Thornlost (Book 3) (57 page)

“I’ve been waiting to hear from you, in fact. Ever since I announced that we’d be doing chapbooks on Touchstone, one for each of the founding members.”

She smiled. It was a charming smile in a face hardly touched by time and certainly not by trouble. Her second husband had kept her well. “I read the chapbooks about the Shadowshapers. Impressive.”

“Much beholden, Your Ladyship. Of course, I’m intensely interested in anything you want to tell me. May I take notes?” A mere formality, a conventional politeness; she was obviously eager to have her side of the story chronicled.

“Shall I begin at the beginning?” she asked when he was seated.

“Anywhere you like.”

“Then I’d like to start at the end.”

Tobalt glanced up, surprised.

“The night he died, all my fingernails turned black and split down to the quick, and by the next day had fallen off. I don’t know how he managed it, but there was some sort of spiteful spellcasting put upon me, his last bit of cruelty. He always said I had the most beautiful hands.…” She held them out so he could admire them: lovely indeed, slender and graceful, the nails pink and shining. “I wore gloves to the Chapel service, of course. Over the bandages. The bleeding hadn’t stopped.”

“It was surprising,” he said carefully, “your making such
a long journey so swiftly to attend. A forgiving gesture.”

“I owed it to my daughter. And to his poor dear mother and twin sister, who always adored me.” She leaned forward and spoke in a low, confiding tone. “Mishia told me later that it broke her heart to see him—her beautiful boy, and he really had been beautiful, you know—covered in thorn-marks, reeking of whiskey, with a pouch of dragon tears almost empty—”

Tobalt said flatly, “He never touched dragon tears.”

“Is that what everyone’s saying?” The suggestion of a smirk twitched her lips. “It was one of those gold velvet bags so familiar to everyone from Alaen Blackpath’s tragedy. The ones people bought at the Finchery.”

“But Mieka knew he was too much Elf, that dragon tears would kill him.”

“I don’t suppose it mattered to him anymore.” A tiny shrug. “They’d been threatening him. Especially Cayden. That if he didn’t stop all the thorn and the alcohol, they’d throw him out and find another glisker. Have you spoken with the others yet? The rest of Touchstone, I mean, and all the other wives?” She gave a little glittering trill of laughter. “I know what that sounds like—as if I still consider myself one of the wives. It’s a thing you never escape. Ask Jeschenar’s first, and second, and third—I’ve forgotten, is he on his fourth or his fifth by now?”

“Fourth,” Tobalt said.

“Well, as I say, ask all the others.
And
the ‘lightly loved,’ as Cayden so delicately put it in
Stolen Torches
. One thing I’ll give him, he can be very eloquent about other people’s suffering.”

“You never liked him much, did you?”

“I never really knew him. I only know what my husband was like when he was around Cayden—that’s how the thorn started. He never would have become thornlost if it hadn’t been for Cayden Silversun.”

“I’ve heard it was the other way round. That Mieka
introduced Cade to various things. At Cade’s request,” he added.

“And see who’s the only one still here to tell the tale of it!” she replied sharply. Then, recovering herself, she gave a one-shouldered shrug. “I’m sure you’ll be hearing a different version from everyone.” She held out her hands again. “All my fingernails,” she murmured. “I can still remember how much it hurt.”}

“Stop,” he breathed. “No more… no more…”

“I don’t understand. Cade, tell me how to help you!”

There was a sudden rush of cool air into the room as the door opened. Mieka’s voice—oh praise be to all the Old Gods, Mieka’s voice—

“Quill, I’m sorry, you were right, it was stupid—” An abrupt gasp. “Jinsie! What in all Hells—?”

“I don’t know! I heard him from the hall—like a wounded animal—”

Cade watched, wide-eyed and not daring to blink, as Mieka crouched beside the bed. He felt thin, warm fingers holding on to his hand.

{He held gently on to thin, cold fingers, smoothed thick silver hair, tucked it behind delicately pointed ears. “You feel up to it? You’re sure?”

A nod. A suggestion of a smile tugging his lips; a familiar brightness shining in those tired eyes. Still beautiful; still Mieka’s beautiful eyes.

Within a few minutes the chamber was crowded. Jindra nearest the bed, her husband directly behind her—}

“Oh Gods,” Mieka whispered. “How long has he been like this?”

“What’s happening to him? Mieka—”

{Scant weeks after Cade’s Namingday—his fortieth, Gods help him—Mieka escorted Jindra across the sun-soaked river lawn of Wistly Hall and gave her in marriage to her bashfully ecstatic Master Imager. Cade watched, smiling, remembering another wedding long ago in this very spot. Almost everyone who had seen Blye marry Jedris was here today, and dozens more besides. Still, despite constant and dedicated circling amongst the huge crowd of family and friends, Cade was unable to avoid Jindra’s mother.

“Cayden,” she said, and he turned, and there she was. “I don’t need to ask how you’ve been—you look very fine.”

“So do you.” He smiled as sincerely as he could. In her summery green silk gown with a spray of roses pinned to the bodice, she was almost as beautiful as she’d been at sixteen. “I’m glad you could be here. I know it means a lot to Jindra.”

“So do you.”

He cast about for something else to say, something neutral, innocuous, polite, impersonal—

“Years ago,” she said, “I told myself that if I ever saw you again, I’d thank you for letting him go long enough for us to have Jindra—but you never really let him go for an instant, did you?”

“No.”

“And you never will.” Her words were measured, calm. “We would’ve been all right, you know, the two of us. We would’ve gone along in our way. But we never would’ve been happy.” She looked up at him again. “Take care of each other, Cade. I don’t suppose we’ll ever meet again, so I wanted to be sure to say that.”

All he could do was nod. She had been far more generous than he ever could have been—which he knew was quite small-minded of him. After all, he’d won.}

“Quill, look at me. Please. Just look at me.”

“Is he thornlost? Is that what—?”

“Quill, please!”

{The office was familiar: wood furniture and books and framed first pages and various trinkets given by friends. The girl behind the desk was perhaps eighteen, plainly dressed, with ink-stained fingers that tapped the stack of scrawled notes before her.

“How much of it was true, Da?” she asked.

Tobalt paced the cramped office. “There are things I believe—Mieka’s threats to her second husband, for instance, because I’ve seen the constable’s reports and there were quite a few witnesses. But not the dragon tears. I know that for a stone cold fact. He never went anywhere near the stuff. As for her fingernails falling out? Nonsense. A stupid and clumsy lie.”

“How do you know?”

He smiled grimly. “Because it’s an appalling insult, if not actual sacrilege, to wear gloves when the Good Brother or Good Sister clasps hands during a service. I was seated one row back from her, and I saw her take off her black gloves and I didn’t notice a damned thing wrong with her hands. No bleeding, no bruising, no bandages.”

The girl shook her head. “By now she probably thinks she can say anything about him and be believed.”

“She can tell herself she won,” he agreed with a nod. Then, bitterly: “The legend of Mieka Windthistle. There are so many stories, why not add one or two more?”

“This came today from Cayden,” she said, reaching for a folded sheet of paper. “He’ll talk about his work in an interview, if you like, but not about his glisker. Here—” She read aloud. “ ‘My emotions for and about Mieka Windthistle were too complex and too personal to be put on display.’ ”

“That’s Cade,” Tobalt said with decades of resignation. “The only feelings that matter are his, you see.”

“What I can
see
are the icicles dripping off the page!”

“You noticed the past tense, didn’t you? His emotions for Mieka
were
. Not
are
. His mind’s cold, but his heart’s colder.”

“He wasn’t always like that. I remember when I was little, and he’d come round to the house for dinner—Da, he wasn’t
always
like that.”

“No.” He hesitated, then said, “About ten years ago, when he was still pricking dragon tears, he told me that sometimes in the morning just before he opens his eyes, for just a moment Mieka Windthistle is alive and the world is wonderful.”

“And then he wakes.”

“Yeh. When Touchstone lost their Elf, they lost their soul.”}

Warm fingers stroked his hair. He couldn’t see Mieka’s face but he could hear terror shaking his voice as he said, “Quill, it’s all right, I’m here. You’re safe.”

Don’t leave me
, he wanted to say.
Please, Mieka, please don’t ever leave me—

{—Jindra and her husband, their girls, their husbands. Blye and Jed and all the brothers and sisters, Rafe and Crisiant, Jeska and Kazie. Mistress Mirdley was outside in the garden, taking care of the great-grandchildren. Cade could hear their games through the window open to the warm summer air, and the sounds of life and laughter were the best sounds in the world, especially today.

He knew it would be today. In the scant fortnight since Mieka’s Namingday, there had been unmistakable changes. It would be today. He needed no Elsewhen to tell him it would be today.

He felt thin little fingers move restlessly in his palm.
“What is it, Mieka?”

“How…” He tried to sit a little higher against the pillows, but there was no strength left in him. Those eyes looked in bewilderment at all the people gathered in the room. “How’d all
this
happen?”

Cade smiled. “Oh, Elfling, didn’t you know?
You
made it happen.”}

“Go away, Jinsie. Go
away
!”

“Not until you tell me—”

{“Tell me, Cayden,” said his mother, “are you truly so blind?”

He waited her out.

“It’s only that I don’t want to see you hurt.”

When had she ever worried about his hurts? “What do you mean?”

“When he moves on. And he will, you know. Elves are notoriously capricious. He’s worse than most. Everything you’ve built in the last few years, your career, your ambitions, your art—” She bit off the word as if it had a rancid taste in her mouth. “You’ve come to depend on him and I’m only saying—we’ve had our differences, you and I, but I never thought you could be such a fool as to depend on that vile little Elf!”

Although he was aware that Mieka had forfeited all Lady Jaspiela’s goodwill, he hadn’t expected this intensity of venom.

She had control of herself again. “You’re of age, and how you live your life is beyond my influence. But no matter how little you care what I think, I don’t want to see you break your heart over this Elf when he leaves Touchstone. And he will leave. Mark me on this.”

“He has a name. Mieka Windthistle. Even if you won’t
say it anymore, you’d best get used to hearing it said in the same breath with my name for the rest of your life.”

“His name is rather the point. You’ll no more be able to hold on to him than you could the wind.”}

“No,” Cade breathed. “No more… please…”

“Quill, I’m here, it’s all right—you’re safe—”

{Jeska looked up at him with weary compassion, and even wearier sorrow. “You just threw him away with both hands.”

Nonsense. Mieka had been throwing his own life away for years. Cade had given up trying to hold on to him. He didn’t want to feel this much. He couldn’t feel this much; it would kill him. Mieka had always made him feel too much. Care too much. It wasn’t wise, it wasn’t safe, that sort of feeling.

He’d tried for so long to hold on with one hand and let go with the other. Mieka’s life wasn’t his to live. The decisions, the choices—they weren’t his to make. If Mieka had made all the wrong ones, that wasn’t Cade’s fault. He refused to be responsible. He refused to hang on with both hands. It would hurt too much.

Could that be any worse than the pain that stalked him now, waiting for an unguarded moment?

Well, it was simple enough. There would be no unguarded moments. He would feel nothing. He would keep himself to himself, and to Hells with everything and everybody else.

He still had his work.

The work was all that mattered. The work was all he had.}

“Mieka,
what’s happening to him
?”

“Nothing,” her brother retorted in a voice that shook. “Bad dreams.”

How noble of him to keep the secret of the Elsewhens. A little late, but perhaps it was churlish of Cayden to make note of that. Obviously Mieka wasn’t drunk or thorned enough to blither on without caution.

That would change.
“
You
made it happen.”
Nothing anyone else did would make a difference.

Cade opened his eyes. His heart was slowing from its frantic pounding. He felt cold with more than the sweat drying chill on his skin. “Oh, come on, Mieka,” he said quite clearly. “Why not tell her?”