The Queen's Rising(29)

“Oh, Brienna is excellent at wit, even if she claims she is not!”

My fingers tightened on my fork as I stared at her across the table.

“And how is that?” one of her patrons asked, smiling at me.

“Why, she spent an entire year studying wit alongside me, and I wish she had stayed!” Sibylle had drunk one too many cordials. She was glassy-eyed, unable to read the darts my gaze was trying to send her.

Nicolas turned to me, a frown creasing his brow. “You studied wit?”

“Ah yes, Master Nicolas,” I responded, trying to keep my voice low so no one else could hear, for an awkward lull had frosted our table. Even Mistress Therese appeared concerned for me.

In vain, I tried to wear my confidence instead of my worry, but my treacherous heart started to hammer, breaking my mask to pieces.

“And why is that? I thought you were knowledge,” he remarked.

The solstice began to unravel around me, as if it were a spool of midnight, and I could not catch it. Nicolas looked perplexed, as if I had lied to him. It was no secret that I had studied all of the passions, but he apparently had not known. I suddenly realized how I must appear to him.

“I began my time at Magnalia studying art,” I said, keeping my voice level, but the shame was there, in the undercurrent of my words. “Then a year in dramatics, then one in music, and one in wit before I began to study knowledge.”

“A well-rounded arden!” one of Sibylle’s patrons cried, lifting his wine goblet to me.

I ignored him, my gaze on Nicolas, willing him to understand.

“So how many years have you been applying yourself to knowledge?” he asked.

“Three.”

It was not the answer he wanted. I was not the passion he wanted.

The night ended for me then.

I continued to sit at Nicolas’s side through the remainder of courses served, but his interest had wilted. We talked with those gathered about our table, and after the marzipan confections were served for dessert, I forced myself to mingle with the others. I forced myself to talk and laugh until it was well past midnight and half of the patrons had retired to bed, and only a few of us remained in Merei’s tent, listening to her play song after song.

Only then did I slip from the tents and stare at the gardens, drenched in quiet moonlight. I needed a moment alone, to process what had just happened.

I walked along the paths, letting the hedges and roses and ivy swallow me until the night felt peaceful and gentle again. I was standing before the reflection pond, kicking a few pebbles into the dark water, when I heard him.

“Brienna?”

I turned. Cartier stood a good distance away, smudged in the shadows like he was unsure if I wanted him here or not.

“Master Cartier.”

He walked to my side, and I had just determined not to tell him anything when he asked, “What happened?”

I sighed, my hands resting on the rigid bones of my corset. “Ah, Master, am I so easy to read?”

“Something happened at dinner. I could see it in your face.”

I had never heard regret in his tone, until that moment. I could taste the sorrow in his voice, like sugar melting on my tongue, sorrow that he had not sat beside me. And if he had, perhaps it might have been different. Perhaps he would have been able to keep Nicolas Babineaux’s interest piqued.

But most likely not.

“I look uneducated to Mathieu, and inexperienced to Babineaux,” I finally confessed.

“How so?” His words were sharp, angry.

I tilted my head, my hair pouring over my shoulder as I mournfully smiled at him in the moonlight. “Do not take it personally, Master.”

“I take everything personally when it comes to you and Ciri. Tell me, what did they say?”

“Well, I forgot two entire generations in my genealogy. Brice Mathieu was much alarmed by this.”

“I do not care for Brice Mathieu,” Cartier swiftly retorted. I wondered if he was the slightest bit jealous. “What of Nicolas Babineaux? He is the patron I want for you.”

I realized now that he had wanted me to become an arial. And he must have also known Ciri was going to branch to the physician. He had read her effortlessly, but me? I shivered despite the warmth, feeling like he did not know me at all. And it wasn’t supposed to be what he desired; it was what I wanted for myself.

We had two different images in mind, and I wasn’t sure if it was possible to align them into something beautiful.

“I thought you said I was a historian, not a teacher,” I remarked.

“I did,” he replied. “All that being said, you and I are very much alike, Brienna. And I feel as if all historians should begin as teachers. My time here at Magnalia has in no way stanched my love of history. Rather, it has breathed upon it, as if my mind was a mere ember before.”

We stared at each other, the starlight sweetening the shadows that had fallen between us.

“Tell me what he said,” Cartier softly persisted.

“He was not impressed with my three years.”

He sighed and roughly drew his fingers through his hair, his frustration tangible. The buckles on his doublet winked in the dim light as he said, “Then he is not worthy of you.”

I wanted to tell him that was kind of him to say. But my throat had tightened, and different words came out instead.