Chapter 14
Adelina had never seen Emiliana in such a state: hair ruffled instead of its usual skull-hugging smooth shine, eyes bare of the cosmetics that normally intensified her stare, cheeks flushed with anxious effort. Her mother didn’t stand with her usual calm, but twitched, hands seeking each other to twist as though to comfort and console.
“What’s happened?” Adelina said. Around them, portraits of past Nettlepurses peered down from the walls, stacked three, sometimes four, layers tall, as though looking down from the world’s smallest apartment house.
“Thuya Butterbasket has fallen prey to Scandal!” Emiliana proclaimed.
Adelina imagined Scandal as a pouncing Beast, flanked by Gossip and Bad Press, as was customary in the old illustrations from the third Duke’s reign. “Who is Thuya Butterbasket?”
Emiliana’s hands fluttered in distress, gesticulating upward as though trying to invoke the Gods. “My prime candidate for Junior Council Member. And—thrice as bad—her designated substitute ate bad oracular meat last night and cannot stagger forth to speak.”
“You always have a third contingency,” Adelina said. “You taught me that yourself.”
Emiliana’s form stilled as she looked at Adelina. “I do,” she admitted. “You.”
“Me?” Adelina blinked. “But I gave you no commitment to do such a thing.”
“I thought that I’d have longer to persuade you to step up in one shape or another,” Emiliana said. “But surely this is a manifestation of the Trade Gods meddling, calling you to serve in the name of Influence.”
“And if I acquire Influence’s favor, how and where shall I spend it?” Adelina said shrewdly. If I can get honest coin from her here, should I spend it on the revelation of my secret?
“I had thought in your House’s behalf, but I am desperate enough that I’d contract for you to do so for the Press,” Emiliana said.
Adelina almost stopped breathing. Partially at the magnitude of the offer, but primarily at the implications. Why would she grant such a boon unless she knows the Press is mine? What should I answer to best throw her off the route?
Emiliana’s next words steadied her. “Surely that would help you advance in your employer’s favor. If you must lower yourself to labor for such a disreputable institution, at least you might be reckoned chief among their assets.”
The Nettlepurse ancestors stared down at the transaction. She looked to the other Adelina but the painted eyes provided no inspiration. At least Leonoa’s heretical creations looked like living beings, requiring little stretch of the imagination to see them breathe or move.
“Very well,” she said, but misgiving gripped her tight, hindering her breathing as though the stares intersecting her were steel pins.
The day was as uncomfortable as any she could imagine.
Despite its chill, she was too warm, too constantly jostled. Her heart raced as Master Merchant Nove Wayfinder took her elbow and led her out to the center of the platform.
“I wish to present you with a young candidate,” he shouted. The crowd cheered as though they’d been waiting for this moment for days.
She looked out at the crowd, feeling a pleasant surge of anticipation. She would master this, as she had mastered the art of writing, becoming superlative at it.
I’m versed in Dompri’s art, communication; I can put words together effectively, I know them like few others do and now I will exhibit that talent and finally impress my mother. Really impress her, in a way that feels satisfying, and not a pale washed out version of what satisfaction should feel like. Not like some achievement Emiliana has allowed me.
Faces in the crowd, men’s and women’s, all ages, all different except for a single point of similarity—the cockade that they all wore, pinned in hat or a collar, the bright reds and blues that said they had already sworn their allegiance to the Jateigarkist Party.
Something that would make this audience even more hers, since they came pre-convinced that the Merchants could lead them well.
She opened her mouth to begin.
And froze. The words refused to come out. Locked in her throat as all those eyes looked at her, held her pinned beneath them.
In writing no one ever looked at you.
This was … different.
A panic that made your bowels loosen, your spine stiffen, your muscles feel weak and stiff all at the same time, straws unable to support the weight of one’s flesh.
“I …” she managed, barely. But the word came out so softly that no one could hear her.
Wayfinder’s hand had lingered on her elbow and now it felt as though it was the only thing holding her up.
Was this some spell, some attack that had somehow slipped through all defenses? But her mother paid for every member of the household to be warded, and warded very well indeed. Adelina had no idea what a spell might feel like, but surely this was the work of magic and not her own body betraying her. She clung to that. If it was a spell, there was a way to counteract it. That must be it.
She held to the thought, and let it buoy her up as the Master Merchant drew her aside while someone else stepped up to apologize to the crowd for her sudden indisposition.
Emiliana was there, as alarmed as Adelina had ever seen her. “Let me pass!” she snapped, and shouldered her way past Wayfinder, making him release Adelina. “What happened?”
“Magic,” Adelina said. “I think it was some spell. I couldn’t say anything!” Even now the words felt tight and sharp-edged in her throat, barbs that tore at it as she spoke.
But despite her convictions as to the origin of the affliction, there seemed to be no trace of magic, or so the Physician Mage, one of the only two in the city and horribly expensive, Adelina was very well aware, assured them.
Emiliana’s lips pursed as she regarded her daughter.
Adelina remembered the moment she’d first disappointed her mother. She’d been very small, at a birthday party, perhaps her fourth or fifth. Emiliana had held out her hands in a grand gesture and opened them. In her left hand was a large copper coin, a galleon, and in her right a small silver one, a skiff.
“Which do you want?” her mother said. “Choose wisely!”
At the last words, everyone looked at Adelina, and there was an expectant hush in the air, as though this were very important in a way that the child Adelina hadn’t understood.
Everyone watched. She faltered under the weight of that attention, reaching forward for the copper coin. It was the larger of the two, and that surely meant it was worth more.
“Are you sure?” Emiliana’s voice halted her hand but then she remembered how fond her mother was of tests, and thought that this must be just another layer of it, and reached forward to pluck the copper from her fingers.
Emiliana’s hand dropped away, worlds of dissatisfaction in the gesture. Adelina wanted to cry, but she knew that such an exhibition would only see her escorted from the party, the rest of the children left behind to enjoy the cakes and Fairy puppets, so she closed her mouth and raised her chin, then just as she did now.
Her eyes lifted to her mother’s at the same moment, but Emiliana had already turned away. That was always the way of it, her attention withdrawn before Adelina’s defiance could begin.
I’ve disappointed my mother once more.