Page 82 of The Trick of It

“Ha! Twpsyn! I told you so,” Hughes would say.

Perhaps he was saying it, just now, and only Madame Ivanova could hear it, several rooms away.

“You know,” said Rhys, reaching out to fluff the pillow behind the old man’s head, “if Hughes was a changeling, if I am, and if you are, then it isn’t death that waits for you when this body expires.”

“No?” Merlin said, leaning forward to allow for the gesture and then falling back on his refreshed pillow.

“No,” said Rhys. “You will only return home, enriched with new intelligence for your fae brethren, garnered over the life you stole.”

“Surely, changelings know they are changelings,” Merlin argued, his lips twitching at the corners.

“Perhaps,” said Rhys. “Do cuckoos know they are cuckoos? I don’t think they do. They know they are strange. They know they are bigger, hungrier, driven sometimes to wickedness so that they have room in the nest to survive. But I don’t think they ever look at mother blue jay or father sparrow and suspect an alien origin.”

“Perhaps not,” Merlin agreed, and then he stifled a yawn. “Once I am gone, and I know for sure, I will endeavor to report back, if indeed we are secret brethren.”

“Much appreciated,” Rhys said, pushing himself to his feet. “But for tonight, let the father’s candle do its work. And let Jack o’ the Lantern keep your room quiet and free of visitors so that you may enjoy that hard-won sleep, whether it is magical or not. Good night, Merlin.”

“Good night, Rhys Caradoc,” said the old man. “You’re a good boy. Just like your mother always said.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Seph didn’t know where Rhys had gone, but she knew he’d come back.

He always came back.

She did stay behind to help the staff clean up the turnip guts and stems and the char marks from her coal distribution efforts, even as they insisted she oughtn’t and attempted to shoo her away. She had only laughed and continued to help.

“Where I come from,” she told a maid, “if you don’t clean up your own mess, you are cursed to carry your filth like bad luck. So you must let me do it, for my own superstitions.”

It was complete nonsense. But people knew nothing and less about Travellers, so she’d always been able to use that to get what she wanted, even if what she wanted was just to assist in chores.

She went up to the rooms and changed into her bird pajamas, then carefully unpacked the two sets of bedroom slippers Rhys had bought in town today, arranging them a few steps apart and facing in opposite directions. The bigger pair for Rhys faced the bed first, and the second pair the door, and her own two pair were opposites, the door, and then the bed.

Barefoot, she attempted the turns that would put on one pair, then discard them as she stepped into the others.

She did over and over again, her feet arched, toes pointed, until she couldn’t tell the difference between the plush carpet fibers under her toes or the embrace of the wool slipper entry. She had to discard each pair exactly where they’d started, using Rhys’s unused slippers as marker.

It was like a dance. A disguised dance that must only be read as natural movement, and as such, was more difficult than any quadrille or cotillion.

She didn’t realize Rhys had joined her until he’d stepped in front of her, his own feet bare, and mimicked the motions, his own steps more stilted and stiff than hers after many rounds of practice.

They did the turns half a dozen times before she finally stopped and slumped backward on the bed, landing with a little bounce. She stretched out her bare feet, rotating them at the ankles with a little groan of satisfaction.

He did the series twice more without her, counting softly under his breath, like he was measuring the tempo in a song only he could hear, then turned to her with a smile, slippers on his bare feet, and took a bow.

She gave him some lazy applause, laughing to herself, until he strode over and bent down, hands on either side of her, and dropped a lovely, soft kiss on her lips.

He sighed, twisted, and flopped down on his back next to her, staring up at the ceiling above them, slippers still dangling from his toes, and his hands folded over his ribs like a fancy corpse in a coffin.

“Seph,” he said, eyes still on the ceiling, “have you ever thought that it isn’t really a lie? The patter we do for this trick?”

“Hm?” she said, blinking thrice and turning to look down at him.

“Do you ever think,” he repeated, gaze still fixed away from her, “that we really are changelings? Or that I am, perhaps?”

For a moment, she was quiet. She did not answer right away because she could tell that the question was a real one, not the lead in to a jest, and that it merited consideration, not quick wit.

“I’ve been reading a book,” she finally decided to say, easing down to lie next to him, her head turned and hair soft on her cheeks where it had escaped her braid, “about changelings. I thought it would be whimsical and exciting, but mostly it is just sad, Rhys. It seems a way to abandon children who are odd.”