LAURE

“We are going out tonight,” Toverre said, “and I need you with me. I can’t do this alone, Laure. That’s final.”

If he’d just said Please, Laurence, that would have done it for me. An I need you got me every time, but That’s final always sounded too much like orders for my liking. I wanted to help him, I really did, but I knew the moment I agreed to it he was going to tell me I couldn’t go in what I was wearing, and whether he knew it or not, that was always something of a slight. I knew how to dress myself the same as anyone else, but we couldn’t all have an eye for what color went with what fabric like some people. Truth be told, it didn’t seem like all that useful a skill to me anyway. More like it made a person crazy, trying to match things all the time.

Just look at what it had done to Toverre.

Not to mention, it was bitter damn cold—another reason why I was opting for warmth over coordination—and we had reading to do. Knowing Toverre, though, he’d probably done all his reading three weeks in advance, underlined the good parts, and reread them twice already. He did stuff like that.

I wasn’t so lucky. I liked to savor what I was reading, except for the boring books, which I didn’t like to read at all. The assignments we had for the strategy of war class weren’t bad, and I didn’t mind doing them first, but some of the history books could put a girl to sleep as soon as she cracked open the cover.

That was why I’d been putting those off as long as possible, standing in front of the mirror instead to try to see whether arranging my skirts just so would hide the fact that I was wearing trousers beneath them and woolen socks beneath that. It wasn’t that I believed Toverre about making the women and possibly some of the men faint in the streets at the sight of me—the Thremedon women kept their legs covered, too, I wagered, though probably with something fancier than a pair of heavy riding pants—but I thought maybe if Toverre didn’t have to look at it, he wouldn’t have that much cause for complaint.

It was a long shot, but my da had always said that a fool’s hope was better than no hope at all.

Yet no matter what I did, the skirts weren’t quite long enough to hide the rumple of fabric where I’d tucked my trouser legs into the tops of my boots. A small detail, maybe, but one I could be sure Toverre would notice right away. And he wouldn’t stop complaining until I did something about it.

A knock at the door and me rushing to answer it messed up all my arranging anyway. Being left out in the hall too long gave Toverre the urge to clean it—something I knew from the last time I’d opened the door only to find him staring fanatically at dust on the wall sconce.

Only it wasn’t Toverre at my door, but a large package, wrapped in brown paper and tied around the middle with a length of twine. I stared at it for a moment, not understanding what was going on, until Toverre gave a huff from behind it and shifted his weight impatiently.

“Aren’t you going to let me in? There’s a stain on this rug that wasn’t here the night before, and that means it’s fresh. I do sometimes wonder whether we’re living with humans or animals. Father’s prize pigs were cleaner than this.”

“Do come in,” I told him, stepping back so that he could make it past me with his heavy burden. “What’s that?”

I knew he wouldn’t tell me—one of the few things Toverre enjoyed more than cleanliness was a good surprise—but that never stopped me from hoping he might slip up one of these days.

“It’s for you,” Toverre said, which wasn’t an answer at all. He deposited the package on my bed with a lot of fuss and crinkling of the paper, then crossed his arms over his chest. “Well, go on. Only do close the door, so whatever that stain smells of doesn’t waft in.”

I couldn’t smell anything from where I was standing, but I kept that to myself, shutting the door and giving it a firm nudge on top of that, since the wood of the frame was a little warped. I could’ve shaved it down with my da’s plane in no time, but I hadn’t brought that with me.

Then I turned my attention to … well, I supposed I’d have to think of it as a present even though it wasn’t my birthday and it certainly wasn’t Toverre’s. If this was some city holiday he’d learned about and hadn’t given me fair warning of in advance, I was going to clout him a good one.

“Hurry up,” Toverre said crossly, which was his way of being shy and nervous. “It’s not going to snap at your fingers, and it’s getting late.”

I supposed I was being silly. Da never savored the moment just before opening a present, and neither did Connor, who worked with the horses.

Without any further ado, I plucked the all-purpose knife from my boot and cut through the knot in the twine. I saw Toverre wince out of the corner of my eye at the idea of a lady carrying a knife in her footwear like a common highwayman, but what else was I supposed to do? He was the one who wanted to roam the city late at night to take in the pretty lights and enjoy the ambiance, and after what’d nearly happened to us on our first day, I wasn’t going to let myself be caught off guard again. I had my virtue to protect, not to mention Toverre’s.

I tore through the stiff paper without bothering to try to save it—though I would be able use it to get the fire started in my room again later, after we got back and we were both freezing cold. Sitting in the center of the package, neatly arranged, of course, was a pair of black boots with shiny silver buttons all up the sides. They looked sturdy as well as fashionable, and when I picked them up I felt something soft folded beneath them.

“The boots are from my mother,” Toverre explained, spitting the words out quickly. “Well, from me, but I sent home to get them from Mother. After what happened to your last pair, I remembered you were the same size. And also, these will go much better with your clothes than those old brown ones. It’s a pity the buttons aren’t gold, since they’d match your hair better, but mother has different coloring and I didn’t want to seem too demanding. I’m sure there’s a button shop somewhere. We’ll find it, and, no worries, I’ll put them on.”

“And what’s this?” I asked, indicating the fabric swaddled up beneath. There were three different colors in all—black, white, and green—and they looked suspiciously like women’s undergarments.

After all this time, was Toverre finally taking an interest in what was underneath my clothing?

Not likely, I told myself, fingering the soft cotton, feeling fond despite myself.

“Ah, well,” Toverre said, clearing his throat. “Those are … not my mother’s. I didn’t think you’d approve of that; it’s hardly proper. But I simply couldn’t have you tramping around Thremedon with trousers under your skirts, Laure; it’s beastly. I gather these are what the women use here—woolen stockings and extra petticoats and the like. They’ll be serviceable and they won’t make your legs look like tree trunks, which is a great disservice to your legs, considering what a fine shape they are.” On that last note, he almost sounded jealous, I thought. I shook out the green pair of stockings, their empty feet dangling with a knot of thread at each toe.

“Nice save,” I told him, not really annoyed. I knew already I’d be heading into the city with him even in spite of the way he’d asked me. It was hard to be angry with someone who’d just given you a nice, thoughtful gift, and maybe he’d planned it that way, but that didn’t really seem like Toverre. The present itself was Toverre all over, though, finding a way to insult me just before he made me realize he’d been thinking this whole time about my problem and what might make me more comfortable.

He was as sweet as a hand-raised dove when he wanted to be, though at first I’d thought of him more like a hawk, wild and strange and ready to turn on you and claw your eyes out at any moment. There was also his nose, hooked like all those of the other members of his father’s family, but I’d never thought of that as a flaw, really. It did somehow make him look handsome.

“You’ll have to leave so I can get changed,” I told him, clasping the green set to my chest. I knew he’d approve of the choice, since he was always going on and on about how the right greens made my eyes look like something more than the gray we both knew they really were. It didn’t seem all that important to me, since they were going on under my skirts, but I knew it was the kind of thing that’d put him at ease.

“I’ll turn around,” Toverre said, facing the fireplace. “But if you think I’m going back out into that hall to wait, you’ve taken leave of your senses.”

“I didn’t actually think that,” I admitted.

“I know,” Toverre replied. “You’re always very clever.”

“Thank you,” I said as sincerely as I knew how. “It’s a wonderful present.”

Toverre’s shoulders stiffened and I imagined him scowling fiercely, though since he’d turned to stare into the fire, I couldn’t actually see his face.

“You’re welcome,” he said after a moment’s silence. “Just hurry up and put them on. I need to know right away if something doesn’t fit.”

He didn’t have to tell me twice. Lingering would’ve only meant spending more time half-naked in my room, which was feeling colder and colder day by day, what with the absence of the plate in the chimney. I was going to have to do something about that, maybe try to keep the fire lit all the time, but that didn’t seem too practical. And I could always put the plate back—now that it was clear to me why someone had put it up the chimney in the first place.

I was probably the only girl in Thremedon tonight getting undressed with her fiancé in the room and thinking about fireplaces.

It hadn’t always been like this between Toverre and me. I’d liked him fine while we were growing up, of course, and when I’d heard about the arrangement our families had made I’d counted myself pretty lucky, given my other options. Sure, Toverre was as mad as a badger in winter and not as slow-moving, but he was kind and we got along and he didn’t have a nose like a fat red tomato like Ermengilde’s fiancé had. And he’d never once tried to look down my blouse. I hadn’t known the reasons for that then, of course, but he seemed pretty ideal to me at the time.

On top of that, it was funny to get mud on him and watch him run home crying.

One night, during one of Da’s dinner parties when all the young ones were left to their own devices, I’d even gotten undressed for Toverre on my own inspiration, with him watching. I’d stolen some of the wine from the cellar and dressed myself in one of my mam’s old corsets because I already knew it made me look particularly grown-up—which really meant that it pushed my breasts together and up in a way that men seemed to find near impossible to resist. We were going to be married, I’d reasoned, and Toverre had said he was all right with it—even implied he was looking forward to the ceremony, that rotten liar—but the look on his face after I’d unlaced my top told me everything I ever needed to know.

We did spend the night together after that, though I’m sure it wasn’t what either of us had been expecting. Toverre lay with his head on my chest instead, and told me all about the boy his mother had hired to work in the stables.

I’d liked him, too, because he knew how to handle the horses and didn’t boast about it.

In the morning, I’d realized I wasn’t heartbroken, just extremely embarrassed, and Toverre and I had finally decided that in order for our friendship to continue as it was, we’d never speak about that night again. Also, I wouldn’t throw mud at him anymore. I’d agreed to the latter only because we were too old for it by that point. All in all, making that big mistake of mine had made us closer, if not in the specific way that I’d intended, and when I heard that stableboy laughing with the blacksmith about Toverre’s obsessive cleaning two weeks later, I stopped liking him and gave him a bloody nose for it.

Even if Toverre didn’t love me the way I’d wanted him to—the way a husband should love his wife—Toverre and I were in this together. If anyone ever did come along—if they managed to run the gauntlet of Toverre’s complete insanity and come out unscathed—then they were going to have to go through me, too. And if anyone in this city so much as looked at my crazy fiancé cross-eyed, then they were going to find themselves with my fist in their face.

It was an indelicate thought, so I kept it to myself. I didn’t want to be sending Toverre into fits of fainting on top of everything else. Poor thing probably thought he knew how to take care of himself, but he definitely didn’t.

Speaking of which, he was fidgeting by the fireplace like an impatient child, checking his pocket watch, tapping it exactly three times on the right side, then sliding it carefully back into his pocket. I did up the final laces in the front of my dress, tugged at the skirts, and turned around. The woolen underclothes were much more comfortable than wearing pants underneath my dress had been, and I could already see that they made everything look sleeker. They weren’t even as itchy as I’d expected, either.

“Huh,” I said out loud, looking down at myself.

“What is it?” Toverre asked, not turning around. “You’ve put them on backward, haven’t you? I just know it.”

“I was going to say they look wonderful, but now you’ve ruined it,” I told him, smoothing out my skirts. “The boots fit, too.”

“I thought they would,” he said, glancing over his shoulder—like he was afraid I might be wearing nothing but the boots and undergarments, and I guess he had his reasons to watch out for something like that—before turning to face me at last. “You and Mother are the same size in most respects. Not up there, of course, but your shoes.”

“Watch it,” I told him, tugging on my coat to discourage any more talk of my bosom. This coat was the one piece of clothing I knew would always pass muster, because Toverre had bought it for me as a gift last winter. Big buttons, high collar, a deep bottle green, and all of it very flattering. No doubt he’d tell me it was going out of style soon enough, but until then I was planning on wearing the hell out of it.

“Guess I’m ready,” I said, holding out my arm to him.

Toverre tugged on his sleek gray gloves, reaching out to touch the doorknob the way most people picked a rat out of a trap.

With the help of a map he’d procured somewhere, we made our way to the Amazement, Thremedon’s theater and entertainment district. It was close to the ’Versity Stretch, but not too close; students probably didn’t need any extra distracting, I was coming to realize, with a stack of books up to my waist to get through in the next two months.

Toverre wasn’t planning for us to take in any shows, of course, but wanted instead to “drink in the sight of the people who were.” The sun hadn’t yet set fully, but the skies were growing dark, and the streetlights had all begun to glow faintly in the dusk. It was pretty as new snow in the country, and that was before we came to the row of theaters proper, with their establishments lit up in all different arrangements of color, each proclaiming why its show was the only one you should think of seeing.

Men in sharp, dark coats with their collars turned up walked side by side with women in neat little fur hats, heeled boots stepping carefully around the patches of ice littering the streets. And Toverre had been right; they were all matching, down to their gloves and their muffs. Some of them even matched the men they were walking with. There were some men walking together, of course, and even women alone with no chaperones—unheard-of business in the countryside, but something that made me wonder just as much as I was sure the lean young men leaning on one another made Toverre wonder. Or perhaps “wonder” wasn’t the right word for it, but it was exhilarating.

Even though it was marked clearly on the map as a part of Thremedon, I felt like I’d stepped into another world entirely.

Close by, a group of children were gathered around a poster with a beautiful young woman painted on it. The title read CINDERFOLD in garish, snowcapped letters, and, in smaller print, starring Angerona Greylace, but underneath that someone had written a word that made me laugh and Toverre gasp with how dirty it was. So that was what all the young ones were staring at, I realized. Before I knew it, one of them even reached up to pull the poster down, rolling it up and tucking it under his arm as he ran away, followed by the rest of the gawkers.

“Well,” Toverre said.

“Think of it as romantic,” I suggested. “Have you ever heard of Angerona Greylace?”

“Not at all,” Toverre admitted. “But trust me, by tomorrow, I will have. She must be very famous.”

“For one thing or another,” I replied, a little bit too practical to keep up the pretense of romance any longer.

Another group of women moved past us then, and they were the sort to give a simple country girl pause, no matter how much she tried not to think about things like how her hair looked or whether her nose was turning red in the cold. They wore little drop earrings and had white powder all over their faces, and I could see how fine their dresses were underneath their light coats. They must have been very cold, and they were practically running as they laughed among themselves—out of one small set of back-alley doors, across the cobblestones, and into another, larger door that opened onto the main street. A sign above the door said it was The Cobble. It appeared to be some kind of eatery, judging by the smells that drifted out of it.

“My educated guess is that they are actresses,” Toverre said simply, with a sniff. “Too much perfume, and one of them was very plain. They can’t possibly play more than supporting roles.” Then, with a mischievous tone I’d never heard him use before, he added, “Let’s follow them.”

I was all for it, and about to tell him so, but before I could do so, something caught my eye.

“Hang on,” I said. “Isn’t that Gaeth?”

I knew it was before Toverre answered—we’d taken enough meals with him, even sat next to him in a few classes, for me to recognize the easy slope of his shoulders, the relaxation of every movement. He was definitely a country boy through and through, but the sort who came from the other side of Nevers, men and women renowned for their comfort in the sunlight and their lazy demeanors. Besides which, I recognized his threadbare gray coat because it was missing part of the collar, like some stubborn horse had bitten a piece out of it.

Maybe it had, but I couldn’t imagine any animal taking offense at him.

“Hey there!” I called out, startling a few of the people around me. “Gaeth!” As much as Toverre would be horrified by my clumsy tactics, saying hello to the one person you actually knew in a city as big as this one was only polite.

Everyone but Gaeth seemed to hear me at first. Then, very slowly, he turned around, like he was waking up from some deep dream.

“Oh,” he said, as we drew up to him. “Laure. And Toverre. What are you doing all the way out here on a school night?”

“Couldn’t we ask the very same thing of you?” Toverre demanded, the talons coming out. Apparently having latched onto Hal wasn’t making him any less sharp with Gaeth. I’d never known him to have it out for two people at the same time; I didn’t know whether that made Gaeth lucky or just a real poor son of a bitch. Maybe Toverre was just flustered.

“Suppose you could,” Gaeth agreed.

I sought out Toverre’s foot with my own and stepped on it lightly. He winced with his entire body, but for some reason, Gaeth didn’t seem to notice. It had to be that lackadaisical, old-country demeanor, I supposed, but then he’d never seemed as far off as this. Long day, maybe, I thought, and felt a little sorry for him.

“I was just on my way back from the Crescents,” Gaeth continued without further prompting, like he’d suddenly remembered an important fact. “It’s dormitory protocol, to make sure no fevers make their rounds this early on. Guess, what with people living so close together, that kind of thing’s all too easy.”

“Is there something going around?” Toverre asked, face suddenly even whiter than before.

“It’s a precaution,” I told him. Honestly, did he not know how to listen? “I’m sure it’ll be all right.”

“You’ll be called in soon, like as not,” Gaeth said. “Just a simple blood testing, and nothing else too awful, I’d suspect.”

“Oh, needles,” Toverre murmured.

“Barely felt it,” Gaeth said.

“Some of us have very small veins,” Toverre shot back.

In an attempt to make sure nothing too awkward happened between them—Gaeth was easygoing enough, but Toverre had a way of provoking even the gentlest of folk—I decided to step in, and in my brand-new boots, no less. “We were just going to get something to eat,” I said, having decided that once my stomach’d started growling only a few moments ago. “You hungry, Gaeth?”

“She means to ask if you would like to join us,” Toverre corrected. At least he was picking at me now, but I was used to it. I could take it.

“Maybe another time, hey?” Gaeth suggested. “They said I should head straight back to my rooms after the visit. And I don’t want to argue with those in charge, at least not right away.”

“Who said?” I asked, but Gaeth had already turned and started off down the road, and not in the direction of the ’Versity Stretch, either. “Weird,” I said, turning to Toverre.

“Not very,” Toverre replied. “Because you would expect someone like that to have a coat that smells of horses.”