“I will not sleep. I have promised your—I have promised Aino that I will look after you.”
“Well, I can’t lie here.”
Inkar looked out the window at the blue-black night, the pinprick stars that wove through the sky like a tapestry. “Take me to see this city I have agreed to live in,” she said abruptly.
“What?”
“I would like to take a walk.”
“Do you realize how cold it is out there?” I said.
She smiled that sly, sidelong smile. “Are you asking me to keep you warm?”
“No!” I grew hot. Yes. “I only meant—you’re going to have trouble keeping yourself warm.”
She considered. “We go out. We walk until it is too cold. We come back in.”
“It’s already too cold,” I muttered. But if Inkar wanted to see what she’d gotten herself into, this was a good way to show her. Maybe I could find some way to annoy her without accidentally freezing her to death. “All right. But there’s no way you brought warm enough clothing. You’ll have to borrow some of mine.”
I peered out into the hall. My guards stood at either side of the door. One nodded to me, then frowned in confusion when he spotted the fur snowball behind me. “It’s Inkar,” I said. “We’re going for a walk.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” he said. He followed at a sedate pace.
“Saljo, I command you not to laugh at me,” Inkar grumbled. I looked around, confused, then I realized that Saljo was the name of the guard. How could Inkar know his name better than I did?
Saljo snorted. “Yes, Your Grace.”
“This is awful,” Inkar said. She kicked the inside of her skirt. “How am I supposed to protect you in a skirt like this?”
“You’re not supposed to protect me,” I said. “The guards protect me. They protect you, too.”
“I do not need protection,” Inkar replied. “Except you buried my axes under an entire sheep.”
“Right,” I said. I tucked my head, trying to stifle my smile. She was pretty and charming and clever. Was she really allowed to be adorable as well?
Focus on the negative, said Eirhan’s voice in my mind.
I’d almost drowned tonight. My mental Eirhan voice could stuff it.
“Are you sure we should not tell Aino where we are going?” Inkar said Aino’s name delicately.
“Completely sure. She’ll forbid us from going outside and probably mobilize the entire guard to stop us. This way, how will she ever know?”
“She will open your chamber doors to check on you. She will find that both of us are missing. She will panic and mobilize the guard, as you say. She will be furious when she discovers that your life was never in danger.”
“And I’ll tell her that I’m the grand duke and that I can do what I want.” I was proud of myself for saying that with a straight face. Grand duke or no, Aino would treat me like her disobedient daughter. “It’s always easier to ask forgiveness than permission.”
“You say that knowing it is not you Aino will hate,” Inkar reasoned. “She will think the whole thing was my idea.”
“It was your idea.” I grabbed her mittened hand in mine, and though there were layers between us, the pressure of her hand as she squeezed sent a bolt up through my arm and into my belly. “It’s too late to back out now. You’re not even slightly cold yet.”
The night was blessedly still when we stepped outside. No wind to chill us, no snow to settle on us. The stars were a riot across the sky, and the moon a thin, sideways smile. Inkar gasped, coughed, and gasped again.
“Bracing, isn’t it?” I said smugly.
“I have little hairs on the inside of my nose,” Inkar began.
“I didn’t really need to know that.”
“They are all frozen.” Inkar pulled up her scarf to cover the lower half of her face.
“We can turn around, if you like,” I offered.
Her eyes were alight. “No chance. Let us walk.”
So we did. We walked to the palace gate, and Saljo opened the side door for us.
The streets Above were quiet. Most people were inside, asleep. We passed the inn quarter, where light and noise spilled out onto the street, but soon the lane became silent again, lit only by streetlamps. Our shoes chipped away at the black surface of the lake. Under the thick ice, we saw the outlines of fish darting unperturbed beneath our shadows. Inkar knelt and pressed her mitten to the ice. “This is amazing.”
“More than amazing.” I knelt, too, but I was searching for bigger shapes, the citizens who swam and fought denizens of the lake and had their own lives and problems and conspiracies.
“Where I come from, the sea is green, and we cannot see to the bottom,” Inkar said. “We do not walk on the water. We sail, and we pray that the water does not see fit to take us.”
She sounded in awe. She sounded—“Are you afraid of it?”
“You are not?” she retorted.
“Never,” I said, and it was true.
I had seen Inkar flushed from a fight and laughing at a joke; I’d seen her angry and happy and curious. Now she just looked—beautiful. Her face was alight with wonder, so palpable I could almost feel it.
She was looking at me. “Are you all right?”
I had no idea what I was. “You wanted to see the city. Let’s go.”
I took her to the stock exchange, the dowager’s mansion, the grand hunting lodge. I showed her spires and columns and domes carved from ice, and though I could not see her mouth, her wide eyes told me all I needed to know. I took her past the merchant palaces and to the market. The tall houses, with birch frames and rubble fillings, were dark at this hour, but I pointed them out to her one by one.
“That is a bank?” she said doubtfully of one building.
“What do banks look like where you come from?” I asked.
“We do not pay with notes. We pay with silver and gold.” Inkar touched her arm, where her silver coils sat under four layers of sleeves. “We keep our money with us and clip off pieces of our armbands when we wish to buy. No banks necessary.”
“What do you do with all the clippings?” I said.
“We melt them down and make new things. We melt down the coins we bring home, too.”
“And use the notes as fuel?”
A line appeared between her brows. “Of course not.” But her eyelids crinkled, and I knew she was smiling. “My father will bring a dowry of these bands. If you prefer, he will trade them for notes. They make for nice decoration.”
“Um.” I kept my eyes on the road, watching the fish dart like my thoughts. Trying to pick the right one carefully. “Why would your father come with your dowry if you never intended to win the brideshow?”
“I wrote to him as soon as you presented me to the court. He has not had time to organize a full dowry, but he will make you many pretty promises.” Her eyes dimmed a little, as though she’d told a bitter joke.
“But…” I cast about for the right words. What did Eirhan want me to say, and what did I want to say? “It’s only a trial marriage.”
Inkar cocked her head. “Until eight days have passed.”