SN Chapter 4

When Kallix surfaced sharply from his thoughts, she was also watching him. As though she had known from the beginning that he was standing there, observing. In the dim corridor, Rosaline's eyes shone.

He walked toward her, slowly.

"Mother has returned. She would like to have lunch together."

Rosaline's face brightened. It was certainly lunch and not mother that had moved her. When Kallix extended his hand, she took it and came to her feet at once.

"Kallix, let's go together."

'Let's go together,' was it. He smiled thinly. A quite remarkable pace of learning.

"Is this all right?"

Alter, Kallix's aide, asked in a voice stripped of any particular inflection. Before the luncheon, Rosaline had gone to her room to change clothes and tidy her hair. The two men waited in a nearby sitting room. Alter was fiddling with the othello pieces arranged on the table. Kallix had half-wondered if he wanted to play, but it appeared Alter was arranging the black pieces into a heart shape. There was no making sense of it.

"The eldest daughter of Count Redwheel goes missing—no one tells you. She's hurt—no one tells you. She comes back—no one tells you. And on top of that, you're not planning to inform her immediately? She'll be quite upset, surely."

Countess Redwheel. Edelweiss.

She had learned of her daughter's disappearance only two days ago. Not during the six days Rosaline was missing. Not during the period of treatment in Iron-Bramble County. Not when Rosaline had been brought back to the Redwheel estate. Edelweiss had known none of it.

She had been staying at the Redwheel seaside villa—a property somewhat removed from Ester. She had no particular illness, but she collapsed easily, fell unwell often, and under the designation of convalescence spent more than half of any given year there.

Kallix had recently received word that Edelweiss had collapsed again. In that situation, he could not in good conscience inform her that her daughter had gone missing—that the household had already begun preparing white mourning cloths. When Rosaline's found, I'll tell her. When it looks like she might survive, I'll tell her. When she's home, I'll tell her. When she opens her eyes, I'll tell her. And so he had delayed, until three days ago when he'd finally written, and the message had reached her two days past.

And even then, the message had omitted every word that might alarm her— any mention that she had come close to dying, that the situation had been genuinely dangerous. It had been compressed into: 'There was a minor unfortunate incident at the hunting competition; she is presently resting at home to recover her strength.' If he had relayed the truth as it was, Edelweiss would have fainted. There was no question of it.

"You didn't tell her about that either, did you?"

"About what."

"Miss's head being a bit—"

The color in Kallix's eyes went sharp. A bit. My sister's head being a bit. What. The expression on his face suggested that whatever word followed would be the last Alter ever spoke.

"...her head being a bit... adorable now."

"..."

Kallix said nothing. Alter read the affirmation in the silence and exhaled without joy. The road ahead stretched thousands upon thousands of miles.

Rosaline emerged shortly, newly dressed. She still had bandaging here and there, but the long sleeves concealed most of it. The scattered small scabs on her face were no worse than what she had habitually carried home from knight order service. Her wild curling hair had been gathered and neatly arranged, and she wore a dress. It was the first time in a while she looked like herself.

Kallix and Alter's gazes traveled down her figure and came to rest on her feet, hidden beneath the hem. An alert maid lifted the fabric slightly. They observed the gleam of a shoe-toe and gave a small nod. Right. Shoes as well.

"Our Miss looks completely put-together!"

Kallix's elbow drove precisely into Alter's side. Alter made a choked sound and went down. Kallix stepped over whatever was writhing on the floor and extended his hand to Rosaline.

"Shall we go, Sister? Mother is waiting."

"Yes, Kallix."

One week had brought remarkable changes. Unlike the first day, when she had broken speech into isolated fragments, she had begun reclaiming her former self at a startling pace. She moved between feminine and masculine register, between formal and informal speech, shifting entirely according to whatever she had most recently heard— but the fact that she had progressed from isolated words to full sentences was striking development by any measure. The head butler declared that an unprecedented genius had emerged from the house and showed no signs of tiring of this opinion. Kallix found this household quite something.

Even so, she was still far from adequate. She was like a child who had only just found her voice—repeating everything she heard without a filter. Anyone else who observed her for long would notice something was wrong. But she had always been known for speaking little and moving quietly, so he thought the brief span of a meal might be navigated on short, simple answers alone.

It had to be.

"If Mother speaks to you?"

"Yes. Or no."

"At table?"

"Fork, knife, and spoon."

"Excellent."

Kallix watched his sister's expression of quiet confidence and stepped into the room where their mother waited. A chandelier shedding light like broken glass. The dining room dressed with considerable effort in honor of the Countess's return. Rosaline swiveled her head in sharp, sudden arcs, taking it all in.

Kallix embraced the brown-haired woman who rose from her seat—warmly, as he always did. She pulled her son close in return, this being months since she had last seen him. She then moved immediately to embrace Rosaline as well, taking her face in both hands and examining her from all angles with a mother's thorough attention.

"My Rose. Your face has suffered so. Are you still in much pain? Are you all right?"

"Yes."

"A lady's face— what on earth is this, really. I told you to leave that dreadful knight order!"

"No."

The only two available answers had been spent all at once. Kallix stepped in quickly.

"Mother! You've had quite a journey— you must be tired. Please sit down first."

"Yes, yes. Here I am holding my injured child and already nagging her. Let's sit."

"Yes."

Rosaline answered quite faithfully. When someone speaks to you, you must answer back, or there can be no conversation. He had told her that, and it was producing excellent results. She seemed to hold onto everything she was taught.

It had been hurried, emergency instruction—but Rosaline managed fork and knife with reasonable facility. Kallix regarded the evidence of his own considerable efforts with something that very nearly approached sentiment. Edelweiss, however, who remembered the Rosaline from before all this, appeared to find it wanting. She did not speak the criticism aloud, but she made her discomfort legible in small tightened expressions. The mouth opened too wide. The sounds of chewing rather too loud. Had Rosaline not been injured and convalescing, she would have heard about it by now.

Clatter.

The sound of Rosaline setting down her spoon rang out through the quiet room. Edelweiss's brow drew together. Kallix looked at it and exhaled. He had intended to inform her of the situation gradually—but it seemed he needed to move that timeline forward.

"Mother."

"What is it, Kallix."

"There is something I need to tell you."

"Yes, and before that— let me say something first. Rose?"

Rosaline had food in her mouth. "Yes," she answered anyway. Edelweiss's expression contracted sharply. The words how can you—such manner—hung unsaid in the air behind her teeth.

"Every day you're out somewhere, all this knight order business, coming home hurt. This time too. Does this mother's constant worry mean anything to you at all?"

"No."

Kallix closed his eyes hard. His sister's honesty was dizzying. Edelweiss stared at her, momentarily thrown. He added hastily:

"Mother, Sister is—"

"Never mind that. I see— after being away from home so long, you must have felt quite overlooked. You came from my own body. How could I not worry about you, Rose."

"Yes."

"When I heard you'd been hurt this time, I was so startled. This is the girl who would come to work with a broken arm. What could possibly have happened that she was resting at home—I said to myself."

"Yes."

"So your mother made certain inquiries before leaving the villa. You're at the age to be settled, after all—"

"Mother!"

Kallix came to his feet. This was a perennial subject in her repertoire, but it was not remotely appropriate for a daughter who had just come back from the edge of death. As a parent, wanting her daughter to set down a dangerous sword and marry into comfort and ease was perhaps natural enough. But Rosaline had never wanted that—not once. Their ideals were so entirely different that they had clashed over it again and again.

In an era when women received titles, women ran trading companies, women took up swords— Edelweiss was remarkably, almost impressively, behind the times. This despite the fact that her homeland, the Kingdom of Lagosue, was the nation on the continent with the longest unbroken history of reigning queens.

"I don't think this is the moment, Mother."

"Who said you were meeting anyone immediately? I said nothing about right now. Rest a little, recover, and when you're well, meet one person—is that too much to ask? What a waste of such a blooming age. You think your mother wouldn't find someone worthwhile? Thirty-one years old, a young count, I'm told he has a sharp head for business and outstanding character. When I mentioned returning to Ester he gave me the rarest of gems from the eastern continent. If there's an engagement, we could have it made into a ring, and our Rose could—"

Edelweiss did not finish.

It was because of Rosaline— who had been quietly continuing to eat through a conversation very explicitly about her. More precisely: it was the method of her eating that brought everything to a halt. A roll had fallen to the floor. She picked it up. She tore into it with every indication of genuine satisfaction.

Kallix, who had been standing stock-still, covered his face with one hand and produced a sound of distress that appeared on his face perhaps twice a year. Alter, watching from the back of the room, gave a slow, disbelieving— shake of his head.

Come to think of it: the dining etiquette instruction had contained no mention of not eating food one had dropped on the floor. The thought that such instruction would even be necessary had never once crossed his mind.