“Why are they so angry?” I asked.
“They want independent standing in the empire; they are tired of being considered part of Hungary.” Mátyás said this without a trace of irony. Did he not see that the Croats were only echoing the Hungarians’ own cry?
Students tumbled from the café behind us, drawn by the shouting.
“Hungary for Hungarians!” A young man with blond curls and a loosely tied red cravat ran into the street, coming to a halt just before the Croats.
One of the Croat boys spat in his face. The blond youth erupted toward him, fists swinging. Mátyás started for them.
“Mátyás, don’t,” Gábor warned. “We can’t be involved in this.”
At once, there were young men fighting everywhere. A student flew past me, crashing against the brick wall to my right, the soft felt hat favored by the radicals tumbling to the ground. He slumped down to the pavement, and I winced in sympathy. He blinked at me, dazed.
A Croat boy charged toward us, and Mátyás pushed him away. The boy snarled and shoved a fist in Mátyás’s face.
I scarce had time to wonder if Mátyás was all right when something—an elbow?—slammed into my cheek, and I stumbled back, my left ear ringing. Gábor cursed and swung me behind him. “Fools.”
Gábor hurried me around the corner. When the shouting had receded behind us, he probed the injury on my cheek. “Does it hurt much? We’re not far from the hospital.”
“I don’t need a doctor.” I wished, stupidly, that my wound were more severe, so his hands would linger.
Mátyás peered over Gábor’s shoulder at my face, wiping the blood dripping from his nose on his sleeve. “You’ll not want to go about for a day or two.”
“Me?” I asked, looking at the blood now smeared on his cheek.
“You’re going to have a black eye.”
I tried to imagine Grandmama’s reaction to that, when Gábor grasped my hand. “Move,” he said. “Soldiers.”
Flickers of blue and red flashed in the street beyond, followed by the thudding sounds of students fleeing. I hoped William got away safely.
“They’re making arrests. Go!”
Between Mátyás’s face and my already-swelling eye, it might be difficult to prove our innocence. Gábor took my arm, and we followed Mátyás as swiftly as my cumbersome skirts allowed.
When I got home, I snuck upstairs to my room and found a crisp card with Lady Berri’s sprawling signature lying on my pillow. I assumed Ginny had smuggled it up to me. I flipped the card over.
Lady Berri had written simply: 8 o’clock, with an address scrawled beneath it.
I was not entirely easy when I arrived at Lady Berri’s rooms with Ginny, this time in a more modest establishment. A perfectly circular white carpet lay over the floor. In the center of the carpet stood a stone table, and on the table rested two shallow bowls, one silver and one bronze. Blood-red drapes guarded the windows.
“Good heavens, child.” Lady Berri peered at my eye, which was nearly swollen shut. “What on earth happened?”
“A street fracas. Some students were fighting, and we got caught in the middle of it.”
“What are they fighting about this time?” She sent Ginny downstairs to wait and gestured for me to sit.
I stripped off my gloves and set them to the side of the silver bowl, where they lay limp, like corpses.
“Freedom,” I said, sitting and fingering my ring. Szabadság, the Croats had shouted, but they attacked Hungarian students who wanted the same thing.
Didn’t they?
She tsked. “The Hungarians want to be free of the Austrians, I suppose. Well, that’s their business. I hope you’ve sense enough not to get caught up in it.”
I said nothing. The turul necklace Karolina had given me hung heavy at my throat.
Lady Berri handed me a tray of sliced bread with salted butter. “Eat. You may need your strength.”
I took the tray but did not select anything. I surveyed the shallow bowls on the table with misgiving. “What is this?”
“A minor grounding ritual. I need something of you—a bit of blood—to craft a spell to protect you in the Binding. You needn’t fear this spell. It won’t harm you. It touches your flesh, not your soul.”
This looked nothing like any minor ritual I had seen. “Herr Steinberg will know what spell you cast,” I told her, showing her the ring I wore and explaining how it worked.
She pressed her lips together until they had disappeared entirely. “Well. That is most vexing. I suppose we can forgo the protection spell—though I shall have to cast other spells in its place. I cannot risk Herr Steinberg finding me at the present moment or suspecting anything of our plans, which he will certainly do if he discovers this spell.”
I selected a piece of bread and nibbled at it, considering. When I came out of the Binding, Lady Berri had said that something held me there. A part of me was there yet, a dull yearning that never eased. Had Hunger spelled me, sealing me to the Binding spell with my own desires? Had it been a side effect of the laudanum? Or something else, something deeper, truer? “Can you still find a way for me to get back into the Binding?”
She frowned. “I believe so. I will need to complete some minor spell work before we attempt it again.” Her eyes met mine. “Three nights from now, I shall be along to fetch you. Be ready.”
Ready? I nearly laughed. How does one prepare to end the world? To start anew? Even with years to prepare, I imagined I could not ever be ready.
But to go into the spell again? Ah. For that, I was more than ready.
Ginny brought in the mail with my morning tea and set the tray beside me in my bed. For a wonder, there were three letters, including one from James. I slid my finger beneath the seal, curious to find how his Romani magic was progressing.
The letter was to the point. Someone ratted me out, and the magic tutor discovered my ring and your letters. I’ve been sent down. They were asking me where you got the ring, but I wouldn’t tell them anything. Be careful.
I dropped the letter on the covers, my fingers suddenly numb.
Ginny, who was laying out my dress for the day, noticed my stillness. “Is everything all right, Miss Anna? Bad news from your family?”
“James has been sent home from Eton.”
She smiled a little. “A prank, no doubt. I shouldn’t worry. Boys will be boys.”
“No.” It was strangely difficult to force the word through my lips. “It’s worse than that. He’s done something illegal.” Something I told him to do.
I did not want to read the other letters. I knew what they said. Mama would find a way to blame James’s failure on me, though James would not have told her the truth. Papa might suspect my involvement, but he would speculate instead how James had come by the talisman, and his careful nonblame would hurt more than all Mama’s railings. I set the letters down and flung my covers aside. The need for action was already building in my limbs, energy fizzing through my blood and into my brain.
I could not bear to think of James. The only solution was to cram my mind so full of other things there would be no time for reflection.