“Of course,” said Tess, vibrantly alight, moving in on him again and kissing his fuzzy chin. It was like being drunk, but better, everything sharper instead of dulled.
“Wait, wait. Listen to me, sweet,” said Josquin gently. “You understand, I hope, that I take this rather seriously. If it’s your first time, that’s a responsibility I—”
“It’s not my first time,” said Tess, flushing. She hated confessing it, but could not, in good conscience, let him think her better than she was.
His pale lashes fluttered in confusion. “Your questions the other day, about Rebecca’s herbs, sounded inexperienced to me.”
It was rude to bring his ex-girlfriend into bed. Tess felt the strongbox where she kept her heart closing. She pulled away, and he seemed to glean that there were things she did not care to discuss.
“Maybe I was mistaken,” he said, laying a hand on her forearm, “but you are also ten years younger than me, Tess. If I should hurt you, however inadvertently, your sister—”
“I see,” said Tess, pulling out of his grasp. “You’re not over Seraphina.”
Josquin emitted a short laugh. “Over her? She’s one of my dearest friends. She critiques my poetry better than anyone. Heaven forfend I should get over her! I only meant she’d kill me if I hurt you. She’d hunt me down, and my incapacity would earn me no mercy at her hands.”
Seraphina hadn’t hunted Will down, Tess recalled sourly, after Will had…What he’d done wasn’t the point. Will had hurt her, and nobody had helped. Between him, Seraphina, and Rebecca, there were now far too many people in this bed.
Tess squirmed and rubbed her eyes as if she were tired, so that Josquin wouldn’t see the tears burgeoning there. “This was a mistake,” she said. “You’re right; I’m not ready. I’ve been through a lot. You don’t know the half.”
“You haven’t told me,” he said softly.
“Nor shall I,” she said, turning her back to him. “I thought maybe it was time and I could heal those old hurts. You seemed harmless enough.”
“Harmless?” he cried, and then he grabbed her.
What happened next happened so quickly that for a moment Tess didn’t understand what she’d done. She was on her feet, looking down at Josquin, who was clutching his nose. She’d screamed; she could still hear the echo.
Her body had acted without her. Again. After all her work and diligence, her struggles to keep herself unified, how did this still happen? How could the past keep sneaking up on her like this? She reeled with despair. It was never going to be over.
Now there were footsteps outside, and Gaida arrived in her nightcap and chemise, crying, “Josquin, what have you done to this poor girl?”
“It’s all right, Mother,” said Josquin, his voice nasal. He removed his hand to reveal blood trickling over his upper lip. “I alarmed Tess, but she’s going to fetch me a handkerchief now, and then she’s off to bed.”
Gaida’s eyes flicked from one to the other, as if she couldn’t tell whether the bloody nose was the cause of Tess’s alarm or its effect. “I’ll wait for you outside, Tess,” said the old woman.
“Please don’t,” said Tess, meeting Josquin’s eyes. Stopping his nosebleed wasn’t enough; there was a friendship hemorrhaging, too. This was going to take some time.
Gaida left, muttering. Tess brought Josquin the requested handkerchief and then slipped out to the yard for an icicle. He let her minister to his nose; it didn’t seem broken, which was cold comfort. Tess could hardly grasp what had happened, let alone fathom what to say. She’d rolled onto her side, he’d grabbed her, and she’d panicked, a full-body lightning strike. She’d apparently rammed his nose with the back of her head before leaping out of reach.
“Do you ever feel as if your mind is full of traps?” Josquin said, his voice distressingly nasal.
“Traps?” said Tess, not following.
He closed his eyes, pressing what remained of the icicle against the side of his nose. “Long ago, when I was searching for Ninysh Saints with your sister—the one I’m not over—we spotted the house of St. Blanche the Mechanic across a clearing. We didn’t realize, until we were in the midst of things, that the clearing was anything but clear. Invisible trip wires crisscrossed it, each strung to a trap. Axes and logs swung at our heads, a pit opened beneath my feet, and your sister faced spiders as big as sheep.”
Tess had heard the story from Seraphina, but it had felt like myth, not something that had happened to real people.
“So here’s my theory,” Josquin continued, folding his handkerchief back to find a clean corner. “We booby-trap our heads the same way. The trip wires can’t be seen, even by those of us who strung them, until someone snags a toe and sets off an explosion.
“I think”—he held her gaze significantly—“you and I each set the other one off just now. I’m happy to explain first; I know what happened with me.” He swallowed hard, his throat bobbing. “You called me ‘harmless,’ but my mind translated it to ‘broken.’?”
“I didn’t mean it that way,” said Tess hurriedly, although this was a lie. She’d meant it, even if it wasn’t all she’d meant.
Josquin smiled wanly. “The ridiculous thing is, I am harmless. I was harmless before the accident. Ask your sister. I just hate the implication that I am defective and emasculated. That I couldn’t hurt anyone. In that terrible instant, I wanted to remind you that I’m strong enough to harm you if I chose.” His eyes glimmered; the bloody nose hadn’t brought him to tears, but confessing did. “I’m ashamed that I felt the need to show you that. I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry,” said Tess, sitting down again. She considered kissing him, but feared bumping his nose. She settled for taking his hand and kissing the knuckles.
He watched her expectantly; it was her turn to help him understand. Her lips quivered. She wasn’t sure what the answer was. That lightning-strike moment—it had been some other moment. Her mind had come unmoored in time, like Griss’s.
“I don’t like being surprised from behind,” she said at last, feebly.
Josquin nodded solemnly. “Lesson learned, believe me.” He extended an arm, inviting Tess to lie down and be held—facing him, or as she preferred. She hesitated, then lowered her head onto the pillow. He pushed himself onto his side and stroked her hair in silence.
She wiped her eyes and sat up. “I should get to bed,” she said dismally. Her Academy talk felt like a million years ago, the exuberant energy all drained from her limbs.
“You could sleep here,” said Josquin. “You don’t have to, but know that you could.”
Tess carefully kissed that fine, gentle mouth again, and took herself upstairs.
A letter arrived from the Academy, inviting Tes’puco the Explorer to a gala reception in his honor, whereupon he would be made an Honorary Master of the Academy.
“Yes, you can borrow my doublet again,” said Josquin before she asked. “You’ll want something nicer than those breeches, which have seen a great deal of road. Mother may have something in storage that fits you. I wasn’t always so thin in the legs.”
Gaida found trunk hose in one of her cedar chests, all the while clucking disapproval. “You might dress properly, child,” she harped after Tess as they came downstairs. “If you tucked your hair under a gabled cap, no one would know you’d chopped it off so dreadfully.”
“Leave her be, Mother,” said Josquin, sampling the stew he was simmering for dinner. “She’s doing what she thinks she must.”
Tess appreciated this, although she suspected he felt the same as his mother. She planted a grateful kiss on his mouth before stopping to think who was watching. Gaida cleared her throat, and Tess backed off, embarrassed. The old woman shook her head as she went back up, muttering, “First a bloody nose, now this. Let me know when you two decide to make sense.”