Page 53

At first glance, nothing had changed. There was the altar with its rusting keys.

There was the flagging fern. There was the ancient umbrella stand.

There was the grandfather clock with its monotonous tick-tocking.

Gods, it was almost physically painful to be standing in this entry hall once more, but Sterling’s chagrin at returning to his uncle’s house was nothing compared to the shame he felt in trapping poor Bernadette.

It would cost a fortune to divorce, and the Unknown God knew where either of them would find the money.

He would rather face his relatives’ condemnation than his own betrayal of Bernadette’s trust, so with that lowering thought in mind, he stepped into the drawing room in search of his mother and uncle.

There they perched on the same uncomfortable chairs upon which they sat every afternoon.

Uncle Stickles clutched a copy of this week’s edition of The Sanctimony (his newspaper of choice) in his arthritic hands, while Mama’s needlework basket sat at her feet, ready for another endless afternoon of knitting hats and mufflers and mittens for the ‘poor wretches’ who had brought their ill fortunes upon themselves, in her humble opinion.

The ridiculous porcelain lamb stared at Sterling from the side table, its doe-eyes as empty as he felt.

Whiling away another afternoon of his one precious life in this stifling parlor might have crushed his soul had it not been for one notable exception to the sameness of the drawing room.

Bernadette was here.

More specifically, Bernadette stood beside the fireplace in the clutches of the narrow-faced wool merchant, Chauvelin, who held a knife to her throat while Mama and Uncle Stickles watched on in scandalized horror.

Sterling stopped breathing. His heart could not seem to decide if it should gallop out of his chest or stop beating altogether as he stared uncomprehendingly at the scene before him: Bernadette was in his uncle’s drawing room with Chauvelin, who held her at knifepoint – Chauvelin, that good-natured fellow they had enjoyed chatting with on market day; Chauvelin, whom they had once invited into their home when his old wagon had a broken axle.

Bernadette was taller than the wool merchant, but to Sterling, the man seemed like a giant as he pressed the blade against the smooth column of his wife’s neck, her untidy hair dangling tendrils around the sharp steel.

There was an intensity in her blue gaze, as if she were trying to convey an important message to Sterling, but his mind could make no sense of it.

All he could do was stand and stare and then stare some more.

It was Chauvelin who broke the silence with words uttered in his sibilant, Golois accent. “Good day to you, Mr Valancy. Or would you prefer that I address you by your sobriquet?”

Flabbergasted, and more than a little panicked, Sterling could only repeat the same words Votary Trent had spoken to him this morning. “I…I am afraid that I have not the pleasure of understanding you.”

“The Larkspur, my dear sir.”

The answer did nothing to improve Sterling’s understanding. “The Larkspur?”

Chauvelin inclined his head.

“What about the Larkspur?”

“Do not feign innocence with me. I already know all.”

The clock in the entry hall ticked away the seconds as the cogs and wheels of Sterling’s brain got to work.

The maps in Bernadette’s study. Her smuggling operation.

All the times she had been gone for days on end without explanation.

The painting of her father on her altar with a boutonniere of delphinium blooms. And what was the common name for delphiniums?

Larkspur.

And there was the other object on the altar, too, a painting of the Bride of Fortune. And now Bernadette’s extraordinary blue eyes were boring into his.

Demigod eyes.

And what was the Larkspur smuggling out of Gol?

Demigods.

Salt Sea and all the gods of death, how on earth had Sterling failed to piece it together?

Bernadette was his wife, the treasure of his heart!

And yet, he could not have concocted this turn of events in his wildest imagination.

He had merely thought her eyes lovely; he had never considered that her periwinkle irises might come from a divine parent – the Bride of Fortune, no less!

Why would he? And why would he suspect Bernadette of being the Larkspur when she hated the newspaper accounts and drew goatees on the heroic images dreamed up by the newspaper artist?

And why would this Golois blackguard in his uncle’s drawing room think that Sterling, of all people, was the Larkspur, when obviously his wife was a thousand times braver than he would ever be? He decided the question was worth asking aloud.

“You believe me to be the Larkspur?”

“It is not a matter of belief, sir. I know it to be true. We have tracked your movements. You have been followed all the way to your domicile on numerous occasions.”

But of course, it was not Sterling’s movements they had tracked; the Golois spies had been following Bernadette.

In a display of inappropriateness that was both stunning and typical, Uncle Stickles burst out laughing. “Sterling? The Larkspur? I say, what a good joke!”

“Do hold your tongue, Uncle!” whispered Sterling’s anxious, birdlike mother, wringing her bony hands.

It was difficult to say what she found more alarming – the man from Gol wielding a knife in the drawing room or the possibility that one of her respectable acquaintances might discover that she had breathed the same air as Sterling’s scandalous wife.

“Come now, Amelia, the man cannot be serious. Sterling has the backbone of a slug. The boy is afraid of his own shadow. Why, you call him Lambie, for gods’ sake.

Never saw a more chicken-hearted child in my life.

And this bird-witted, mutton-headed widgeon thinks he’s the Larkspur?

That man belongs in the asylum, not my drawing room. ”

“Exactly, sir,” said the wool merchant- cum -secret agent. “That is his particular gift. He is so meek, so unassuming that no one would ever suspect him of flying in the face of Golois law and illegally transporting convicted felons across the border.”

Sterling had no idea how to proceed. He knew only that he needed to get the knife away from Bernadette’s throat. Before he could overthink matters, he replied, “Nothing about holding innocent demigods against their will is lawful, Chauvelin.”

“So you admit that you are the Larkspur?”

“Yes.”

“What are you doing?” Bernadette hissed at him.

“It’s too late, my dearest. Our clever friend has found me out.”

“He’s lying, Chauvelin!” she tried to tell her captor, but why would a man believe a woman when another man was telling him what he wanted to hear? It was one of her greatest pet peeves about men.

A sense of peace settled over Sterling. His self-pity evaporated, replaced by a single-minded focus on keeping Bernadette safe. “What do you want of me?” he asked Chauvelin.

“I want you to rot in Old Hell. Short of that, here are your instructions: Make your way to the pier within the hour. Tell no one where you are going. You will be watched. At the docks, you will find a packet called La Prospérité . Present yourself to the crew.”

“What is my final destination?”

“Use your imagination.”

Unfortunately, Sterling had an excellent imagination, but even his mental conjurations of a Golois dungeon could not make him veer from his chosen path, not when Bernadette’s life hung in the balance. “And my wife? My family?”

“Will live as long as you do as you are told.”

So this was the end. Sterling would be held prisoner on a packet until he made it to the shores of Gol, and gods knew what would happen to him there.

He could only assume that Grandfather Bones would be separating his soul from his body and the Warden would be opening the door to the House of the Unknown God for him sooner rather than later.

And all because a Golois spy could not fathom that a woman could be a hero.

Well, Sterling was more than happy to pay for the man’s ignorance if it meant saving Bernadette. He gave her a wistful smile and said, “How could I ever have thought myself unlucky when I have had you in my life?”

“No! Don’t you dare do this!” Bernadette struggled to get free. “Chauvelin, you bloody shit-sack, you have it all wrong! I am the L—”

Sterling’s mother gasped as the bloody shit-sack in question slapped his hand over Bernadette’s mouth and dug the tip of his blade into her skin, causing a slim rivulet of blood to drip down her neck.

For the second time that day, Sterling’s surroundings seemed to fade away. There was only Bernadette and Bernadette’s blood and the fool holding the knife.

It’s the little things that bring good fortune, Sterling , a voice spoke in his ear.

This was no memory. He heard the words as if the speaker were right beside him. A force outside of himself directed his gaze to the cloying lamb statuette on the table to his right.

Sometimes, luck comes in the form you least expect.

It all happened so quickly.

He picked up the horrid lamb and flung it with all his might.

The porcelain hit the wall beside Chauvelin’s head and burst into a cloud of white shards and powder.

The Golois bastard cried out and let go of Bernadette to cover his injured eye as he howled in pain.

Sterling crossed the drawing room in three long strides, took the man by his neck, and slammed him against the wall with a hand made thick and callused and strong in the smithy.

“This isn’t over,” Chauvelin wheezed, his left eye streaming blood.

“You’re right,” said Bernadette, but she kept her warm gaze on Sterling as she spoke. “This is only the beginning.”

***

Ten minutes later, Chauvelin was tied up; Uncle Stickles was hailing an errand boy to alert the constabulary to the presence of a lunatic raving in his water closet; Mama was drooping in her chair with her smelling salts clutched tight; and Sterling and Bernadette were in the kitchen, where the former was dabbing at the cut on the latter’s neck with a clean, damp tea-towel.

“What must you think of me?” Bernadette asked him.

“My thinking about you has not changed in the slightest. Only now I know that you are a demigod who has risked her life to save others like yourself from the clutches of the Golois government.”

The cut was not deep and had stopped bleeding. With no further excuse to touch her, Sterling took a step back. “I don’t suppose you saw my letter?”

“Oh yes, I returned home to find that insulting piece of paper in place of my husband. I came racing here to haul you back to our cottage where you belong, but that fool Chauvelin followed me, and the instant I stormed the drawing room, he had a knife at my throat.”

“So you know that the oracle made a mistake, that my luck is perfectly fine?”

Bernadette took him by the shoulders and shook him. “That’s a good thing, you ridiculous sap-skull!”

She grabbed his face in both hands and kissed him with a ferocity that sent them both staggering against the dry sink.

“‘Divorce’?” she cried when she came up for air. “Just you try to get rid of me!”

“I don’t want to divorce you,” he admitted sheepishly

“Then don’t. Although, if you had an ounce of sense, you would. I am a very dangerous outlaw.”

“Then it is just as well that I’m a ridiculous sap-skull.” She pressed her forehead to his, and he put his arms around her waist, hardly daring to hope for a happy ending.

“I watched that pianoforte nearly flatten you, and I understood all at once that I had gone and fallen in love with my own husband. Can you imagine?”

“Yes, actually.” Sterling’s heart expanded so quickly in his ribcage that he was finding it difficult to breathe.

“When I realized that I might be able to keep you for a while longer, I didn’t know what to do or think.

It was one thing to marry you when I thought you were going to die.

It’s quite another to let myself love you when I know that my work could endanger you.

I almost got us both killed this afternoon, and your family to boot! ”

Perhaps these were valid concerns, but all Sterling heard was ‘love,’ so he kissed his wife until he was tempted to sling her over his shoulder and carry her to his ugly old bedroom upstairs. It was high time someone made good memories in that room.

“Your family is terrible, by the way,” she informed him as he pressed his lips to the sensitive spot behind her ear.

“Yes, they are. Speaking of family…” He lifted his head to grin at her. “I believe I met your mother.”

“Did you? I haven’t seen the Bride of Fortune in ages.” Bernadette sighed in fond exasperation before she kissed the tip of Sterling’s nose. “Lucky you.”