Stepsister(74)

It was quiet when they finished. No one spoke.

Then Tavi, her voice quavering with anger, said, “You could’ve been killed, Isabelle. What were you thinking?”

“That I wanted to kill Volkmar,” Isabelle said in a flat, grim voice. “That I wanted to cut into his black heart and watch him bleed to death at my feet. That’s what I was thinking.” Silent and hollow-eyed, she led Nero into the stables and started to untack him.

They all watched her go, then Hugo turned to Felix and said, “Come inside. Sit down. Have something to drink.”

Felix shook his head. “I’m going to the camp. To warn Colonel Cafard. The sooner I get there the better.”

Hugo insisted on driving him. He’d been just about to leave for the camp, he explained. The cook had sent for milk. Men had left for the front that morning. Every wagon in the camp had been needed to carry tents, arms, and ammunition. Not one was left to fetch food for those remaining.

Felix thanked him and asked to borrow a shirt. Usually Avara would have balked over such a request, badgering Felix not to stain it or wear out the elbows, but she didn’t utter one word of protest. Worry crinkled the skin around her eyes. Her gaze drifted over her fields, her orchards, her cattle, her son.

Fate knew what she was thinking, what they were all thinking: Malleval was only ten miles away. “Volkmar won’t come here,” she soothed, the lie rolling smoothly off her tongue. “He wouldn’t dare, not with Colonel Cafard camped right outside the village.”

Avara nodded, but the furrows remained. “You’re right, Tantine. Of course you are,” she said. Then she took a deep breath. “Octavia, you broke my bowl! Do you have any idea what bowls like that cost? Clean up the mess and get the rest of the peas shelled!” But her voice lacked its usual vinegar.

Tavi bent over the pottery shards. She made a sling of her apron and put them in it. Maman helped her. Avara returned to her soup.

And Fate remained outside, watching as Felix shrugged into Hugo’s shirt, then climbed up on the wagon seat next to him. As the two boys headed down the drive, her bright eyes searched the farmyard for Isabelle. They spotted her by the pond. She’d led Nero to the water; he’d waded in up to his shoulders and was drinking his fill.

Isabelle followed him in, fully clothed except for her boots and stockings. As Fate watched, she submerged herself. When she came back up, she sat down on the bank and rubbed at the bloodstains on her dress, then scrubbed at her hands, roughly, furiously, as if whatever was on them would never come off.

When she was finished, she lowered her head and wept. Even at a distance, Fate could see her shoulders shaking, her body shuddering.

How on earth did Volkmar fail to kill her? she wondered. She’s just a girl. Crumpling under the bloodshed she witnessed.

Fate meant to get an answer to her question. Pleading tiredness after all the upset, she abandoned the bowl of apples she’d been peeling, closed herself in her room, and took Isabelle’s map out of her trunk. She moved quietly. Losca was asleep in a trundle bed, her head tucked under her arm.

Fate smoothed the map out on her table, sat down, and looked it over.

She had tried to shorten Isabelle’s path to her death, and it hadn’t worked. Was it her inks? Maybe the ingredients hadn’t been the best quality. The light was bad in this room; perhaps her artistry had suffered as a result.

But no, it was neither of these things. Fate’s expert eyes found the problem. She had drawn a new path for Isabelle, a shortcut through Malleval to Volkmar, and Isabelle had followed it—most of the way. Just shy of the end, however, she’d turned off the shortcut and made her way back to her old path.

Fate sat back in her chair. She drummed her fingers on its arm. Have I underestimated her? she wondered.

Isabelle had refused to abandon her mother in a burning house. She’d saved three horses at the expense of her own freedom. She’d taken on Volkmar. This wasn’t the same girl who’d stood by as Maman turned Ella into a servant, or who’d locked her stepsister in her room when the prince had come to call. Why, she was even walking taller these days, more confidently.

At least she failed to see Ella, Fate thought with some relief. That was the day’s one bright spot.

But the boy—the first piece—he was worrisome. He’d had an arm around Isabelle as they’d walked up the drive. They seemed to have grown closer. Fate consulted Isabelle’s map again, poring closely over the detour she’d made, then she pounded her fist on the table. The noise startled Losca awake. She sat up, bright-eyed and blinking.

“They reconciled!” Fate fumed. “He made a slipper for her. That’s why she was walking taller. He even asked her to go with him to Italy!” She peered at the map again. “She told him she could not … That’s good. But he promised to find a way.” She shook her head in disgust. “What if he does? What if Isabelle leaves?”

Fate rose; she paced back and forth. “That cannot happen,” she said. She knew she had to find a way of keeping Isabelle in Saint-Michel, but her bag of tricks was rapidly emptying. Warm from her pacing, she moved across the room to open her window. It was a casement frame with metal hinges, one of which had developed an unpleasant squeak.

“I must get after Hugo to fix that,” she muttered.

Hugo.

Fate whirled around. She rushed to her desk and scrawled a hasty letter on a piece of parchment.