The silence was deafening. The whispers were worse.
Rielle planted her heels, determined to walk no farther. “Lu, please don’t do this to me.”
“Oh, come now,” Ludivine murmured. “We’re just going for a walk. What’s the harm in that?”
So Rielle allowed Ludivine to lead her on through the room. At the feet of Saint Tameryn, Rielle and Ludivine knelt, kissed their fingers, touched the napes of their necks. Ludivine murmured greetings to everyone they passed. Rielle tried to do the same, tried to smile, but her words sounded strangled, and her smile felt like it had been fixed to her face with nails.
Once outside the House of Night, Rielle could no longer contain her frustration.
“Are you going to say nothing to me?” she whispered, as Ludivine guided them through one of the outer temple courtyards. Whistblooms, their pollen glowing a powdery white to match the stars, had begun to open along the paved path. “Will we parade about the city in awkward silence until I faint from the stress? Is that to be my punishment?”
“Calm yourself and act ordinary,” said Ludivine under her breath. Then, louder: “Good evening, Lord Talan, Lady Esmeé. Aren’t the whistblooms lovely this time of year?”
The courtiers in question bowed their heads, their eyes darting back and forth between Rielle and Ludivine as they murmured brief greetings and glided on through the foliage. Once a few paces away, Rielle heard their furious whispers begin.
Heat crawled up the back of her neck.
“Just a little farther,” said Ludivine softly, but it wasn’t until they’d passed through the outer courtyards of each of the seven temples that Ludivine finally turned them off the temple roads and onto a narrow side street.
Rielle felt weak with relief once they passed into the shadows of the apartment buildings crowding overhead.
“And that wasn’t punishment?” She wiped her face with her sleeve, her hand shaking.
“No,” said Ludivine calmly, leading Rielle down the tidy cobbled road. Patches of soft torchlight from brackets in the walls lit the way. The first Grand Magister of the Pyre had, centuries earlier, designed the torches in the temple district to light on their own at nightfall. “If you’d stop panicking for a moment, you would see I’m trying to help you. And please, put up your hood.”
“Help me?”
“We saw hundreds of people just now,” Ludivine said, raising both their hoods to cover their hair. “More importantly, they saw us. They saw two dear friends, arm in arm, on a leisurely stroll through the gardens. Just as we might have done on any night. Even if seeing us together quells only a fraction of the gossip racing through the city right now, it will be helpful to you, to Audric, and to me.”
Ludivine turned them down a set of narrow steps that led to a lower neighborhood. They kept their hoods up and their faces down, avoiding eye contact with passersby. Evyline and her guard followed close behind.
“I don’t know if my father will ever quite recover from what he saw,” Ludivine muttered, “but I can at least show my support for you, as publicly and as often as I can.”
“Why are you doing this?” Rielle watched her feet descend the steps through a film of tears. “You should hate me.”
Ludivine blew out an impatient breath. “Rielle, look at me.” She stopped them at a quiet landing where the staircase turned sharply right and took both Rielle’s hands in her own. “Look.”
When Rielle met Ludivine’s calm gaze, the terrible twist of pain in her chest robbed her of breath. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Please, forgive me.”
“Answer me this: Do you think I love Audric?”
Rielle blinked, caught off guard. “What? I…”
“Of course I do. We’re cousins and dear friends, and I’ve known him all my life. He’s my family. But do I love him like you do? Of course not.”
Rielle’s mouth dropped open. “I… Lu, what are you talking about?”
“And I know Audric feels the same about me. Do I wish you both had come to me, so we could discuss all of this like civilized people, instead of you rolling about half naked in the gardens for everyone to see? Yes, I very much do.”
Rielle would surely die, right there on the stairs. “Lu, I’m so sorry, really. I don’t know what came over us.”
“Of course you do. You’re in love with him, and he’s in love with you, and you’ve been desperate to kiss each other for years now. It was only a matter of time. Do you know how exhausting it’s been to sit back and watch the two of you dance around each other?”
“He isn’t…” Would the shocks never end? “We’re not…”
“Oh, please. It couldn’t be more obvious than if you rolled around half naked in the gardens, actually. Oh. Wait.”
“Well, sweet saints, Lu!” Rielle rubbed a hand over her forehead. “Why didn’t you ever say anything to us? I didn’t think… I mean, I hoped, but…”
Ludivine’s smile was wicked. “Watching you may have been exhausting, but it was also entertaining. I could hardly resist that. Court is dull as toast most of the time.”
Rielle threw up her hands. “What, and you would’ve waited to tell us the truth on the day of your wedding, I suppose?”
“Oh, I would have long before that.” Ludivine drew Rielle’s arm back through hers and continued down the stairs. “But why ruin my fun? Though I confess,” and here Ludivine’s voice became quite grave, “I regret my choice not to tell you that I knew sooner. I could have saved us all a lot of trouble. And now…”
“What will happen?” Rielle asked as they walked down another quiet residential street. “Now that your father has seen.”
“He will speak to the king, of course,” said Ludivine, “and ensure that the betrothal agreement remains intact.”
Rielle’s throat constricted painfully. “Of course.”
“I don’t expect he will make life pleasant for you. Neither will my aunt, the queen.”
“Have they ever made life especially pleasant for me?”
“A fine point.” Ludivine squinted down the darkening road, looking up and down the rows of tall stone houses. “But, truly, Rielle…please don’t test anyone, not right now. Not with things so tense and fragile. Wait until my father’s temper cools before trying any grand defiant gestures.”
Rielle glanced sidelong at Ludivine, her nerves drawn suddenly even tighter. Ludivine couldn’t know about the plan she was crafting for the shadow trial, could she? “What do you mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean. Be a proper candidate. Obey the Archon.”
“And stay away from Audric?”
Ludivine turned, her face full of pity. “I don’t ever want to ask you to do that.”
“But I should,” Rielle whispered. Her voice felt so thick with sadness that it was difficult to speak. “I’ve ruined everything, haven’t I?”
“As I understand it,” Ludivine replied wryly, “kissing involves not just one person, but two. If there is blame to be placed, it isn’t only for you to bear.”
Rielle followed Ludivine down a thin garden path. A stone archway choked with flowering vines marked the entrance to a tidy square courtyard. Beyond the courtyard stood a wide black door with a brass knob. A tarnished silver plate nailed into the stone above showed crude etchings of a mortar and pestle and a cluster of bundled leaves. Ludivine stopped beneath the archway.
“My darling,” she murmured, her gaze soft on Rielle’s face, “please don’t let your heart grieve. Do you completely wring out my nerves? Yes, every day. But I love you as much as I ever have. And we will find a way to work this out. I will not see you live your life with a broken heart on my account.”
Rielle pulled her into an embrace so fierce it knocked back both of their hoods. “Is it possible,” she mumbled, “that you’ve taken me to this strange, dark house in the middle of the city to do away with me?”
Ludivine laughed. “After all those nice things I just said, you have to ruin the moment.”