Eleven

I almost hadn't gone back to Aleksander's chambers that night.

Books in hand, I wandered the halls of the Little Palace aimlessly until, at some point, I stopped at an intersection of the many hallways. To my left was the familiar path through the Hall of the Golden Dome to the Vezda Suite. To my right was one of the many secret entrances that would lead me back to Aleksander's quarters. How I knew that was a mystery, but I could almost feel the pull towards those rooms—towards Aleksander—in my bones.

In my soul.

It would have been so easy to go to the far end of the Palace. There were no oprichniki trailing me to cow me into obeying Aleksander's wishes. There was no one around to stop me from hiding, from avoiding confronting him with what I had learned. There was no one to keep me from trying to deny that something had inherently changed between us.

To keep me from admitting, aloud, that Aleksander had given a piece of himself to me—to heal me. To make me stronger.

To make me his… His equal.

He mustn't have known, I reassured myself as I stared at the false wall panel, the handle hidden in the wainscoting barely an arm's length away. He wouldn't have offered something so rare to me otherwise. He had no reason to…

… Didn't he?

Stupid girl, of course he didn't, I admonished myself sternly as I finally reached to open the concealed doorway and slipped inside as silently as a shadow. I was nothing to him and a no-one compared to his storied (if not sordid) lineage. Aleksander was the Darkling—the dark itself—and I was just a thief—a fledgling Grisha in the shadow of his years.

There was no way he would willingly grant someone like me, someone who had fought against our shared connection to the making at the heart of the world, something so vital. So personal.

There was no way he considered me worthy. Or even considered me, period.

There was no way, I repeated over and over again as I eventually slinked into Aleksander's over-crowded sitting room, the cosy atmosphere of what I was sure was otherwise supposed to be an imposing space already familiar to me. A fire was crackling cheerfully in the massive hearth, casting a delicate, homey glow over the couch before it and the table beyond that.

I ignored the sinking feeling in my chest when I realised that I was alone—that Aleksander wasn't there, waiting for me. Instead, I placed my burden of books and inspected the chafing dish waiting before my place at the table. A meal for one—for me—was being kept warm within: a simple but fragrant bowl of borscht*, pieces of freshly baked rye bread, butter, pickles, and more slices of ham than I could ever consume on my own.

And although I was famished, I replaced the tray's cover, blew out the candelabra set behind it, and continued into the hallway.

Pausing as the sitting room doors snicked shut behind me, I stared bleakly at the intricately engraved double doors an arm's length away across the hall from where I stood. The doors that had been barred from me for three torturous days.

The doors to Aleksander's bedchamber.

I knew he was inside—I could feel his presence tugging on my bones. But I didn't dare seek him out, not when I was too nervous to hear his reasoning for what he'd done. It could wait until tomorrow, or the next day, or the next.

Or maybe never.

"Good evening, miss," Svetlin said, his voice soft to not startle me as he appeared from beyond the sitting room doors. When I turned to face him, he gave me one of his usual perfunctory bows. "Will you not be dining?"

If I didn't know better, I would have sworn I heard a hint of fatherly concern sneaking into his question. "No, thank you," I replied pleasantly, stuffing down the nest of nerves that had coiled into my gut, "I'm far too tired."

"Of course," the butler nodded crisply, though I knew he didn't believe me. "Allow me to show you to your room."

Letting Svetlin walk ahead of me, we turned around the corner to the right. A simple set of double doors, identical to those leading to the dressing and bathing room, waited there. Before I could reach for the gleaming silver handles, Aleksander's manservant opened them wide for me and shuffled to the side, directing me onward with a sweeping gesture.

"Thank you," I murmured before stepping through.

"Good night, miss," Svetlin answered as he dutifully closed the doors after me, the latch catching with a resounding, cold click.

A four-poster bed, two nightstands, and a small armoire had been fit into the windowless space, where I'm sure a large desk, bookshelves, and a comfortable chair or two usually made their home. The twin lamps on the small side tables were burning brightly, sending the delicate bed curtains shimmering iridescently with all the colours of ravens' feathers.

The colour of my hair when I was brought before the king, I noted as I dragged a delicate touch across the sumptuous fabric. Or, more likely, whatever material was available on short notice, I amended internally before hurrying to the armoire to undress. All my clothes and belongings—even my piece of red string—were inside, arranged just as they had been in the Vezda Suite.

A small comfort.

Changing into my nightclothes as quickly as possible, I then dimmed the lamps and slipped under the dark silk bed cover, its subtle, swirling pattern glinting with silver as I moved. I decidedly ignored the fact that it reminded me of the cloak Aleksander had given me and instead nestled into the feather-soft mattress. And even though I knew I wouldn't find anything, I still slipped my hand beneath the waiting mountain of pillows, searching for the cool, reassuring weight of the (literally) pointless letter opener I had hidden in the same place for the past two weeks—

—Only for my fingers to meet something metal.

Snatching back my hand as if I'd been burned, I pulled myself to my elbows and stared in disbelief at the mattress for a long moment.

He wouldn't have thought to… There's no way—no reason he would have, I finally managed, my thoughts barely a whisper in my head. But when I tentatively reached under the pillows, my suddenly trembling fingers once again met a metallic, fluted handle. Grasping the grip stiffly, as if it might vanish if I didn't hold on tight enough, I pulled out the letter opener. Seeing it loosed something tenuous and hopeful that had been caged in my chest since we had gone riding together in the countryside.

I must have left the stupid thing in my bed before… Before I landed up recovering in Aleksander's. The silent admission sent my face burning. How could I have been so stupid to leave out proof that I was afraid? I chided myself as I rolled onto my back and toyed with the knife, pressing the tip into the pad of my left index finger as I twirled it with my right hand. It wasn't like anything special had happened at Nikolai's ball to make me act so girlishly, even days later. Well, that was unless you considered that Aleksander had not only trusted me with his name but that he had also allowed me so intimately close to his body that our faces briefly touched.

The memory of being so near to him, both physically and emotionally, that night made my lungs fill with butterflies.

Letting out a long sigh through my nose, I gripped the hilt of the letter opener with both hands and cradled it against my chest. Maybe there was a reason for Aleksander to do me such a kindness, no matter how small and irrelevant it must have seemed to him… Or, perhaps, the cynic in me drawled, that was just wishful thinking. After all, Aleksander was impossibly busy running the Second Army, so he probably hadn't laid a finger nor an eye on any of my belongings. He would have just ordered the servants to put my things back exactly where they'd found them and left it at that while he tended to something more important…

… Like watching over me as I lay in a Healer-induced coma or donating his blood multiple times to save my life, that freed tickle of optimism sang, stirring the butterflies in my chest once more.

Yeah, I smiled to myself as I curled around the blunted dagger, cradling it to me as though it needed protecting.

Something important like that.

o-o-o-o

Aleksander was bent over a book at 'his' end of the sitting room table when I strolled in the following day.

"No rest for the wicked, I see," I observed casually, hovering around the midpoint of the room. Aleksander flicked his eyes up to mine before returning to the text before him.

"I could say the same for you," he replied lazily as he turned the page, his slender fingers tracing the edge of the paper before smoothing it out flat. "You were busy yesterday," he said after a long moment, eyes still turned downward.

I caught his meaning as I surveyed his makeshift desk and noticed two other books were sitting by his elbow—The Sikurian Psalms and the Istorii Sankt'ya. My heart stumbled a beat even as I nonchalantly said, "Yeah, that's a funny story: I went to the library looking for some books to help me pick up some basic Zemeni but somehow walked out with those instead."

Aleksander's hand flexed against the table before he delicately closed The Book of Alyosha and subjected me to the full weight of his attention. "Yes, that is odd," he mused, his clear, quartz eyes spearing through me. "Did you at least find these volumes entertaining, even if they weren't what you were looking for?"

Pulling myself together through the bramble of nerves that had sprouted to life in my chest, I closed the distance between us and pointedly reached across Aleksander's 'desk' to pluck up the blood-red copy of The Lives of Saints. "Yes and no. I can't read liturgical Ravkan," I answered as I leaned my hip against the table and thumbed unhurriedly through the anthology.

I could feel Aleksander's stare on me like a brand. "I could translate them for you if you like," he offered deliberately, though not unkindly.

"That's not necessary, but thanks," I said absently as possible while I skimmed through martyrdom after martyrdom.

"As you wish—though," he tacked on a touch more impishly, the change in his tone drawing my stare, "I will have to add that to my list next to 'dancing'."

"I was hoping you would've forgotten about that," I muttered dryly, hastily casting my eyes back on the book I held when a small smile began tugging at the corner of Aleksander's mouth.

"Never. That's why I started the list in the first place," he practically purred. "Someone has to keep you honest."

"As I'm sure I've said before: that's an impossible task," I countered as I finally found the story I was after: the martyrdom of Sankt Juris. Without a word, I placed the open tome atop The Book of Alyosha, text facing towards Aleksander, so he could see what I had been looking for—what I had found out.

He held my gaze for what felt like a year, his eyes icing over and suddenly unreadable, before he ripped himself away to look down at the story and illustration I had singled out. "Ah, Saint Juris of the Sword," he smiled knowingly—sadly. "One of my favourite stories as a child."

"Your other being Sankta Anastasia's, I'd wager," I prodded carefully, watching him as he traced a delicate finger over the fierce, illuminated coils of the dragon looming over Juris' shoulder.

"Perhaps," he allowed before closing the Istorii Sankt'ya and folding his hands over it. He then looked up at me for another interminable moment, searching for something in my face. Seeming to have found what he was after, he sighed quietly through his nose and said, "So, you found the answers to your questions."

"For the most part," I replied as evenly as possible, even though my heart had begun to gallop away in my chest. In an attempt to project unaffectedness, I shifted my weight and half-perched my ass on the edge of the table.

"And you gleaned them from a children's book?" He asked somewhat incredulously.

I resisted the urge to flick him between the eyes. Instead, I snatched back the book from under Aleksander's arms and glared at him before going back to leafing through the pages. "Behrad had briefly mentioned amplifiers in one of his lectures," I equivocated disinterestedly. "In light of certain events, amplifiers seemed pertinent, so I told him I wanted to learn more about them and asked for a list of books on the subject. These were what he chose."

"How resourceful of you."

"Contrary to popular belief, I do try."

"And yet you don't want me to translate the other two books for you?"

"I know everything I need to about amplifiers," I murmured, finally reaching the illustration preceding Sankta Margaretha's entry. She looked so sure as she worked on her immovable diamond brooch, the crux of her plot to save the children of Ketterdam and destroy the demon terrorising them.

Aleksander seemed to catch the meaning behind my deflection and said, "Then what do you still need to know?"

After patting the image of the Saint in a silent prayer for some of her strength, I delicately closed the Istorii Sankt'ya and looked over at Aleksander. He was regarding me curiously, a strange mix of wonder and concern dancing in his eyes. The hint of his own feelings made me hesitate—hold my breath.

"Why?"

The tiny question escaped me as a whisper so quiet I wasn't sure I had actually spoken aloud.

Silence stretched, lengthening the arm's distance between us into miles.

"'Why?'" Aleksander finally repeated, brow furrowing. "I should have thought that was obvious."

Blood heated my cheeks. In an attempt to hide the evidence of my embarrassment, I sprung upright and put down The Lives of Saints in my place before pacing (perhaps a little too quickly) toward one of the bookcases that flanked the hearth. I stared, unseeing, at the leather-bound and embossed spines before me as I went through the motions of skimming the titles. "Obvious?" I scoffed, not daring to look over my shoulder at Aleksander. "Yes, stupid me. Of course, it's perfectly obvious as to why the most powerful Grisha since the Black Heretic would bring a thie—anyone else even remotely closer in superiority to himself."

"Because," Aleksander said, some unnamed emotion fraying the edges of his otherwise even tone, "the Apparat has declared war on you—a Grisha—simply for the fact that you exist."

"Simply for the fact that he's a fanatical lunatic," I corrected with a grumble.

"Perhaps," he allowed. "But, frankly, it's irrelevant what he is."

Don't say it.

"What matters is," Aleksander continued without pause.

Please don't let that be your reason.

"That you are a Grisha—one of the few Shadow Summoners in the world."

I winced as the silver of hope that had burrowed into my heart fractured and bled around its jagged edges.

"We take care of our own."

"Right," I nodded stiffly, unable to keep my disappointment from constricting my throat.

Saints, I'd been so stupid…

The pause that followed hung tangibly in the air, its form awkward and regretful. Somewhat desperately, I heard Aleksander rise from his seat and begin to speak—to apologise or to explain, I didn't (and wouldn't) know. I had to get away from the slimy and unfamiliar sense of rejection that was threatening to swallow me whole. "Esfir," he started, some sort of pain hobbling the usual grace with which he always said my name.

"I'm sure you have a busy day, so I'm going out to find something to do with my free time," I interrupted in a rush, the spur-of-the-moment decision helping me to square my shoulders beneath the heaviness settling over me. As I turned to flee, I finally met Aleksander's gaze only to find him hovering at the far end of the table, his expression delicately contrite. And even though seeing Aleksander look even remotely remorseful was like a punch to the gut, I managed to steel myself and cross the room.

"Wait," Aleksander said as I breezed toward him, a pleading hidden beneath the practised rigidity surfacing in his tone.

I wanted him to reach out to grab me—to stop me from running any farther—but he never so much as flinched as I passed. "I'll be back at some point this evening," I said as I reached for the sitting room doors, pulling them open as I simultaneously raised a shield of swagger to fend off the unbidden ache building in my chest.

"Esfir," Aleksander tried one final time, but I was beyond being convinced to stay. I had to get away—had to put more distance between myself and my feelings.

"Tell Svetlin not to bother with any of my meals," I called back with forced nonchalance as I exited into the hall.

The only reply that came was the chastened click of those same doors closing distantly at my back, letting me go.

* 'Borscht' (борщок; свекольный квас) is a sour soup of Eastern European origin, sometimes made with beets (depending in which country or style it is made).