Mátyás flashed his grin, a dimple flickering into being in one cheek. “Of course. My education has included all the essentials. How to identify a fine vintage. How much to wager at the racetrack. And of course, how to seduce pretty girls through poetry.”
Seduce? Only as he said this did I realize how close he stood to me, trapping me against the wall beside the door. Mátyás put one hand on the wall and cupped my chin with the other. Even Freddy had never stood quite so close as Mátyás did now, so close I could feel the heat of his body and see the fine gold stubble on his chin. So close he loomed over me, taller, broader, denser, more physically present than Freddy ever had been.
I froze. I did not want Mátyás to kiss me.
A tiny bloom of excitement unfurled in my stomach. Did I?
Before I could make up my mind, his lips were on mine, butterfly soft. The fine hair of his mustache tickled my skin, not unpleasantly. Feeling surged in me, a yearning I had almost forgotten since Freddy’s kiss in Grandmama’s garden. It was thrilling and terrifying at once. Mátyás pressed his lips more firmly against mine, and pleasure sent fireworks pinwheeling through my body.
No, I thought, my rational self reasserting control over the boiling stew of emotion. I put my hands on Mátyás’s chest, fighting the urge to curl them into his shirt and pull him closer. Instead, I shoved. Mátyás staggered back, nearly tumbling over a sheep.
“Don’t,” I said, wishing my breathing did not sound so ragged. “Ever. Do that. Again.” My entire head burned, even my ears. Mátyás, to my chagrin, appeared utterly untouched by our encounter. His color was smooth, his smile steady.
“I won’t,” he promised. A beat, then his dimple flashed. “Not until you ask me.”
I passed a bakery, the smell of yeast and fresh bread heavy in the air, my heart thumping. Any moment now, I expected someone to question why I was in the village alone, for Grandmama to notice my absence and send Ginny after me. But no one approached. I walked by the kocsma with its usual collection of afternoon drinkers lounging on the wooden benches. Surprisingly, Mátyás was not among them. A thin man in a fine suit turned swiftly away, though not before I’d caught the glint of spectacles. Herr Steinberg? Surely he’d returned to Vienna already.
Beyond the chapel and the row of whitewashed houses with their thatched roofs, I left the road to cross the open field, heading west and south—toward the Gypsy camp. As I walked, I kept one eye on the dark fringe of trees at the edge of the field. The trees, I had learned, marked the edge of the Eszterháza estate. Rationally, I knew I had nothing to fear from the shadows of Whitsun night in bright daylight.
But I watched the trees all the same.
Insects hummed lazily. An unfamiliar bird fluttered past me, exotic in its black-and-white-banded wings, its orange crest. I paused at a glinting stream to splash water on my face and neck before following the stream bank past a gentle rise. I could smell campfire now. A short distance beyond the hillock and I spotted the first of the tents, simple sheets of fabric draped across a pole held upright by two more poles.
The camp bustled with activity. Women stirring cook pots, children running between the tents, dogs rolling around underfoot. I could not see many men—only one or two, in the distance, grooming a horse.
My feet halted. This was madness. My welcome last time had been less than cordial. What would happen if I were discovered now, without the excuse of injury? Being yelled at was unpleasant enough.
But I could not turn back. If the Gypsies had a way to use magic without being Confirmed, I had to know it. The Circle officiant had told Papa I was Barren, empty of magic. But when I had told Mr. Skala as much at the ball, he had not believed it. And indeed, if Luminate drew all their magic from the Binding, then my inability to perform spells might only mean that my Confirmation spell had not worked. If there were other ways to use magic, perhaps they would work for me. At the least, they might work for James.
A couple of children spotted me and came running. They tugged at my sleeves and laughed and held out small brown hands. My first instinct was to pull back, as if they might pollute me. I shook myself. The children, though poor, were clearly well cared for: their cheeks glowed with health, and their lack of self-consciousness around strangers bespoke someone’s loving solicitude.
The older child, a boy with a bare torso and long pants, tugged at my sleeve again and held out his hand, palm upward, with an imperious gesture.
Did he want money?
I pulled out my purse and dropped a small coin into his hand. He laughed and sprinted off, holding the coin high. The smaller girl watched me with wide, unblinking eyes. I gave her a coin as well, though Grandmama’s warnings echoed in my ears.
Within seconds, I was mobbed by a group of small children, all shouting and jostling for place and grabbing at my skirts. I emptied my purse of coins, but the children did not leave until one of the larger children took the purse from me and shook it upside down, demonstrating it was indeed empty.
So much for a subtle approach.
The adults watched me openly now, their faces guarded.
I was about to turn back when the young woman from before approached me. She gestured at my skirt, smiling. Then she bent and tapped her own ankle, and looked a question at me.
I mustered a smile. “My ankle is well, thank you,” I said in German. I had spent my convalescence collecting Hungarian words for my current errand, but I hadn’t prepared anything about ankles. I took a deep breath, trying to steady my jangled nerves. “Anna, I am,” I said in Hungarian. I tapped my breast and smiled.
“Izidóra.” She returned my smile.
“Kérem. I ask nicely, teach me? Magic?”
Something flickered in Izidóra’s eyes, and she cast a quick glance over one shoulder, as if she were nervous.
“No magic. I want to learn. You help me?”
Izidóra ran off.
I watched her go with some consternation. I didn’t know if I should wait for her, or read her disappearance as refusal. I glanced around, looking for an answer. A small cluster of children still hovered nearby. When my eyes fell on them, some giggled and darted behind the tents. The others continued to stare. A very small boy toddled past, entirely naked, and a young woman darted after him, laughing.
I blinked, heat creeping up my neck. The English were not so casual about nudity.
“Hallo?” Gábor had approached while I was watching the children.
I thought I had imagined his face—that the angles had been enhanced by the moonlight into something impossible. But I found in daylight I had not imagined him, and my heart gave a peculiar thump. His face was all lines and shadows, his eyes large and dark. If there was a physical imperfection to be found, it was that the angle of his cheeks was perhaps too sharp, the line of his mouth stretched a hair too wide and too thin.