She counted the weeks again on her fingers, starting from the last time her courses had arrived, forward and back.
Eight weeks. Possibly ten. She should have been paying more attention.
She lowered her hands to her lap and stared at the wall above her worktable, where a water stain spread across the plaster. She wasnotgoing to think about it. She refused. There were dozens of reasons a woman’s courses might stop. Poor diet. Exhaustion. Worry, and the fallen gods knew she had enough of that. She’dlost weight since last year, and the body conserved what it could when it was struggling. That was all this was.
She picked up the mercer’s daughter’s veil and began to unpick the crooked bleeding heart she’d stitched the evening before. The thread pulled free in tiny, satisfying increments, each one a mistake undone. If only everything could be taken apart and restarted so neatly.
The nausea crested again when she bent forward to pick up a dropped spool of thread. The smell of the tallow candle, which had never bothered her before, sat thick and greasy in the back of her throat. She pushed the candle to the far edge of the table and worked by the thin daylight leaking through the shutters.
It’s the fish.
Except she’d barely eaten at all. The thought of food made her mouth water in the wrong way, the precursor to heaving rather than hunger. She’d managed half a bread roll that morning and a cup of water, and both had stayed down only because she laid flat on her back afterward and breathed through her nose until the sickness passed.
She set down the hoop.
Her hands found her belly through the worn wool of her dress, pressing gently. It felt the same, soft and unremarkable. No telltale swelling that she could detect, nothing that looked different when she bathed in the basin. But she wasn’t a fool, either.
The gargoyle had done more than make her his mate, hadn’t he? He’d made her the mother of his child, too. He was never going to leave her alone. She was irrevocably bound to him, her tormenter.
She pressed her hands harder against her stomach, as though she could push the thought away.
No.She would not accept it. Whatever the gargoyle had branded into her blood with his teeth, whatever seed he’d planted in her, it did not make herhis.
Carlijn lived with her parents in a townhouse in the outer ring of the palace quarter. They weren’t of noble blood, but her father was a spice merchant and could afford a house in a better quarter and the servants to tend it. Though Carlijn chafed under her parents’ rule, it was certainly preferable to living alone in Hannalinde’s situation, even with the constant threats that her allowance would be severed if she refused to marry a certain wool merchant’s son from Meravenna. Carlijn had opinions about the engagement and expressed them at every opportunity, so the house was always clouded with their disapproval.
The housekeeper showed Hannalinde into the modest parlor, and Carlijn came down in a dressing gown, her brown ringlets pinned haphazardly on top of her head and a smear of jam on her chin. “Hanna! You look dreadful. What’s going on?”
“I need your help.” The words took all the air in her lungs.
Carlijn’s expression sharpened. She pulled Hannalinde upstairs to her bedroom, shut the door, and steered her toward the settee, which was draped with so many shawls and stockings that sitting on it required excavation. She swept them aside and pushed Hannalinde down onto the cushion. “Tell me everything.”
Hannalinde opened her mouth, and the thing she’d been refusing to think tumbled out. “I’m with child.”
Her friend’s eyes went very wide. Then she sat down hard on the opposite chair, knocking a pile of petticoats to the floor, and reached across the space between them to take Hannalinde’s hands. Her fingers were warm and slightly sticky with jam. “The gargoyle?”
Hannalinde nodded. She’d told Carlijn about him months ago, on a night when the wine was cheap and plentiful.
“How far along are you?” she asked, nibbling at her lower lip.
“Two months. Perhaps three. I don’t know exactly when it happened.” It had not been a single event but a series of them that blurred together because she didn’t care to recall the details.
“Right.” Carlijn squeezed her hands, then released them and stood, scanning the mess of her room, a clutter of clothing and breakfast dishes. “We’ll sort this out. There are women who deal with this kind of thing every day. I’ll take you to the apothecary right now.” She pulled a fresh-but-rumpled chemise from one pile and a dress from another and began dressing unselfconsciously. Her ringlets sprang free of their pins and bounced around her face as she wrestled the bodice laces into something presentable.
“Right now,” Hannalinde repeated, her voice thin. The reality of her situation had not quite penetrated yet. It felt like she was a ghost in her own life, drifting and powerless.
During the walk to the apothecary, Hannalinde trailed in Carlijn’s energetic wake, grateful for her brisk, purposeful stride that cut through the crowded streets like the prow of a boat. People moved aside for Carlijn’s beauty and confidence. They made space for her.
Hannalinde used to have that effect, too. Before.
A bell chimed as they entered the familiar door of Hearthgate Remedies. She’d visited the small shop many times for soap and lavender water and headache powder over the years. The interior was small and warm, fragrant with the competing scentsof dried herbs and beeswax. Shelves lined every wall, crammed with labeled bottles and jars. A young woman in an apron was arranging paper-wrapped packets behind the counter while Betje, the apothecary, worked at her desk in the back corner.
She glanced up as the shop girl rushed to assist them. Her gold-rimmed spectacles caught the light, and her perceptive gaze flicked from Carlijn to Hannalinde and back again with a quick assessment. Whatever she saw in their faces, it made her set aside her scroll and stand. “Mind the counter, Sofie. I’ll take care of the ladies.”
Then she motioned them to follow her through a low doorway into the back room, where the shelves were deeper and the light came from a single high window. She closed the door behind them and gestured at a pair of stools next to the workbench. They both perched gingerly on them. Hannalinde felt like a schoolgirl about to be reprimanded by a governess.
“What ails you?” Betje folded her arms and waited. Carlijn nudged Hannalinde gently with her elbow.
“I need...” Hannalinde’s courage failed her at the threshold. She swallowed and tried again. “I find myself with child.”
