A Throne for Sisters

“Why?” Kate countered. “Do I not look good enough to go out with you like this?”

“You look wonderful,” Will said, and that was strange in itself, because Kate wasn’t used to compliments. Sophia was the one people complimented, not her.

“Good,” she said. “Besides, I think your mother will try to keep me here forever if we don’t go now.”

“Then we’d better go,” Will said, with a laugh and a look back toward the house. He reached out for Kate’s hand, and to Kate’s own surprise, she let him take it.

They walked down toward the city, and it was clear that Will knew the way expertly, in a way that Kate didn’t. He led the way down broad streets as the sun started to fall, and Kate found herself watching all the people who thronged through the streets as they walked. Most of them were just people on their way back to their homes, but there were street entertainers too: a man walking on stilts higher than Kate’s head; a pair of wrestlers who fought to throw one another in a sand-filled pit.

“Where are we going?” Kate asked.

“I thought we might go down to one of the theaters,” Will said. “The Old King’s Players are performing a version of The Tale of Cressa.”

Kate didn’t want to admit that she hadn’t heard of either the play or the players, because she assumed that it was something everyone who hadn’t been brought up in the House of the Unclaimed would know. Instead, she went along with Will as he led the way to a large, round, barn-like building painted on the outside with gaudy scenes. Already, there were people gathering there, waiting to be let in by the players, who stood at the door to collect a penny entrance fee.

Will paid it for both of them, and Kate found herself in the middle of a crowd so tightly packed that she could barely breathe.

“Are you all right?” Will asked.

Kate nodded. “I’ve just never been to a playhouse before. It’s very crowded.”

It wasn’t long before the play began, and Kate found herself lost in the story of a girl from one end of the Curl peninsula who had to travel it in search of a boy whose love she had lost. Kate couldn’t imagine going all that way for a boy, but she found herself engrossed in the spectacle of it. The Old King’s Players had obviously worked out that their audiences wanted action and music, flashes of fireworks and sudden appearances. They played up to it, even if they paused here and there for speeches set to rhyme that seemed to go on longer, as if added as an attempt to make the whole thing more. Kate found herself laughing out loud at some of the comic moments, and looking on eagerly during the stage fights.

She also found her hand keeping hold of William’s throughout it all, not wanting to let go of him or risk losing that contact. She didn’t know about traveling the length of the Curl for him, but she would certainly fight her way through a crowded theater if she lost him.

By the time they spilled out onto the street with the rest of the crowd, Kate felt breathless with the play. She felt alive, and awake.

“We should probably head home,” Will said, although his thoughts didn’t agree with that.

I don’t want to yet.

“In a while,” Kate said, echoing his thoughts. “For now… can we just walk a while?”

Will seemed surprised by that, as if he’d been expecting her to want to go back as quickly as possible, but he nodded enthusiastically. He started to lead the way.

“Definitely. We can go up along the garden row.”

Kate didn’t know what that was, and found herself pleasantly surprised when Will led the way along a couple of streets to a ladder, leading up toward the roofs of the city. For a moment, Kate found herself thinking about the hiding spot that she and her sister had found, tucked in behind the chimney stacks where no one could find them to hurt them.

“You want to go up there?” Kate asked.

“Trust me,” Will said.

To her surprise, Kate did, and ordinarily, she wouldn’t have trusted anyone that easily. She started to climb, and it was only as they reached the top that she saw what was there. A string of trees sat impossibly at roof level, in a garden that seemed to stretch across several different houses.

“This is beautiful,” Kate said. “It’s like a piece of the countryside in the middle of the city.”

It was more than that; it was something hopeful and defiant, standing against the overwhelming pressure of the city in a single act of growth and greenery.

Will nodded. “They say that some nobleman planted it as a place to think, but after he died, people just kept it going.” They started to walk around the small number of trees, where hanging lanterns attracted lunar moths. “You probably didn’t get to see much of the city, growing up in an orphanage.”

Kate froze for a moment, because she knew that she hadn’t told Will about that. Maybe his mother had told him, hoping to persuade him not to do this. She knew that Winifred didn’t hate her exactly. She was just worried about the impact that Kate’s presence might have.

“No. The door was left open, but that was like a taunt. You could leave, but you always knew that there was nowhere for you to go. And if you left and came back…”

Kate didn’t want to think about some of the punishments she’d seen for that. The House of the Unclaimed had been bad at the best of times, but those had been things to leave girls broken and staring.

“It sounds awful,” Will said. Kate didn’t want sympathy, because she didn’t want to be someone who needed it. Even so, it seemed different, coming from Will rather than from someone else.

“It was,” Kate agreed. “They knew that they would be indenturing us, so they spent our lives trying to make us into obedient little things who would have just enough skills to fetch a noble’s wine or work as an apprentice.” Kate paused, putting her hand against a tree. “It doesn’t matter, though. I’m not there now.”

“You’re not,” Will said. “And I’m glad you’re here.”

Kate smiled at that. “What about you?” she asked. “I’m guessing that war isn’t as boring and safe as you want to pretend to your mother.”

In fact, she suspected that it was anything but safe. She wanted to hear the truth of it, the battles and the smaller engagements, the places Will had been. She wanted to hear anything he had to tell her.

“Not really,” Will said with a sigh. “Lord Cranston mostly does keep us out of engagements, but when you do have to fight, it’s terrifying. There’s just violence everywhere. And even when you don’t, there’s the terrible food, the risk of disease…”

“You’re making it sound so heroic,” Kate said with a laugh.

Will shook his head. “It isn’t. If the wars spill over the Knife-Water to here, people will find that out.”

Kate hoped that wouldn’t happen, but at the same time, a part of her longed for it, because it would be a chance to fight. She wanted to fight then. She would fight the whole world if she needed to. The horror of it didn’t matter. There would be glory too.

“Half the time, the battles are just revenge for other battles a lifetime or more ago,” Will said. “Vengeance is pointless.”

Kate wasn’t so sure about that. “There are a few people I’d like revenge on.”

“It doesn’t do any good, Kate,” Will said. “You take revenge, and then they want revenge, until there’s no one left at all.” He paused for a moment, then laughed. “How did this turn so bleak, so quickly? We were supposed to be having a good time.”

Kate reached out to touch his arm, wishing that she had the courage to do more than that. She liked Will.

“I am having a good time,” she said. “And I think you sound very brave, with your regiment. I’d like to see it.”

Will smiled at that. “I don’t think it will be as dashing as you think.”

Kate suspected that it would be everything she hoped and more.

“Even so,” Kate said.

When Will nodded, she couldn’t have been happier. “All right,” he said. “But in the morning. They’ll look more impressive by daylight.”

Kate could barely wait.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Sophia wandered the palace, and as she did so, it was impossible not to think about quite how lucky she’d been. She’d come from nowhere, and now… now it seemed as though this might actually be her life from now on. She had found the place she’d been looking for, and it was everything she could have ever hoped. The palace was beautiful.