Hunted(69)

Asenka still spent most of her days at the leech’s shop, helping to nurse the sick. The leech himself was good enough at treating illnesses, but he was an arrogant, officious man with no patience or interest in people—his passion lay in disease itself, in making endless lists of symptoms and treatments and linking them together. So it was Asenka, and her smiles and her unflinching sympathy in the face of horrific injury or disease, to whom many of the townsfolk quietly attributed their recoveries whenever they fell ill.

Yeva came now and then to share the noonday meal with her. Though Asenka was given lunch by the leech, it was more often than not cold meat on cold bread, so when Yeva brought hot stew from home, the change was more than welcome. Asenka’s little corner of the upstairs loft in the shop was quiet, and unless the leech had patients so ill as to need full-time care, the beds in the loft were empty. It was a respite from the bustle of town, and even from their own home, which was full of servants, and Radak and Lena. Yeva had come to understand why Asenka enjoyed her time here so.

Sometimes they talked about the Beast. Sometimes they talked about Lena, and how increasingly irritable she was becoming due to the baby growing in her womb. Occasionally they spoke of their father, but most often they simply ate together quietly, enjoying the rare, precious company of silence shared.

It was the latter Yeva was hoping for when she decided to wrap up a tureen of dumplings in mutton broth and cabbage and walk down to the leech’s shop. Lena was overseeing the redecoration of their sewing room as it was being converted into a nursery, and Yeva felt she might shout at her if she were asked one more time to choose between two nearly identical tapestries to cover the walls.

But as she climbed the stairs to the leech’s upstairs, she heard voices.

“I asked you to go.” Though Asenka’s voice was quiet, the pain in it carried easily down the stairs and made Yeva stop short.

“I don’t believe you mean it.” It was Solmir. Yeva stifled her breath of surprise with her hand, and though her conscience told her she ought to creep away again, she couldn’t help but stay to listen. Solmir sounded every bit as sad and hurt as he’d seemed lately, and she’d do anything to discover the cause.

“You can’t keep coming here,” Asenka said, voice rising. “It’s improper. Someone will see you, and talk, and our family’s had more than its fair share of rumor and gossip lately.”

“What do I care?” Solmir burst out, with that same passion Yeva had come to find endearing.

“It’s not you!” Asenka cried, making Yeva teeter on the stairs in surprise. She couldn’t remember the last time Asenka had raised her voice to anyone. “I care, Solmir. Lena and Radak care. Yeva cares.”

Solmir let out a frustrated, wordless sound, and Yeva heard his boots clomping first one way, then the other. “Asenka,” he said, more quietly now. “Asenka, please. We must tell her the truth. If we don’t, you’ll be miserable, I’ll be miserable—no one will be happy if we go through with this.”

“Yeva will be,” Asenka whispered.

“Asenka—”

“Go.”

“No, I won’t—”

“I said go.” Asenka’s voice held such steel as Yeva never knew she possessed, and Yeva ended up gawking at the empty landing ahead of her. It wasn’t until she heard Solmir’s slow, leaden footsteps heading for the stairs that she started and hurried away as quietly as she could.

That night Yeva waited until the household grew silent, and all the servants had retired and Radak and Lena were asleep. She crept out of bed, shivering as she pulled on a pair of woolen stockings, and then took up the quilt on her bed to wrap around her shoulders before slipping into the hall. She padded down to Asenka’s room, where the door was open a crack as it always had been when Yeva was a child, and crept inside.

When she was young Yeva would crawl into Asenka’s bed to tell her about her dreams of fairy-tale monsters and wicked spells, as thrilled and excited as she was frightened. Tonight her heart quickened as it used to, and for a moment she thought her throat wouldn’t work until her whisper burst out: “Asenka?”

Her sister mumbled unintelligibly, then sat up. “Yeva, what is it?”

“Can I come in?”

“Always.” Asenka slid sideways to make room for Yeva on the bed.

Yeva darted over and under the covers, warmed by Asenka’s body heat. She turned on her side and wrapped her arms around her sister, pressing her forehead against her shoulder. “I need advice,” Yeva said.

“About what?” Asenka tilted her head to the side until her temple rested against Yeva’s hair.

“Solmir.”

Asenka’s body stiffened—so close, it was impossible for her to hide it from Yeva, and she knew it. “Please,” she said eventually, sounding tired. “I can’t.”

Yeva’s arms tightened, and she reminded herself that she needed to know what was happening, even if asking made her sister unhappy. “Something is wrong. I want him to be happy, but he’s not, and he won’t tell me why.”

“Why would you think I could answer, when you can’t?” Asenka’s words were careful. She was never able to lie well, and certainly not to her own family.

“Because,” Yeva said. “Because I think you’re still in love with him.”