Look Beyond What You See

“Dmitri?” I call softly as I reach the top of my ladder to the roof. No one answers except the whispering wind in the leaves. An unseasonable chill embraces me and a light drizzle falls from the cloudy night sky. I pull my shawl tighter around my shoulders and shiver. Normally he would be up here by now, but with this weather…

Maybe he won’t be up here tonight.

But he has to be. I need to talk with him. I need to show him this letter from Kyla. I’ll go into his suite if I have to.

But there’s no sign of Dmitri amongst the plants of the rooftop garden, not yet. That’s all right. I can wait, in spite of the weather. Maybe by the time I go back inside, I will be grateful for Juniper’s July fireplace-lighting habit.

At least this way I have time to process what I overheard while I was meandering towards my suite after supper. I had decided to explore some of the secret passageways I hadn’t gotten to yet, which I thought was a safe decision because Wesley and Zinaida ate supper far more quickly than usual and left together with grim expressions; I knew they would not interfere with my exploring. Giacomo and Yekaterina were both served their meals apart from us. Giacomo was “indisposed” after training with Dmitri—I fear I ought to ask about that—and Yekaterina didn’t want to leave the sewing maids unsupervised, which I appreciate because the sewing maids were quite surly during fittings this afternoon.

One of the secret passageways I explored, however, ended up taking me behind a panel in one of Zinaida’s rooms. I opened it just a crack to see where I was and saw pink. I dared not open it further because I heard Zinaida and Wesley talking....

“Such terrible rumors are going around amongst the staff about Yekaterina and Dmitri,” Zinaida pouted.

“With good reason,” Wesley remarked with an eerie sense of calm. “Haven’t you seen the way she acts around him? Are you sure your relatives sent us one of their own, or might they have sent a prostitute in the place of your cousin’s daughter?”

“They would never do such a thing!”

“That speaks the worse of your cousin, for bringing up her daughter to behave so promiscuously.”

“If you’ve known that the rumors are true, why haven’t you done anything about it?!”

“Only some of the rumours are true, dear. I do not believe our son would betray Aerys for anyone, let alone take Yekaterina in a cleaning closet.”

“Still! Can you not silence the servants?”

“Your initial reaction is to ask me to silence the servants, rather than to reprimand Yekaterina for her behavior towards Dmitri? Perhaps I should send you back to Russia, as well.”

“You can’t send her back! What would the relatives think of me--I mean, of us? Speak to her--gently, of course--and let her know that her behavior is offensive.”

“Dmitri tells me that he has already told her exactly that, to no effect, and has no idea how to make her conduct herself more discreetly. He fears that at some point, his or Aerys’s temper will snap--”

“Aerys and Yekaterina are good friends! I have heard nothing of them being anything but sisterly together!”

“That may be, but Dmitri also mentioned that Aerys has been very cool to him since Yekaterina’s arrival, and that he thinks it stems from the way Yekaterina acts towards him. He feels trapped. He does not want to insult Yekaterina and cause disharmonious relations with your family, but he wants less to lose his fiancée’s goodwill because of the harlot living under our roof. He fears that Aerys will lose patience and take this problem into her own hands. From watching Aerys’s training with Giacomo, I suspect that if she does so, we will have a dead body on our hands, and then your relatives will really be displeased.”

I crept away after that. I heard quite enough. It was comforting to know that Lord and Lady Berkeley are not in the dark about what’s been going on between Yekaterina and Dmitri. Why they still have not done anything about it, I do not know. Wesley might well be waiting to see if Dmitri and I can work through this difficulty ourselves. If so, I wish he’d take matters into his own hands. If Dmitri’s been confiding in him, surely he knows that Dmitri’s sense of honor is keeping him from giving Yekaterina the tongue-lashing she deserves.

Finally, footsteps on the ladder from his apartments. I wait relatively close by, using a few of the taller potted plants as some form of shelter from the weather. I’ve never been so glad to see those warm amber eyes as they meet mine when he emerges from his rooms. But he is not as happy to see me, or maybe it’s the weather that makes his expression so displeased.

“Terrible weather. Haven’t we anyplace better to meet?” he asks briefly.

“Well, there’s your rooms and my rooms, but I don’t know of anywhere else we might go and be undisturbed that will also be sheltered from the weather,” I reply. “I can make a water shield for us to hide in, if you like. Maybe we can build a campfire in it.”

He offers a half-smile at my joke and comes to stand next to me as I begin to make the shield. Somehow I manage to get him inside it without getting him too damp. I, on the other hand, am soaked, mostly because of waiting for him in the rain.

“This isn’t so bad,” he remarks after a few moments of standing in silence in the shelter of my water shield. “I thought it’d be worse for me, inside a water shield.”

“This is good for us to know if we ever have to fight in a war.”

He rolls his eyes at that. “Let’s not talk about that now. Father and I spoke about it briefly before dinner and things are not looking good.”

In accordance with his wishes, I decide not to comment on that, although I would really like to know the news, whatever news there might be. I’ll have to get Malina to find out for me later. I’m sure Zinaida thinks I ought to remain blissfully unaware of anything so masculine and unsettling as a brewing war.

“Kyla has asked me to promise that I do everything I can to keep you and myself both out of any war that may transpire.”

“Is that what unsettled you so much from her letter? For I heard that you received a letter from her during training, and found it quite upsetting.” His tone has turned icy. He heard about this from Giacomo. No wonder Giacomo was indisposed. Why would that idiot Italian tell Dmitri about the letter? “Why did you share it with our combat instructor, Aerys? What business did he have reading a personal letter from your sister?” His eyes reveal pain and jealousy. My heart breaks and tears build up behind my eyes.

“I couldn’t wait until after training to read it, so I sat down on a bench at the edge of the training area to read it when I got it. He sat down next to me. I didn’t realize he was reading over my shoulder until he made a comment about the letter’s contents,” I explain, eyes lowered. I never meant for it to be this way. “I’m sorry. I didn’t notice, because I was so upset.... Here. You’ll understand.” I pull the letter from Kyla out of my sleeve and hand it to him. He shoots me a sideways glance, as though deciding whether or not I am sincere, before unfolding the packet and beginning to read. I wait with thinly veiled anxiety while he reads, wishing there was a way to get a chair or a bench or something into this water shield. Fortunately, Dmitri is a fast reader.

“I see,” he remarks when he has apparently finished reading. Silence follows in which he just stares at the letter and I stand numbly waiting for him to say something--anything--else. Eventually, he hands the letter back to me and wraps an arm around my shoulders. I look up at him in surprise. We haven’t been this close in days, perhaps a week; I’ve lost track. The sparks that usually fly between us are weak, almost nonexistent. What’s happened to us? The world seems unbearably heavy.

“What do I tell her, Dmitri?” I whisper.

“Don’t worry about that now. We have more important problems to take care of,” he answers, his eyes finally meeting mine. The sparks regain some life.

“Where do you want to start?”

“What have you been telling the combat tutor about us?”

“Not much. He guesses most things. I can understand how much I must have annoyed you and your parents, my first week or two here when I was guessing everything.”

Dmitri chuckles without warmth at that. “You didn’t annoy me. I was mostly annoyed that I had sworn I wouldn’t answer the questions you were asking.”

“That’s a relief.” I pause. “Dmitri, the things I’ve been hearing about you and Yekaterina--”

“I promise you, I have not acted dishonorably. I simply have not been able to dissuade her from paying me inappropriate attentions. I don’t want to be rude to her, or use force, because I am afraid that doing so would upset my mother’s relatives, because of what she would write home,” he explains. His words are tightly coiled springs of frustration. “She insists...that she would be better for me than you.”

“Because I am not an elemental?”

“Among other things.”

“What do you tell her?”

“I’ve let you keep your game going, if that’s what you’re concerned about. She has no idea that you have magic.”

“I knew that much. She hasn’t figured out where the dragonflies are coming from during dress fittings, and she never can find anything she sets down. She swears that the maids are leaving windows open and moving things behind our backs.”

“I’m glad you haven’t done anything drastic yet. Your patience with her is admirable, to say the least.”

“Even Juniper has complimented that, but that’s neither here nor there. What have you told Yekaterina about us, Dmitri?”

“I try not to tell her anything about us. You should know...that I’m not particularly inclined to make conversation with anyone, especially those of limited intelligence.”

“You might have to tell her something, to get her to behave more appropriately. I cannot promise, if these rumors worsen, that my patience will increase accordingly, and you know how a fight between Yekaterina and I would go.”

“Yes.” He pauses, and then smiles at me with mischievous flames dancing in his eyes. “Is it bad that I would really like to watch that?”

“Not necessarily. But such a fight would probably be more upsetting to your mother’s relatives than any stern words you might give Yekaterina.”

He sighs heavily. “I suppose you’re right, annoying though that is.” Because you might have to be a man and do something about this? But I can’t say that out loud, not now. We’re actually talking about our problems without fighting. I won’t be the one to mess this up.

“Have your parents heard anything from my grandmother yet?”

“No. Father is starting to get worried about that, too. She’s dangerous. We do not want to deal with whatever ‘punishment’ she might mete out for failure to comply with her wishes, but Father adamantly refuses to let her bully us into fighting against his conscience, should a war break out.”

“And you believe one will?”

His face turns deadly serious. “At this point, I’m completely certain of it. Neither side is backing down in negotiations. The Russian tsar is eager to avoid war, but not eager enough to make the concessions Austria and Germany are demanding. It’s only a matter of time until the first declarations of war are issued, and from there only worse things can follow. But please, Aerys, let’s not talk about war now.”

“Can we talk about what I will write to Kyla, when I return her letter?”

“I am tempted to suggest that you simply do not answer her more troublesome questions, but that does not solve anything for you, does it?”

“No. And there is little to update her on as far as wedding plans go.”

“Are you still intent on having her as your Matron of Honor?” What a question.

“I don’t know who else I would have,” I respond honestly.

“What of the woman in your service with whom you have grown close? Malina, was it?”

“I certainly intend that she will be in my bridal party, but I can hardly revoke the invitation from Kyla, having already given it.”

“Of course, but it is possible that, once she learns what kind of family you are marrying into and of your own magical gift, she will refuse to endorse such evil-doing, even through her participation in our wedding.” I had hoped he wouldn’t say something like that, although of course the thought had occurred to me.

“So you intend for me to tell her the truth.”

“As she said, the two of you have always been honest with each other. Why should that change just because the two of you have changed?”

“Will you help me with the wording?”

“If that will make writing it any easier for you.”

His grip on me tightens, and I’m reminded again that, in spite of everything, he still cares about me. My memory flashes back to the painting, again. Maybe we can get back there...

“If you don’t mind, I would love to have your help.” I pause. “Have you been able to paint at all recently?”

“No,” he answers, almost sad at the admission. “I’ve felt woefully uninspired, and there has been precious little time for it of late.”

“Would you like to try now? If you want, I’ll come along, and maybe play for you, if you like.”

“Thank you. I really appreciate the thought, but...if it’s all the same to you.... I’d rather just stay here.” He turns me so that I’m facing him and holds me against his chest in a warm and welcoming embrace.

“As you wish.” My cheek rests against his heart and his flame, which flares up against me, reminding me of the night when I first learned about it. “Promise me we’ll work through all these problems, somehow.”

“I promise,” he assures me with that velvety tone that sends shivers down my spine. “I will reprimand Yekaterina tomorrow morning, if you promise me that you will try not to have personal conversations with Giacomo henceforward.” If that’s what it takes, that’s what I’ll do.

“You have my word.”