Sighing, I rummaged about, looking for whatever it wanted to show me, and my hand closed on something small and slightly furred to the touch. Tough, but with a little give to it. I lifted it out. It was the thing that had rolled to my feet in the courtyard.
I had almost forgotten about this odd, peach-pitlike thing. I probably wouldn’t have thought about it again, what with everything else going on in my head.
“What is it?” asked Cornelius.
“Well, I found it on the street. Two idiots had been fighting over it. I hung onto it out of curiosity, but I didn’t know what it was ...” I held it out to him. It felt oddly alive in my palm. “Have a whiff. What do you think?”
He made a face, but sniffed it, and coughed a delicate cat cough. “Dusty,” he said. Then he stuck out the very end of his rough little cat tongue and just barely touched the surface of the wrinkled thing. He made a face.
“It’s meat,” he said. “Or itwasmeat.”
“It’s a heart,” I said with certainty, putting it in my skirt pocket. I remembered the little bag of pig hearts with which the sorcerer’s visitor had tried to pay him. “Is it rotted? Molded?”
“No, I’d smell that a mile off. It’s just ... dry.”
“Can you tell what kind of meat it is? Was?”
Cornelius thought for a moment, giving one ear a quick wash. “If I didn’t know better,” he said, “I’d say it was human.”
A heart. Ahumanheart. No wonder they had been fighting over it so furiously. I could only imagine the price a human heart would command on the black market, no matter how wizened.
I didn’t dare think about how it had been procured, but now that it was in my hands, I thought I might as well use it. I could take it to Basil and the Snagged. I could give them what they had asked for—their price for the cure. I could leave the sorcerer and his House and his cursed kiss behind.
I should have been elated. I should have run out the door there and then. But I didn’t. I stood very still, pressing my hand against my pocket, thinking. I then made breakfast in a daze, preparing all the foods and making more tea without really being aware of what I was doing.
I almost forgot to be angry and embarrassed about the kiss until I entered the throne room, and then it came back over me in a rush.
To my surprise, Sylvester was standing on the black tile just inside the door, adjusting his cuffs. The fact that he was standing at all was a shock, frankly, as I almost always found him lounging in his throne as if half asleep.
He was dressed differently, too. His hair was brushed back neatly, showing the fine planes of his cheekbones and jaw, and he wore a voluminous, black travel coat over his usual shirt and breeches. The fabric of the coat looked like thickly embroidered velvet, with a pattern that moved under my gaze and refused to let it get a grasp on it, and with dozens of buttons the size and sheen of a raven’s eye.
“You look nice,” I said, despite myself.
He looked at me blankly, as if “looking nice” was a completely incomprehensible notion. He didn’t seem embarrassed about the previous night at all.
He did brighten when he saw the breakfast plate, though, and threw himself back into his chair to eat the bacon with his fingers and lick off the grease. He was worse than Cornelius when it came to bacon.
There was an odd tangle of awkwardness and intimacy between us. I wanted to ask him more questions about the spell and what to do now, but I hesitated, hovering beside the door and watching him eat. It didn’t seem to make him self-conscious, but I felt like a fool.
“I’m going out today,” he announced when he had finished. He seemed ... nervous, suddenly? His long, white hands twitched, as if he longed to be playing with one of his toys.
“Where are you going?”
“Just out,” he said.
“You never go out.” My curiosity was getting the better of me.
“Well, I’m going out now. I’ll be a day, maybe two.” He brushed imaginary dust off his sleeve.
“All right,” I said, although my heart had started beating fast. What would happen to me if he went away? Would I fall prey to the strongest bout of heartsickness again? My stomach roiled at the thought.
And how was I supposed to go to the address Basil had given me, if I were barely able to move or speak for the pain of separation?
“Can I come with you?” I heard myself say and flushed with shame.
“No,” he said, avoiding my eye. He stood and started to fuss about with his collar and cuffs, his face turned away from me.
I started to clear the breakfast plates, anxiety building in me at the thought of the pain I would feel at his leaving.
