“Goodbye? I’ve only just returned. I’ve got thirty more days here at home before I have to go study with the Archons. I wanted to go over every detail of the Testing with you.”
He lets go of me. “It’s not you that’s leaving. It’s me. Your parents were kind to let me stay until you got back. Tomorrow, I go home to the Boundary lands. Until my reassignment, at least.”
“No! I have so much I want to talk with you about. How can they do that?”
“It is their right within The Lex, Eva. You know that. They did me a kindness to let me stay so long. So I could attend the Gathering every day, to hear about your progress.”
I know he’s right, even though it seems unfair. On impulse, I hug him. He is stiff at first. But then he relents and hugs me back. As we separate, I notice a corner of the Apple altar peeking out from my pack at the bottom of the sealskin heap. I must not have closed up the pack all the way. Surreptitiously, I try to kick it back under the pile.
“What is that, Eva?”
“Just some junk from my Testing gear.”
He tries to walk toward it, but I stand between him and the pile. “I wouldn’t get too close. My Testing clothes don’t smell too fresh.” I try to distract him with a joke.
As he leans over to touch the altar, I pull away his hand.
“Stop, Lukas,” I warn him.
It’s only the third time I’ve ever ordered him to do anything, even though he’s technically my servant. Behind his usual mask, his eyes flicker with disbelief.
When he tries again, I lunge for the altar and clutch it in my arms. I can feel the altar gleam in the lamplight of my bedroom, surreal and almost magical amidst the ice-solid world of the Aerie. Lukas is staring at it.
“It’s an Apple altar, isn’t it?” he whispers.
“How do you know?” Very few people have ever seen one, even in a textbook. And Lukas doesn’t read our Latin.
“I know a lot more about Apple altars than you think.”
I glare at him. All of a sudden he feels like a stranger. Yet I am more angry at him than scared of his terrifying boast. “Like what?”
“It wouldn’t be safe for me to tell you. Please turn it over, Eva.”
“No. It’s mine. I mean, it was Elizabet’s. And I can’t turn it over to the Triad because I didn’t find it until the Testing was already over. You know what they could do to me.”
He turns to me, his eyes sharp. “I don’t mean for you to turn it over to the Triad. I mean for you to turn it over to me, Eva. Please.” Despite his use of the word “please,” he isn’t asking me. He is commanding me.
I step away from him. Why is he speaking to me this way? “You? Why would I give it to you? If anyone, I should give it to the Triad.”
He draws very, very close to me. His chest and broad shoulders are an ice wall. “Don’t you understand that I am acting for your own safety? Have I ever asked you to do anything that wasn’t for your protection?”
I shake my head, unable to speak.
“Then please trust me.”
“I’m not the same naive Maiden who left for the Testing, Lukas,” I whisper. “I’m stronger than I was before and smarter, too. I’m not going to just hand this Apple altar over to you just because you protected me in the past. I want a reason.”
Lukas hesitates. “That Apple altar isn’t what you think it is, Eva. If you let me have it until a bell after dawn, I promise you that I will reveal its secrets to you. Elizabet’s secrets.”
Elizabet’s secrets? What in the Gods is he talking about?
I hear my father yell up the stairs. “Eva, your guests await you.”
I am at a loss. I need to understand what Lukas is talking about, but I know if I don’t go downstairs right now, someone will come up after me. And they’ll stumble upon so many violations of The Lex that I’ll be stripped of my victory and sentenced to death. I want to trust Lukas. Eamon trusted him implicitly. I relied on Lukas utterly in the Testing.
Then again, I trusted Jasper, and he turned out to be less than completely honest with me. And now Lukas, who’s been the only reliable presence in my life, suddenly possesses secret and blasphemous knowledge. But more disturbing, he seems very afraid for me, more afraid than he ever was when we prepared for the Testing. And the stakes are incredibly high; this is Elizabet and her Apple altar that we’re talking about. So I ask him the one question for which I still have time.
“Are you suggesting that my Chronicle was wrong?” I ask.
“I wish that was all, Eva.”
XXXVII: Aprilus 28 Year 242, A.H.
I descend the stairs to the solar with a heavy heart. I wanted to feel light and joyful, if only for this one night. Now that Lukas has the Apple altar, he has taken any possibility of joy from me. Maybe forever. But the Feast awaits and I slip back into my Maiden role, as if I’d never gone beyond the Ring. I smile demurely at the compliments of my aunts and uncles. I kneel for the Basilikon’s blessing with the anointed Healing waters. I stand by as glass after glass of mead is lifted in toasts to my victory. I watch as our guests shovel mouthfuls of glorious abundant food into themselves. And I stand by and listen to my Relics and my Chronicle become legend.
It sounds as if everyone believes they know my Elizabet. They talk about her life so proprietarily, as if she was their discovery instead of mine. It bristles, and I unconsciously touch the amulet hidden under my dress bodice.
“Is there a fray in the stitching, dear?” My mother asks. Nothing escapes her prying eyes. I’d been so distracted by my encounter with Lukas that I’d forgotten to thank my mother for the gown. “Oh no, Mother. It’s gorgeous. How can I thank you?”
“Just being here today, looking so lovely and alive, is my thanks,” she says, very kindly and gently. So unlike her old self.
I feel a sudden surge of sympathy for my mother, and I squeeze her hand tight. “Well, I do thank you. I feel like a true Lady.”
She smiles and squeezes my hand back. “You look like one.”
The Feast conversation grows lively, and my mother and I turn to a very animated Jasper. He’s regaling the guests with tales from the Testing, injecting levity into moments I remember more darkly. I take a tick to steal a glance at Lukas. He stands against the wall with the other Attendants as if nothing passed between us, just waiting to serve us as if it were any other day. How can he be so implacable, when my own stomach roils and my heart pounds at the thought of Elizabet’s secrets? Should I really have trusted him enough to hand over my Apple altar? I can’t go back now.
I hear the words “musk ox” being bandied about, and it catches my attention. Seeing my gaze, Jasper smiles at me, and continues his story, “So, I watch as Eva hauls the thing out the Taiga by herself. A musk ox!”
One of my aunts gasps. Our other guests squeal in laughter at the thought of Maidenly Eva dragging one of New North’s hugest creatures out of the forest, alone. I smile along with them, but it feels strange. Almost as if the Testing had been created solely for New North’s entertainment. I wonder what the families of Tristan and Anders are doing right now. Surely not laughing.
The Attendants serve honey and fruit and cakes, usually my favorites. I’m sure my mother ordered them as a special treat for me, but they taste too sweet. False on my tongue. I push the delicacies around on my plate until the bell before the Evensong rings.
All the guests rise, even the Lexors, Archons, and Basilikons who don’t need to leave follow the bells. I guess everyone in New North is used to having their days structured by the Campana. As I take my place at the front door to say my farewell, I realize that everyone’s waiting in line to receive my blessings—not my father’s. In the course of one day, power has shifted from my father to me. Me. Eva. It’s too weird.