“But Madame—”
“I know what you are thinking, dear one,” she said. “You are thinking that you do not deserve to be here, that your passion is contingent on securing a patron at the solstice. But not all of us travel the same path. And yes, your other five sisters have chosen their patrons and will leave on the morrow, but that does not make you less worthy. On the contrary, Brienna, it makes me believe there is more to you, and I misjudged the proper patrons for you.”
I think I must have been gaping at her. For she turned to look at me and smiled.
“I want you to remain the summer with me,” the Dowager continued. “During that time, we will find you the right patron.”
“But Madame, I . . . I could not ask such of you,” I stammered.
“You are not asking for it,” she said. “I am offering it.”
We both fell quiet, listening to our own thoughts and the chorus of the storm. The Dowager resumed her seat and said, “It is not my choice to say whether you have passioned or not. For that is Master Cartier’s decision. But I do think a little more time here will benefit you tremendously, Brienna. So I hope that you will stay the summer. By autumn, we will have you in the graces of a good patron.”
Isn’t this what I wanted? A little more time to polish myself, to measure the true depths of the passion I was claiming. I would not have to face my grandfather, who would be ashamed of my shortcomings. Nor would I have to embrace the title of inept.
“Thank you, Madame,” I said. “I would like to stay the summer.”
“I am happy to hear such.” When she stood again, I knew she was dismissing me.
I wandered up the stairs to my room, pain blooming with each step as I began to realize what this summer would be like. Quiet and lonely. It would just be the Dowager and me, and a few of the servants. . . .
“Who did you choose?” Merei’s enthusiasm greeted me the moment she heard me enter. She was on her knees, busy packing her belongings into the cedar trunk at the foot of her bed.
My own cedar trunk sat in the shadows. I had already packed my possessions, with the expectation I would depart tomorrow with the others. Now I needed to unpack it.
“I had no offers.” The confession was liberating. It felt as if I could finally move and breathe, now that it was in the open.
“What?”
I sat on my bed and stared at Cartier’s books. I needed to remember to give them back to him tomorrow, when I bid him good-bye with the others.
“Bri!” Merei came to me, settled beside me on the mattress. “What happened?”
We had not had a chance to talk. Last night, we had been so weary and bruised from our corsets that we had tumbled into bed. Merei had begun snoring at once, although I had lain in bed and stared into the darkness, wondering.
So I told her everything now.
I told her of what I had overheard in the corridor, of the three patrons, of Ciri’s draw to the physician, of my blunders and my spoiled dinner. I told her of the Dowager’s offer, of my chance to stay through the summer, of how I honestly wasn’t sure what to feel.
The only thing I withheld was that starlit moment with Cartier in the gardens, when he had touched me, when our fingers had been linked. I couldn’t expose his decision to willingly break a rule, even though Merei would guard and protect such a secret for me.
She brought her arm around me. “I am so sorry, Bri.”
I sighed and leaned into her. “It’s all right. I actually do believe the Dowager is correct, as far as patrons. I do not think Brice Mathieu or Nicolas Babineaux were good matches for me.”
“Even so, I know you are disappointed and hurt. Because I know I would be.”
We sat side by side quietly. I was surprised when Merei stood and retrieved her violin, the wood lustrous in the evening light as she brought it to her shoulder.
“I wrote a song for you,” she said. “One I hope will help you remember all the good memories we shared here, and remind you of all the great things still to come.”
She began to play, the music soaring through our chamber, eating the shadows and cobwebs. I leaned back on my hands and closed my eyes, feeling the notes fill me, one by one, as rain in a jar. And when I reached that point of overflowing, I beheld something in my mind.
I was standing on a mountain; below me, lush green hills rolled around as the waves on the sea, the valleys veined with sparkling streams and bordering woods. The air here was sweet and sharp, like a blade that cuts to heal, and the mist hung low, as if she wanted to touch the mortals who lived in the meadows before the sun burned her away.
I had never been here, I thought, and yet I belonged.
That was when I became aware of a slight pressure around my neck, a humming over my heart, as if I wore a heavy necklace. And as I stood on this summit looking down, I felt a dark thread of worry, like I was searching for a place to conceal me. . . .
Her song ended, and the vision faded away. I opened my eyes, watched Merei lower her violin and smile at me, her gaze glistening with passion and fervor. And I wanted more than anything else to tell her how exquisite her music was—that this was my song, and somehow she had known the very notes to string together to encourage my heart to see where it should be.
The hills and the valleys, the mountain in the mist, had not been Valenia.
It had been another glimpse of Maevana.
“Did you like it?” Merei asked, fidgeting.
I rose and embraced her, the violin trapped between us as a complaining child. “I love it, Merei. You know and love me so well, sister.”
“After I saw Oriana’s portrait of you,” she said as I let her go, “I thought of your heritage, that you are two in one, north and south, and how marvelous yet challenging that must be. And so I asked Master Cartier if he could find some Maevan music for me, which he did, and I wrote you a song inspired from the passion of Valenia but also the courage of Maevana. Because I think of both when I think of you.”
I was not one to cry. Growing up at the orphanage had taught me that. But her words, her revelations, her music, her friendship punctured the stubborn dam I had built a decade ago. I wept as if I had lost someone, as if I had found someone, as if I was breaking, as if I was healing. And she wept with me, and we held each other and laughed and cried and laughed some more.
Finally, when I had no more tears left, I wiped my cheeks and said, “I have a gift for you too, although it is not nearly as marvelous as yours.” I opened the lid of my chest, where six little booklets rested, each one bound by leather and red thread. They were filled with poems, written by an anonymous passion of knowledge I had long admired. And so I had bought the booklets with the small allowance Grandpapa sent me every birthday, one for each of my arden-sisters, so they could carry paper and beauty around in their pockets and remember me.