No matter what Marion liked to say about them, Lux did possess a modicum of basic common sense. They knew well enough that all their lofty ideas about leaving, about being crowned the one to finally expose the truth behind the winter and the Apostate, were nothing more than a child’s fantasies. Flimsy, frustrated fantasies based on a nursery rhyme far older than anyone they knew. By now they’d been chasing the only vague lead in their possession for almost a year, extending their reach as far into the woods as they dared, and they’d always come up empty-handed. What Lux hadn’t accounted for, though, was stumbling upon a fugitive from the capital.
When the guards came to question them, they made sure to be by Daphne’s side at the door. With a sigh of relief Lux realized they didn’t recognize any of the former temple folks from town among the patrol. Just a royal patrol after all. They stood still for the entire time nonetheless, answering questions as placatingly as they could muster and making sure that Granny was left out of it. Of course, the safety of their family came first. Marion would have their head on a silver platter if anything were to befall Granny, a sentiment Lux fully understood.
Still, they couldn’t stop thinking about what Tobia had said earlier, while they’d been making their way to Marion’s hut. Lux waited until the patrol had long gone back with their tails in between their legs and Daphne’s nerves had loosened their hold on her. After she finally told them to stop fretting so much, they hurried back where they’d left the guy. The guy who, they thought with a thrill of excitement, might just be the key to making their fantasies a reality.
The one to open the door was Vera, Tobia’s mother. She had the same lean facial structure as her son, as well as the same sandy brown hair and smattering of moles. They even carried themselves in the same way: weary, yet ramrod straight. Lux gave her a wave as they strode into the main room and she regaled them with a small smile that didn’t show her pearly teeth. Capital folks all right.
“Oh, you’re back,” Marion said. She was sitting by the table with Chiara on her lap, petting her hair with one hand and keeping the other on the armrest, careful not to touch the child’s cape. “Told you guys they’d come back. It’s like clockwork with this one.”
“No amount of caustic remarks will save you now that we know you have a beating heart in your cold, cold chest,” said Lux; bickering with Marion came easy to them after a childhood spent chasing each other through the blue of the sky and the white of the snow. Their constant push and pull had the worn, familiar feeling of a pair of well maintained boots, easy to walk in for miles at a time.
For a moment, Lux felt the sweet, syrupy temptation to let go of their ghosts, even for just one evening. They could have sat at Marion’s feet, waiting for the stew to be ready, and they could have let life pass them by in a lull of warmth and small talk. It would have been exceedingly easy, because they yearned for it. Marion did too.
Then the wind howled outside, like it must have howled the night Lux’s parents disappeared forever under a thick, unforgiving sheet of dislodged snow. All of Lux’s thoughts of wasting even one single evening indulging in some misplaced, domestic longing caught on fire like a pile of dry logs. Tasting bile on the tip of their tongue, they turned to face Tobia. They wouldn’t let go, not when they felt so close to a breakthrough they could taste electricity in the air.
“You’re from Whitewick, aren’t you,” they said.
Immediately, silence fell. It was as if they’d poured a bucket of iced water on the bubbling atmosphere of the hut. Tobia, who had been stirring the stew with an almost relaxed look on his face, whirled toward them with the ladle still clutched in his hand. His knuckles, scraped an angry red from the bite of the winter, had turned white from the bone straining against the skin.
“Lux…” Marion’s voice carried an exasperated warning, but Lux could hear fatigue in there, mixed with a resigned kind of understanding. Just as they knew her, she knew them.
“Sorry,” they said, meaning it for once, “but only someone from the capital would call Granny something as ridiculous as ‘Madame’.”
“Oh, so country bumpkins have no manners?” Tobia quipped, rosy with anger. Lux watched as his gray eyes went from glaring at them, as if daring them to respond to that, to widening in realization of what he’d just said. It should have felt more satisfying to trick an admission out of him, a sheltered boy from the ever-warm capital city, but something in the way his face twisted in fear soured the taste of intellectual victory for Lux.
With a sigh, they raised their hands in what they hoped would pass for a placating gesture. “Look, it’s fine,” they said. “You’re welcome to stay here for as long as you need, as long as Marion’s cool with it. I would just like to know what happened to put the King’s guards on your tail, that’s all.”
Marion was giving them an unimpressed look, which meant their attempt at sounding less callous had failed miserably. Before Lux could try to salvage the mess they’d made, though, Tobia turned back toward the stew with a sharp twist of his heels.
“No,” was all he said, as he started stirring once again.
Well, that sounded pretty final. Maybe Lux had tried running too far ahead too fast, swept in their own enthusiasm.
Vera gave them a tense smile, but they could only bring themself to nod at her in acknowledgment. A sudden weight pressed down on them as they made their way to the table, so different from the featherlight thrill they'd felt earlier. "Good thing it was just a royal patrol," they said to no one in particular.
"Still a nuisance," Marion retorted. She sounded exhausted, but looking at her sitting with a child on her lap made Lux relax by a fraction.
"Granny and I were thinking of picking some herbs from the medicinal garden tomorrow morning," they said. Tobia didn't turn, but his movements stilled. Hook, line and sinker. "Gotta do something about that cold, right, princess?"
Chiara giggled, but the sound crumpled in a soft cough. With a sudden tight feeling in their chest, Lux made a note of getting up early the next day.
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