Glittering Shadows (30 page)

Waitresses brought around plates heaped with food and glasses of wine. The room was already noisy with the men talking, and the arrival of food did nothing to slow the conversation. This was
good, because she could barely hear the man beside her, and had to lean in to speak to Sigi. It was the most privacy she and Sigi had had since they’d left.

“So,” Sigi said. “Here we are. Irminau. Should we have another toast? To our own insanity?”

“Why not.” They clinked wineglasses.

“I didn’t expect to be met by the military,” Sigi said. “This is already unnerving, and we just got here. He seemed to expect Ingrid.”

“I’m sure she’s been sending messages as we travel,” Nan said. “She seems well connected.”

“I don’t know how that happened,” Sigi said. “She rarely even talks!”

A curtain had risen on a stage with a prop cow. Now a girl in a very short milkmaid costume swished out and began to sing a flirtatious song about being lonely on the farm, fluttering her
eyelashes at various men in the audience. Sigi snickered and then turned back to Nan.

“This reminds me so much of Mitterburg,” Sigi said. “We used to go up every single year in the winter to the lodges for skiing and the hot springs. In fact, my father got me my
first camera so I could take pictures on vacation. I always liked being there, the way the air smelled.”

“Are you saying you’re a country girl at heart?”

“Quite possibly. I’d miss my friends if I left the city, but it was strange being around them, anyway.”

“You seemed in your element.”

“I guess I’m good at pretending. And I love my friends. I just felt odd the whole time. And Urobrun has such bad memories now. I’ll always think of what happened underneath the
sidewalks.” Sigi picked the large forest mushrooms out of her meat, apparently disliking them. “I try not to let on how much all that haunts me. We have enough to worry
about.”

“If Irminau and Urobrun did reunite, do you think you’d want to move out of the city?”

“Maybe. I could get a little apartment over a shop, like the ones here. Work in a café or someplace nice, and take pictures.”

“I used to say I’d be a dressmaker,” Nan said, “and Thea would be my assistant. I wanted to rescue her. She worked so hard, and she was so worried all the time. But it
would never happen. I knew that.”

“It could happen, when this is all over.”

“When this is all over…” Nan tilted her wineglass, watching the dark liquid glow in the candlelight. “I find that hard to imagine.”

Sigi and Nan had barely touched each other since they met up with Ingrid again. She was trying to pretend to agree to Ingrid’s wishes, and Irminau was a more conservative country besides.
But Sigi’s hand suddenly clasped Nan’s under the table. “It’ll work out.”

As they crossed through the lobby after dinner, a man jostled past her with his suitcase. Nan thought nothing of it until she felt a mysterious paper in her pocket. One of Sebastian’s
messengers?

Nan instantly suspected the meaning of the note. The “she” must be Ingrid. The “it” must be Yggdrasil, which she claimed she had saved from death by planting a new
tree.

It must feed.
The way the revived workers needed serum, or they would crave human blood. Was this note from Freddy?

The Norns could return from the dead, but perhaps that was because of Yggdrasil’s magic. If Yggdrasil was the source of magic, then where did the magic to revive the tree come from?

T
he apartment door swung open, and Mother’s eyes welled on the spot. “Thea. I got your letter, I—”

“I’m okay. Please don’t cry.” But Thea had to wipe away tears herself. “I—I would’ve come sooner, and I know I should have, but I’ve been trying
so hard just to be strong, and I worried it would all collapse if I saw you.” Thea walked in, going slightly limp at the sight of home. She felt like she hadn’t seen this place in
years.

“Have they been taking care of you, the revolutionaries?”

Thea nodded. “Like I told you in the letters.” She noticed one letter, sitting on the table, looking crumpled, as if Mother had balled it up in her hand. Maybe more than once. Thea
had been writing since the day after she broke free, but now weeks had passed. “Sebastian’s making sure I’m all right. We’re in the same position.”

But Mother could spot a lie. “Are you?”

“Well, he understands, anyway, on account of his leg.”

“He got you a job.”

Thea shrugged one shoulder. “I’m not working yet, but I will be, soon.”

“It seems much too soon for you to go to work.”

“Everyone is working so hard. I can’t just sit around feeling sorry for myself.”

Mother nodded. “I suppose so. I just don’t want you to suffer any more than you already have.” She suddenly put her arms around Thea. “Oh dear. I have to hug you. You
should’ve come sooner.”

“I couldn’t. I didn’t want to cry.” She was crying now. “I missed you so much, but it’s easier to be tough with strangers.”

“You don’t have to be tough all the time. Not with me, not anymore.” Her mother pulled back to look at her and smooth her hair, but Thea looked down. It was so painful here.
She didn’t know how to explain that it was too late. She’d been tough for so long, sadness didn’t feel allowed.

“Sit down,” Mother said. “I don’t suppose you want anything to eat?”

“No.”

Mother had put her winter arrangement of pinecones on the table. Thea smiled that Mother still bothered to make the house festive, even when she was living alone and the city was on the brink of
war. That was how she used to be, before the bound-sickness. “I wouldn’t mind some tea, if you still have that.”

“I do.” Mother put the kettle on, then stepped back toward the dining table. She glanced at Thea’s hands, which were still in her pockets. She’d had them in her pockets
the whole time.

Thea frowned slightly. She didn’t know how to show her mother what had happened. She didn’t want to make a big deal of it. She certainly didn’t want to make her cry, but she
feared that was impossible.

“Do you feel you’ll manage the job all right?” Mother asked.

“I’ve been practicing. I can fit a tray between my elbow and the prosthetic and serve from there.” She had trouble saying the word “hook,” much like the word
“stump,” although she was blunt with herself within her mind. She added, trying to be reassuring, “It isn’t quite as hard to use as I thought it might be.”

“The hook, you mean?”

Thea nodded, trying not to cringe. “Or maybe I’m just determined. That’s what Sebastian says.”

“Sebastian is rather young, isn’t he?” Mother asked, and now Thea could tell she must have given something away by the way she said his name.

“I guess,” she said, noncommittally. Mother obviously wasn’t fooled, but the teakettle was whistling, and she took it off the gas and poured out a cup.

“Just be careful,” she said. She set down the teacup. “You’re allowed to take your hands out of your pockets. I promise I won’t cry.”

Thea, feeling hot with discomfort, pulled out her hands. In plural, they were still hands to her. She had been trying to wear the hook most of the time, since Mr. Huber had brought it, even
though it had felt frustrating and cumbersome, especially at first. The hooks opened when she extended her arm or moved her right shoulder, and it wasn’t intuitive to move her right shoulder
to use her left arm.

“Your father would be proud of you.” Mother took the chair next to her. “We had to face all this when he was called up to fight—the prospect that he could be injured.
When you say good-bye to a soldier, you don’t know how they’ll come back. And they try to be brave, but…they’re just young men. It’s not an easy thing, but it will
get better with time.”

“I know,” Thea said gently. Mother was obviously not speaking just to Thea, but to her own struggles as well.

Mother smiled a little. “I suppose you’re tired of comforting speeches by now. It sounds like Sebastian may have given you a few.”

“Well, it’s not the same,” Thea said. “I’m glad you’re getting better, too.” She squeezed Mother’s hand, and they drank their tea.

Thea could manage the days. It was the nights when the weight of her losses and the uncertain future crushed her. She woke from nightmares into a dark room.

She took to stepping outside the room and walking up and down the hall. At least a few men were always up downstairs, listening to the radio, waiting for messengers who might come at any hour.
She didn’t join them, but she listened to the sound of their voices, just to know she wasn’t alone, and after a while she would calm down enough to sleep.

One night Sebastian found her pacing. “Thea? What’s wrong?”

“Nightmares.” She drew her robe closer around her pajamas. “I’ll be glad to work at night again. The sun would rise just a few hours after I came home. It was easier to
sleep when it wasn’t so dark and quiet. I felt safe hearing kids going to school and birds chirping.”

“I understand.” He looked hesitant.

“Why are you up?” Thea asked. “Do you ever sleep?” He was even still wearing daytime clothes, albeit wrinkled ones.

“I nap.”

“That can’t be good for you.”

“‘You need to take care of that body of yours, young man.’” He mimicked Mr. Huber’s aged voice and shook his finger.

Thea smiled. “Well, he was a little bit right.”

The hesitancy was back as he scratched his head. “The—um. I mean, do you want to…if you can’t sleep anyway…have a cup of coffee with me?”

She hadn’t seen him much in the month since Ingrid left. Once the Chancellor’s death was known, everything had happened very quickly, and he needed to keep up. Many of the existing
officials surrendered, a few fled, several more were killed or captured. There was a constant round of messengers and meetings, and he had spent much of his time at UWP headquarters, keeping
abreast of the latest developments.

“You drink too much coffee,” she said.

“I know I do. We might run out. How about cocoa, then?”

He cut a strong figure in the dim hallway, with broad shoulders and a slim waist. His hair grew more unkempt as the revolution turned toward the serious business of governing the country, and
his stubble was now halfway toward a beard. It seemed unfair that he was still wearing regular clothes while she had on faded pink pajamas with a scraggly bow tie in front and thick gray wool
socks. She covered the end of her left arm reflexively.

“Come on, no sense in lying awake thinking dark thoughts.” He held out his hand. She took it, her face growing hot even as her feet froze against the wooden floors.

Due to electricity restrictions, just a few lamps lit the downstairs. Sebastian picked up the one by the entrance hall. She heard a card game going on around the radio.

“If you want to wait in the parlor, I’ll get the cocoa,” he said.

She felt along the walls and stumbled around the furniture until she reached the curtains and opened them to let in the moonlight. She sat on the sofa, bound up with curious anticipation. Her
mouth was dry. She tried to straighten out the bow on her pajamas.

“Here we are.” He walked in with two mugs. She didn’t care about drinking the cocoa so much as simply holding something warm. She missed the feeling of wrapping both hands
around a warm mug on a cold night. He sat on the other end of the sofa, but he didn’t seem to know what to say.

It wasn’t easy to talk about nightmares and insomnia and political coups.

“Thea, I—”

She looked at him expectantly.

“I feel like I haven’t seen you much lately,” he said.

“I’ve been around. You’ve been busy, if you haven’t noticed.”

“I’ve been too busy to notice. But…I wondered if maybe you feel differently about me since you found out who I am.”

She tugged nervously at the bow, ruining her earlier attempt to fix it. “It
was
a surprise.”

“I’m still the same person,” he said, the slightest undercurrent of desperation running beneath his casual tone.

“Of course. It just—it does change some things.”

“Does it? It doesn’t have to.”

“I guess it depends on how we felt about each other. To begin with.”