“You dabble in magic you don’t understand,” Gábor said. “You’re lucky to have come out unharmed.”
For a moment, hovering above that pristine world, I had not wanted to come out at all.
“Anna,” Grandmama said, her brows tucked together in dismay. “I had no notion. I thought you had given up your obsession with magic.”
My heart tightened at their disapproval, but I lifted my chin. We were right to seek to break the Binding. I tamped down the niggling doubt at the back of my mind.
“Surely none of that matters now,” Mátyás said. “Anna is safe. She did not break the Binding. But this man most assuredly tried to kill her. Suppose we deal with that?”
“Grandmama?” I asked.
Grandmama swallowed once, twice. Her hand closed convulsively over mine. “Have you ever done something terrible, something you wished you could undo but could not?”
Yes. I thought of James, of the Romani baby whose soul I might have stolen. “Grandmama, who is he?”
Grandmama shut her eyes tightly, as if our hovering faces were a bright light she could not bear to see. “He wears his father’s face. He is my son. Your uncle Pál.”
I gaped at the inert figure on the floor. I studied his face, seeing now the strong bridge of a nose, like Mama. Like me. No wonder his face had seemed familiar when I had seen him watching me outside the Café Pilvax. I remembered now where I had first seen him—at Lady Isen’s ball with Herr Steinberg in Vienna. I shivered. All this time, the Circle had been watching.
Mama had spoken of a brother, but only a handful of times. I had always assumed he died as a child, his death the tragedy that made Grandmama’s face whiten when he was mentioned.
Mátyás frowned at me. “Did you know he was your uncle?”
I shook my head. It had been Mama’s name the man said before the spell collapsed, not an appeal to the Catholic Mary. Anxiety unspooled in the pit of my stomach. Had he known who I was? If so, why had he attacked me? “Grandmama, what happened? Why was I never told about him?”
She was silent for so long I began to think she would not answer. At last she sighed. “Pál is a Coremancer. His abilities were unprecedented; even the Circle was astounded at how deftly he cast scrying spells immediately after his Confirmation. But, perhaps to compensate for such gifts, he has not been quite…right in other aspects. When the Circle came for him—to teach him, so they said—your grandfather was relieved. And I…I had no wish to quarrel with your grandfather, so I let him go. I told myself it was right.”
I tightened my fingers around hers, sensing some of the things she was not saying. I had never met my grandfather, but I knew from what little Mama said that he had been strict, and sometimes unkind. “How old was Pál?”
Another silence. “Nine.”
My heart twisted, both for my grandmother and for the young boy Pál had been.
“You understand, szívem, Luminate magic is costly. I know you suffer because you are Barren, but I…I have been glad. I believed it meant the Circle could not use you.” Her voice shook, stricken. “But if the Circle has sent Pál for you, I was wrong. So very, very wrong.”
Noémi stood from her examination of Pál and joined us. “Irína néni, you’ve had a shock. You need rest.”
“But…” My gaze swung to my uncle on my rug.
“You can sleep with me,” Noémi said, linking her arm through mine.
“Or me,” Mátyás said, winking. His grin stretched wide as both Noémi and Grandmama immediately protested.
“We can’t leave him here on the floor!” I said, ignoring the heat in my cheeks. I refused to let Mátyás bait me.
“Ginny can bring a blanket to cover him, and Mátyás can set an Immobility spell on him,” Noémi said, already ushering Grandmama from the room. “Everything else can wait until morning.”
While Mátyás set the spell, Gábor walked me to Noémi’s room. His hand lifted, as if he would touch me again, then fell. “Will you be all right?”
The gentleness in his voice, more than anything else that long evening, made me want to weep. No one else, not even Grandmama, had thought to ask about my well-being after my revelation about the Binding. Gábor might not agree with what I had done—with what I would surely attempt to do—but here, now, in the silence and shrouding darkness of the hallway, none of that mattered. Only the bare concern of one friend for another.
“Yes,” I said. You are here. “I will be all right.”
My first thought on waking was of the world in the Binding: the wild, unearthly beauty; the pure, unbridled joy. Its absence ached like a bruise on my heart. I must go back.
Coming swiftly on its heels was a memory of last night. I had thought I would not sleep after Grandmama’s revelation. Yet I had fallen into dreamless slumber nearly as soon as Noémi had found me a spare nightdress and settled me in her bed with a mug of tea. Surveying now an empty bed and a room full of sunlight, I realized Noémi must have drugged me. I suppressed a flicker of anger and pushed away thoughts of the Binding—my energy would be needed for other things—and gathered up my cloak and dress from the chair near Noémi’s wardrobe. I walked back down the hall to my room, tapped gently at the door, then eased it open. The room was empty, the bed neatly made up. My uncle no longer sprawled across the floor.
For a moment I feared he’d escaped—then I realized my room would not be so orderly if he had done so. Doubtless Mátyás had simply moved him. I rang the bell for Ginny and hurried to dress.
Ginny’s white face looked as shocked as I felt. “I can hardly believe it, miss.” She pulled a brush through my hair, her hand trembling. “I’ve always admired your grandmama, but this…how could she give away her child?”
“Don’t judge her,” I said. “People do terrible things when they are afraid.”
“Yes, miss.” Ginny began twining my hair into a knot. “Is it true what you said, that you went into the Binding?”
I started to nod, then caught myself. Ginny wouldn’t appreciate it if I undid all her work with my hair. “I mean to break it. I mean to let everyone have access to magic.”
Her hands stilled. “I believe,” she said slowly, as though picking her words with care, “that would be a mighty fine thing, miss.”
When Ginny finished with my hair, I rose and, on impulse, threw my arms around her. “Thank you.”
She laughed, astonished. “Whatever for?”
“For believing in me.”