I knelt and set out the candles. Ignifex, standing beside me, lit them with a snap of his fingers, then stuck his hands in the pockets of his long dark coat. For the first time that I had known him, there was something stiff and awkward in the way he stood.
“You look like a scarecrow,” I said. “Kneel down and give me the corkscrew.”
He knelt and handed me the corkscrew; after a few moments of cold-fingered struggle, I got the bottle open. I poured a trickle of the dark wine onto the earth before the tomb.
“Blessings and honor belong to the dead,” I whispered. The ritual words were comforting. “We bless you, we honor you, we remember your name.”
I lifted the bottle and gulped a mouthful of wine. It was sweet and spicy, like the autumn wind, and it burned its way down my throat. Then I held out the bottle to Ignifex.
He looked at me blankly.
“We drink as well,” I said. “It’s part of the ceremony.”
His gaze waved. “I . . .”
“You will honor my mother or I will break this bottle over your head.”
That got a ghost of a smile; then he took the bottle, and his neck flashed white as he tilted his head to drink. When he handed the bottle back, I poured another libation into the ground.
“O Thisbe Triskelion, we beg you to bless us. We breathe now in the sunlight, as you once did; we shall soon sleep in death, as you now do.”
I drank again, and handed the bottle back to him. When he had drunk as well, I took the bottle back and sat still, watching the statue’s face. It was curious to see my mother’s grave without Father and Aunt Telomache droning in the background; for the first time, I could look at her stone face without anger curling beneath my skin.
“What now?” asked Ignifex.
I paused, but there had already been ten generations’ worth of hymns sung at her grave; I had no desire to add to them. Instead I took another gulp of wine.
“We finish the bottle.” I passed it back to him.
Ignifex held it up to the light, squinting to see how much was left. “Mortal customs are more fun than I thought.”
We must have sat there nearly an hour, slowly drinking the wine amid the swirling leaves. We hardly spoke; sometimes Ignifex glanced at me thoughtfully, but mostly he seemed absorbed in studying the graveyard. Once, from the corner of my eye, I caught him pouring a tiny libation onto the ground, his lips moving silently.
By the end, we were no longer kneeling but sitting leaned against each other. After I poured the last drops of wine into the ground—for the dead must always have the first and last sip—we sat another few minutes in silence.
“Thank you,” I said at last.
I felt him take a deep breath; then he said, “Your sister calls to me every night.”
I sat bolt upright. “She what?”
“I don’t answer her,” he added quickly.
I was on my feet now, all peace forgotten. Had this started after I broke the mirror? Or had Astraia been trying to sacrifice herself every night since I left, and the mirror had just never shown me? It was the sort of trick I could expect from a piece of the house.
“She knows about your bargains—what can she be thinking?”
“Something heroic, I imagine.” He stood too, as graceful as ever.
I remembered her face as I had left her. Surely she wouldn’t dare so much for the sister who had hurt her.
My shoulders slumped. She had smuggled me a knife. She had grown up hearing about Lucretia taking her own life and Iphigeneia laying down hers on an altar, Horatio defending the bridge and Gaius Mucius Scaevola burning off his hand to show devotion to Rome—all the heroes that Father and Aunt Telomache had used to instruct me. Of course she would dare.
“I thought you had to answer everyone that called on you,” I said.
He shrugged. “Sometimes I must. Sometimes I have a choice. So far my masters seem indifferent to your sister.”
But if the Kindly Ones were half as capricious as he said, sooner or later they would not be indifferent, and when that day came, Ignifex would have no choice but to give her whatever cruel doom they decreed.
“They might be satisfied with her being helpless,” he said. “But . . . I thought you should know.”
There was the awkward stiffness in his stance again. I realized that he was nervous.
“Thank you,” I said slowly, meeting his eyes. “I have to go see her. Even if they never make you answer—for her to risk that much—she must think I’m dead or worse. I can’t leave her that way.” I stepped forward. “Please, let me go back to her. Just for a day.”
“You can’t go alone.”
“So take me there!” But even as I said the words, I realized how foolish they were.
“Even if your father didn’t try to kill me on sight, I would hardly help to ease your sister’s mind.” Ignifex sighed and stared off into the distance. “There is a way. But you must promise not to indulge in any foolishness.”
“I promise,” I said.