Glittering Shadows (42 page)

“I didn’t break your train. That was Peter von Dorin. I just made it worse when I tried to fix it.”

“You made it a lot worse. It came apart.” She clasped her hands behind her back and tapped her foot restlessly. “We grew up together, you know.”

“I noticed.”

“I’m not sure I did. I was so caught up in wanting to be smart and successful and make my parents proud, and you didn’t seem like you had anything to do with my ambitions. So I
didn’t think about you much.”

He shrugged, and suppressed a cough. “I’m sure your father and the Valkenraths would have been alarmed if we’d gotten close, anyway.”

“But it was nice, actually, when we did just have fun. I wish I’d enjoyed myself more often.”

He was surprised at how long she was talking to him like this. Of course, he had seen a change in her since her father died, but for once she really looked like a young girl, awkward and
shy.

“Thea gave you the letter from your parents, didn’t she?” Marlis asked.

“Someone did, as soon as I walked in.”

“Do you think you’ll go back to them, once this is over?”

“I don’t know.”

“I thought you might finally get a chance to be a clockmaker.”

“But my father stopped making clocks when the Valkenraths were giving my parents money. I guess he didn’t really love clocks that much. Maybe he’ll do it again, since
they’ve probably lost everything, but I’m not sure I want to be his apprentice if he gave it up himself. I love clocks because they reminded me of him, and that might ruin it for me. I
don’t think I’m meant to make clocks.”

“What, then, I wonder? If your magic is gone? It’s hard to imagine you without it.”

“It is, isn’t it?” He didn’t like to talk about that. “Well, you might laugh at this, but I was thinking I’d like to learn more about gardening.”

“Why would I laugh?”

“Because it’s rustic and peasantish, and it’s not some grand ambition. If I’m lucky enough to grow old at all, I’m afraid I’ll be referred to as ‘the
kindly old gardener.’”

She smiled wryly. “My mother was very interested in plants, learning about their medicinal purposes, or how to develop new species, or more efficient ways to grow food. All sorts of
things. Plants are quite powerful.”

“Urd would know, eh?”

“Urd would know. But I’m still figuring it all out.”

A
s news spread of Prince Rupert’s heroic life and dramatic near-death saving the Lingfeldt weaponry, so many people thronged the street
around the Schiff house that the city police had to assist in managing the crowd. The newspapers and radio spoke of nothing else, and reporters swarmed the house trying to speak to him. No matter
where Thea went inside, she heard people screaming and crying outside, and although she knew they were supporters and not enemies, after a while the sound made her feel so rattled that her hands
were shaking.

Sebastian stepped onto the balcony of the house to address the throng. Thea stayed well behind him, out of sight of the crowd. He still wore his ordinary, rumpled revolutionary clothes. She
heard the roar of excitement when he appeared. Women screamed both his names.

Sebastian held out his arms, trying to quiet them. “Good afternoon!” he projected over the din. But that wasn’t enough. “Good afternoon!” Finally, “Listen!
Listen, listen.”

The roar of chanting and cheering cut in half. Several indecipherable questions were screamed at him.

Thea imagined that most people still wouldn’t be able to hear the speech, but he just forged ahead, confirming the stories and rumors. He was Prince Rupert, he had faked his own death in
Irminau, and he had come here as Sebastian Hirsch to aid in the revolutionary effort.

The speech was tentative at first, but his confidence seemed to build with the crowd’s enthusiasm, and at the end, he was starting to sound like himself, but with an extra dose of swagger.
“King Otto might have superior numbers now, but I know we can hold him off if we mobilize. How many of you were born in Irminau? Well, you probably left for some of the same reasons I did.
Growing up, I always heard stories of Urobrun: It seemed like they had all the newest and shiniest stuff, and I wondered why we were so behind. I wanted to find out what made this place tick, and
then when I did, it was terrifying. But we have a chance to make this place what we hoped it would be. We need willing people, hard work, efficient government.”

His style of oration was more laid-back than Marlis’s, with occasional jokes. He was the same person she had grown to know and love over these past months, but it was so strange to see him
engage with people this way.

When he finished speaking, he walked back into the room from the balcony slowly and was greeted by a round of compliments from his advisers, who seemed relieved he wasn’t trying to run
away from his identity. He met Thea’s eyes before slipping off to his office without talking to anyone.

The next few days were such chaos that she barely saw him. He accepted some of the requests for interviews and spoke on the radio and had meetings with more potential allies and government
officials. The meetings had grown too serious for her to be sitting in like she once did. Thea continued going to work, and the mood had changed drastically. She couldn’t believe how jubilant
people seemed. The conversation was similar at so many tables:

“Brunner’s a good chap, but he’s soft. Rupert, on the other hand, he has a real backbone, going to Lingfeldt like that.”

“He ought to know just how to deal with Otto, wouldn’t you think?”

“I’d sure like to see Otto’s face when he heard about this.”

“God wouldn’t have saved him from that river if he wasn’t meant to save this country, I’m sure of that.”

Thea felt a little like the ant beneath Sebastian’s feet the way people spoke of him and barely paid attention to her. She didn’t want attention, but he didn’t either, and here
it was, everywhere she turned.

But the excitement was also infectious. Sebastian could really do something wonderful if he harnessed the power of so many people’s hopes and dreams. She would never rule the country or
command an army, but she had a part to play. Even when she feared Sebastian was lost, she still felt an independent sense of belonging—that the revolution meant something to her, and she
meant something to it.

Thea saw her reflection in the washroom, radiant and bright-eyed. She felt beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with a new dress or the way she fixed her hair. It burned inside her like a
light switched on.

Returning home, she found Sebastian sleeping at his desk, head in his arms like he’d meant to just rest for a moment, but he was breathing so deeply she thought he might be dreaming. She
ran her hand through his hair, which was shorter now; he’d finally gotten it cut to appear more professional for the public.

He suddenly flinched, jerking his head up.

“Didn’t mean to scare you,” she said, “but maybe you should actually sleep in a bed.”

“I can’t. I just lay there and panic. It’s better here.”

“You’re doing a wonderful job,” she said. “Everyone loves you. It’s all anyone could talk about at work today.”

He stretched and yawned. “They love this Prince Rupert persona.”

“You’ve put in a lot of hard work. Give yourself some credit.”

He took her hand, kissed it, held it to his lips. “If our relationship was public, you couldn’t work anymore. You’d be scrutinized. People will say I need to make a strategic
match. I don’t want to lose you over this.”

“You want to lose me over something else?” she teased.

He raised an eyebrow at her. “The potential of taking the throne, it’s huge.”

“But you’re prepared for it, aren’t you? I know this is scary to you, but you said yourself, you like the work. You
can
do this, and I think you should.”

“It doesn’t scare you because you don’t know what it’s like yet,” he said. “You’re still anonymous, but if that stopped, everyone would know your name,
and no one would see you as a person anymore.”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t scared.” She straightened a mess of papers on his desk, thinking of the right words. “I thought my father died when I was eight years old,
but he didn’t. It was so much worse. My mother developed bound-sickness, and I had to care for her like she was the child. This country should be ruled by someone who is
good
, who
wouldn’t have done that to my family. And I will do anything to have a world where that doesn’t happen, even if it means that I’m scrutinized. Even if it means I
lose
you.
Who have you done all this work for?”

He was quiet for a long stretch.

“Not for Ingrid?” she said.

“No.” He looked down, his glasses reflecting the lamplight and hiding his eyes. “My first nurse, Jenny, the woman I told Nan to look for in Irminau? She was like a mother to
me. My own mother was distant, but Jenny was always there. She played with me, she taught me to read, sang me songs, held me when I cried. But she was also a skilled healer. She was the one who
healed all my cuts and scrapes. The magic aged her, and finally, my father replaced her.”

“And she went to this place—what did you call it?” Thea remembered the name had been ominous, but that night was a blur.

“The Mausoleum. In the north wing of the palace was a row of lovely, expensively furnished rooms. I had never seen them until I heard they had taken Jenny there. I snuck in to see her and
found…” He faltered a little, the memory still painful. “Jenny was too sick to leave her bed. She comforted me as best she could, but she told me never to come back. She didn’t
want me to see her like that. And what must she have felt, an invalid at such a young age? Ingrid helped me to forget she ever existed.”

Thea put her arms around him, but he had gone rigid. “You’re right, Thea. This is bigger than us.”

I
t took three harrowing weeks for Nan and Sigi to make it back to the threshold of the revolutionary headquarters. When Ingrid let them go, they
had almost nothing of value. They found a place to exchange Sigi’s Urobrunian money for Irminau coins, but it still wasn’t much, and miles of rural country pelted by frequent snowstorms
stood between them and the border. They walked down country roads, praying not to be caught in a blizzard. They washed dishes at an inn in exchange for a bed. They went out of their way to avoid
Irminau guards, in case Ingrid had changed her mind.

News was often sparse in Irminau; they heard word of Prince Rupert, but in Irminau’s papers he was described as “the treasonous prince.” Nan didn’t really know what had
been happening at home, but as she and Sigi came into the city, she immediately noticed posters of Sebastian and newspaper headlines that stated
5,000 TROOPS TO JOIN PRINCE
RUPERT
, and they both picked up their pace.

“Nan!
Nan!
” Nan had just stepped in the door when Thea came rushing down the stairs and threw her arms around her. “You’re safe!”

“Yes!” Nan broke into a spontaneous smile, realizing Thea seemed happy. “And you—you all seem safe as well?”

“We are, but so much has happened since you left.” Thea hugged Sigi now. “Did you go to King Otto’s palace?”

“Believe it or not, as long as we’ve been gone, we were only there for one night,” Sigi said. “But that was one night too many for my taste.”

“It took you this long to get back?” Thea asked.

“Yeah, between weather—”

“Oh god, the
weather
,” Sigi interjected.

“—and trying to keep a low profile. But we do have some information for Sebastian, and Sigi has photographs. Or do we call him Prince Rupert now?”

“He still likes Sebastian better,” Thea said.

Another girl hurried down the stairs—a girl Nan had also heard rumors of as she traveled home. She had seen posters of her plastered on buildings on the city streets along with Sebastian.
Marlis Horn, the Chancellor’s daughter.

Urd.

“Verthandi,” Marlis said.

Thea was still saying something, and Sigi was talking to Freddy, who had just walked in the entrance room from the side, but Nan didn’t hear them. For a moment, she only saw Urd—the
other girl in her memories, the other guardian of Yggdrasil. Urd, who made the best soups and wrote everything in her diary. Urd, serious and dependable.