His hand dropped from her cheek, and he shook his head. “Because I love the winter, too. The world here is frozen, and so it never changes, and so it is always what I expect it to be. There’s a comfort in that. And besides—” He gestured weakly to the queen’s throne and let his arm fall again in defeat. And though he didn’t say the words, Mina heard them clearly enough: And besides, how could I leave her?
Mina was struck with the childish urge to tip the chair over and give it a kick for good measure, but instead she said, “I understand. I wish I knew how to make the sun shine for you again.”
“Ah, only one person can do that.”
Mina bristled. “Lynet.”
The name drew out a smile, but it wasn’t for her. “What do I need the sun for, when I have Lynet?”
She’d taken him in the wrong direction. Mina needed to bring him back to her, away from Lynet, away from his dead wife. How can I make him happy again? she asked herself, but the reply was merciless: He doesn’t want to be happy. The times when he had reached out to her—at the picnic and under the juniper tree—had been when he’d seen Mina at her loneliest. If she wanted him to reach out to her again, she would have to give him a piece of her own sadness.
“I wish I’d grown up with a father who loved me as much as you love Lynet,” she said. Reminding him of her father was always a risk, but she knew a fragment of the truth would be more effective than a lie, no matter how artfully told.
And she was right. Her sadness drew him back to her. “Oh, Mina,” he said. “Is he cruel to you?”
Mina shook her head. “No, not cruel, but—” She faltered, biting her lip. “Nicholas, I—oh, I’m sorry, my lord, I shouldn’t have—”
“No, it’s fine,” he said, bringing his hand to her cheek again. “You may use my name.”
“Nicholas, you were right the other day—I am lonely. I have no one here, except … except for you.”
She wore an exquisite expression of pain and longing on her face, one that she’d practiced with Felix. She knew it was effective.
Nicholas was staring at her lips, and then he leaned forward, bringing his head down to hers—
The sound of the heavy door opening made Nicholas draw back like a guilty child. Mina glared at the intruder—Darian, the steward. The old man had lived at Whitespring far longer than anyone else had, and so he was in charge of running the place, perhaps even more so than Nicholas. “Forgive me, my lord,” he said. “There was no audience scheduled for the throne room, and yet I heard voices from within. I’m sorry for disturbing you.”
“Not at all,” Nicholas said, avoiding looking anywhere in Mina’s direction. “In fact … I … wanted to speak with you. Wait there.”
He turned to Mina. “I’ve enjoyed our talk today, and I hope you have as well. I trust you can find your way back to your rooms?”
“Yes, my lord,” Mina said quietly. “I won’t keep you any longer.”
He bowed his head to her in gratitude and hurried away with the steward, leaving Mina alone in the empty throne room.
*
Mina made a decision that night in the chapel. She went over the events of the day, the conversation in the throne room, thinking of the hidden truths she had told, the lies she had tried to wrap them in. There were lies she had to tell and truths she had to hide, but otherwise, she found herself longing for more moments like the ones they had shared—moments when she had revealed something true to him, something real.
If anyone could love me, it would be him.
She had tried to use pretense to win him, but in the end, she always slipped and let a little of the truth seep through—and when she did, he responded with warmth, with kindness. If he marries me, Mina decided, I’ll tell him the truth about my heart. I’ll tell him on my wedding night.
She waited for Felix, but she had something difficult to tell him tonight, and so she felt none of the usual excitement as he appeared in the chapel doorway.
“Thank you for telling me where to find him,” Mina said, offering him a smile when he was at her side.
“I wish I hadn’t,” Felix said. “I did exactly what you told me to, but I wish I had disobeyed you.” He shook his head. “I watch him for you, day after day, and when we meet, we only talk about him. Sometimes, when I’m watching him, I think I hate him.”
“Felix—”
“And you—” He placed his hand against her cheek, tracing her cheekbone with his thumb. “I see how badly you want him. I saw it on your face today. And even though you’re happy, I—I feel something different.”
Mina removed his hand from her face and kissed his palm, rougher now and more callused than when she had first made it. “Are you angry with me?”
He thought a moment, trying to understand feelings that were for once his own. “No,” he said. “I feel … sadness. Loneliness. That’s the part I don’t understand—the less lonely you feel, the lonelier I become. That’s not the way it should be.”
She smiled sadly at him. “I wanted to say good-bye, Felix.”
“Good-bye?”
“I can’t see you like this anymore.”
“It’s because of him, isn’t it?”
“Yes. I want to be myself with him, or at least I want to try. You’re too big a secret to keep.”
He shook his head. “I wouldn’t tell—”
“I know,” she said. She wrapped her arms around his neck and laid her head against his chest. Perhaps she was starting to reflect him now—she could feel his sadness. “I know, my darling, but I can’t be true to him and keep you at the same time. I don’t want to practice love anymore—I want to try to feel it. I’m sorry,” she said, pressing one last kiss to his lips. “But I have to send you back.”
He pulled back from her suddenly. “Send me back where?” he said, his voice harsh. “Into your mirror, where I can only watch you from a distance?”
Mina didn’t understand why he was reacting like this at first, but then she took in his huntsman’s uniform, his scuffed boots, and the small tear on his right sleeve. He had a fresh scar on the back of his hand. Mina had forgotten that he had experiences of his own now, a life beyond this chapel, beyond her use for him. He had become too human to be only a mirror; to turn him back into glass now would be a kind of murder.
“I’m sorry,” she said. He seemed new to her, and she wanted to touch him again, to understand the person he had become in the past three years. But she was afraid that if she did, she might not be able to leave him here, as she knew she must. He had no heart to offer her, and she wanted something more than glass. “I won’t send you back,” she assured him. “But you mustn’t try to see me again.”
Felix didn’t respond. He simply watched her with that endless gaze, and even when she turned her back on him and walked out of the chapel, she thought she could still feel the force of those unblinking, empty eyes.
13
LYNET
Lynet was beginning to regret her choice to sit outside the door and listen as Mina and Nicholas argued. But it was better to know than to sit in her room and wonder.
“You made a decision that concerns me,” Mina was saying, her voice low with rage, “without even telling me.”