Андреа Хёст - The Pyramids of London

“This must have been years ago. Do you still have nothing to say?”

“That’s…I don’t look at it that way,” Rian said. “I’ve never felt the decision to stop as a loss. Only a relief.”

The Crown Princess stood, leaving Rian feeling like she’d faced a test, and perhaps not passed.

“Can anyone excise a portion of themself and call themself whole?” the princess asked. “I will trust to your judgment, Dama Seaforth. Comfrey will bring you to the meeting tomorrow.”

The sacred mare moved so quickly, whisking the Crown Princess out of the window before Rian could even stand up. Rian crossed and looked out over the now-quiet grove, and then sat on the sill, feeling drained.

A great deal crammed into a few hours. She had watched someone die, and she had discovered that she had misjudged one of the Blairs. She had flown above London, then been asked if she was whole.

Wouldn’t you know it, if you were broken inside? Rian had certainly reached adulthood mired in her own ignorance, mortified by how little she knew, but she had methodically worked to catch herself up, climbed out of the well, and enjoyed herself a great deal once she’d reached the surface. What was wrong about who she was?

Her mistake had been taking the question seriously enough to even try to answer. Dredging up her childhood never left her feeling even-keeled. Now she’d waste her time wondering what it was Princess Aerinndís had seen in her to make her ask. Stupid to not stick to the short answer.

It was a romantic impulse, this wish to be properly understood. The last person she’d told all that to was Carelius, and he’d given her a sharp lesson in status in return. But at least she could not delude herself into thinking that Aerinndís Gwyn Lynn would ever consider marrying her: the Suleviae’s ban on marriage took that out of the question altogether.

What a distraction. Rian needed to put herself in order, to set aside ideas that would lead her places fierce and full of jagged edges. She would leave it to Eleri to pursue princesses, and return her attention to murder. They were so close now.

Rian looked out over the grove into the boundless forest, and refused to think of flying.

Aunt Arianne had left a note that she wasn’t to be woken for breakfast: an irritating development because Eleri wanted money from her before they set out on their next round of workshop visits. The morning improved when Griff found a wooden sword in the attic. Even Eleri joined in for dashing fights against a broomstick, but that soon palled, for they were impatient to get on.

“No money left in the safe,” Eleri said, restively swinging the sword while Griff went for drinks. “Amasen horns are gone too. Doesn’t trust us.”

“She probably sent it to the bank,” Eluned said. “Would you have taken some?”

“Why not? Said she’d give it to us. Not really the Aunt’s anyway. Or half yours.”

“I don’t think I had to give nearly as much allegiance. I only see the forest when I’m with her.”

“Still wasting our time. Stayed out late drinking. Only cares about herself.”

This was entirely unreasonable, but Eluned knew Eleri in this temper wasn’t going to listen to argument. What they needed was a distraction.

Griff, pounding up the stairs, happily provided.

“Elli, Ned, the things from the old house have been delivered!” he shouted, grabbing a crowbar and racing out again.

“Don’t call me Elli,” Eleri snapped, though she lost no time chasing down after him, eager to retrieve what little they’d been allowed to keep from their parents’ workshop.

The main hall of Forest House was far too large for a dozen crates and trunks to make much impact, but it was still a formidable pile up close. Griff was already working on the first crate with the help of one of the new day staff, an easily-flustered man called Jack.

“There’s my big trunk,” Eluned said, not sure she was ready to be reunited with her old sketchbooks.

“The one on top of it should have the design folders,” Eleri added, relieved.

Griff produced a tremendous cracking and splintering noise, and hopped backward as the side of the upright crate he’d been working on fell toward him.

“Try not to scratch up the floor,” Eluned said, then frowned, counting. “Why are there so many crates?”

“This isn’t ours!” Griff said, tugging a large framed painting out of the crate. “Is it?”

It was a landscape, a heat-drenched grassland dotted with gazelle, and a lone flat-topped tree drawing the focus of the scene.

“It’s a Ngoyo.” Eluned slid another painting out, and found a lush-curved woman done in quick brushstrokes of deep purple and black. “This is a Salzine.”

Eluned forgot the floor in the flurry that followed, until the great hall was strewn with paintings, along with a mixture of things that clearly belonged to Aunt Arianne—pistols and neatly bundled letters and a very silly hat, all red and purple plumes.

“She had these all along.”

Griff, who had been dancing about in the hat, stopped short, then said: “I think I’ll go wake Aunt.”

He put down the hat and scurried up the stairs, and Jack followed his lead, picking up one of the empty crates and carrying it off toward the cellar.

“She had these all along,” Eleri repeated, voice throbbing. “We could have kept the fine tools. The workshop. The house .”

“But why should Aunt Arianne have to sell her things, so we could keep ours? And besides, we had that fulgite all along.”

It did seem a pity that Aunt Arianne could not have sold just one of the small fortune of paintings, but Eluned was careful not to say that—not that anything would make much difference to Eleri now that seething anger had overtaken her. She began listing all the things she had particularly wanted from their parents’ workshop, stalking through the strewn artwork.

“ This is what we’re having a drama about?”

Aunt Arianne, barefoot in her nightgown, looked like she’d had no sleep at all. She definitely didn’t seem at all inclined to calm Eleri down, and Griff glanced from her to Eleri, then took a skittish leap off the stairs to stand beside Eluned. He could be so fearless about some things, but Eluned could see he was going to work himself into a sick-fever if she didn’t do something soon.

“You’re not even able to understand what you did!” Eleri was only just not shouting. “You took away all their things! How could you be so selfish as to have all this, and yet still make it so awful! ”

“Those are copies,” Aunt Arianne said, the words very crisp and clear. “Done by students of your grandparents.”

Eleri drew breath, then swallowed it as she processed what had been said. Aunt Arianne stalked the last few steps down into the hall, looking among the scattered contents of the packing crates, and picked out a leather case. From it she took a bundle of cloth and unwrapped an exquisite bronze, two hands in height, of a hare poised to take flight, ears high and eyes alert.

“This, however, is one of the few bronzes your grandmother ever did, and worth more than your parents’ entire estate. It’s the only thing of my mother’s that I possess. So tell me, Eleri, should I have sold it so you could keep a collection of tools intact?”

“She didn’t mean it,” Eluned said hastily.

“Eluned, there’s no need for you to play peacemaker. Your sister is perfectly capable of facing the consequences of her own temper.” But Aunt Arianne’s expression was no longer so tight, and she sighed. “Why don’t you and Griff go put together a picnic basket, and we’ll have morning tea in Hurlstone?”