The Girl Who Drank the Moon(27)

“You should get an apprentice,” his mother said, eyeing the room. The workshop was well-organized, well-appointed, and comfortable. Well, comfortable for some people. Antain, for example, was extremely comfortable there.

“I do not want an apprentice,” Antain said as he rubbed oil into the curve of the wood. The grain shone like gold.

“You would do better business with an extra pair of hands. Your brothers—”

“Are dunces with wood,” Antain replied mildly. And it was true.

“Well,” his mother huffed. “Just think if you—”

“I am doing fine as it is,” Antain said. And that was also true.

“Well then,” his mother said. She shifted her weight from side to side. She adjusted the drape of her cloak. She had more cloaks herself than most extended families had among them. “What about your life, son? Here you are building cradles for other women’s grandchildren, and not my own. How am I supposed to bear the continuing shame of your un-Councilment without a beautiful grandchild to dandle upon my blessed knee?”

His mother’s voice cracked. There was a time, Antain knew, when he might have been able to stroll through the Market with a girl on his arm. But he had been so shy then, he never dared. In retrospect, Antain knew that it likely wouldn’t have been hard, had he tried. He had seen the sketches and portraits that his mother commissioned back then and knew that, once upon a time, he had been handsome.

No matter. He was good at his work and he loved it. Did he really need anything more?

“I’m sure Rook will marry one day, Mother. And Wynn. And the rest of them. Do not fret. I will make each of my brothers a bureau and a marriage bed and a cradle when the time is right. You’ll have grandchildren hanging from the rafters in no time.”

The mother in the rafters. The child in her arms. And oh! The screaming. Antain shut his eyes tightly and forced the image away.

“I have been talking with some other mothers. They have set a keen eye on the life you’ve built here. They are interested in introducing you to their daughters. Not their prettiest daughters, you understand, but daughters nonetheless.”

Antain sighed, stood, and washed his hands.

“Mother, thank you, but no.” He walked across the room and leaned over to kiss his mother on the cheek. He saw how she flinched when his ruined face got too close. He did his best not to let it hurt.

“But, Antain—”

“And now, I must be going.”

“But where are you going?”

“I have several errands to attend to.” This was a lie. With each lie he told, the next became easier. “I shall be at your house in two days’ time for dinner. I haven’t forgotten.” This was also a lie. He had no intention of eating in his family’s house, and was perfecting several excuses to remove himself from the vicinity at the last moment.

“Perhaps I should come with you,” she said. “Keep you company.” She loved him, in her way. Antain knew that.

“It’s best if I go alone,” Antain said. And he tied his cloak around his shoulders and walked away, leaving his mother behind in the shadows.

Antain kept to the lesser-used alleys and lanes throughout the Protectorate. Though the day was fair, he pulled his hood well over his forehead to keep his face in shadow. Antain had noticed long ago that his hiding himself made people more comfortable and minimized the staring. Sometimes small children would shyly ask to touch his scars. If their families were nearby, the child would invariably be shooed away by a mortified parent, and the interaction would be over. If not, though, Antain would soberly sit on his haunches and look the child in the eye. If the child did not bolt, he would remove his hood and say, “Go ahead.”

“Does it hurt?” the child would ask.

“Not today,” Antain always said. Another lie. His scars always hurt. Not as much as they did on that first day, or even the first week. But they hurt all the same—the dull ache of something lost.

The touch of those small fingers on his face—tracing the furrows and ridges of the scars—made Antain’s heart constrict, just a little. “Thank you,” Antain would say. And he meant it. Every time.

“Thank you,” the child always replied. And the two would part ways—the child returning to his family, and Antain leaving alone.

His wanderings brought him, as they always did whether he liked it or not, to the base of the Tower. His home, for a short, wondrous time in his youth. And the place where his life changed forever. He shoved his hands in his pockets and tilted his face to the sky.

“Why,” said a voice. “If it isn’t Antain. Back to visit us at last!” The voice was pleasant enough, though there was, Antain realized, a bit of a growl, buried so deeply in the voice that it was difficult to hear.

“Hello, Sister Ignatia,” he said, bowing low. “I am surprised to see you out of your study. Can it be that your wondrous curiosities have finally loosened their grip?”

It was the first time they had exchanged words face-to-face since he was injured, years now. Their correspondence had consisted of terse notes, hers likely penned by one of the other sisters and signed by Sister Ignatia. She had never bothered to check on him—not once—since he was injured. He tasted something bitter in his mouth. He swallowed it down to keep himself from grimacing.