When he turned away from thewindow at last, his voice was tired and full of melancholy, andmoisture glittered faintly in the corners of his eyes. “My father wentsouth once, to answer the summons of a king. He never came homeagain.”

. “Now we truly have no choice. You must be Robert’s Hand.You must go south with him and learn the truth.”

Ned crossed the room, took her by the arm, and pulled her to herfeet. He held her there, his face inches from he

It was sealed with a small blob ofblue wax

That brought a bitter twist to Ned’s mouth. “Brandon. Yes.Brandon would know what to do. He always did. It was all meantfor Brandon. You, Winterfell, everything. He was born to be a King’sHand and a father to queens. I never asked for this cup to pass tome.”

“Gods, Catelyn, Sansa is only eleven,” Ned said. “AndJorey ... Jorey is ...”

“And in mine,” she blazed, angry now. Why couldn’t he see? “Heoers his own son in marriage to our daughter, what else would youcall that? Sansa might someday be queen. Her sons could rule fromthe Wall to the mountains of Dorne. What is so wrong with that?”

Catelyn remembered the direwolf dead in the snow, the brokenantler lodged deep in her throat. She had to make him see

Can’tyou see the danger that would put us in?”

Her loins still ached from the urgency of his lovemaking. It was agood ache. She could feel his seed within her. She prayed that itmight quicken there. It had been three years since Rickon. She wasnot too old. She could give him another son.

So when they had nished, Ned rolled o and climbed from herbed, as he had a thousand times before.

The castle had beenbuilt over natural hot springs, and the scalding waters rushedthrough its walls and chambers like blood through a man’s body,driving the chill from the stone halls, lling the glass gardens with amoist warmth, keeping the earth from freezing. Open pools smokedday and night in a dozen small courtyards. That was a little thing, insummer; in winter, it was the dierence between life and death.

“I don’t even know who my mother was,” Jon said.

the light from within threw his shadow clear across the yard,and for just a moment Tyrion Lannister stood tall as a king.

Hewhirled and bolted before they could see him cry.

Suddenly he realized that the table had fallen silent, and theywere all looking at him. He felt the tears begin to well behind hiseyes. He pushed himself to his feet.

Jon felt anger rise inside him. “I’m not your son!”Benjen Stark stood up. “More’s the pity.” He put a hand on Jon’sshoulder. “Come back to me after you’ve fathered a few bastards ofyour own, and we’ll see how you feel.”Jon trembled. “I will never father a bastard,” he said carefully.“Never!” He spat it out like venom.

“Daeren Targaryen was only fourteen when he conquered Dorne,”Jon said. The Young Dragon was one of his heroes

Theycalled him the Lion of Lannister to his face and whispered“Kingslayer” behind his back

Little Rickon rst, managing thelong walk with all the dignity a three-year-old could muster. Jonhad to urge him on when he stopped to visit.

He decided she wasinsipid. Robb didn’t even have the sense to realize how stupid shewas; he was grinning like a fool.

For a moment Eddard Stark was lled with a terrible sense offoreboding. This was his place, here in the north. He looked at thestone gures all around them, breathed deep in the chill silence ofthe crypt. He could feel the eyes of the dead. They were alllistening, he knew. And winter was coming.

This oer did surprise him. “Sansa is only eleven.”Robert waved an impatient hand. “Old enough for betrothal. Themarriage can wait a few years.” The king smiled. “Now stand upand say yes, curse you.

It was the last thing in the world he wanted

smelled of blood and roses. Promise me, Ned. The fever had takenher strength and her voice had been faint as a whisper, but when hegave her his word, the fear had gone out of his sister’s eyes. Nedremembered the way she had smiled then, how tightly her ngershad clutched his as she gave up her hold on life, the rose petalsspilling from her palm, dead and black. After that he rememberednothing. They had found him still holding her body, silent withgrief. The little crannogman, Howland Reed, had taken her handfrom his. Ned could recall none of it. “I bring her owers when Ican,” he said. “Lyanna was ... fond of owers.”

black holes waiting for their dead,waiting for him and his children. Ned did not like to think on that.

He could feelthe chill coming up the stairs, a cold breath from deep within theearth. “Kings are a rare sight in the north.”Robert snorted. “More likely they were hiding under the snow.Snow, Ned!” The king put one hand on the wall to steady himself asthey descended.

Robert embraced Catelyn like a long-lost sister

double-decked carriage

“And stand up straight. Let him see that you havebreasts. Gods know, you have little enough as is.”Daenerys smiled, and stood up straight.

“I don’t want to be his queen,” she heard herself sayin a small, thin voice. “Please, please, Viserys, I don’t want to, I wantto go home.”

“Do you see hisbraid, sweet sister?”Drogo’s braid was black as midnight and heavy with scented oil,hung with tiny bells that rang softly as he moved. It swung well pasthis belt, below even his buttocks, the end of it brushing against theback of his thighs.

Hewas younger than she’d thought, no more than thirty.

embroidered with the likeness of a black bear standingon two legs

and the man behind him is Ser Jorah Mormont.”

nd realized, with a sudden start of fear, that she was theonly woman there

Unsullied

Tyrell, Redwyne, Darry, Greyjoy, theyhave no more love for the Usurper than I do.

The savages have queertastes

“Are you sure that KhalDrogo likes his women this young?”“She has had her blood. She is old enough for the khal,” Illyriotold him, not for the rst time.

Last ofall came the collar, a heavy golden torc emblazoned with ancientValyrian glyphs.“Now you look all a princess,” the girl said breathlessly when theywere done. Dany glanced at her image in the silvered looking glassthat Illyrio had so thoughtfully provided. A princess, she thought,but she remembered what the girl had said, how Khal Drogo was sorich even his slaves wore golden collars.

his palace

“Ours is the house of thedragon,” he would say. “The re is in our blood.

The water wasscalding hot, but Daenerys did not inch or cry out. She liked theheat

Dany had cried when the red door closedbehind them forever.

Her mother had died birthing her, and for that herbrother Viserys had never forgiven her.

She had been born on Dragonstone nine moons after their ight,while a raging summer storm threatened to rip the island fastnessapart. They said that storm was terrible. The Targaryen eet was

Princess Elia of Dorne

woman he loved.

Khal Drogo has a thousand horses, tonight he looks for a dierentsort of mount.”

DAENERYS

It took Ned a moment to comprehend her words, but when theunderstanding came, the darkness left his eyes. “Robert is cominghere?” When she nodded, a smile broke across his face.Catelyn wished she could share his joy. But she had heard the talkin the yards; a direwolf dead in the snow, a broken antler in itsthroat. Dread coiled within her like a snake, but she forced herselfto smile at this man she loved, this man who put no faith in signs. “Iknew that would please you,” she said. “We should send word toyour brother on the Wall.”

“Go to her,” Ned urged. “Take the children. Fill her halls withnoise and shouts and laughter. That boy of hers needs other childrenabout him, and Lysa should not be alone in her grief.”

“The message said only that they were well, and had returned tothe Eyrie,” Catelyn said. “I wish they had gone to Riverrun instead.The Eyrie is high and lonely, and it was ever her husband’s place,not hers. Lord Jon’s memory will haunt each stone. I know mysister. She needs the comfort of family and friends around her.”

She could see thegrief on his face, but even then he thought rst of her

“Jon ...”

raised his moon-and-falcon banners in revolt rather than give upthose he had pledged to protect.

In his youth, Ned had fostered at the Eyrie,and the childless Lord Arryn had become a second father to him andhis fellow ward, Robert Baratheon. When the Mad King Aerys IITargaryen had demanded their heads, the Lord of the Eyrie had

my lady?”

he glanced behindher at the heart tree, the pale bark and red eyes, watching, listening,thinking its long slow thoughts.

His smile was gentle. “You listen to too many of Old Nan’s stories.The Others are as dead as the children of the forest, gone eightthousand years. Maester Luwin will tell you they never lived at all.No living man has ever seen one.”

Ned frowned. “He must learn to face his fears. He will not bethree forever. And winter is coming.”

“In the kitchen, arguing aboutnames for the wolf pups.” She spread her cloak on the forest oorand sat beside the pool, her back to the weirwood. She could feelthe eyes watching her, but she did her best to ignore them. “Arya isalready in love, and Sansa is charmed and gracious, but Rickon isnot quite sure.”

except on the Isle of Faces where the greenmen kept their silent watch.

“The heart tree,”Ned called it. The weirwood’s bark was white as bone, its leavesdark red, like a thousand bloodstained hands. A face had beencarved in the trunk of the great tree, its features long andmelancholy, the deep-cut eyes red with dried sap and strangelywatchful. They were old, those eyes; older than Winterfell itself.They had seen Brandon the Builder set the rst stone, if the taleswere true; they had watched the castle’s granite walls rise aroundthem. It was said that the children of the forest had carved the facesin the trees during the dawn centuries before the coming of the FirstMen across the narrow sea.

Catelyn had been anointed with the seven oils and named in therainbow of light that lled the sept of Riverrun.

The godswood there was a garden, brightand airy, where tall redwoods spread dappled shadows acrosstinkling streams, birds sang from hidden nests, and the air was spicywith the scent of owers.The gods of Winterfell kept a dierent sort of wood. It was a dark,primal place, three acres of old forest untouched for ten thousandyears as the gloomy castle rose around it. It smelled of moist earthand decay. No redwoods grew here. This was a wood of stubbornsentinel trees armored in grey-green needles, of mighty oaks, ofironwoods as old as the realm itself. Here thick black trunkscrowded close together while twisted branches wove a dense canopyoverhead and misshapen roots wrestled beneath the soil. This was aplace of deep silence and brooding shadows, and the gods who livedhere had no names.

His fur was white, where the rest of the litter was grey. His eyeswere as red as the blood of the ragged man who had died thatmorning. Bran thought it curious that this pup alone would haveopened his eyes while the others were still blind.“An albino,” Theon Greyjoy said with wry amusement. “This onewill die even faster than the others.”Jon Snow gave his father’s ward a long, chilling look. “I think not,Greyjoy,” he said. “This one belongs to me.”

Their lord father regarded Jon thoughtfully.

Their father understood as well. “You want no pup for yourself,Jon?” he asked softly.

but not the bastard whobore the surname Snow, the name that custom decreed be given toall those in the north unlucky enough to be born with no name oftheir own.

. He loved Jon with all his heart at that moment.

“There are vepups,” he told Father. “Three male, two female.”“What of it, Jon?”“You have ve trueborn children,” Jon said. “Three sons, twodaughters. The direwolf is the sigil of your House. Your childrenwere meant to have these pups, my lord.”

A foot of shatteredantler, tines snapped o, all wet with blood

. Ice had formed in its shaggy grey fur, and the faint smell ofcorruption clung to it like a woman’s perfume.

A ruler who hides behind paidexecutioners soon forgets what death is.”

and we hold to the belief that theman who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you wouldtake a man’s life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hearhis nal words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps theman does not deserve to die.

obb said. He was big and broad andgrowing every day, with his mother’s coloring, the fair skin, red-brown hair, and blue eyes of the Tullys of Riverrun.

on was fourteen,an old hand at justice

The head bounced o a thick root and rolled. It came up nearGreyjoy’s feet. Theon was a lean, dark youth of nineteen who foundeverything amusing. He laughed, put his boot on the head, andkicked it away.“Ass,” Jon muttered,

His father took o the man’s head with a single sure stroke.

Lord Eddard Stark dismounted and his ward Theon Greyjoybrought forth the sword. “Ice,” that sword was called. It was as wideacross as a man’s hand, and taller even than Robb.

Robb and Jon sat tall and still on theirhorses, with Bran between them on his pony, trying to seem olderthan seven, trying to pretend that he’d seen all this before

He had lost both ears and a nger to frostbite

Robb

seventh ofBran’s life

They set forth at daybreak to see aman beheaded, twenty in all, and Bran rode among them, nervouswith excitement.

BRAN

Will rose. Ser Waymar Royce stood over him.His ne clothes were a tatter, his face a ruin. A shard from hissword transxed the blind white pupil of his left eye.The right eye was open. The pupil burned blue. It saw.The broken sword fell from nerveless ngers. Will closed his eyesto pray. Long, elegant hands brushed his cheek, then tightenedaround his throat. They were gloved in the nest moleskin andsticky with blood, yet the touch was icy cold.

Will saw its eyes; blue, deeper and bluer thanany human eyes, a blue that burned like ice.

Ser Waymar met him bravely. “Dance with me then.” He lifted hissword high over his head, deant. His hands trembled from theweight of it, or perhaps from the cold. Yet in that moment, Willthought, he was a boy no longer, but a man of the Night’s Watch.

A shadow emerged from the dark of the wood. It stood in front ofRoyce. Tall, it was, and gaunt and hard as old bones, with esh paleas milk. Its armor seemed to change color as it moved; here it waswhite as new-fallen snow, there black as shadow, everywheredappled with the deep grey-green of the trees. The patterns ran likemoonlight on water with every step it took.

Royce

“There’s some enemies a re will keep away,” Gared said. “Bearsand direwolves and ... and other things ...”

“Have you drawn any watches this past week, Will?”“Yes, m’lord.” There never was a week when he did not draw adozen bloody watches. What was the man driving at?“And how did you nd the Wall?”“Weeping,” Will said, frowning. He saw it clear enough, now thatthe lordling had pointed it out. “They couldn’t have froze. Not if theWall was weeping. It wasn’t cold enough.”

giving Ser Waymar a good long look at the stumps where hisears had been. “Two ears, three toes, and the little nger o my left

Only a few blocks away were Apple Stores selling gadgets and laptops,Cheesecake Factories and organic food markets, American Apparel shopsand trendy boutiques.

seven years old. Eight years later

allowe

Every night I was oppressed by a slow fever, and I becamenervous to a most painful degree; the fall of a leaf startled me, and Ishunned my fellow-creatures as if I had been guilty of a crime.Sometimes I grew alarmed at the wreck I perceived that I had become;the energy of my purpose alone sustained me: my labours would soonend, and I believed that exercise and amusement would then drive awayincipient disease; and I promised myself both of these when my creationshould be completed.2

weaken your affections, and to destroy your taste for those simplepleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is certainlyunlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind. If this rule werealways observed; if no man allowed any pursuit whatsoever to interferewith the tranquillity of his domestic affections, Greece had not beenenslaved; Caesar would have spared his country; America would havebeen discovered more gradually; and the empires of Mexico and Peruhad not been destroyed.

Ithought, that if I could bestow animation upon lifeless matter, I might inprocess of time (although I now found it impossible) renew life wheredeath had apparently devoted the body to corruption

I was like theArabian who had been buried with the dead, and found a passage to life,aided only by one glimmering, and seemingly ineffectual, light.1

Now I was led to examine thecause and progress of this decay, and forced to spend days and nights invaults and charnel-houses.

I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, andunfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation.

They penetrate into therecesses of nature, and show how she works in her hiding places. Theyascend into the heavens: they have discovered how the blood circulates,and the nature of the air we breathe. They have acquired new and almostunlimited powers; they can command the thunders of heaven, mimic theearthquake, and even mock the invisible world with its own shadows.”

It is so long before themind can persuade itself that she, whom we saw every day, and whosevery existence appeared a part of our own, can have departed for ever—

I entered with the greatest diligenceinto the search of the philosopher’s stone and the elixir of life;

It is even possible that the train of my ideaswould never have received the fatal impulse that led to my ruin.

It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired tolearn;

While my companion contemplated with aserious and satisfied spirit the magnificent appearances of things, Idelighted in investigating their causes. The world was to me a secretwhich I desired to divine. Curiosity, earnest research to learn the hiddenlaws of nature, gladness akin to rapture, as they were unfolded to me, areamong the earliest sensations I can remember

my more than sister,since till death she was to be mine only.

Elizabeth Lavenza became the inmate of my parents’house—my more than sister—the beautiful and adored companion of allmy occupations and my pleasures.

ermother was a German, and had died on giving her birth.

He came like a protecting spirit to the poor girl, who committed herselfto his care; and after the interment of his friend, he conducted her toGeneva, and placed her under the protection of a relation. Two yearsafter this event Caroline became his wife

Caroline Beaufort

Instead, Victoris described as “the victim” —not the perpetrator—of evil in his reviewof Frankenstein,

In order for mother to liveon through daughter, daughter must produce a work that meets thespectacular standards of Wollstonecraft’s biggest supporters, herself, andthe grieving love of her life, her father. The work must also compensatefor Mary’s horrific crime: the murder of her namesake. Mary probablywished that she, like Victor, might find out how to bestow life on deadthings; she must have also suffered from nightmares like his vision of“the corpse of my dead mother ... I saw the grave-worms crawling in thefolds of the flannel” (pp. 51-52).

Reading the book, werealize that Frankenstein‘s lack of recognizing the creature as his own—in essence, not giving the monster his name—is the monster’s rootproblem. Is it our instinctive human sympathy for the anonymous beingthat has influenced us to name him? Is it our recognition of similaritiesand ties between “father” and “son,” our defensiveness regarding familyvalues? Or is it simply our interest in convenience, our compelling needto label and sort?

Allegra

Fanny, commitssuicide. Harriet Shelley drowns herself and her unborn child,her third by Percy. Percy and Mary, who is also pregnant,marry at St. Mildred’s Church in London on December 30.William Godwin reconciles with his daughter

In1816, Shelley’s first wife, Harriet, whom he had abandoned for Mary,drowned herself in the Serpentine River. Mary and Percy married daysafter Harriet’s body, pregnant with Shelley’s unborn child, wasdiscovered.

ThomasPaine,

Before she begins writingFrankenstein, Mary Shelley reads the memoir sev eral times.

They did not age. They did not change. They traveled the world athousand times over. They may be traveling still.Each city is new to them, each shore a strange one. Time has that effecton places, when enough of it has passed. One day they open the gate to agarden in an unfamiliar village. They walk between the orange trees hand inhand. They both think, So, this place is real, never knowing they have bothdreamed this moment.Every night she shuts the windows tight to guard against drafts, and everymorning he dies and is reborn beside her. She reminds his heart to beatagain, as she did so long ago. He kisses her fingers, and combs her hair, andhe treasures her, as only a man who has lost his luck and found it once moreever can.

She breathed in, breathed out, watched the ash gust away from her acrossthe bed, and then his pale body was stretched out beside her once more,made whole as a broken glass had once been made whole

Perhaps he would have said more, but as the first rays of sun shonethrough the window, he burned away to ash. Luzia had known her lovewould destroy him.

“If you are the last thing I see,” he whispered, “it will all have been worthit.”

One of them, a Flemish piratewho had somehow been granted a second life, didn’t question his goodfortune. He pulled the gag from his mouth and, without a word, ran off intothe night.

He was afraid to leave his wife.He was afraid to travel.He was afraid of what news the next letter would bring.When his wife became pregnant, he experienced a dread so vast he hadno way to contain it. Fear was too new to him, too fresh, too limitless.I’ll be different when my child is born, he told himself. But when he sawhis newborn son lying in his cradle, his fear only grew larger. He couldthink of nothing but the perils this world held for anything small orhelpless. He feared drafts. He feared heat. He called doctors and consultedwith astrologers. His holdings dwindled to nothing because he was afraid tomake a choice, lest it be an unlucky one.Eventually his wife left him. “Find me when you’re able. I will wait foryou,” she promised, and went home to her wealthy parents with the baby inher arms.I will go to her, Víctor vowed. Tomorrow.We will journey to the southern city and I will regain my vigor, he toldDonadei. Tomorrow.He died that way, alone in his bed, afraid to leave, afraid to stay, afraid towhisper anything but “tomorrow.”

He couldn’t explain it and yet he felt sure thatsomehow Luzia Cotado was to blame.So he told his patron he was feeling poorly, that he was certain hisabilities would return. Don Víctor had assured him that he knew a wise manwho could restore his talents, who could give him strength and powerbeyond all he’d imagined. They’d have to travel far to see him, but at theend of their journey, beyond the gates of a southern city, they would strike abargain

She hired a new one from the orphanage, who Quiteria taughtto read and write, and who had a great talent with sauces.

The scent of orange blossoms filled her nostrils.

He turned his head and saw Luzia naked on the pyre, her chin heldhigh. She met his eyes and he had the strange sensation that he was liftingup off the pyre. As the smoke filled his lungs, he could swear he smelledorange blossoms

DoñaBeatriz was nowhere to be found. Perhaps she’d gone back to her husband.

Each moment felt too quick, as if he’d already lost his hold on the world.So many years, so much life lived, and he would leave no one to mournhim.

Valentina clutched the sachet of rosemary at her sleeve. For protection.I’m here, she wanted to shout. I’m sorry. I only wanted a little warmth. Ididn’t know what kind of fire I would start

When she wassatisfied with the scene she’d written for the character of the lovesick prisonguard, she went to find Valentina

One evening over glasses of jerez, Valentina had turned to her and said,“Am I not appealing enough to corrupt?”When Quiteria had met Valentina at La Casilla, she had sensed thatbeneath the sour expression and the meager jewels was a woman waitingfor a chance to live. From the first kiss, she was proven right. Valentina hada glutton’s heart and had spent too many years surviving on scraps. Quiteriawas shocked to discover that, after years of infamy and seeking every kindof pleasure, she had finally found a lover who could keep pace with her.

Quiteria Escárcega now that theplaywright had left for Toledo.

In the house across the way, hecould see a woman seated at a harp, her hands moving slowly over thestrings. He sat down and listened and after a time he wept.Across the street the woman at the harp played on, unsure of why she’dchosen to return to the music room that morning when it had been so longsince she’d sought pleasure in it. She didn’t know whom she was playingfor or why she’d chosen such a sad piece. She’d never given much thoughtto the residents of Casa Ordoño, and so she didn’t wonder where the womenhad gone. She played and played, without thought for the way her fingersstung, or for the scullion who had gazed out the window and longed formusic, and who would never hear her song.

Hualit sighed. “At least he died happy. That’s more than most of us canhope for.”Now Hualit was dead too.

One winter Luzia used her wages to buy him a new coat and boots. Shehad saved for months so that she could know he would at least be warmwhen he was out wandering. He’d donned the coat proudly, beaming withpride. He’d done a joyful dance in his new boots and told her that adaughter was a blessing.Two days later, she was walking near the Prado when she saw a group ofpeople gathered by one of the bridges. The cuadrilleros were trying to fish acorpse from the river.She told herself not to look, to go home, that it was none of her concern.But her feet were already carrying her through the crowd. Her father kneltbeneath the bridge, his hands clasped, his face tilted to the sky, exultant. Hewas barefoot and dressed in rags. He’d frozen to death in the night.

“Let me unbraid your hair and I will have no regrets at all.”

Shedrew closer, grateful for his warmth, for the pleasure of leaning into him, aslovers did, as they might never do again.

“Do you want to argue or do you want to kiss me?”He closed the space between them in two strides and took her in his arms.“I assure you I am capable of both.”

He hesitated. “No. But she is already fond of me.”“Fond. That’s nice. It’s good that fond is enough for you.”Rudolfo pressed his face against the grating of the door. “But it is notenough for me!”“Then you must do as I bid, for I die tomorrow.”When she had told him her demands, he said, “Impossible! No, I cannot.”“At least she’s fond of you.”

Butwhen he returned he had the Prince of Olives in tow. Doña Beatriz trailed intheir wake, gowned in golden lace, her hands clasped tightly

It was the same sensation he’d experienced his first nightwith Luzia. As if the sky above had rearranged itself and night would shownew constellations—the shape of a pomegranate, a path through an orangegrove.

Santángel smiled. Their path was chosen. The crossroads long past.

Luzia saw him clearly. She always had. And now he was telling her toattack him, but why? What was his plan?

“Guillén Barcelo Villalbas de Canales y Santángel.”

They were thesacrifice Don Víctor wanted her to offer. Luzia thought of the smell ofcocido, of Valentina unbraiding her hair, of the sprig of rosemary tuckedinto her sleeve, the barest scrap of protection, the barest scrap of kindnessafter years of slaps and punches and disdain.“They prayed as good people do,” Luzia said

Then Teoda was still alive and free. Luzia hoped she was far from Spain’sborders and that her nights were dreamless.

But now she liked the idea of Rudolfo finding favor withhis lady. Now that he didn’t smell of sweat and his teeth were less stainedand he had actually bothered to speak to her rather than gawking at her likeall the other dullards, maybe there was hope for them both. Besides, it wasthe only entertainment she had

But Luzia ...my dreams don’t lie. I watched you burn.”“Fate can be changed,” Luzia said. “Curses can be broken.”She had to believe that, or she would sink beneath the waves

“He guessed. Perhaps he sensed that my interest in him wasn’t that of achild. Maybe he saw how desperate I was for the kind of attention I’venever had. He pretended we shared the same secrets, complained of DoñaBeatriz.” She hesitated. “I have never been kissed that way before, as a man

“I’m not a child. I’m thirty-eight years old. Thirty-eight years in thischild’s body.”

“Luzia?” Teoda asked, but Luzia didn’t want to speak. She didn’t knowhow anymore

nd then her aunt was beneath her, sinking to thebottom of the river. She had no eyes, no lips. The fish had eaten them.Hualit’s lipless mouth opened. “I’ll pray that our suffering will beswallowed by the sea.”

er mouth was full of water, hernose, her throat. She coughed but the water kept coming. She wasdrowning. This was not the potro or the garrucha or any other torture madeby man. This was death, pushing into her chest, her lungs. She couldn’tsing, couldn’t speak, couldn’t think. There were no words. There never hadbeen. There was only death, cold and dark

A shame. A tragedy. A casualty. He might pity her, even mourn her, buthe was a creature who had endured lifetimes of loss. What was one silly,pining woman in the scope of all that? She had known him only a fewweeks. He had contemplated sacrificing her to his master even as he’dkissed her mouth and combed her hair, even as she’d lain trusting in hisarms. Enough people had warned her to beware of Santángel.

But Hualit had sailed across the sea

a small green sprig fell to the floor.Rosemary. Romero. For protection.Valentina had sent the cocido, the fresh clothing.

“It came from a playwright,” said Lucrecia through the wall. “She hastaken up a collection for you at her theater.”Luzia took another bite and then another. It was all impossible. Maybeshe’d died in the woods. Maybe she was asleep at La Casilla. Why wouldQuiteria Escárcega raise funds on her behalf?

“Go away and be glad I didn’t tell the vicar you sleep with a portrait ofMartin Luther cradled in your arms.”

That was probably true. What could one powerless woman offer another?“I can make sure she doesn’t die alone.”He stared at her as if she’d sprouted a horn from her forehead. “You donot want the Inquisition’s attention, Valentina. The best thing you can do iswash your hands of that woman. To do otherwise is dangerous, and you aretoo foolishly sentimental to realize it.”“I recognize the danger,” she said. “And I would rather be a fool than acoward.”

Maybe she should have asked after Marius, but shefound she didn’t mind being in the house alone. She went down to the silentkitchen, softened bread in a bowl of wine, made herself eat a little ham andtwo pickled plums

“Quiet. Humble. Perhaps a bit stupid.” Luzia was none of these things,but Valentina could do her this service.

Luzia knew that wasn’t true. If they wanted to know the names of otherCalvinists and heretics, Teoda would have to name them. But if the thoughtthat she could escape torture made this horror easier, Luzia wasn’t going tosnatch it away.“You’ll have that same choice,” said the Holy Child. “They’ll ask ifyou’re in league with the devil.”“I should have such powerful friends.”Teoda’s laugh was high and light. “I knew I liked you.”Neva sang on

Teoda shrugged. “I have already confessed my heresies. They have noreason to prolong my stay here. Besides, the king will want to make a showof my death.”“Then ... you are to be burned?”“Of course. If I repent the executioner will do me the courtesy ofstrangling me first, but I will not repent.”“She’s not as brave as she sounds,” said Neva. “Neither am I. You’ll hearus crying at night.”

LCHAPTER 44uzia woke in the larder.

forced to prepare himself for dinner. He choked on a bone and was buried ina pauper’s grave.His wife walked all the way to Paris, where she opened a parfumerie andlived happily for many years, eating lamb and vegetables and snails, butnever fish, who she felt had done enough for her.

“I won’t fight you,” she said, smiling gently, softly.Hualit hoped they would say prayers for her in Salonika. Shema Yisrael,Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad.Gonzalo grabbed hold of her shoulder.“Come,” she said, her hands grasping his jacket, her back pressed againstthe railing. “We’ll go together.”He was stronger, but he didn’t expect the weight of her, her pockets fullof reales, her hems and sleeves sewn full of jewels.Gonzalo shouted as they toppled from the bridge.It felt good to take one of them with her.Hualit’s neck snapped when she struck the surface. She died quickly asshe’d hoped to, as Celso had promised she would. Gonzalo broke his backbut floated along for quite a while, trying to fight the current, until finally,weeping, he slipped beneath the surface.Months later, a woman brought a fish home from the market and cut itopen to find an emerald the size of her thumbnail. She thanked the fish,tucked the jewel into her pocket, and left the house, never to be seen again.Her husband, a drunkard with heavy fists, found only the fish, which he was

eat grapes off the vine. On sunny mornings the printer’s wife who livednext door sang as she did her housework. She didn’t have much of a voice,but Hualit had learned to like the sound.

She thought of her snug house and its comfortable bed and the fountainburbling in its courtyard. All of it belonged to Víctor. Would he install hisnext mistress there? She hoped whoever lived there would love it as shehad, that she would sit and listen to the birds calling across the rooftops and

So there would be no trip to Venice, no hosts waiting to receive her. Shewould never slip away to board the ship to Salonika. Mari would nevermeet her in the harbor. Víctor hadn’t capitulated or been swayed by herwiles. He’d used her one last time, laughing at her schemes, knowing as heentered her that he’d sentenced her to death.

In a way, she supposed he was. Only she had heard the music too late.The song had been playing all along, if only she hadn’t been so distractedby her own cleverness

But it was her needthat had frightened Hualit the most, her longing for affection, her loneliness.Hualit could not mother her. Would not

Was itperverse to want to be longed for by a man she didn’t love?

Let it be all I’ve hoped for, she prayed.

“Marius,” Valentina pleaded.He gave a single stubborn shake of his head.Luzia turned her back on them and plunged into the woods, the branchesclosing behind her.Maybe she would escape. Maybe she didn’t need the horse at all. Maybeher gifts were greater than the king’s men or Marius’s cowardice.Valentina held to that hope as they stood silent between the trees, evenwhen she heard the angry shouts of men in pursuit, even when Luzia beganto scream

“Give her your horse, Marius.” Valentina was begging now, and shewasn’t sure what she was begging for. For Luzia? For herself? That therewas more to Marius than a man who liked fine ponies and good food? Whowas only kind when life was easy?

Valentina didn’t care anymore that she had lived a life without love. Shewanted only to know that it existed in the world and could be saved.

Maybe she had, but she could see the love and fear in Santángel’s eyes.He wasn’t afraid for himself, but for the woman he loved. Demon he mightbe but he was trying to save her.

Valentina didn’t understand what was happening.

I’ll find you. Please, ifyou value your life as I do, go. Trust me to meet you. Trust me to survive asI trust you to do the same.”“Santángel—”“I have begged for nothing in this life, but I am begging you now, Luzia.Go.”She pressed a kiss to his lips and ran.

He had no chance to finish before the arrows flew. He covered her bodywith his, felt the steel tips pierce his back like bolts of fire.

He helped her into the saddle and then he was behind her and they wereriding as she had dreamed they would, away from kings and climbers andcurses

Donadei turned on her. “You stupid cunt.”

The jewels at the four points of Donadei’s cross leapt from their settings.Shimmering wings snapped up from their backs as their thick scarab bodiestook flight, buzzing around his curly head. The rubies at his shoulderssprouted wriggling legs and giant red ants reared up, clambering toward hiscollar.

“You were the one who gave life to the shadows. You attacked Graciaand me at the puppet show.”

“Malparido,” Luzia growled. The bastard had set her up. He’d fanned herdoubts about Santángel, but worse, he’d made her doubt her own gifts. He’dpretended he was as frightened and as vulnerable as she. He’d gotten her tosquander her turn

“Does the kingwish for symbols? Or does he wish for ships?”

Could she not even have the promise of love? Whycould this belong to the women in ballads, to poets and playwrights, butnever to her?

And you?” she demanded. “You must give up what you value most tobreak the curse. How can that work when it’s freedom you prize mosthighly?”“It was, Luzia. For a very long time. But curses are cruel.”She felt as if she’d thrown herself off a cliff. For a moment she had theillusion of flight. His words were wings and she was carried by theirmeaning, by the elation of being wanted in return. She was what hetreasured. She was what he valued most.

“Is that why you flattered me and fucked me? So that I would love you?So that I would take your place in Víctor’s service?”His laugh was low and bitter. “I never intended any of this. I didn’t wantto want you.”“You would bargain me away to him.”“That would be the price.”“Then tell me you haven’t considered it.” It was a plea, pathetic really.Lie to me, let me believe in you a little longer.But Santángel had promised her truth and he would not relent now. “Ihave. Every day and every night.”

“Luzia, don’t be foolish. If I could have given you a child, I never wouldhave spent the night in your bed.”

Luzia smiled. She knew there was blood on her teeth

Perhaps there is some novelty in fuckingsomeone so beneath you