“Svana,” he said sternly. “Leave. Now.”
“N-No,” I said.
“Even the Princess sees you’re in the wrong,” Hellveig replied. “Don’t you think it’s time you come to terms with it?”
He approached her; she stepped back.
“You’ve no right to touch her the way you have,” Elías said. “You’ve no right to lie to her, toconvinceher that she is so alone.”
“And you’ve the right to convince her she isn’t?” she asked. “Doyouhave to marry a man for peace? Or are you quite comfortable in your lifestyle as it is, Ser? Do you not remain here once she is gone?”
“I should hurt you the way you’ve hurt her,”he muttered.
“Go ahead,” she dared him. They still moved. “I want you to! I want you to guarantee me your dismissal. Do it! Do it so that I may rescue her from your?—”
Hellveig stopped abruptly and realized where she was, just as I noticed the staircase, too.
“I’ll never write him again!” I called.“Please!”I said.
Elías seethed. “I am morally obligated to inform you that you are treading on such thin ice with me, Miss Hellveig.”
She used her cane to brace her position at the top. “What are you going to do, push me?” she asked.
“I have half a mind to, yes,” he said.
“W-What an example to set,” she added, nodding to me. “And how will you explain the murdering of an innocent woman to the Princess?”
“You’re hardly innocent,”he said.“Or did she justfallagain?Did she shut her hands in another drawer? I can’t remember the last excuse, just that it was pathetic.”
“I’ve tried tohelpher,” she said. “She is ungrateful; uneducable, un-!”
“Unaware of how poorly she trudges on?” Elías finished. “Sounds familiar.” He took another clunky step her way, and she took one back, down another step.
“Elías,”I said.“No, no one will believe her.”
“Yes they will,”Hellveig said.
But Elías was not afraid. Not like I was. He was stoic, brave, and unimpressed. Leaning his head one way, then the other, as if the motion somehow enhancedhowhe heard the governess. She began to rant about propriety.
“Your room, Princess,” he reminded me.
“N-Not without you,” I whispered.
“Svana!”
I jerked awake, lunging into battle with the figure beside the bed. Its hands wrapped me, an attempt, I realized, to bring me ease, but at first felt like an attack. It was the repeated, steady and near-recognizable,“Princess!”responsible for suddenly shaping the voice into Ser Willoughby’s.
I searched the darkened room, utterly startled. “Ser?” I panted. “SerWillough—Daniel?”
He sighed and his hands fell as my eyes adjusted. “You were yelling in your sleep again. Are you alright?” he asked.
I sank into mortification harbored by my sheets to mutter out a slight but genuine,“Fine. Thank you.”Then I shut my eyes in a flicker of peace.
“She’s gone,”I told myself.
Willoughby stood, politely, but bothered, whether by my comment or by the malice on my face. His hands went behindhis back, folded into his perfect soldier’s stance, and he said, “She is. She’s gone, Svana… Should I find him for you?”
I took too long, worried I had invoked Willem’s name.
