Siegfried holds up a hand. ‘Calm yourself, Aderyn. Matters are already in hand. There’s no need for you to concern yourself.’
‘No need to concern myself?’ My voice rises a little. ‘But she was my mother. And it was my back that got ripped to shreds.’
‘Matters are in hand.’ He pours me some more cordial. ‘We have to return to the Citadel tomorrow, and there’s nothing to be done tonight. We may as well enjoy our time away from court. I like that colour on you, by the way.’
He turns the subject, begins speaking of something else. I’m unwilling to let it drop. But I realise, sitting there alone with Siegfried on the roof of his house, exactly how much I have allowed myself to become dependent on him. The people I’m pursuing seem to be in his dominion. Unless he gives me his potions tomorrow morning, I won’t be able to fly back to the Citadel, or return to my human shape. So I swallow my pride, my guilt, and we talk of inconsequential matters: local customs, music, our shared love of stargazing.
After we’ve eaten enough Siegfried turns down the lamps and we go to the wall to look out at the full moon silvering the sea. I’m not sure whether it’s the monotonous, unceasing rush of the tide on the beach, or some effect of the drink, but I feel caught out of time. As if this moment is everything; as if I could stare at the moon riding the waves forever.
Until Siegfried’s lips brush the bare skin of my shoulder. He slips his arms around my waist, tugging me sharply backwards so that I feel his body and the warmth of him through the thin fabric of my dress. I can’t help gasping. Hastily I twist around in his arms.
‘Siegfried –’
He crushes me against him and plants his lips on mine, kissing me deeply.
Shock immobilises me. Until I realise, with horror, that my body is beginning to respond. Getting my palms onto his shoulders, I push him away. ‘No – stop!’
He lets go of me and drags the back of his hand across his mouth, breathing hard. ‘But this is what we both want.’ A statement, not a question. ‘The first moment we met, I saw the loneliness inside you. And the desire. Tell me I’m wrong, Aderyn. Tell me that you don’t feel the same way. That you don’t want me as much as I want you.’
I open my mouth to tell him that he knows nothing of what I feel, that we’re friends, nothing more. But I’m suddenly very aware of how far I am from home, and from the Citadel … I focus on the one fact that is undeniable. ‘Odette. You’re to be married soon.’
He shakes his head and laughs, though there’s no humour in it. ‘Odette thinks she loves me, but how can she? We hardly know one another. Not really.’ He shrugs. ‘My relationship with her is a business transaction, organised by the king and my father. But you, Aderyn … When I agreed to marry Odette, I never expected to feel this way about anyone. I can’t stop thinking about you. Every moment of every hour …’ Reaching out for a lock of my hair, he twirls it in his fingers. ‘There’s no reason to be afraid of what we feel: thanks to Aron, everyone at court believes I’ve bedded you already. And no one really cares …’
‘I suspect Odette may care.’ I bat his hand away, grope for the words that will allow me a way out. ‘Odette’s my cousin, and I’m fond of her. And … And even if you don’t care for her at all, you still agreed to marry her. We can’t betray her like this.’ I turn away from him, back to the moon and the sea.
Silence. And then he sighs. ‘Well, perhaps you are right. I believe there is a way we can be together, though perhaps it is not yet. But I trust that once I have proved myself to you, you will find me more … deserving.’
I don’t know what he means, or how to answer him.
‘Aderyn, please … Will you not look at me?’
Reluctantly I turn to face him again. He takes my hands, kissing both palms as he did earlier in the town.
‘I’m sorry. My passion for you is hard for me to master. Tell me you forgive me.’
‘I forgive you.’ How could I not? He is mistaken about my feelings for him. Very mistaken in his disregard for Odette. But he has helped me – is still helping me – and I can’t help feeling both grateful and sorry for him. ‘What do you mean, that there is a way we can be together?’
‘I’ll tell you soon.’
‘But –’
He puts a finger to my lips. ‘Soon. It’s late. You should rest now. We have an early start.’ There’s a handbell on the table; he rings it, and Gytha appears almost instantly. I realise she must have been waiting there at the bottom of the stairs all this time, listening, and my stomach turns. ‘Take Her Grace back to her room. And be sure to wake her in good time tomorrow; we leave at dawn. Goodnight, my Aderyn. Sleep well.’
I follow Gytha back down the stairs to my apartment. There’s a nightgown laid on the bed this time; she makes up the fire, pours some more hot water into the basin and withdraws, all without speaking a word. I undress and wash and get into bed. I blow out the candle. But before I fall asleep, I realise something. Something that leaves me numb. When Siegfried was kissing me, at the instant that I began to kiss him back, it wasn’t actually him I was thinking about.
It was Lucien.
At breakfast the next morning Siegfried makes no mention of what happened between us, and I wonder whether he regrets his behaviour, or has thought better of his assumptions. We leave the manor house just as a sliver of brilliant golden sun is peeping over the horizon. This is the first time I’ve flown such a distance in one stretch, and I’m dimly aware of the ache of muscles and lungs, if nothing else. When Siegfried transforms me back to human I realise that it is mid-morning: the landing platform is busy with nobles coming and leaving. Hopefully no one will have noticed our absence, or that we’ve returned together. We walk inside to the point where our paths separate. There’s a servant nearby, dusting the contents of one of the display cabinets that line this corridor.
Siegfried leans forward to murmur in my ear. ‘I’m going away again tomorrow. Just for a few days, I think. To oversee the investigation that we’ve set in motion.’
‘Do you honestly think your people will find them?’ If these hawks really exist, and if they are the ones we’re looking for, they’ve successfully concealed their existence for the last two hundred years or more. All we actually have to go on are rumours.
‘I’ll find them. And I’ll bring them to you, Aderyn. And then …’ His lips brush my earlobe – I manage, just about, not to flinch. ‘Stay here. Be safe.’
‘The potion –’
‘I think you should stay earthbound, for the time being. It will do you good to rest.’ He grins, pushing back his damp blond hair with one hand. ‘We can’t have you thinking that you can do without me, can we?’
A sweeping bow, and he’s gone. I turn away to my own apartment.
Letya is in the sitting room; she is hopefully still the only one who knows where I was last night. There are various yellow woollen shapes spread out across her lap and the sofa.
‘Good morning, Aderyn. How was your errand? Did you find what you were looking for?’
‘Perhaps …’ I sit down next to her, as close as I dare, and try, through a mist of tiredness, to review in my mind every interaction I’ve had with Siegfried, every word, every touch. How did he come to decide that I would be happy to give myself to him? Did I do or say something that I shouldn’t have? We’ve spent a lot of time alone together, inevitably, but he was the one who offered me his help …