Stolen Songbird(59)

“You can’t,” Tristan said, eyes darkening. “That is not a possibility.”

“I know!” I snapped at him. “But that doesn’t stop me from wishing there was some way to make them stop searching. To get on with their lives.”

Tristan’s brow furrowed. “There is one way,” he said reluctantly. “I could arrange for… remains to be found.”

A sour taste filled my mouth. “My remains.”

“In a manner of speaking. Bones showing signs you were killed by an animal. We’d have to include some sort of token easily identified as yours. It will be devastating to them at first, of course, but it will give them closure. If that is what you want.”

But was that what I wanted? Did I want my family and friends to think I was dead? To bury some stranger’s bones thinking it was me, when in truth I was living and breathing only a few leagues away? Or did I want them to keep hoping I was alive, just as I kept hoping I would one day be free of this place?

“Is it better that way?” I whispered. “Will they be happier?”

Tristan shook his head. “That isn’t my choice to make.”

Lifting my hair, I reluctantly unclasped the golden chain from around my neck. “Here. This is my mother’s necklace – I always wore it before. Everyone will recognize it.”

He silently took it from me.

“Don’t tell me the details,” I said. “Just take care of it.”

“As you wish,” he replied, and I felt his pity as he slipped the necklace into his pocket.

I took a deep breath and my gaze fell on the package on the desk. “I have something for you,” I said, glad to change the subject. “A gift.”

One black eyebrow arched. “You do?”

I gestured to the object in question, and, looking somewhat puzzled, Tristan pulled off the wrappings.

Silence.

“I meant it as a joke,” I explained. “You know, ha ha?”

He nodded slowly. “You did well today. Talk of our little argument has spread like wildfire through the city. Everyone is convinced we despise each other.”

“You were very convincing,” I said.

He raised his head to look at me. “As were you. I almost believed…” He trailed off and then waved his hand, as though what he had been about to say was no matter. “This really is dreadfully ugly.”

“I know.” I broke out into a grin. “You should have seen the looks on their faces when I told them to frame it.”

Tristan laughed, and I felt the tension flow out of me in a welcome release. I realized that I had been half-afraid that he’d meant what he said earlier – that the argument had been real. Our allegiance was tenuous at best, and his anger towards me today had been so convincing that part of me thought he’d changed his mind. Or worse, that it had been all my imagination that he was on my side in the first place.

“You should sign it,” he said. “Artists always put their mark on their work.”

As I set down his tear-stained handkerchief to pick up a pen and ink, I noticed the monogram on it. For reasons I could not explain, I scrawled Cécile de Montigny on the bottom of the painting.

Tristan went still. “I suppose that’s true,” he said, softly as though to himself. He straightened abruptly. “But the Cécile you presented today would not make such a concession, would she?”

The ink rose off the painting, coalescing into a blob before dropping back into the pot. “I suppose not,” I muttered, letting my hair fall forward so he wouldn’t be able to see the embarrassment written all over my face. Not that he wouldn’t be able to feel it. Re-dipping the pen, I scrawled a C in the bottom corner. “Better?”

He made a noncommittal noise, and pulled something from his pocket. “As it turns out, I have something for you as well.”

My mouth made a small “o” as he held up a necklace glittering with tiny diamonds, wrought to look like a cascade of snowflakes. “It’s beautiful.”

“Try it on,” he said.

He took hold of my shoulders and turned me towards a mirror. I stood frozen as he brushed my hair aside, his expression fixed with concentration as he undid the clasp and fastened it around my neck. My senses seemed magnified, and I felt everything keenly: the brush of his wrist against my shoulder, the warmth of his breath on my hair, the faint scent of apples on his hands.