My smile felt odd on my lips, too wide and trying too hard to mask my incredulity. I’d never heard anyone quite so…devout.
“It surprised me as well. Merrick…the Dreaded End…was the one who wanted me to study medicine. But I’m rather good at it. Do you have any troubles? I could mend them in minutes,” I offered playfully. Reaching out, I traced one of the especially wicked-looking lines across his cheek. “I could even lighten those if you want. I have a salve that—”
He shook his head, panic striking his face. “I’d never want those to go away,” he assured me. “I’m proud of each and every one ofthem.” He rolled up a sleeve of his robe, showing me his inner forearm. Jagged lines exploded from his wrist like lightning.
“Did…did you choose to do this?” I asked carefully. “Mama said that…” I paused, wondering if she was still trapped within the confines of the palace armoire.
“It was my choice, by my hand,” he said softly, as if this statement was meant to reassure me. It did anything but.
“It must have hurt terribly.” I gestured toward the ones crisscrossing the bridge of his nose.
“It’s an honor to be in service to them.”
I wondered what Calamité and his brethren thought of the Fractured, how they felt about mortals trying to replicate their disjointed appearance. I couldn’t believe Félicité would condone such a practice. I could almost hear her motherly clucks of dismay.
“Are you happy here?” I scrunched my face, trying to rephrase my words. “Not just here, in Châtellerault, but…here.” I waved my hand in the air, gesturing toward a higher, more meaningful plane.
“Exceptionally,” he promised. “I know the last time you saw me…” He sighed. “Like you, I would not have chosen this path for myself, but it makes me feel all the more content, knowing that the path chosemeinstead. The day that High Priestess Ines picked me from our lineup of siblings…that was the best day of my life, Hazel. Truly. This is my life’s calling, my life’s work. And…” He glanced about the dormitory, his eyes drifting toward the beds. “There is so much work to be done. Especially now, with the turmoil in the north.”
Some of the beatific light died away from his eyes.
“You helped bring the orphans here,” I prompted, gently nudginghim for more information. “The little girls who were with Amandine, did you know—”
He nodded sadly. “Genevieve’s and Mathilde’s girls, my nieces. Our nieces,” he corrected himself quickly. “They…they don’t know who I am.” He glanced up in alarm. “Did you tell them about yourself?”
I shook my head. “It didn’t seem right…at least, not now.”
He nodded.
“There’s not been much news of the skirmishes at the palace.”
His face darkened. “They’re not skirmishes. They’re massacres. Baudouin’s armies are slaughtering whole towns overnight. They leave the bodies out to rot and bloat in the fields, in the rivers where they fall. It’s poisoning the earth, the water. There’s no one to tend the plants, no one to feed the livestock. Come winter, so many will starve. And the children…” He sighed. “It sounds callous, but King Marnaigne needs to leave his grieving chambers and do something. There are small bands of men trying to form, trying to fight against Baudouin, but there’s no organization. They’re acting without a leader. Marnaigne is a good king. He can put an end to all this.”
I smoothed my skirts as I weighed my response.
“What aren’t you telling me?” he asked, instantly guessing something was troubling me. Bertie had always been able to read my quiet moods like a book.
“You mustn’t say anything to anyone, but…the king isn’t just grieving,” I confided quietly to my brother. “He’s ill.”
Bertie’s face brightened. “Is that why you’re at court? You’re taking care of him? Oh Hazel. Fortune has smiled upon the king! What blessings! What joy!”
His fingers tangled up with mine, squeezing tight, and I found myself wanting to shrink from his touch. His reverence borderedon mania. It was impossible to see Bertie’s younger self anywhere in this man.
“Help him see how much he’s needed. Tell him how his people ache for his return. Spur him back to his duties, and then—”
“It’s not that simple.”
His smile deepened with chagrin. “Of course, I’m glossing over your work, but—”
“The king has the Shivers,” I whispered, cutting off whatever fervent call to action my brother was about to deliver. “There’s no cure for it.”
“Yet,” he persisted. “There’s not a cureyet.But you’re working on it, aren’t you?”
I glanced down at my hands. My hands, which had killed so many. My hands, which were meant to go on and kill the king. “I am…but he’s very sick….”
The room fell into silence. It bloomed across the stone walls, filling the space like ink in a basin of water, tainting it, twisting it, making it impossible to ever return to what it once had been.
“You’ve given up?” he asked, and his tone bordered on accusation.
