Chapter 31

He tilted his head, frowning with both sides of his mouth as he looked me over. "I'm sorry…do I know you?"

My smile began to falter. "It's me…Hazel."

For a long, dreadful moment, his eyes remained flat. "Hazel?"

"Your sister?" I couldn't help but ask it as a question. Had he forgotten about me?

"That's not possible." He squinted, searching my face for something to recognize. I saw the moment he realized it was true. "Hazel?" His words swelled with wonder. "I was told…I thought you weredead!"

Surprise flickered through me.

Bertie came around to carefully sit on the edge of the bed. He was so different than I remembered, but I could still see traces of the little boy he'd been, now stretched into shapes long and unfamiliar. His body folded into awkward angles as he perched on the mattress.

"It is you," he said, awestruck, before throwing his arms around me. "What blessings! What joys! I can't believe it!"

"Nor I," I admitted, tightening my hold on him. "How long have you been here?"

"Not terribly, perhaps a fortnight? I was one of the brothers charged with bringing the latest flood of children to the Rift. I was in Saint Genevasire before this."

"That's not far from Alletois—where I live now," I supplied.

"When was the last time you were at home?" he asked, his eyes wide, dancing over my face, my hair, drinking in the changes.

"I…" I didn't want to discuss my final visit. Not with Bertie. Not after all this time apart. "Not for a while…My godfather finally came for me. Just a few years after you…" I paused, unsure of how to phrase the turn his life had taken. "On my twelfth birthday."

He glanced toward the ceiling, struggling to do the math in his head. "You've been gone for so long. Did you hear…" His voice dropped a fraction. "Mama and Papa…they died."

I found myself unable to read his expression. "Yes," I said carefully.

He beamed. "But the blessed ones have brought us together once more. Such good fortune." He kissed the tips of his fingers and made a gesture of gratitude toward the air, then clutched at his necklace. A small set of bronze pipes dangled from it, riddled with etchings I couldn't make out and words I couldn't read.

"How…how are you?"

The question felt stilted falling from my lips. It was something that shouldn't have to be asked, something a sister should just intrinsically know. But I didn't. Not anymore.

I studied the lines of scars running across his face, down his arms. Even his fingers had been bisected and mended back together. He looked like a patchwork quilt, sewn by a child with stitches clumsy and too big, and my own body hurt as I took in the scars.

"My heart is overflowing," he said joyfully. There was a peaceful serenity to his countenance, a contentment I'd never felt within myself. He looked radiant, glowing with an inner happiness that the scars, no matter how severe, could not diminish. "I never thought I'd see your face again in this world, but here you are. Such blessings! Such fortunes!"

"Here you are," I echoed. There was something about his joy that made my innards squirm. Despite all the differences in ourchildhoods, we were surprisingly alike, each serving the gods in our own way. But I had never felt as happy about it as he seemed.

Bertie paused as if remembering why I was here in the temple. "But you're unwell. Amandine said you were unconscious when you arrived."

I nodded. "I'll be fine."

"Has anyone come in to examine you? Head wounds can be—"

I smiled. "No. I actually…I'm a healer now."

Bertie's face lit up again, as bright as a sunbeam. "How marvelous. I never would have guessed such a life for you. Mother Félicité has guided your path well. What blessings! What fortunes!"

My smile felt odd on my lips, too wide and trying too hard to mask my incredulity. I'd never heard anyone quite so…devout.

"It surprised me as well. Merrick…the Dreaded End…was the one who wanted me to study medicine. But I'm rather good at it. Do you have any troubles? I could mend them in minutes," I offered playfully. Reaching out, I traced one of the especially wicked-looking lines across his cheek. "I could even lighten those if you want. I have a salve that—"

He shook his head, panic striking his face. "I'd never want those to go away," he assured me. "I'm proud of each and every one of them." He rolled up a sleeve of his robe, showing me his inner forearm. Jagged lines exploded from his wrist like lightning.

"Did…did you choose to do this?" I asked carefully. "Mama said that…" I paused, wondering if she was still trapped within the confines of the palace armoire.

"It was my choice, by my hand," he said softly, as if this statement was meant to reassure me. It did anything but.

"It must have hurt terribly." I gestured toward the ones crisscrossing the bridge of his nose.

"It's an honor to be in service to them."

I wondered what Calamité and his brethren thought of the Fractured, how they felt about mortals trying to replicate their disjointed appearance. I couldn't believe Félicité would condone such a practice. I could almost hear her motherly clucks of dismay.

"Are you happy here?" I scrunched my face, trying to rephrase my words. "Not just here, in Chatellerault, but… here. " I waved my hand in the air, gesturing toward a higher, more meaningful plane.

"Exceptionally," he promised. "I know the last time you saw me…" He sighed. "Like you, I would not have chosen this path for myself, but it makes me feel all the more content, knowing that the path chose me instead. The day that High Priestess Ines picked me from our lineup of siblings…that was the best day of my life, Hazel. Truly. This is my life's calling, my life's work. And…" He glanced about the dormitory, his eyes drifting toward the beds. "There is so much work to be done. Especially now, with the turmoil in the north."

Some of the beatific light died away from his eyes.

"You helped bring the orphans here," I prompted, gently nudging him for more information. "The little girls who were with Amandine, did you know—"

He nodded sadly. "Genevieve's and Mathilde's girls, my nieces. Our nieces," he corrected himself quickly. "They…they don't know who I am." He glanced up in alarm. "Did you tell them about yourself?"

I shook my head. "It didn't seem right…at least, not now."

He nodded.

"There's not been much news of the skirmishes at the palace."

His face darkened. "They're not skirmishes. They're massacres. Baudouin's armies are slaughtering whole towns overnight. They leave the bodies out to rot and bloat in the fields, in the rivers where they fall. It's poisoning the earth, the water. There's no one to tend the plants, no one to feed the livestock. Come winter, so many will starve. And the children…" He sighed. "It sounds callous, but King Marnaigne needs to leave his grieving chambers and do something. There are small bands of men trying to form, trying to fight against Baudouin, but there's no organization. They're acting without a leader. Marnaigne is a good king. He can put an end to all this."

I smoothed my skirts as I weighed my response.

"What aren't you telling me?" he asked, instantly guessing something was troubling me. Bertie had always been able to read my quiet moods like a book.

"You mustn't say anything to anyone, but…the king isn't just grieving," I confided quietly to my brother. "He's ill."

Bertie's face brightened. "Is that why you're at court? You're taking care of him? Oh Hazel. Fortune has smiled upon the king! What blessings! What joy!"

His fingers tangled up with mine, squeezing tight, and I found myself wanting to shrink from his touch. His reverence bordered on mania. It was impossible to see Bertie's younger self anywhere in this man.

"Help him see how much he's needed. Tell him how his people ache for his return. Spur him back to his duties, and then—"

"It's not that simple."

His smile deepened with chagrin. "Of course, I'm glossing over your work, but—"

"The king has the Shivers," I whispered, cutting off whatever fervent call to action my brother was about to deliver. "There's no cure for it."

"Yet," he persisted. "There's not a cure yet. But you're working on it, aren't you?"

I glanced down at my hands. My hands, which had killed so many. My hands, which were meant to go on and kill the king. "I am…but he's very sick…."

The room fell into silence. It bloomed across the stone walls, filling the space like ink in a basin of water, tainting it, twisting it, making it impossible to ever return to what it once had been.

"You've given up?" he asked, and his tone bordered on accusation.

"It's hard to explain."

"Try," he said, narrowing his eyes. "Try to explain why you'd rather see a barbarian seize the throne, dripping with the blood of his subjects. Good men and women. Children. Try to explain that."

"I don't wish Baudouin to take the throne," I protested, bristling against his growing anger.

"He certainly will, if you allow the king to die."

"I'm not allowing anyone to die. There's no cure, no way to stop it. And Baudouin wouldn't get the throne anyhow. It would fall toLeopold."

Bertie scoffed. "Another fine choice. He doesn't know the first thing about leading a country. He should be out there now, fighting his uncle, fighting to hold the front, but where is he?"

My brother wasn't wrong, but he wasn't wholly right either.

"His mother died less than a year ago. His father is grievouslyill."

"Then fix him!" Bertie all but screamed. His words echoed in the chamber, ringing sharp and hateful. "You need to find a cure, Hazel," he said after a long pause. "Our world will fall into chaos if he dies."

When he dies, I silently corrected him. When I kill him.

My eyes drifted up to the painted figure of the Divided Ones.

"I should go," I said, suddenly wanting to be away, wanting to be as far from my brother as I could get.

"Back to the palace?" he asked, sounding distant, and from the corner of my eye, I could see he was staring at the mural too. "To find the cure, to save the king?"

I shrugged, suddenly too exhausted to even bother trying to explain.

He licked his bisected lips, his body tense with unspent energy. He looked like a large cat, caged and aching to pounce. "You should ask for a blessing before you do. It would be good to have every bit of the gods' favor upon your work."

"It would," I agreed, sounding hollow.

Bertie toyed with the little bronze bauble I'd seen on his necklace before, and I wondered if he was about to press it to my forehead, offering a Fractured's prayer.

Instead, he put it to his lips. "Félicité favors the bold," he murmured, then blew.