They paid their respects to Sonya Vasileyevna, who was laid out respectfully on a table, sheathed in a crimson shroud. Astrid lifted the edge and peered at her face, cold and impassive, not quite pale, but clearly no longer alive. She expected tears to overwhelm her, but instead, she stood mutely beside her Mistress as Turold held her hand, feeling the same emotions.
“She taught me since I was six. She’s the only mother I’ve ever known,” she said.
“I barely even knew my parents,” Turold nodded. “Hildigrim became mother and father to me. Older brother, too…sometimes we hated each other. It took me a long time to come to grips with his death.”
“I almost wonder, though…if I had had a choice, would I have chosen her? Would I have chosen magic? This way of life?”
“You can make that choice now, of your own free will,” he said. “We can both walk away and never look back. Our masters are gone…and no one here will cry for our absence.”
“All the more reason to choose it,” she said, thoughtfully. “It’s funny, though. I suddenly feel that I’ve never chosen anything for myself. All my ideas, opinions, fears, they were bequeathed to me second-hand. Even now I have trouble discerning what I believe and what I’ve been told.”
“Yes, that takes time,” he said, nodding. “Good thing we suddenly have so much of it: time and the thoughts to fill it.”
They stood silently for a few moments before she drew the shroud over her Mistress’ face. Turold somehow couldn’t believe this was her; that she, along with his Master, would soon become a memory, and soon not even that.
“Do you think they betrayed us?” she asked.
“No, not betrayed…but they certainly didn’t tell us the truth. And how could they? Would we have understood without seeing what we saw?”
“But I’ve seen it, and I still don’t know. I still don’t understand what I saw,” she said, a sob cracking her voice. “Should we have done it, Turold? Closed the portal? Have we…betrayed them?”
“No, you could never say that,” he said, taking her hand. “Theywould never say that.”
“If she had just told me more, confided in me, trusted me, then…I would have made her proud,” she said.
“You have made her proud, that’s why she trusted you. Besides, I doubt she told anyone the absolute truth. That’s probably why she and Hildigrim parted ways; they couldn’t share their innermost secrets. Some people never learn to take off their mask.”
“Yes, you’re right. But I don’t want to make that mistake,” she said, looking into his eyes. “I never want you to look at me and say, I didn’t know. And I want to be able to say, yes, I saw that coming.”
“You always will,” he said.
While the guards tactfully looked away, they stole a brief kiss, another to ensure one another that they saw, they understood. Then she said they were ready to go. The guards bound their hands—merely for show, they admitted—and led them out of the room. The Council would expect them to make a full confession by the day’s end.
One Year Later…
Turold awoke with a start. Already, the memory was fading away, mere slivers of dream that blew away with the slightest thought. He saw a vast palace in ruins, headless statues on every side. The remains of a bath immediately before him, drained, cracked in two. And there, amongst some weeds, yet distinctly visible, the frame of a mirror. He couldn’t see himself, since there was no glass, but he had the sense that something was looking back at him. He crept closer, feeling the weight of the room press him on all sides, anxious to announce its presence.
Then he was standing in front of the mirror, someplace else, as if he had carried it away. Now there was something in place of the mirror, a kind of translucent film, and just beyond it, the hum of voices. Movement.
Turold, we’re so close now. And this time we know you won’t fail us. This time we know you understand.
The last thing he remembered was the face starting to emerge in the blankness before him. Not a face he had ever seen before, something old and strange and impossibly wise…
“What is it, love? More bad dreams?” Astrid asked, leaning over him.
“Yes…that is, I’m not sure. I can’t remember.”
He slowly got up and took her outstretched hand, kissing it.
“How are you feeling?”
“We’re doing fine, you’ll be happy to know,” she said, patting her belly.
“Is she kicking again?”
“No, she settled down long ago. She doesn’t have bad dreams like her father.”
“That’s good,” he said, pressing her hand against his cheek.
“You saw it, didn’t you? The portal?” she asked.
“I…maybe, I can’t be sure. It’s all so scattered. But I feel I’ve dreamed this dream before. Have you…?”
“I dreamt of her, she came to me,” she admitted, sitting beside him. “But she never says anything. She just gives me something. And whenever I take it, I’m awake. I never see what it is.”
“Well, there’s not much we can do about it, anyway,” he said, exasperatedly. “We still have, what, six years left? More?”
“Lord Gramsteed’s last letter said he was feeling them out. That he can probably shave off a few years for ‘good behavior.’ Though I told him we were being positively indecent in here,” she laughed, kissing his head.
“I almost wonder if we should have fled when we had the chance,” he said, caressing her stomach. “Left Lord Gramsteed to his fate. Went north and never looked back.”
“So you haven’t enjoyed our time here? You could have fooled me.”
“I’ve never been happier…and that’s the point,” he said, leaping up, pacing the room. “I feel our happiness is at someone else’s expense. That we’re ignoring our purpose, our fate. Do we have any right to be here like this? Is that why I’m having these dreams?”
“Turold, we have every right—we deserve to be happy,” she said, following him. “But yes, I see what you mean. How long can this last? And is this the right place…for her? What kind of life will she have?”
“I just wonder how long we should wait. Especially if these dreams are a warning. How long can we afford to ignore them?”
“As long as the map tells us otherwise,” she said, skipping across the room to her bed.
She removed a flattened scroll from beneath the mattress and unfurled it. There, just as he remembered it, was her map of the city, with the portals indicated in all the proper positions. And all of them closed.
“You see? Exactly the same. No Messengers to trouble our sleep.”
He studied the map for a moment, then nodded. She was right, there was nothing amiss.
“Turold, that’s very sweet of you,” she said, with a slight laugh. “You drew a little heart to mark out our prison. I didn’t know you had.”
He followed her finger far across the map, past forests and rivers and to the very edge of the mountains, to spy out their prison home. A tidily scrawled heart encircled it, though the map didn’t otherwise identify Tormentil or this largely-forgotten estate.
“Astrid…I didn’t do this. I didn’t draw it,” he said, his voice thin and raspy.
“Don’t be silly. Of course you did.”
“No! No, I didn’t…I haven’t touched your map. Not without asking.”
Eyes wide, they studied the map carefully, trying to determine how long ago the ink had dried on the page. Strangely, it seemed as old as the map itself, which Sonya Vasileyevna claimed was set down in her great-grandmother’s time. Yet they knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that the heart had never appeared on the map before. And of all places, why here—why now?
“Do you think it means…?” she asked.
“Yes, there must be.”
“Here?”
“Why not? Maybe there are more than we know?” he shrugged. “Maybe our dreams unlocked it? Maybe that’s why…why they could wait?”
“So should we…or shouldn’t we?”
“We could ask Lord Gramsteed.”
“And if he says no?” she asked, eyes fixed on the map.
“Then that settles it. Tonight.”
“Tonight? But Turold, we don’t even know…”
“No, we don’t. That’s why it has to be tonight. To make sure.”
“And if we find it? If it’s actually here? Do we…”
“No, of course not. Not yet, maybe not ever. But still…”
He swallowed back the thought. Yes, he knew it was here, waiting for them…that it had followed them here. But even worse, he feared they wanted her to open it. That they would have many years to live with it in fear and wonder. Until the one day when she was old enough to learn the truth and make the decision for herself.
“Very well, then. Tonight,” Astrid agreed.
