove difficult, but we're desperate to learn what she knows – where Mydogg's hiding his army, in particular – and Lady Fire is the person most qualified for that job. And," he said, raising his eyebrows to stop Clara's objections, "the lady knows what she's capable of. If she says she'll go through with it, she will."
Archer wheeled on Brigan then, snarling, for his mood had found what it was looking for: an outlet that was not Fire. "Shut up, Archer," Clara said blandly, cutting him off before he even began.
"It's too dangerous," Nash said from his desk, where he sat gazing worriedly at Fire. "You're the swordsman, Brigan. You should do it."
Brigan nodded. "All right, well, what if the lady and I did it together? She to get them to a private place and question them, and I to kill them, and protect her."
"Except that I'll find it much harder to trick them into trusting me if you're there," Fire said.
"What if I hid?"
Archer had been approaching Brigan slowly from across the room, and now he stood before the prince, barely seeming to breathe. "You've no compunctions whatsoever about putting her in danger," he said. "She's a tool to you and you're heartless as a rock."
Fire's temper flared. "Don't you call him heartless, Archer. He's the only person here who believes me."
"Oh, I believe you can do it," Archer said, his voice filling the corners of the room like a hiss. "A woman who can stage the suicide of her own father can certainly kill a few Dellians she's never met."
It was as if time slowed down, and everyone else in the room disappeared. There was only Fire, and Archer before her. Fire gaped at Archer, disbelieving, and then understanding, like coldness that starts in your extremities and seeps to your core, that he truly had just said aloud the words she'd thought she'd heard.
And Archer gaped back, just as stunned. He slumped, blinking back tears. "Forgive me, Fire. I wish it unsaid."
But she thought it through in slow time, and understood that it couldn't be unsaid. And it was less that he'd exposed the truth, and more the way he'd exposed it. He'd accused her, he who knew all that she felt. He'd taunted her with her own shame.
"I'm not the only one who's changed," she whispered, staring at him. "You've changed too. You've never been cruel to me before."
She turned, still with that sense that time had slowed. She glided out of the room.
Time caught up with Fire in the frozen gardens of the green house, where it occurred to her after a single shivering minute that she had a compulsive inability to remember her coat. Musa, Mila, and Neel stood quietly around her.
She sat on a bench under the big tree, great round tears seeping down her cheeks and plopping into her lap. She took the handkerchief Neel offered. She looked into the faces of her guard, one after the other. She was searching their eyes to see if behind the quiet of their minds they were horrified, now that they knew.
Each of them looked calmly back. She saw that they were not horrified. They met her eyes with respect.
It struck her that she was very lucky in her life's people, that they should not mind the company of a monster so unnatural that she'd murdered her only family.
A thick, wet snow began to fall, and finally the side door of the green house opened. Bundled in a cloak, Brigan's housekeeper, Tess, marched out to her. "I suppose you intend to freeze to death under my nose," the woman snapped. "What's wrong with you?"
Fire looked up without much interest. Tess had soft green eyes, deep as two pools of water, and angry. "I murdered my father," Fire said, "and pretended it was a suicide."
Clearly, Tess was startled. She crossed her arms and made indignant noises, determined, it seemed, to disapprove. And then all at once she softened, like a clump of snow in a thaw that collapses from a roof, and shook her head, bewildered. "That does change things. I suppose the young prince'll be telling me, "I told you so'. Well, look at you, child – soaked right through. Pretty as a sunset, but no brain in your head. You didn't get that from your mother. You may as well come inside."
Fire was mildly dumbfounded. The little woman pulled her under the cloak and pushed her into the house.
The Queen's House – for Fire reminded herself that this was Roen's house, not Brigan's – seemed a good place to soothe an unhappy soul. The rooms were small and cozy, painted soft greens and blues and full of soft furniture, the fireplaces huge, the January fires in them roaring. It was obvious a child lived here, for her school papers and balls and mittens and playthings, and Blotchy's nondescript chewed-up belongings, had found their way into every corner. It was less obvious Brigan lived here, though there were clues for the discerning observer. The blanket Tess wrapped Fire in looked suspiciously like a saddle blanket.
Tess sat Fire on a sofa before the fireplace, and her guard in armchairs around their lady. She gave all of them cups of hot wine. She sat with them, folding a pile of very small shirts.