Chương 102: Chapter 100: Cordelia.

The reading room was small and that was exactly what Cordelia liked about it. In a life built for massive ballrooms and lavish parades, this one room was barely large enough for its contents. The room had a single armchair, next to a tiny side table. There was a bookshelf against one wall, stuffed so tightly that several volumes had been laid horizontally across the tops of others. There was a window that faced the alley. Cordelia sat in the armchair with a book open on her lap.

Even here, where there was nobody at all to see, her posture was, as always, flawless. Her hands rested on either side of the open pages. She wore a simpler dress today, a dark green thing with a high collar and no jewellery at all save for her ring. The book was called The Siren of Ashia. It was about a fisherman's daughter from a far away land who disguised herself as a sailor and captained a ship across the sea. It was the kind of book her father would have torn in half without reading past the first page.

Cordelia had been on the same page for twenty minutes. Her eyes moved across the words. They had been moving across the same paragraph, the same three sentences, since she had sat down. The fisherman's daughter was currently arguing with her first mate about the tides. At least, she thought that was what the paragraph had been about. She turned the page. The window was to her left and she did not look at it. She had not looked at it since she had sat down. That would be waiting, and she was not waiting.

She was reading. That was what she did here. She came, and she read, and after two hours the old woman downstairs would bring her a cup of tea that was always too sweet, and then she would leave. Cordelia's hand moved to her ring. She caught herself and stopped. She folded her hands flat against the open book. It had been truly foolish to say anything on that balcony. She had known it was foolish even as the words left her mouth.

Cordelia had handed a near-stranger the exact shape of the one small freedom her father permitted her, and she had done it because a girl with red eyes had said something that made her chest ache. My only interest is in Cordelia. She had replayed the sentence so many times that the words had started to lose their meaning. That was supposed to help and yet it did not. It did not matter. Esra Veyne was a politician.

All heirs were politicians, even the ones with her reputation -though Cordelia had long since suspected that had all been an act. Nobles, even children, said things, and some of those things were beautiful, and then the morning came and the things they'd said evaporated like dew. That was how the world worked and Cordelia knew how the world worked better than most. The balcony had been a moment and all moments passed. One would have to be a true idiot to risk actually coming here after… what?

A few strange meetings? If there was one thing Cordelia was sure of now, it was that Esra Veyne was not an idiot. Brash, yes, but certainly not an idiot. Cordelia turned another page. It had been thirty minutes now. The morning light through the window was pale and steady. She could hear the faint sounds of the merchant quarter below. The window remained closed, because of course it did. She had been foolish to think otherwise. No, she had not thought otherwise. She had simply… allowed for the possibility.

It was a small small thing, she told herself. She was used to losing small things. Cordelia closed the book and set it on the side table. She folded her hands in her lap and sat perfectly straight in the green armchair. She looked at the window. She had told herself she would not look.. It was just a window. Her gaze swept across the dirty glass and the latch that wouldn't hold. Nobody was there. It was just a window. This was fine. This was, in fact, the expected outcome. No, it was the safe outcome.

If Esra had come, it would mean risk. Her father controlled everything and Alexander controlled what her father permitted him to control. Her mother controlled what remained. There was no room. There had never been room. The reading room was small. That was what Cordelia liked about it, that it was exactly the right size for one person. One person. Cordelia's vision blurred and she blinked it clear. She blinked again. Her hands were steady in her lap. She reached for the book. And opened it to a random page.

The fisherman's daughter was standing at the prow of her ship, looking out at a horizon she had been told she would never reach. Cordelia's throat tightened. She would finish the chapter. She would walk downstairs, nod to the guards, and return to Greenward Manor. Her mother arrived soon. There were preparations to be made. This was her life. It had always been her life. Nothing on that balcony had changed it. Nothing. A sound came from the window.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. It was soft, no more than a scraping, faint enough to miss if one were not sitting in perfect silence in a room the size of a closet. The latch rattled, caught and then rattled again. Cordelia's book fell from her hands. The window swung and cold morning air rushed into the reading room, stirring the pages of the books on the shelf and the loose strands of Cordelia's hair. A figure pulled herself over the edge.

She was wearing a dark cloak with the hood pulled low. She had a black wig, slightly askew, covering white hair that was already escaping at the temples. Her coat was dirty. There was a scrape on her left palm from the climb, and she was breathing harder than a Lady ought to breathe. A faint purple glow clung to the edges of her cloak. It faded as Cordelia watched. Esra Veyne straightened and pushed the wig out of her eyes.

She looked around the reading room as if she had expected it to be larger, and then looked at Cordelia. Those red eyes fixed on Cordelia's. And they looked at her, truly looked at her. Every rationalization Cordelia had built in the last thirty minutes fell apart so completely it was as if they had never existed at all. She opened her mouth. The words were supposed to come. She always had words for every person in every situation. They did not come. Cordelia could not speak.

Esra smiled and it was not a perfect smile. Esra Veyne truly was an idiot. She was also indescribably beautiful at that moment. I was out of breath and my palms stung. The wig was a... disaster. It had taken me entirely too long to undo the rusted latch. And Cordelia Greenward was sitting in an armchair staring at me. I stopped. Her eyes were bright in a way that had nothing to do with the light in the room, and her perfect composure was gone so completely that seeing her without it felt almost indecent.

She looked lovely. Her book was on the floor. I glanced at the cover and then back at her. It occurred to me, somewhat belatedly, that I should say something. Something appropriate for the moment. Nothing came. I suspected nothing good ever would if she looked at me that way.

"Your window is terrible," I said instead. That…that was stupid. Cordelia stared at me and her mouth opened and closed. Then she laughed. I had heard it once, and it had been a fragile thing then. It only occurred to me now how deeply I had missed it. She put her hand over her mouth. I stepped forward and gently pulled her hand away from her mouth.

"Don't," I said.

"You don't have to do that here." Cordelia looked down at her hand in mine. My fingers were dirty, and my palm was scraped. Damn it. What was I, some kind of barbarian? The reading room really was small. With two people in it, there was barely space to move. The armchair took up most of the floor, the tiny table took most of what remained. The bookshelf took up most of the wall. I ended up sitting on the floor, my back against the shelf, my legs stretched out in front of me.

My boots nearly touched Cordelia's chair. She looked down at me from the armchair. She bit her bottom lip, and then she rose, slowly moved the armchair to its side. That gave her just enough room to sit down with me. It did mean that our legs touched, not that it mattered.

"You came," she said.

"It would have been rude not to." Her lips pressed together, slightly curling upwards at the edges. She reached over and picked up her fallen book, setting it on the side table. I caught the title as she raised it.

"Is it good?" I asked. Cordelia paused. For a moment, she hesitated. Her mouth opened and she swallowed the words, before slowly opening her mouth again.

"I don't know yet," she said.

"I haven't been able to focus." I felt something stir in me at that.

"I know the feeling," I said.

"I tried to read a report this morning and got through the same sentence four times before I gave up."

"What was the report about?"

"I genuinely do not know." There was another laugh. It was smaller this time, and quieter. She did not cover her mouth. We talked. About small things, at first. Cordelia asked about Sere, and I told her that she was recovering well. She asked about the orphanage, and I told her that Calloway was already expanding it. Cordelia talked too. About the book she was reading.

About the old woman downstairs who always made the tea too sweet and never remembered Cordelia's name, and how that strange anonymity was its own kind of gift. About a garden in the Greenward Manor where she sometimes sat alone, where the flowers were not perfect, because she had planted them, and she could not garden. It was nothing and everything. I looked at Cordelia. She was mid-sentence, describing something about the garden. She stopped when she saw my expression." What is it?" she asked. I had been thinking.

The part of me that never stopped thinking had been turning something over through the entire conversation. It had started the moment I'd seen her face when I climbed through the window. She had trusted me, but my trust was half-hearted, and that was a kind of lie. On the balcony, I had told her she never had to perform for me. I had meant it and I still did, but I had said it while performing myself. Truth. Vaelin whispered in my mind. The urge came with it, one that shot up my palm.

I would have even without you, Vaelin.

"I owe you an apology," I said. Cordelia's brow creased.

"For what?"

"For doing something half-heartedly." She studied me. She was trying to understand.

"I told you that you never had to act around me," I said.

"I meant it, but I have been keeping things from you." Cordelia was very still. She simply watched me with those steady green eyes and waited. I took a breath."There are things about me that nobody knows," I said.

"Things that would change how you see me. How anyone would see me." My hands were steady. My voice was steady. Inside, something was shaking so hard I thought it might come apart.

"You climbed through a window for me," I said.

"Not literally. But…you did." That was perhaps the worst analogy anybody had ever made. It was too late to stop now. I met her gaze.

"There are things that I still cannot tell you…cannot tell anyone. I-I still want to tell you as much as I can." Cordelia did not speak. Her lips parted. She looked at me the way she had looked at me when I'd first pulled myself through the window.

"Then tell me," she said. And as she did, she moved closer.