Snow Like Ashes(58)

“You’re joking, right?” I ask, though I have a feeling it’ll just anger her more.

It does. She scoffs, spit flying from her mouth. “You think I’m joking?”

Sir steps in, putting a hand on her arm to pull her attention elsewhere. “Dendera—”

“Talk to her, William! She can’t keep doing these things! She has responsibilities now. I never see her long enough to talk to her about colors or food or decorations—”

I shoot a glance at Sir. “What is she talking about?”

Dendera quiets when Sir looks at me. Everyone seems to take one giant step back, like they know that whatever Sir is about to tell me isn’t going to be received well.

Sir’s face is impassive. “That’s what we came to talk to you about, Meira,” he starts. A part of me relaxes when he doesn’t use my title, just my name. Just Meira. “The wedding is scheduled for the end of the month, and Dendera is on the committee in charge of the celebration, so she needs your cooperation—”

“The what?” I screech. “Wait, wait, stop. The wedding? At the end of—that’s in two weeks! I’m doing the training, these stupid lessons—”

Sir keeps going, ignoring my outburst. “She needs you to cooperate. There’s still a lot to be done if we’re to cement this alliance.”

I stare at him. At all of them. Everyone watching me and backing him up and—

Mather won’t look at me now. His back is to me as he clutches the piano, head down, the muscles in his shoulders moving under his shirt as his grip tightens on the polished black lid.

“So that’s it?” I whisper. It catches on tears in my throat, tears that come when I realize this is how my life will be now, and I should have expected the wedding to happen quickly, what with how close we are to getting our conduit back. But I can’t even present some great revelation about magic and how it works and what they need to do with the conduit and how Hannah’s been talking to me because Hannah hasn’t been talking to me and I can’t even read a stupid book and I’ve been spending all my time learning how to use fancy forks.

There’s nothing else. This is really all I can do. I can’t think of anything else.

Sir’s face finally breaks a little. His lips twitch, his eyes redden.

But I shake my head before he can say anything. “Fine. That’s fine. I assume plans are all set? Noam’s ready to send men down with you to Spring to get the other locket half?”

No one says anything, and their not saying anything pushes me to talk faster, harder, more certain, grabbing on to the hole in their otherwise solid wall of superiority.

“That has to be it, right? Because I can’t imagine you’d be in such a rush to get me into this if Noam wasn’t also keeping up his end of the deal? If preparations weren’t being made on both ends?”

Dendera flinches. Her eyes dart to Sir, and Finn looks at Sir, and everyone looks at Sir because he’s the one who’s supposed to lead us through this.

His jaw tightens. “Noam will uphold his end of the bargain when we have fulfilled ours.”

I run Sir’s words through my head. Noam isn’t doing anything to help us. He’s just letting us pretend that he’s going to fulfill his end while Dendera and Alysson and Finn and everyone stares at me like I’m some doll they’re playing with.

I snarl at Sir. “No.”

Sir reaches for me but I shove through his grip, pushing by everyone—Dendera, who shouts something about floral arrangements, and Alysson, who says something about calming down, and Mather, who says nothing because that’s what he does, he just stands there while I’m supposed to close my eyes and obey.

If I have to close my eyes and obey, Noam does too.



16


AS I FLY out of the library and down the hall, Theron unfolds himself from the wall beside the door and falls into step beside me.

“You didn’t tell me they were already planning our wedding,” I snarl as I march, working my way to the ballroom and from there, to Noam’s study. “I guess I should have realized we wouldn’t have a lot of time to get to know each other.”

Theron keeps pace with me. He throws a glance behind us and I follow his gaze, my eyes locking on the herd of Winterian refugees behind us. Sir is at the lead, and when I look back at him his face darkens.

“Meira, stop. You are better than this!” Sir shouts. Mather grabs his arm and says something that stops the procession from following me any farther. A wave of gratitude flies through me for half a breath before I shoot around a corner and lose them.

“I’m sorry,” Theron says when it’s just us hurrying down the hall. “I didn’t want to tell you until I had a chance to talk my father into delaying it.” He spins around a corner after me and nearly smashes into a servant carrying a tray of vases. The servant cries out, both of them fly in opposite directions, and miraculously nothing falls as Theron continues down the hall beside me.