Who can say, when you give a creature freedom, what he or she will choose? What will your world look like when you give all individuals the same rights? Can you say with certainty each person will use that power for good?
His words echoed in my heart.
I brooded over the terrible creatures in the Binding, the blood and destruction I’d seen and heard in the walled city. But I remembered also the warming gentleness of the Lady who’d visited my dreams, and I contrasted her with the terrifying chill I’d felt when Pál’s spell silenced the Romanies.
Who can say, when you give a creature freedom, what he or she will choose?
The creatures were capable of terrible things. But so were humans. And perhaps captivity had warped the creatures into something they were not meant to be.
Who was I to make this decision for anyone—for anything? Was I not also something monstrous? A chimera who could break the world, if Pál was right.
I had never questioned that women and men of all classes ought to have the right to determine their own lives. Yet I had thought I could make that decision for creatures much older and more powerful than myself.
The awful sense of my own hubris struck me as a physical pain, radiating through my stomach and into my heart. The problem of the Binding was much bigger than Hungary’s independence from Austria, much larger than the Circle’s control of magic. I curled up, wrapping my arms around my knees, and tried not to wake Noémi.
All through that long night, I considered what I ought to do. When hunger pangs struck me about midnight, I devoured the bread and meat Ginny had left on the bedside table. Then I began pacing the room, measuring my thoughts with agitated steps.
The Circle-run Binding was a flawed system, maintaining the Luminate in power, perpetuating injustice, allowing Austria to dominate a country I had come to love. I knew it. Papa knew it. Others would come to see it too.
I could not ignore the external factors—the threats to me and to those I loved. But stripped of those externals, the question was a simple one: should every individual (man, woman, creature) be free to decide their own course?
By the time the first grey light of morning seeped through my window, I knew what I must do.
I went to wake the others. Noémi looked shocked. “Are you certain?” We were gathered in Grandmama’s room, huddled close in the chill air.
“Yes,” I said. “It’s the right thing to do. The Circle has used the Binding for too long as a way of keeping people under their control—they can’t be trusted not to abuse that power. The creatures who are bound deserve a chance at freedom, just as we do.”
“Simply breaking the Binding won’t free Mátyás and the others,” she pointed out.
“I know.” This uncertainty was a cold weight in my breast. “But it will weaken the Circle, and I think I can bargain with the creatures to fight with us in exchange for freedom. This is our best chance.”
Grandmama listened quietly, then nodded. “I trust you, Anna. And—this is my heart’s country. I will fight for her.”
My heart warmed at her faith. I described the spell Lady Berri had used to root us to Attila’s Hill. “Do you think you could re-create such a spell?” I asked Pál.
He nodded. “The Portal spell is straightforward enough. But I don’t understand why Lady Berri chose that site.”
“She said that it was sacred, that ley lines ran near there and would strengthen our spells.”
“Then why use it for an Unbinding spell? With all due respect to your Lady Berri, sometimes her faith in her own knowledge prevented her from perceiving certain realities. Symbols can add powerful resonance to spells. We need a site of breaking and desolation.”
“A cemetery?” I asked, wrinkling my nose. It was not that I found the graves particularly distasteful, only that spell-casting there seemed blasphemous. “I know that death is powerful magic, but surely there are better sites.”
Pál shook his head. “No. Cemeteries are sacred places. They breathe death, yes, but death is more a remaking than an unmaking. We need a profane site.”
“A defiled church?” Was there such a place in the city?
“A railroad?” Grandmama asked, her mouth pursed in distaste. Noémi and I exchanged a look. Only Grandmama would find trains profane.
“A symbol is more powerful if it has personal meaning.”
“I know,” Noémi said. “Eszterháza.”
I did not want to make the return trip to Eszterháza and waste the little time remaining to us. It would take two days to reach the country palace at a good pace, and I was not sure Grandmama could survive the journey. By then, the executions would have already started. But Pál agreed. The decaying estate was an ideal mix of personal and symbolic dissolution.
“You needn’t ride all that distance,” Pál said. “I can open a portal.”
“But then you’ll lack the strength to open a gateway to the Binding.” I recalled Lady Berri’s exhaustion after she’d folded the earth.
Pál’s light eyes glinted. “I have strength enough.”
I returned to my room to stuff my few belongings in the small valise Ginny had prepared for me. In the bottom of the valise was a small, oddly shaped package. I unwrapped the brown paper and stared, chilled, at the bone knife Lady Berri had given me to break the Binding. Beneath it lay the Romani bracelet I had snatched from the square.
Noémi brushed by me. Seeing my stare, she said, “Oh. Ginny found those among your things. She believed they might be important.”
How had Ginny known? Perhaps this was fated to be. I slipped on the bracelet, and the agate glimmered in the shadows.
It did not take Pál long to cast the Portal spell, a thin slit appearing in the doorway. Through it, I could see the hazy outline of one of the Chinese-style salons at Eszterháza, the blue inked figures dancing across the wall.
Pál held his arm out toward Noémi. “After you.”
Noémi took one step through the archway. For a moment, her outline seemed to blur and smudge out, then she reappeared in the salon. Grandmama followed her. Then it was my turn. I looked back at Ginny, who sat on the bed, weeping. Pál refused to bring her through the portal, as she would contribute nothing to our fight. She was to depart alone for Grandmama’s house in Pest and wait for our return.
She waved her soggy handkerchief at me. “Godspeed, Miss Anna.”
I darted away from the portal to hug her, then stepped through.
A rush of heat enveloped me, pinching at my eyes and mouth and nose. I willed myself to stay calm. Then I was through, gasping in the warm air of the Eszterháza parlor.
A moment later, Pál emerged from the portal, and a few moments after that, Noémi’s vizsla erupted into the room, barking to raise the dead. Or at least, to raise János, who came stumping into the room shortly after, swearing under his breath.