Fallen Magic

The rest of the day passes without much incident. I wear my grandmother’s dress the next morning, because I feel like wearing something a little different from my usual outfits, and pin Edward’s great-aunt’s mourning-brooch to it. I look in the mirror as I do so, to watch the colour bleeding out of the dress, leaving it as black as a starless sky.

I preferred it when it was blue. I didn’t realise how much I appreciated the richness and brightness of the colour until now. When the week of mourning is over, I tell myself, I’m going to wear the dress more often.

Edward isn’t around at breakfast; he’s paying his first visit of the day to the Abbey Royal, where High Princess Alexandra is now lying in state. I imagine the scene in my head, Lord Blackthorn and his son performing grief together. I understand why Edward wants to go again less openly. So he can be more genuine.

I hate how he has to hide his feelings behind a mask of what they’re expected to be. I know better than most what that’s like, and what it can do to a person. I vow silently that he won’t have to do that with me. That we can be ourselves around each other.

It’s strange eating breakfast without him. I’ve grown too used to having him sitting across from me, munching toast and critiquing what passes for the Herald’s journalism. I page through the papers on my own, but there isn’t much news to speak of today. I was looking for updates on what happens when the mourning is done, but what I get is a dissection of Alexandra’s legacy.

She was never King, so there isn’t much of that to speak of. But there’s still more than nothing. She was more active than most heirs in her largely-ceremonial role as Duchess of Ryk, and apparently introduced a fairer and more efficient tax system in the City, which the Herald’s commentators say should be a model for other cities and even the whole country.

Of course, they’re hardly going to say that her system was bad at a time like this. I can almost hear Edward saying – after being very careful to make sure that no-one could be listening – that nothing anyone says about her is believable if criticism isn’t allowed.

Breakfast lasts longer than usual on weekends, so I loiter in the dining hall long after I’ve finished eating. Elsie joins me at ten and fifteen. She’s taking the mourning very seriously, as I should have expected of her.

“I thought something like this might happen soon,” she says, giving me a significant look.

And I know what she means: she foresaw this. Maybe not in any specifics, maybe not in a way that would be useful, but still: she knew that there would be a tragedy of this general nature before it happened. Stars. If Lord Blackthorn, or indeed anyone else with sufficient ruthlessness and ambition, knew what she was…

“I suppose it’s normal for childbirths to be risky,” I reply. “And there was a lot of speculation about her health in the papers.” I’m saying that for the benefit of people listening. Trying to make it sound like she was just speculating, and that it was perfectly normal and plausible. I doubt one idle remark will make much difference, but I don’t want to take chances with this.

That aside, though, her company does help me feel less alone. I mention the divorce to her. She doesn’t get it as quickly as Edward does, but then I suppose she doesn’t have as much context about my mother as he does. I end up giving her a little of that context. It takes me a while to realise why I’m telling her things I’d normally keep secret: I feel guilty for not telling her about the anomaly, and this is my attempt to make it up to her without her knowing.

It doesn’t make a difference, really. I’m still lying to her, at least by omission.

But I’ve already made a lot of difficult moral compromises, and I’m sure there’ll be more to come. Some things I have to do, just to keep myself safe.

Edward returns at about ten and fifty. “Sorry I’m late,” he says. “My dad wanted to give me some educational updates on the situation. He at least had the decency to provide breakfast, so if you’re ready…”

I’ve been absently snacking on a slice of toast, and I now only have a couple of bites of it left, so I shove it in my mouth. “I’m ready.”

“Oh?” Elsie asks. “Where are you going?”

I look at Edward. He looks at me. We realise at the same moment that we made the mistake of not agreeing a cover story in advance. “To the Abbey,” I say. “To pay our respects.” A partial truth is better than a complete lie, I suppose.

“Can I come with you?”

Unless it leads to that, of course.

“I’d rather keep this between Tallulah and me, if you’ll forgive me,” Edward says, sounding as if he doesn’t particularly care whether she forgives him or not.

It’s not a kind thing to say, and Elsie’s face crumples. I feel a stab of guilt, and I almost want to reproach him for it. Almost. But I can’t do that without arguing that she should come along, and I can’t blame him for not wanting her there.

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“Fair enough,” Elsie says. “I hope you find what you need there.” And she flees the room without so much as saying goodbye.

I shoot Edward a look.

“Please don’t,” he says. “I know it wasn’t nice, but it was all I could think of.”

“Fine,” I concede, choosing my battles.

We arrive at the Abbey five minutes before the agreed meeting time. But that plan was made without expecting the Abbey steps to have been turned into a long winding queue of mourners. All of them are dressed in black. Some are clutching wreaths of flowers or sheets of parchment, and some are visibly crying.

And there’s enough of them that I don’t know where we’d find Edward’s relatives, if they’re even in the queue. Maybe they just decided to give up, and the message didn’t get through. I should have checked the post room again this morning.

But before we can do much more than glance around uncertainly, a voice says “Found you” in a thick Sirgalese accent. We turn, startled, to see a smiling Francesca.

“Aunt Sylvia is in the queue. We join her?”

We do, in fact, join her, only skipping forward a handful of places to do so.

“I thought you wouldn’t come,” Edward’s mother says.

“I wanted to see you,” Edward replies. “And to see the High Princess.”

“It is tragic,” she says. She and Francesca are both wearing black. It suits her more than it does Francesca, who looks a little as if the life has been bleached out of her.

“I am sorry for your country’s loss,” Francesca adds.

“Are we in agreement that we still want to go to the Abbey, then?” Edward checks. “Even though we might be in this queue for an hour?”

They are: it’s a chance to witness a piece of history, and we should still be allowed to explore the rest of the Abbey afterwards. Francesca asks us to tell her more about Alexandra, who she knows little to nothing about. To be fair, I don’t know much about the Sirgalese royal family either. Only that they have a ruling queen at the moment, and she has twin sons.

Twin heirs seem likely to cause an ugly succession dispute. Theoretically, the codified rules of succession of Rasin, Sirgal and Thalia, while they disagree on many things, all allow for twins to rule jointly. But as far as I know that has never been tested in practice before.

Between us, Edward and I know enough about the late High Princess to give Francesca at least a brief summary as we slowly shuffle forward in the queue. “It seems she was a good woman,” is her response to it. “And I am sorry she is dead. And sorry that her child will grow up without a mother. I know what that is like.”

That choice of words causes all the rest of us to flinch, for slightly different reasons in each case. Edward because he grew up without a mother, and at least in part still blames her for it. Sylvia because she’s well aware of what Edward thinks about that. And me because, while I had a mother, I’m questioning whether I would have been better off without one.

“Did I say something wrong?” Francesca asks after a few seconds of awkward silence.

“Mothers are… a touchy subject, here,” I say, choosing my words carefully.

“Touchy? I know that word, but not in this place.”

“Sorry. I should have said… sensitive?”

She nods at that. “I see. I am sorry if I touched something sensitive. It was not… deliberate,” she says, pronouncing that last word slowly and carefully. I give her an encouraging nod.

The queue shuffles forward another few steps. We’ve only been in it for five or ten minutes, and already it’s grown even longer behind us. It won’t be long before it starts to spill out of the Abbey’s steps and into the Central Ring itself. The woman in front of us is openly crying, and I can see Edward looking at the public display of emotion with veiled contempt.

I cast around for small talk to break the silence, and land on “At least it’s not as cold as it has been.” It’s the first time I’ve felt reasonably comfortable outside without a warming-spell since before I knew how to cast one, I realise now I’m paying attention to the weather.

Francesca shakes her head. “The weather here is worse than at home. I know not how you cope.”

Sirgal does in fact generally have a warmer climate than Rasin, because it doesn’t have our long west coast with its associated icy winds. I glance at Edward’s mother, who works for the Port Authority of the largest city on that coast.

“Oh, none of you have seen anything until you’ve been to Ridgeton on a stormy day,” she indeed says. “It’s awful. Endless howling winds, you’re never quite sure whether the water blowing into your face is rain or seawater except by how salty it tastes, and you always have to be afraid of flooding.”

“Is there often flooding?” Edward asks.

“Oh, every storm something or other floods. But there hasn’t been one that’s had the docks out of operation more than a day in the last decade.” She says that as if it’s a point of professional pride for her, and I suppose it must be.

Between us, Francesca and I decide that asking Sylvia for her work stories is an effective way of making things less awkward. Edward seems genuinely interested, which is a good sign, though I’m a little surprised; I doubt he really cares about the inner workings of the Port Authority, since there doesn’t seem to be all that much magic involved.

That keeps us entertained until we get inside the Abbey, where a bored-looking priest recites the instructions to us: “Once you get inside, you can spend one minute in contemplation or prayer in front of the late princess. That’s also where you should leave any offerings. They’ll remain there until the funeral, after which anything of value will be sold and the proceeds will be used to benefit the Temple. Anything not of value – “ he shoots a disdainful glance at the large and somewhat battered-looking wreath being carried by a man a few spaces in front of us – “will be burnt.”

He takes a pause for breath, then continues: “Once you’re done there, you process along the side. Walk at whatever pace is comfortable, but please don’t linger, we want as many people as possible to see the High Princess. When you get to the end, you’re welcome to take another minute to contemplate in front of the steps, or to leave a candle as normal. And then you have a choice: turn right to process back along the other side and then out, turn left to the side-chapel where you’re welcome to pray for as long as you like, or continue straight on to explore the rest of the Abbey. If you’d like to make a donation – which we encourage – you can do that on your way out, or just approach any of us priests except those who are standing vigil. Please don’t address anyone keeping vigil, incidentally, as they’ve taken a vow of silence while they stand. Any questions?”

No-one asks questions; the explanation was a thorough one. More thorough than seems necessary, though I suppose they must have enough people come through that some of them need certain things to be made that clear. What was it that Electra said about the depth of human stupidity?