Yvlle knew that Talvi was no different. But Talvi kept saying things that were unexpected. When Yvlle thought she would act one way, she did the exact opposite. Against her will, Yvlle felt equal parts annoyance… and intrigue.
“Tsk tsk,” said Yvlle, walking closer. She let her shadows unfurl about her. Her hair was brushed back from her forehead, and this evening, her eye was sitting on a shelf in the office of a sylke merchant suspected of insider trading. She wore no eye patch and she knew her socket was a ghastly, red thing…
But Talvi did not flinch.
“I don’t take lightly to impertinence,” said Yvlle.
“Well, if we are to be family one day, then you might as well get familiar with my impertinence,” said Talvi.
The words grated. Yvlle felt the satchel of fragrances against her back. Speaking like this to Talvi was unwise.
“This is my land, therefore everything is my business,” said Yvlle. “What were you doing?”
Talvi sighed. “If you must know, I was searching for inspiration.” She added theatrically: “I even looked upon Wrate’s eye and begged him to reveal all that was my unspoken dream!”
“And?”
“And then you, very inconveniently I might add, appeared,” said Talvi. “Like you always do.”
A strange little thrill crept down Yvlle’s spine.
She ignored it.
“And why would you ask inspiration here of all places?” asked Yvlle. “Do you know where you are?”
“The Grove of Ancestors,” said Talvi, strumming her fingers along the spine of the massive journal she was always carrying with her. “As you know, I’ve always been rather curious about your ancestor—”
“Enzo?”
“No,” said Talvi with a sad smile. “His consort. The one whose name is lost…
“My mothers always said that the ones who are lost are the loudest to speak to us… they speak to us in the wind, the rain, the poetry of clouds,” said Talvi. “But your ancestress doesn’t speak, and for the longest time I’ve wondered if it is not that she cannot speak… but that she refuses.”
Talvi looked embarrassed by her own enthusiasm for a moment, but then she shook it off.
“You must be wondering why I’m even fascinated at all, but I’m a made thing, you understand. Until my mothers breathed their lives into me, I was inert. Nothing but ice.” Talvi’s blue gaze flicked up to meet Yvlle’s. “A doll, as you say.”
Yvlle’s face betrayed no reaction, but she was grateful for the cover of dark.
“My mothers woke me,” said Talvi. “I suppose I’m hoping that if I imagine hard enough… if I concoct a story so outlandishly off base, then perhaps the sea witch will wake up… perhaps she’ll be annoyed enough by my conjecture that she might speak. As I was made to speak.”
“Why?” asked Yvlle.
Talvi shrugged. “I’ve never had a satisfying answer for that, I’m afraid. Some days I think it’s scholarly interest. Other times I think it’s pity for Enzo’s spurned consort… though mostly I suppose it is just hope? I often have nightmares of what would have happened had my mothers never spoke me into life; if perhaps they decided they did not needa daughter for their life to feel complete… would all the little particles that make up me still find a way to live? Does life get summoned out of the ether, or is it already there, waiting to be gleaned into shape?”
“Does it matter?”
“No,” said Talvi. “But I suppose it makes my life—me—feel real. There are times…” Talvi hesitated, clutching the book tighter, “… times where I feel that I might melt away and be nothing more than a puddle of water… that I’m not even here. And I suppose knowing would make me feel more real… less like a doll.”
Yvlle felt an irritating pang of regret, followed by a brief and vivid image of a snow sculpture Talvi—pale arms lifted to the sky, silver hair thick with frost, her smile glassy and lifeless. And the ache that followed after was far more painful than the regret. What if Talvi had not existed? What if they’d never met?
“What are you doing?” asked Talvi.
Belatedly, Yvlle realized that she had moved closer to the other girl. She could not stop. An inexorable force pulled her forward and Yvlle, who would have fought the sun’s rising simply to be contrarian, allowed herself to be moved.
“What I’ve been meaning to do since the first time I saw you,” said Yvlle. “Make certain that you are real.”
Talvi’s face was alight with quiet wonder as she held up her hand. Yvlle closed the space between them with a touch. Her hand pressed to Talvi’s. Their fingers interlocked as if they could snare this single moment between their palms.
