I had meant to show the letter to Gábor, to give him notice if there was anything to James’s warning. But he was not anywhere in the house. I begged Mátyás to accompany me to Café Pilvax, hoping to find Gábor there.
“I’ll come too,” Noémi said. “I’m not expected at the hospital until this afternoon, and there won’t be many more fair mornings.”
Mátyás and I exchanged a glance. I suspected Noémi might not like what she found at the café: conversations about revolution—and William.
Indeed, Noémi spotted William almost as soon as she had crossed the threshold. She stood in the gathering light from the large window facing the street and scowled. “What is he doing here?”
Neither Mátyás nor I answered. I scanned the crowd for Gábor, the familiar set of his shoulders, the dark curl of his hair. I had not realized, until my heart sank, how much I depended upon finding him.
While Mátyás and Noémi secured spots at a nearby table, William cornered me.
“Well, Miss Arden. Have you found a way to break the Binding?”
I did not mean to tell him—I had planned to break the Binding in secret and let the students challenge the Austrian government in the wake of the Circle’s collapse. But William must have seen something change in my face.
“You have! Come, this is encouraging. Tell me when it is to be, so we may be ready.”
I did not want the blood of boys on my hands, if it came to a fight. And this was so soon.
“You know I am fully capable of bivouacking on your doorstep and following you everywhere until I discover your secret.” He snapped his fingers. “Or perhaps we should begin our revolution at once, and when it fails, you will carry the guilt of our failure on your shoulders for the rest of your life.”
He would do it too. “You are detestable,” I said, and he grinned at me. I sighed, and told him what Lady Berri planned. We would break the Binding if we could—the students might as well prepare for it.
“Was that so difficult? You’ve done well, Miss Arden. I must tell Pet?fi at once.” He scurried off to fetch the poet from an argument in the back corner. They conferred animatedly for a moment, Pet?fi gesticulating and William nodding.
His eyes shining, Pet?fi rushed toward me. He grasped my hands in both of his. “Most noble lady, thank you. You have given us precisely what we need: a moment of crisis, a time to change everything. For weeks, months, we have deliberated with no clear plan, but you—you!—have given this to us. Words are easily come by, but it takes more to rouse men to action.”
I blushed, uncomfortable under his scrutiny and flowery prose. I did not feel particularly heroic. Rather, I felt flattened, pricked by worry for James and nagged by doubt. I believed I was right to break the Binding, but I feared for my friends if it came to open battle with the Circle.
After shaking my hands once more and pressing a kiss on my knuckles, Pet?fi swept past me to Mátyás. “We’ll need you to go to the soldiers at Buda Castle, mislead and confuse them. Infiltrate their ranks. Mimic their leaders.”
Mátyás froze. “I’ve no training as a spy.”
“You’ve unprecedented gifts, William says. You should use them.” Pet?fi clapped a hand on my cousin’s shoulder. “You’ll be the hero of Hungary when this is through.”
“I’ve no desire to be a hero. Surely there’s something else I can do? What you ask…it isn’t easy for me.”
Pet?fi’s eyes flashed. “And you think this should be easy? What we do demands sacrifice, demands blood and honor and sweat and tears. You will do this for us because we need you.”
Mátyás nodded, but his eyes were uneasy and sweat beaded about his temples. None of this felt real, these boys arguing about their fight to come. They sounded precisely like James, playing at Napoleonic spy games. The poet moved on, murmuring instructions to others in the crowd: what weapons to gather and where to meet.
I crossed to Mátyás. “What was that about? What is it Pet?fi wants you to do?”
Mátyás folded his arms. “I don’t wish to speak about it.” He cut his eyes at Noémi. “I hear you’ve agreed to break the Binding.”
His attempt at distraction worked. Noémi sprang up and plucked my ringed hand. She thrust it in my face. “Have you forgotten what the Circle will do to you if they find out?”
I pulled my hand back. I had not forgotten. Fear tightened in my gut, but I had chosen to trust Lady Berri. I had chosen to believe we were right to break this spell. The skin beneath the ring itched and burned, and I rubbed it absently, trying to ease the discomfort.
Noémi cast a scornful glance around the café, her eyes coming to rest on William, who was helping the poet organize the students. She stalked over to him, jabbing one finger into his chest. “And you! How can you suppose you will succeed against trained Austrian soldiers? Against the Circle? It will be a slaughterhouse.”
“Noémi,” Mátyás said, rising from his seat and putting his hands on her shoulders. “It will be all right.”
“It will not be all right!” she said. “When you fight, people die. You’ve seen nothing of death. I have.”
“Some things are worth dying for,” William said, his eyes burning. “?‘Only this thought haunts me, that I might die in my bed, slowly withering like a flower.’?”
The bittersweet words caught at my heart, but Noémi scoffed at them. “Oh yes. I’ve read Pet?fi’s poem. One expects such thoughts of poets. But I had hoped you were rational men. There’s nothing heroic about dying.”
“We won’t die.” William smirked. “Have Mátyás bring you to my workshop. I’ll show you.”
“What makes you think I want anything to do with this?” Noémi asked. “I’d stop you if I could. But I—”
She broke off as a wiry man with thinning hair pushed his way through the crowd of students. “The Circle is rounding up Gypsies in Tabán! They mean to enforce the Hapsburg prohibition against non-Luminate magic. Should be quite a show.”
A show. Because of course punishment was only entertainment for those not involved. My heart shrank. Is that where Gábor disappeared? Then the knot of my heart twisted tighter. James’s letter. Was this the result of my folly? I had to do something. “Where is Tabán?”
“By Gellért Hill, on the Buda side,” Noémi said. A beat later, she realized my intent. “But, Anna, you can’t go there. Not today. Not ever. Even on a good day it’s not safe.”
“Someone must warn him. Them.”
Noémi shook her head and put her hand, very gently, over mine. “But not you.”
I hitched up my skirts and climbed onto a chair, pitching my voice to sound over the crowd. My Hungarian was rough, but it carried. “Please. Listen to me! Today, it is Romanies. But who will it be tomorrow? The Magyar? The Circle have already shown that they do not value anyone not like them. You must stop them!”
A half second’s shocked silence met my words, then the room erupted with jeers.
“What’s all this buzzing? Is a woman speaking?”