Then, to her surprise as much as Jacomo’s, she laughed.
“Is that funny?” said Jacomo, and Tess caught a glimpse of his old, judgmental self in his eyes.
“It’s not,” said Tess, wiping her eyes. “It’s just…the absurdity, when you think how far I’ve traveled, of finding the very same choices at this end of the continent. Do I go exploring with Countess Margarethe or go back to Cragmarog and take care of Jeanne’s children?”
“At least the Sisters of St. Loola had the good sense to give up on you,” said Jacomo dryly. “I also recall that your answer last time was to run away from everything.”
Last time she hadn’t been able to see her choices clearly, Tess now realized, only that they were being made for her by other people. She’d been dead wrong about nuns; she hadn’t understood where the countess was going, either. Maybe she still couldn’t see what it would have meant to stay home with her twin.
“You must have some way to contact Jeanne,” said Tess.
Jacomo pulled a chain out of his shirtfront; a plain square pendant dangled from it.
“Let me talk to her.”
Jacomo warily handed over the thnik. “If you don’t intend to go back, you don’t have to tell her yourself. I don’t mind being the bearer of bad news. In fact, I kind of assumed—”
“Don’t assume anything,” said Tess, a little waspishly. “I need to talk to her first. She’s my sister. I owe her that, at least.”
She went into the yard behind The Squids in hopes of finding privacy. At the far end was the privy house, stenchy even from a distance. Tess gravitated toward the woodpile instead and sat on the axe stump, sticky with resin and gritty with splinters. The sky had clouded over; a cold, halibut-tinged wind gusted from the harbor.
She turned the charm over in her fingers and switched it on. It hardly had a chance to chirp before Jeanne answered, “Yes?” The word brimmed over with hope.
Tess forced words through a tightening throat. “Hello, Nee. It’s me.”
And then they were both crying, two sisters, hundreds of miles apart, together in grief.
“I’m so sorry,” Tess said, her cheeks streaming. “I know I’ve caused you a lot of worry.”
“Oh, Sisi, don’t speak of it,” said Jeanne. “All is forgiven, if only you’ll come home!”
“Of course I will. I always meant to,” said Tess warmly, her heart burgeoning with generosity and affection. “It’s just a question of when.”
“How long it takes to get from there to here, you mean?” said Jeanne. “Where are you?”
“Mardou, on the Ninysh coast,” said Tess. “But distance isn’t the main—”
“How long does the journey take by fast coach?” said Jeanne. “Don’t worry about the cost, His Grace the duke will pay for all. Only you can’t imagine how miserable I am without you. Mama and the duchess are already eyeing each other jealously. I don’t know how I shall manage to raise a child with its grandmothers circling like vultures.”
Jeanne talked on and on, about her mother and mother-in-law, how each expected her loyalty, how she could never satisfy both at the same time. As she talked, she answered Tess’s unasked questions one by one. Tess couldn’t leave her in foolish hope.
“Jeanne,” she said gently, “my love, I’m so sorry. You’ve misunderstood. I will come back, but not yet. Not for the birth.”
“But I need you here,” said her sister.
Tess could hear every mile between them now.
“You want me there,” said Tess, “to deflect the ire of those two vultures, as you called them. The minute I crossed the threshold, they’d peck at me and leave you alone.”
“That’s not why I want you here!” cried Jeanne. “I’m scared, and I miss you.”
“I miss you, too,” said Tess quietly, “and I would love to be there, holding your hand, but I can’t go back to being everybody’s goat. You don’t have to go through it alone, though. Seraphina will be back soon. She’s had a baby more recently than I, and you know she’ll be an expert on the whole business.”
The joke fell flat; Tess’s heart wasn’t in it.
“Seriously, Nee, call upon her for any sisterly duty. We were wrong about her all those years. I think she wanted what we had so effortlessly in each other, but she didn’t know how to ask.”
“What we had in each other.” Jeanne sounded like she was being strangled. “Us against the world. What a mockery you’ve made of that.”
“It was always a mockery,” said Tess, flattening the quaver in her voice. “It was really Tess against the world, shielding you from Mama’s rage, hard decisions, and everything else.”
“You, shield me?” cried Jeanne. “I ran interference and cleaned up your messes for years. Who covered for you when you’d stay out all night at St. Bert’s, so sleepy you’d nod off during lessons the next day? It was me soothing Mama’s broken heart and trying to hold our entire family together, who had to be a perfect angel to make up for your relentless selfishness.”
“Selfishness lived in your closet for two years, sewed your clothes, and found you your husband,” Tess snapped back. “Selfishness took spankings for you, lied for you, held her breath so she wouldn’t tarnish your reputation by association.”
“Oh, poor you. After fourteen years of doing whatever you wanted, like an impulsive animal, you did two years’ soft labor in penance. Now, when I really need you, in this terrible house with these terrible people, you punch Jacomo and run away. Yes, you are selfish, and irresponsible, and—”
Tess had never heard such raw hurt in Jeanne’s voice, and she found herself sitting back and marveling at this litany of crimes. Jeanne had always been so quiet and good—who knew what rancor had been accumulating inside her? Maybe Jeanne herself hadn’t known.
Tess had taken Jeanne’s goodness for granted, assumed she was naturally angelic and loved being so. That had been the story their entire lives, and it was deeply unfair.
Jeanne’s rage combusted into heaving sobs. Tess said gently, “When did you mean to tell me, Nee? If I’d leaped to your bidding and come straight home, would you have stewed forever?”
Jeanne sobbed louder. Tess’s eyes prickled sympathetically; she’d been there, full of futile rage, trapped.
“I’ll call you on this thnik while I’m traveling,” said Tess. “You can bite me—in the quigutl sense—as needed, and maybe we’ll work out how to be sisters aga—”
“I hope you drown!” cried Jeanne, and the thnik went dead.
Tess stared at the device in her cold hands. She felt sliced up, cut upon cut upon cut. She breathed slowly and deliberately, the way Chessey had instructed so long ago. Saints’ bones, it hurt. She curled up, resting her head on her knees, but she didn’t split, didn’t absent herself. She stayed and felt everything.
And when the pain had abated somewhat, she uncurled.
Jacomo loomed in the doorway of the tavern, rubbing the back of his neck and looking embarrassed. “I wasn’t trying to listen in,” he began.
“Yes, you were, Lord Dirt-on-Everyone,” said Tess, but not angrily.
“That sounded bad,” said Jacomo, leaning against the doorframe and folding his arms.
Tess stood and brushed sawdust off her behind with numb fingers. “Oh, I don’t know. You’ve witnessed the first known instance of Jeanne yelling—a historic event. Maybe even a small miracle.” She rubbed her nose, considering. “You know that feeling when someone punches you and you don’t completely deserve it, but you also suspect you do, a bit?”
“Believe it or not,” said Jacomo with a wry half-smile.
Tess sighed shakily and held out the thnik to Jacomo, to return it.
He waved his refusal. “Keep it. Call her whenever you want.”
Tess jiggled the chain impatiently. “You heard the lady. I’m impulsive and irresponsible. I want you to carry it for safekeeping, so I don’t throw it into the ocean.”
“But I’m going home,” said Jacomo weakly, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb. He was pointing south toward the sea, in fact, and seemed not to realize it. “The game is up. I found you, and now I’ve got to face the…”