Look Beyond What You See

Rumor Has It

 I wish I could turn my ears off with these magical abilities, or perhaps stop the tongues of the servants when I pass by—anything so I won't be able to hear their gossiping. Rumors, once heard, burrow into my brain and stay there, tormenting me with questions of how much of what I've overheard is true. And I cannot keep from hearing rumors, anytime I walk from one room to another in this confounded mansion. Rumors about Dmitri and Yekaterina, in particular, float through the air like the fog Giacomo is trying to teach me to create, as if I could focus on such a thing with my mind and my heart so full.

"She was sitting on his lap during their English lessons. He tried to push her off, but she would not be persuaded. I can't imagine why Their Excellencies let those English lessons go unsupervised," a maid recounts in the kitchen as I pass by. I'm sure she means to be heard, although probably not by me. She wants to arouse the suspicions of Lord and Lady Berkeley—I hope. But her words make me sick to my stomach. "I can't believe Lady Berkeley hasn't heard of Yekaterina's conduct while she was in Russia. Her own chambermaid told me that Yekaterina was caught naked with her brother's tutor in a guest bedroom..."

But Dmitri will never fall for her. He couldn't. He complains nightly about her difficulties learning and that she is not the sharpest weapon in the training room, by far.

"I know that English is a difficult language to learn. My mother complains of this frequently and how every day she discovers something else she didn't know. My father has flatly refused to learn Russian, and I grew up speaking both Russian and English, but you seem to have been able to teach yourself to speak it passably well," Dmitri rambles as he paces back and forth in the rooftop garden, massaging his temples with his fingertips.

"Yekaterina has been helping me with some of the finer points of Russian grammar while I balance on a stool and get stabbed with pins," I tell him placidly. I will not let him know how much his irritation with her pleases me.

"She has her moments of helpfulness, and her Russian is flawless. But this girl must have no gift for languages, else she truly is less than intelligent, because her English hardly progresses despite the hours we spend on it."

"Perhaps she does not wish to learn because she would like to prolong her lessons with you for as long as possible," I suggest.

I overheard her admit as such to one of the sewing maids as I passed by the room that has been set aside for wedding preparations. The maids have taken it over with work on my dress and Dmitri's apparel. We have not started on things for bridesmaids and groomsmen because we have not yet confirmed who will be filling those positions. It's a bit difficult to nail such things down when one's wedding has been indefinitely postponed.

"I sincerely hope that is not the case, though I fear you are right. If she does not start to improve soon, however, I will have to speak with my parents about getting her a real English tutor, or else putting Mother in charge of lessons," Dmitri answers me.

"I'm not sure that would work any better. Yekaterina is terrified of your mother finding fault with her."

"Most people are." He shoots me a meaningful glance. He knows that I'm not at all bothered by Zinaida finding fault with me, and I'm sure it confuses him. If he had grown up with Zira and the woman I called Mother, perhaps it would make more sense to him. Zinaida is comparatively non-threatening, even with her elementalism.

"Aerys, for the love of God, will you focus?!" Giacomo demands hotly, spraying me with a gush of cold water for emphasis. I flick my fingers at him and his ropes of blond hair transform into eels. I am not in the mood to deal with him. Giacomo shrieks like a little girl who's seen a bug and then unleashes a torrent of foul language. I eye him with exasperation for a few moments as he runs in circles, flailing his arms and spouting profanity in multiple languages, before snapping my fingers with a sigh. The eels become ropes of hair again, but they retain a blue-greeny-brown algae colour. The circles and flailing and cursing continue for several more moments, until I engulf him in a cloud of fog and begin to tighten the pressure on the cloud so that it squeezes in around him, thickening the air, making it harder to move and to breathe while obscuring his vision. The flood of obscenity abruptly stops, and then a burst of water opens the fog long enough for him to escape from it.