Nothing. My tongue curled around the word.
“Take care. I shall know if you’re lying. Did you see creatures, somewhat monstrous in aspect?”
“Yes,” I said finally. And they asked me to set them free.
Herr Steinberg closed his eyes, as if my answer pained him. “I feared as much.”
“But what are they? I thought at first they must be illusions.”
His eyes flew open. “They’re real. And ancient. The monsters and demigods of folklore once lived among us. But Charlemagne deemed them too dangerous to humans, and they were bound up with the magic in the Binding. If some of them managed to find their way into the spell at Sárvár, we may all be in very grave peril.”
The Circle keep us safe.
The Binding preserve us.
These were not vague prayers for the future, but injunctions from the past. The prayers of my childhood hid beasts out of legend. “Why have I never heard of them?” Even Papa’s letter had said nothing.
“A decision was made when the creatures were bound not to speak of it. Their existence is better forgotten. Even most members of the Circle do not know they are real. But if you can see the creatures, if they can reach you, then the Binding spell is no longer impermeable. Your ability is perilous, Miss Anna. It’s dangerous to you—and to every Luminate. There are some who would kill you to keep the Binding safe.”
My hands against the covers were frozen, my knuckles white. “I don’t even know how I broke the spell.”
“That makes you all the more hazardous. You might break the Binding by accident. Or the heretics might persuade you to aid them. Your father, for one. Lady Berri, for another. I’ve seen her skulking about this inn. You should know she is not to be trusted.”
I pressed my lips together, thinking of Lady Berri and the promises I held like hope in my heart. She had been very persuasive, but I was not at all certain I could break a spell that would unleash monsters on the world, no matter what Papa believed.
“Are you among those who want to kill me?” I had planned to be unmoved, even defiant, but my voice emerged thin and wavering. I was aware of the quiet of the room—and of Herr Steinberg’s hands, with their long, corded fingers.
He shook his head. “I am a pacifist, child. I would like to see you live a long life. But I will protect the Binding before all else. When the spell was first cast, it was designed to keep all Luminate out, to guard against this very possibility. But you—you are something else entirely.”
I shivered.
“Has Lady Berri asked you to break the Binding?”
I did not answer.
His lips compressed. “I do not think you appreciate the gravity of this. No doubt Lady Berri has assured you that nothing serious will happen. Perhaps she has promised you something for your efforts: wealth, a position in society. She cannot guarantee those promises. Would you destroy your entire world on such thin possibilities? Surely you are not so selfish. The lower classes hate us; if you strip us of magic, they will destroy us. And the monsters from the Binding would be free, slaking their blood lust and ravaging our cities.”
I stared at him, chilled by the world he presented.
“Understand this: we are watching you. If you attempt to enter the Binding spell, we will stop you. Kill you if we must. I do not wish to do this.” He stepped closer to me, patted my hand where it lay lax on my thigh.
I twitched away. I did not want those hands touching me.
“Your grandmother tells me you are heading to Buda-Pest soon. I think this is an excellent plan. Enjoy society life, as a young lady should. Forget about the Binding, for your own sake.”
When I said nothing, he left, the door shuddering against the frame. I curled under my bedclothes, my heart racing. Between them, Herr Steinberg and Lady Berri presented me with impossible choices. I might choose to be safe, continuing to live the same circumscribed life I’d always known and abandoning any hope of magic and a real place in society. Or I might answer the yearning call of my shadow self for a bigger life, a life that meant something. I might break the Binding and upend my entire world. But to do so, I would risk everything that mattered to me: my family, my friends, Luminate society itself.
The stork’s shadow crossed me like a bad omen. On horseback, I watched the bird land in its enormous messy nest—imposing, ungainly, and magnificent all at once—and tried to shake the sense of being watched.
Now that we were back at Eszterháza, I felt eyes on me everywhere: Herr Steinberg, finding an excuse to call on Grandmama and ensure I was where I was meant to be. Lady Berri, trundling through the rooms of Eszterháza and appearing at unexpected times in unexpected places, trying to catch me alone (Noémi had come across her more than once in the stillroom). Grandmama and Noémi, both worrying I was not fully healed. Only Mátyás did not watch me, and I could not decide if I was affronted or relieved by his disinterest. In response, I escaped the palace as often as I could.
Before me, the road curled away like a question. I glanced at the village behind me, barely visible at the edges of the green fields. No one appeared to notice. In the windless afternoon, even the shadows stayed put, wilted by the heat.
I nudged Cukor off the road. Incuriously, he stepped across the field, and within moments I’d reached my destination.
The Romani camp.
Only circles of stone and ash marked where they had been. I dismounted, letting Cukor graze on the grass that had already sprung up beneath the former tent sites.
We were departing for Buda-Pest in the morning, but I could not leave Eszterháza without seeking out my last connection, however faint, to Gábor. The city promised so much: museums and plays and operas and society, university classes for Mátyás, medical training for Noémi. But the city threatened as well. Reading between the lines of Mama’s latest letter, I surmised she wished me to acquire social polish there—better still, a husband to take me off her hands. Lady Berri would expect an answer to her demand. And Herr Steinberg would follow me to the city, his presence its own kind of menace.
For the moment, I answered them all with silence—a mute refusal to cooperate. But silence would only work as a delaying tactic for so long.
I pushed such unpleasant thoughts from my mind as I wandered through the campsite, imagining here was where I first met Izidóra and here I first saw Gábor. And there he kissed me—an angry, derisive kiss that had made me hate him until, unexpectedly, I hadn’t.
Heat beyond the sultry warmth of the afternoon flooded through me.
And there. There I had broken Noémi’s spell with an ability I didn’t understand. Selfish, Herr Steinberg had named me. Maybe he was right.
I turned back toward my horse. There was nothing for me here save aching memories. I should not have come.