Holding the Mask of Léon firmly, she began to bounce-skip toward the station. It was a tired time of night, an hour or more before dawn, and the island far less crowded than it had been during her arrival mid-evening. A few drifts of weary revellers stumbled toward the entrance to the train station. Others would wait in sheltered seating areas for the return of normal gravity, which would be swiftly followed by the arrival of autocarriages.
Rian was being followed. She knew it even before her perception of the Great Forest strengthened, and she clicked her tongue in exasperation. Probably they hoped for exactly what she carried curled in her right hand: shell-like silvery disks that had been given to her when she left the Towers in exchange for her remaining Tears. She was not overly concerned about defending herself, but a snatch-and-grab might leave the Mask of Léon damaged.
Warmth dropped over her shoulders. Startled, Rian turned to find a black cat mask atop familiar brown curls.
"There was no need to wait out here in the chill, Étienne."
"You know Tante Sabet as well as I, and yet you say that," he said, fussing briefly with the set of his coat around her. "And they wouldn’t let me wait inside the train station. You have it, then."
Rian glanced down at the Mask of Léon, then said: "Let’s get out of the wind."
"I do not ask. Remark on that, for it is a feat of restraint."
Étienne swayed, reoriented himself, and managed a slow wallow toward the train station. The true feat was that he’d managed to stay upright with that much brandy in him.
Even so, Rian no longer felt she was being pursued, and reflected on the value of a visible escort as she steered him down the station ramp and watched him doze during the journey southwest. He roused a little to transfer to an autocarriage, and then slept on her shoulder until they arrived back at the Hotel Lourien.
The front door flew open as they pulled up, and Martine, two porters, and a highly unimpressed Tante Sabet – who was not technically supposed to even know about this expedition, but of course had found out – swarmed over them.
Tante Sabet took one look at the little collection of masks resting on Rian’s lap, sniffed, and then told the porters: "Put him in fifteen."
"Good morning, Tante Sabet," Rian said, demurely, but although she earned a second sniff, there was no sharp-tongued lecture. Rian, after all, was a paying guest.
No, this time Tante Sabet would reserve her lectures for Martine, and Martine would accept that as just, and not mind very much. Perhaps she would not even notice.
"You look worn to the bone," Rian said, accepting Martine’s hand out of the autocarriage. "A night of worry costs more than a thousand dances."
"I should never have let you go," Martine said, looking Rian up and down as if expecting to discover some great wound from an evening of veiled revelry.
"You know I quite like dancing," Rian reminded her.
Tante Sabet had taken care of paying the driver, and Rian smiled her thanks, since Tante Sabet’s disapproval of the Gilded Court was genuine and deeply ingrained. The cost would appear on Rian’s bill later, of course, but it was still a large concession.
"We might, I think, need to postpone the review of the twins' birthday arrangements," she said. "Perhaps this evening?"
"Bah. You think I need your advice? Even Prytennian chits are no great mystery."
"You were a girl once, after all," Étienne put in brightly, then lapsed wisely back into unconsciousness as the porters carried him away.
Rian followed their lead, and let Martine help her up the stairs, although she was feeling well enough. Even her feet had stopped hurting.
"You had best get this back where it belongs," she said, pressing the Mask of Léon into Martine’s hands as soon as they were in the privacy of her room.
"When you have told me everything," Martine said, firmly, following Rian to her bathroom.
"Everything would take a long time," Rian said, "and you were worried about your supervisor’s early arrival at the museum. Besides, all I am going to do is sleep – after I wake whoever is in the pipes room." Ruthlessly she twisted taps and heard, distantly, the banging that had been the bane of many of her nights.
"Did he return it willingly?"
Rian wished she could ignore the small, unhappy question, but she had learned long ago that lying about Henri did not help Martine in the least.
"He had lost it in a game, but I won it back," she said. "Perhaps he would have simply given it up, if he’d still had it. But knowing Henri, I doubt it."
She stripped off her four layers of expensive tissue and draped them over a rail, knowing she couldn’t hold back another important detail.
"I extracted a promise from him, under the rules of Forfeit," she said at last, as she stepped into steaming water. "To stay out of Milo’s career."
"What?" Martine’s face became blank with astonishment. "But…he could do so much for Milo."
"And has made clear, over and again, that he won’t help him," Rian said briskly. "If nothing else, this way Milo can stand proudly on his own accomplishments."
One thing Martine had never been was stupid. Nor was she truly blind where Henri was concerned, no matter how many chances she gave him to stand apart from his own history. The bones of her face stood briefly stark, then she bowed her head, and a wing of black hair hid her expression.
"Go put the mask back," Rian said softly.
Martine leaned forward and hugged Rian, tight and fierce, before leaving without another word.
Sighing, Rian slid down in the bath. It always ended with Martine hurt. Nothing Rian had ever done could prevent a devoted heart from eating itself away. And Martine was not even the first person to walk away from Rian that night, concealing wounds with a straight back and set face.
Through rising steam, Rian contemplated her increasing capacity for causing people damage while trying to help them. A power in the process of becoming. Was that even a thing she wanted, when she stepped back from her pride and looked with clear eyes?
She had gained so much in such a short time: godly allegiance, money, position, youth. Great good fortune, or cruel snare? She was undoubtedly being used.
But that did not make her a puppet. Whatever decisions she faced as a result of her new advantages, it was still Rian who would make them. Her choices, made wisely or clumsily, guided by her own heart. If there were strings, she would cut them, or grasp them, or simply find her way through them, just as she had the whole of her life.
Rian had always been in the process of becoming. She would grow into power.
Death and the Moon
Eluned Tenning had not expected the trip to France to cure her sister of heart-sickness, but she’d hoped it would buoy her spirits. And that first night in Lutèce – when they had revelled in the wonders of the Towers, and then had a dawn adventure – Eleri had sparked up as any person would.
But it never lasted. Even though they had gone to a dozen museums and galleries full of things that Eleri usually found fascinating, Eluned’s sister had barely seemed to be attending. She had dealt with their mass of cousins with distracted politeness, and had not cared about the sudden rearrangement of their plans so their Aunt could visit the Gilded Court. Not even the news of the disappearance of the Princess Royal had caught her interest.
Eluned had tried not to be impatient. It wasn’t Eleri’s fault she had fallen in love, or that her heart had decided on someone they’d be lucky to meet again, even at the same school. But it was hard not to wish that her sister would just get over it.