Page 99 of Sanctifier

Ru hiccuped, laughing, and overwhelmed with affection for her brother. She sat up, wiping her eyes.

Simon tilted his head, regarding his sister with an assessing sort of fondness. “You know,” he said, “the painful knowledge of one’s impending demise is hardly reason to let oneself go.”

She made a face. “Do I look that bad?”

He laughed, a musical, uproarious thing that warmed Ru’s heart. “God, Ru. Yes. I know for a fact you own gowns in colors other than drab gray. Let me braid your hair, at the very least.”

He hadn’t braided her hair since they were children. Before she left for the Cornelian Tower. Before he took up the lute. Ru could think of nothing she would like more. “Please,” she said.

Simon’s fingers were deft, the precise movements of a musician. Ru leaned back against his bent knees, his feet propped on the sofa as if they were children again. The tug of his hands in her hair was calming, the repetition soothing.

And then something occurred to her, something she should have wondered at before. “Simon,” she said, “you know things. Do you know how Lady Bellenet changed the professors at the Cornelian Tower?”

He paused in his ministrations. “I thought you knew.”

“I thought it was poison, but now I know how her powers work. Did she travel to the Tower in secret?”

“Exactly,” Simon said, almost too quickly. “Theyweresedated with some herbal tincture, held captive until she could jaunt up to the Tower and change them.”

“But…” Ru said, her thoughts turning over like stones to reveal what was beneath. “The travel alone would have taken days. We would have seen her carriage.” And then she understood. The truth landed like a stone in her gut. “Taryel took her.”

“You ought to consider not using your brain for a while,” said Simon, still braiding, slowly and fastidiously. “I think you’d find it relaxing.”

“Simon.”

His voice softened. “Don’t be too angry with him. He had no choice, did he? Playing along, and all that. And stop fidgeting,” said Simon. “You’ll make the braid crooked. I’m almost done.”

When he was finished, he took Ru by the shoulders and spun her around to face him. He smiled, though there was a faint sadness in his eyes that Ru wasn’t used to seeing there.

“Acceptable?” she asked.

“Only just,” he replied, the edges of his eyes crinkling. “And now I must depart.” He stood, smoothing his frock coat and neckcloth, patting his hair to ensure that he remained the very picture of perfection. At the door, he turned, his features pinched in thought. “You only have ten days,” he said. “What will you do with them?”

Ru reached back and ran her fingers over the braid. It was neat as a pin, not a single lock of hair misplaced. Just as it had been when they were children.

“I’ll find a way to stop her,” she said. “Or, I suppose… I won’t. Either way, we’ll find out soon enough.”

Simon grinned, pride shining in his hazel eyes. “Grim and somewhat hopeless. That’s my Ru.”

CHAPTER 36

Snow fell through the night. And when the sun rose, a southern wind pushed the clouds toward the mountains. The sunlight on the snow made the palace shimmer like a sugary confection. Ru couldn’t help but admire the sight through the tall windows to her left, the beauty of it, otherworldly in its quiet.

“I had intended for us to take the air together,” said Lady Bellenet, “but fate had other plans.”

Turning back to her breakfast, Ru avoided the woman’s gaze. She had risen with the sun that morning, finding herself alone. And when Lord D’Luc didn’t come to fetch her, she at last dressed and, strangely worried, went out to find him. Instead, she had found Inda waiting outside her door.

“Lady Bellenet has summoned you to her rooms for breakfast,” Inda had said with heavy indifference, and that had been all.

“Where is Lord D’Luc?” Ru asked now. The question was innocent curiosity laced with fear, but Ru saw in Lady Bellenet’s expression that sheknew, somehow: two opposing forms, drawn together in the snow.

“Where he’ll be useful,” she said. “Away from you.”

Ru willed herself to remain relaxed, to appear untouched by the words, the threats that dripped from them. She did not need to waste her worry on Hugon D’Luc. “And the demonstrations?”

“Drink your coffee before it cools,” said the lady, daintily sipping her own. “The air is chilled this morning.”

They finished their breakfast in stiff silence. Ru forced herself to chew and swallow a fresh scone, dousing it in cream and jam to help it go down.

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