Glittering Shadows (26 page)

Sebastian held up a hand. “Marlis, I don’t work for the UWP. I work with them right now, because they have the people’s ear. I agree with you: I don’t think they know how
to govern. And my dream goes farther than theirs. I want to bring Irminau and Urobrun together as one democracy.”

“And govern yourself?” Marlis sniffed. “You look very young.”

“Twenty. Yes, it’s unfortunately young.”

“I imagine you’d have to establish a monarchy to rule at such a young age,” Volland said. He sounded both concerned and defeated—he’d left her father for an
inexperienced youth. “The people won’t accept that.”

“Enough.” Freddy put down the paperweight and walked almost between them. “Sebastian, I know Marlis. By the time she sleeps on it, she’ll put two and two together. This
is Prince Rupert of Irminau. You might remember he had a skiing accident and supposedly drowned shortly thereafter.”

“Prince Rupert?” She took in the sight of him all over again, trying not to recoil. His shoulders had tensed as Freddy spoke, his head leaning slightly sideways as if Freddy’s
words were blows. “You’re
his
son?”

He straightened up again. “I know my father is a terrible king. That’s why I left. I have no wish to use my royal blood to any advantage.”

“Does your father know you’re alive?”

“Not that I’m aware.”

“Freddy, you told me he was the king’s enemy—you could have mentioned he was also his
son
.”

“I thought it might make you feel better,” Freddy said. “I thought you’d appreciate his credentials. The lost prince. It’s like something out of one of your operas,
isn’t it?”

“My operas,” Marlis repeated, still stunned. “It is, but…if life were an opera, half of us would be dead at the end.”

“I am King Otto’s enemy,” Sebastian said, his hand in a fist on his knee. “Make no mistake about that. The only advantage I got from growing up in Neue Adlerwald is that
I learned how government works.”

She glanced quickly at Freddy. It was not lost on her that he had spilled Sebastian’s secret and not hers. But he was waiting.

Sebastian pushed his glasses up his nose and leaned a little closer in to her. “What about you? You mentioned mutual goals. What are you thinking?”

“I have always been faithful to my father and the Republic. However, I recently learned I wasn’t told the whole truth. I didn’t realize the depth of what my father asked of
Freddy, and he also lied to me. When he thought he was dying, he told me I’m…” She stopped, shook her head. “I
am
a Norn. Urd. I knew that name before I knew what it
meant.”

“When she told me, I knew I had to bring her here,” Freddy said.

“Urd,” Sebastian repeated. “It’s true?”

Freddy nodded.

Sebastian spread his hands, like he wanted to throw them around her. “To think, we were looking for you, and all this time you were right in front of us. I’m sorry you missed your
sisters, though I’m glad you’re here.”

“I don’t even really know what it means to be a Norn,” she said. “I wanted to come as myself. Marlis. To fight for what I believe in, what I used to think my father
believed in. I don’t want my country to be ruled with
lies
, and I don’t even know who to trust anymore. I just know it isn’t my father or anyone who was in on his
plans.”

“I am sorry about your father,” Sebastian said. “I know how that feels.” Whatever might be said about this prince, he could certainly sound earnest. She felt dangerously
disarmed by his words, because she so wanted to be understood.

But he also wanted to rule
her
country. Where would she fit in here?

“I believe some of my father’s men would fight under my banner,” Marlis said, trying to hint that she would bring plenty to the table and intended to work with him, not merely
for him. “I’d be willing to lend you what help I can if we can agree on a plan.”

She had expected him to push back—instead he just clapped his hands around the arms of the chair and said, “I’d like you to attend a meeting with my advisers and first in
command.”

“I wish I’d gotten to you before you decided to destroy the arsenal,” she said, a little flustered at his sheer agreeability. “I still think that was stupid.”

“I’m sure you do,” he said. “At least you don’t have to worry about getting hold of those weapons.”

While she could tell he thought she was going to be a handful, he didn’t say so, and that was enough, she supposed, to work with.

T
hea listened to Sebastian’s speech. However shaken he seemed in his office, he summoned an authoritative calm when he spoke of
Ingrid’s betrayal. Soon eyes turned her way with expressions of sympathy and horror.

I can’t face this.

Nan’s clothes were gone. There was none of her here now, except her rumpled covers. Thea sat on Nan’s bed, wishing she could soak up some of her friend’s strength. She
stretched her left arm, then her right. Comparing. She spread her right hand, admiring her fingers. She remembered occasionally a customer would tell her she had nice hands, even though they were
always a little rough from washing dishes at home. Her right hand was like a widow now, lost without its mate.

She briefly shut her eyes, thinking of her parents.

Her heart thumped hard as she pulled the bandage away from her left arm. Blood spotted the bandage when she got to the layer beneath, but the little wounds where Yggdrasil’s roots had dug
into her were already beginning to close. The arm looked clean, like she’d simply been born without a hand. She felt like she was breaking some rule, just looking at herself. She could hear
her mother, tugging her away from armless and legless men who begged on the street, saying,
Don’t stare.

Sebastian’s men could have been those men on the street, once. The thoughts of beggars were too close. Sebastian wouldn’t turn her out, supposing he retained power. What would he
have her do, though? It had been hard enough just finding a place in the world when she was whole.

She started crying ugly tears. A hand pounded on the door. “Thea?”

Freddy.
No. I don’t want to see him. I don’t want to see anyone ever again.

“I heard what happened,” he said gently, through the door. “I’ve been worried sick about you.” She shut her eyes. Tears burned behind her eyelids.

Finally, she threw a blanket around her arms, covering the injury, and let him in. She couldn’t meet his eyes. “I’m sorry, Freddy,” she said. “I know I’ve
been acting strange and…”

He put a hand on her shoulder. “It wasn’t the real you. I knew that.”

She glanced up at him, her head clear now, remembering all they had shared, from the first glimpse of his strange silver hair all the way to the kiss. She was also still thinking of Sebastian:
the ink stains on his strong hands, his arms wrapped around her, his easy confidence. It was different from the way she felt around Freddy, and she didn’t think she would forget it anytime
soon.

“How did it go?” she asked. “With the Chancellor?”

“Well, they tied my hands to his corpse and told me I wasn’t going anywhere until I brought him back to life. So, just another day I suppose.”

“Bad day for hands all around.” Her voice came out too small and scared for a joke, but it brought a little light to his tired eyes.

When he tried to touch her cheek, she stiffened.

His hand fell to his side again. “Are you in any pain?” he asked.

She shook her head, biting her lip. “It’s clean.” She pulled the blanket away. “See, it’s—like it was never even there.”

“Thea…” He wrapped his hand around the end of her arm and drew it to his heart, drew her closer. Her skin still shivered at his touch, and at the idea that he wasn’t
afraid, that he looked at her as if she was as beautiful as before.

She didn’t know what to do. Was this feeling enough? Something had changed between them. Or maybe something had always been missing.

“You want to meet us downstairs?” he asked. “Sebastian is holding a meeting in the basement.”

She nodded, relieved that he wasn’t addressing their relationship just now. As he left the room, she dug up her favorite dress. Her reflection in the little mirror above the bureau in the
room, cut off at the shoulders, was the same as it had ever been, with the same things she had always liked about her appearance: skin other girls in school had envied, cupid’s bow lips, a
nose that was cute but not
too
cute. She put on some fresh lipstick and tried to look confident.

Downstairs, the men were all buzzing about the appearance of the Chancellor’s daughter. Aleksy was standing guard at the basement door. He nodded her through. She didn’t try to call
attention to herself, but Freddy and Sebastian both looked at her. The single lamp in the middle of the table cast a sallow glow on their faces. Marlis had been speaking, then she trailed off when
she saw their attention slip. Sebastian pointed Thea to the empty chair next to Freddy and motioned for Marlis to go on.

“Before I came here,” Marlis said, “I’d been speaking with Wilhelmina Wachter, the wife of General Wachter, about allowing magic to be used within the
military.”

So strange to see Marlis here.
She looked exactly like her pictures and exactly as Thea would have imagined—an inch on the tall side, wearing the same drab gray dress the newspapers
had described. “He’s always seemed to be a very reasonable man, and I think he might be convinced.”

“Wachter is an experienced commander, and certainly an asset in that regard,” Sebastian said. “The trouble is that he is strongly associated with the old regime.”

“Mightn’t that be spun as an asset, as well?” asked the thin suit-clad man sitting beside Thea. He must have come with Marlis. “If someone like General Wachter publicly
declared that he supports the revolution, many people who thought they liked things just fine as they were would be more likely to reconsider.”

“It’s true, bringing a few of the old leaders into the fold has its advantages,” Sebastian said. “And we do aim to distinguish ourselves from the radical UWP. Wachter
might be too close, however.”

Marlis’s foot was fidgeting under the table—Thea could hear it knocking into the legs of her chair in the silence. “How are you going to distinguish yourself from the UWP if
you won’t work with my allies and you won’t make it known that you are the prince of Irminau? You must do something
bold
.”

“Bold, yes, but not foolishly hasty. I could ruin myself if I reveal my identity now. If there is one person people hate more than…” He faltered, obviously on the brink of
saying
the Chancellor
. “We need to get everything settled down, to shift the balance of power. Freddy must let go of the Chancellor.”

“You mean, my father needs to die.”

“Brunner is itching to make a move already,” Sebastian said. “There seems to be no reason to put it off.” He looked at her—asking permission, it seemed. Thea
thought it odd that he was so quick to trust the Chancellor’s daughter.

Marlis stood up, waving one hand at the table. “Let him go, Freddy. Now, before I can think.”

She climbed the stairs without saying anything else while Sebastian sighed heavily, massaging his temples.

“We can trust her?” Thea whispered to Freddy.

“She’s a Norn,” he said.

“A
Norn
? Are you sure?”

He nodded grimly. “Yes.”

“Well, that doesn’t mean we can trust her. Look at Ingrid.”

“Marlis has a tough outer shell, but I know this betrayal by her father has rattled her through and through. She would have to be serious about joining us to take Volland with her.”
He motioned to the thin, scholarly man who was now going up the stairs after her. “He was one of her father’s top advisers, and it’s a huge risk for him to sneak out of the
Chancellery.”

Sebastian’s adviser stood up, and Sebastian nodded to him, then glanced at Thea. He half-smiled. She dropped her eyes, nervous now, and stood up. “I should go,” she told
Freddy. “I need to—to write Mother. I’ll visit her soon, of course—I just don’t want to break the news in person.”

“Yeah,” Freddy said. “Of course.”

He knows something’s wrong. I’m not acting right. I can’t remember how to act.

She hesitated, but didn’t know what to say. To either of them.