‘Nothing.’
The Witch narrowed her eyes. ‘Don’t lie to me.’
I was in no mood for it this morning. ‘No, I suppose lying is your job.’
The Witch set down her knife with the clink of metal on china. ‘This seems quite an escalation from the issue of marmalade. Will you tell me what is wrong or should I leave you alone to sulk?’
I shut my eyes. I was so tired.
‘A woman died,’ I said slowly, ‘because of me.’Because I chose you.
It took her a moment to follow my meaning. ‘Frieda?’
‘Who else?’
The Witch waved a dismissive hand. ‘That was not your doing. She set the fire. If she was fool enough to stay then it is on her head.’
I had not thought of it in that way but the Witch was right. Frieda could have left. Frieda could not have come at all. All the same, it sat badly with me that the Witch could dismiss her death so easily.
‘I heard you last night. Outside my door.’ I don’t know what bravery possessed me, but I found myself speaking before I realised what I would say.
‘Oh?’
‘Yes. I have heard you many nights.’
Silence.
‘Do you have some business in my quarters?’
‘Remember our bargain. You do not pry, and I give you what you claim to want.’
I confess, I was wounded. ‘Is that still all this is to you?’
The Witch did not reply. I rarely saw her blush, but the way she turned her attention to her cup of coffee, busied herself stirring in the sugar, gave me the answer all the same. No, I was not wrong.
The bond between us was more than the bargain we had struck.
I probed the thought like a tongue against a loose tooth.
‘I understand why you want to keep your work in the Tower and your ledgers private, that is your right.’ My mouth was dry with fear. ‘But that night in the kitchens... what was wrong with that girl?’
‘Why are you so set on making things more complicated than they need to be?’
‘Because if you will not tell me then I must assume Frieda was right. You hide something that concerns me. Something dangerous.’
‘Is that what you think?’
Her voice was too low and too quiet and I knew we stood on the brink of an argument I was not sure I was ready to face. I needed her, and I was frightened of what she hid. I did not know how to live with those two warring sides.
b
I passed another sleepless night, preoccupied with the need to smooth over the cracks between us. If I were in Blumwald, Klara would tell me to take her hyacinths for forgiveness, but here I had only a swathe of hardy nettles to make do. I brought an armful to the kitchen and persuaded Wolf to boil them up into tea sweetened with honey, then I arranged a tray with a teapot, cup, a plate of dried fruit and brought it to our breakfast room. The dried herbs and flowers I had arranged that first morning were bent and crumbled, dusting the cloth beneath them with a fine shower of petals.
The Witch’s dress today was not one I had seen before, something from the thirties with a wide, straight neckline that cut from shoulder to shoulder and large balloon-like sleeves gathered at the elbow. Her waist was cinched in painfully small, and her hair had been half pinned up, revealing the pale shell of her ear.
‘I made you breakfast.’ I placed the tray before her.
She looked up. ‘I thought we had Wolf for that?’
