It only took one note of summons, and three men appeared, pistols at their hips and hands big, ready fists. Their eyes, though… they seemed to be a bit soft, a bit apologetic. Likely her imagination because they came at Nico all at once, three storms of muscle converging at one point. One Kringle brother spun Jane off to the side and out of the way while the other two gathered up Nico.
Nico reared back and swung at one, missed. He kicked at the other’s instep and met his mark. Not that it mattered. The Kringle merely winced and grasped Nico by one flailing arm as his brother grasped the other. The third Kringle, guarding Jane, whipped out his pistol, cocked it, pointed it at Nico’s chest.
“No!” Jane leaped in front of it.
“Jane!” Her name in two different voices, one familiar from her childhood, and the other so very beloved though she was only just learning its twists and turns, its cadences and rhythms.
“Call them off,” Jane pleaded.
“No.” Not even a moment’s hesitation in Victor’s voice.
Nico, though, Nico seemed full of hesitation for the first time since she’d known him. His body sagged, and his face contorted. And, in the end, he let the Kringles drag him away.
Jane couldn’t look at her brother, and somehow her feet took her into her bedroom. Victor must have followed because the door slammed shut just as his voice exploded around her.
“What in hell do you think you’re doing, Jane?”
“Building my own future.” She’d thought she’d been anyway. She should have known it would never work.
“I told you I had suitors lined up!”
“I want to choose my own husband.”
“And you can from five ready and filthy rich alchemists!”
“I love?—”
“Love doesn’t feed a multitude of mouths!” He stomped across the room and leaned his palms into the mantel, hung his head over the empty grate.
She hugged her arms around her middle. There was nothing she could say to convince him.
“What is this?” He straightened and held something in one hand up to the light streaming through the window.
It was one of Nico’s silver toys. He must have left it there for her. Fear pumped like blood through her veins and rooted her to the floor.
Her brother snagged her wrist and slammed the toy into her palm. A star with lovely lines etched into, radiating out from its center. She clutched it to her chest.
He loomed over her, casting a shadow, his closeness offering no warmth, only waves of winter cold. “Where did you get this?”
She couldn’t tell him that.
She didn’t have to. She could see realization dawning across his face. “Sir Nicholas. He’s the intruder.” His voice rose now, louder and louder with each word. “Into the damned hospital and into your bed!”
She flinched. Victor had not always despised her. The daisy chain, her faded crown. One of a handful of lovely memories.
“He’s a good man.” She squeezed her hand, and no star point stabbed her palm, so she opened it. Found a heart. She smiled. “The gifts are harmless, the coal he left in the grate beneficial. Sir Nicholas has never hurt anyone. You on the other hand…” She couldn’t look at him, didn’t want to see how he took that accusation. “Are you afraid of a lump of silver, brother?”
“No,” he snarled.
“Afraid of a small bit of magic?”
“It’s not magic! No transcendent could do that.”
There—that claim again, that what alchemists did was work, labor, shameful. She did not know if it was magic as her brother’s was, but with her ring warm around her finger, pouring courage into her, she knew it was magic of some sort. Beautiful stuff, too. She’d admired magic all her life because she’d never had it herself. Perhaps she knew it better than anyone else when she saw it. Could recognize its beauty.
There was power in that, power in seeing the world better, more clearly, than someone else.
“I do not wish to discuss philosophical matters with you,” she said, keeping her voice strong and steady. “I ask only that you let the children keep whatever trinkets he gives them this year. It harms no one. It gives much joy. Will you really deny children who possess so little happiness this one sliver of it, this one day of joy, moment of magic?”
