Emily elbowed him. Sienna probably did know people, but Emily had no intention of asking Sienna to help her find a partner. Besides, it would probably lead to a set of etiquette landmines she didn’t want to detonate. Better to see what happened at Whitehall and afterwards, she told herself firmly. It wasn’t as if she found anyone else particularly attractive.
And you have plenty of money, despite it all, she thought, wryly. That’ll make you very attractive indeed.
She smiled as the northern bridge came into view. A stream of people flowed in and out of the city; merchants from Cockatrice and Swanhaven rubbing shoulders with magicians and emissaries from across the Allied Lands. Frieda stood at the south end, next to a tall blonde woman. Emily felt her heart skip a beat as she recognized Lady Barb. The older woman hadn’t said she’d come…
My chat parchments were destroyed, Emily thought, as she hurried forward. She couldn’t tell me she was coming.
“Emily,” Frieda said. She shot Caleb a nasty look. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.” Emily glanced at the guards in the gatehouse, wondering if they had orders to make sure she crossed the bridge. She didn’t envy them if they did. “I’m fine.”
“Good,” Frieda said, crossly. Her black eye hadn’t quite healed, giving her a menacing appearance. “Because if you weren’t…”
Emily gave Lady Barb a hug, then turned back to Caleb. “I’ll see you back at Whitehall,” she said. “And tell your family…”
She broke off. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to tell them.
“Thank them for their hospitality,” she said, finally. Sienna and her family had hosted her, after all. “And for everything else.”
“Of course,” Caleb said, seriously. He looked as though he wanted to hug her too, but didn’t quite dare. Emily didn’t blame him. The situation was already awkward enough. “I’ll see you at Whitehall.”
He turned and walked off, not looking back.
Chapter Forty
UNDER OTHER CIRCUMSTANCES, EMILY WOULD HAVE enjoyed her walk across the bridge. The stone structure spanned the Tribune River, a churning torrent that roared down the gorge and poured into the sea. Water crashed over jagged rocks that stabbed skywards, daring anyone to clamber down to the river and then climb up to the city. She’d heard that some people did try to ride the rapids in kayaks, but most of them died in the attempt. Only a handful of experienced canoeists made it to the sea.
But now, she just felt cold.
“I’m sorry it didn’t work out,” Lady Barb said, briskly.
She walked beside Emily, her long, blonde hair glinting in the sun. Frieda ran ahead of them, looking – for a moment – like the child she should have been. But she’d never had a chance at a real childhood, much like Emily herself. Emily wanted to reach out and hug her, hug both of them. And yet, she knew it wouldn’t help.
“Me too.” She looked up at Lady Barb. “Did you know…?”
“That it would fail?” Lady Barb shrugged. “You never really know how strong a relationship is until it runs into rocky waters. Either the happy couple manages to overcome their difficulties – and the relationship survives – or they are torn apart. In your case…I hoped you’d overcome your problems.”
Emily nodded, looking down at the river. “I wish…”
“Don’t wish,” Lady Barb said, firmly. “What happened, happened. Concentrate on the future.”
Emily sighed. “What happened to you? I mean…to your courtship?”
“There was a young man – still a boy, really – who wanted to court me,” Lady Barb said. “I was older than you at the time, twenty-two…just young enough to be flattered, but old enough to be careful. It turned out that we had very different ideas of our role in a relationship and we parted on bad terms.”
“Caleb and I are still friends,” Emily said, although she wasn’t sure if that was true. “What happened to him?”
“He married, had kids…he’s still alive, as far as I know,” Lady Barb said. “I haven’t bothered to keep tabs on him.”
She gave Emily a sidelong look. “Be careful,” she said, seriously. “Caleb was your first, wasn’t he? You’ll always be entangled with him, as much as you might wish to deny it. He may feel the same way too. Being friends again might not be an option.”
“It has to be an option,” Emily said.
“You were sleeping with him,” Lady Barb said. “There is no way you can avoid an emotional tie.”
Emily touched her heart. It ached. “Why…why is it so difficult?”
“Because men are men and women are women and immature members of both genders have problems relating to the other.” Lady Barb’s lips quirked up. “Women are nervous, and understandably so, of having something put inside them; men, too, are nervous about putting something in something. The risk of being violated is matched by the risk of losing something very important to you.”
“Oh.” Emily knew she was blushing. Her cheeks felt warm. “I never thought about it like that.”
“Few people your age do,” Lady Barb told her. “And five years from now, you’ll look back on your youth and wonder just what you were thinking.”
Emily rubbed her cheek. “How much did Frieda tell you?”
“She didn’t say much,” Lady Barb said. “Sienna’s letter was a little more detailed.”
“Yeah,” Emily said. She hadn’t expected Sienna to contact Lady Barb, but in hindsight she should have. Lady Barb had accompanied her when she’d first visited Beneficence. She and Void were the closest thing Emily had to parents. “What did she tell you?”
“Just that you and Caleb had broken up,” Lady Barb said. “And that you’d fought a god.”
“It was a Mimic,” Emily told her. Lady Barb’s eyes went wide. “Or something related to one, anyway.”
She sighed, wishing – again – that some of the scrolls had survived. If Master Wolfe had written them…she wondered, grimly, how long he’d lived. Theoretically, a Mimic could survive indefinitely with enough power. But if he’d been eating other humans and consuming their souls, he might have started to lose his identity. Or gone mad. Or…
I fought a Mimic at Whitehall, she thought. Did I kill all that remained of him then?
She shook her head. She’d never know.