The next stop on our journey was Ferdinand's apartment. Apparently, when Mr. Lennox reinstated him to the Lennox Company, a room was no longer thrown into the bargain. His residence now lay miles from our own boarding house, and just as far from the theater. I couldn't imagine walking the entire way in the frigid morning and back in the evening after a full day's worth of rehearsals and performing. He must have been dead tired this whole time. And yet he still took that walk in order to dance with us. With me. I quickened my steps to catch his hand in mine. He didn't look down but I felt his fingers tighten around my hand.
The boarding house he'd rented a room in was not one of the finest degree. It was just barely nicer than the old rooms Mr. Lennox and I lived in until our Crown Commission, though perhaps run by a more concerned landlord than ours. I suspected a woman as we entered the hallway and started up the stairs—a vase of flowers sat on a sidetable, and the mirror on the back wall was clean and polished.
Ferdinand led me down the upstairs hallway all the way to the back, where a door painted a deep blue stood. He unlocked it and let me through into an apartment of three tiny rooms. Two large windows overlooked the street, letting in the dim sunlight. We walked to one of the upholstered chairs and Ferdinand sat me down, taking my things through to the bedroom where he dropped them off on the mattress and proceeded to strip the bed of its quilt and heavy blanket. I watched as he took the bed clothes to the windows and draped them over the curtain rods, blocking the light but also making it impossible for anyone walking on the road to glimpse the interior of our rooms.
When they were in place, he lit a candle and brought it to me in the murky common room. I looked down at the chair I sat on, for lack of anything else to do with my eyes, and saw that it was worn and a bit dirty, but otherwise pretty and perhaps expensive. I remembered his mention of a baronetcy, and glanced over at him.
"You said you're a Baron?" I asked, while he rummaged around in a chest that also served as a small table. He looked up, his mouth a thin line.
"Yes."
"That's all you're going to say?"
"Do I need to say more? I'm twentieth in line for the throne, and I highly doubt that after tonight we'll even have a throne."
I hadn't realized he was even that close to ruling. "There's much to say," I replied. "You're a dancer in the National Rumonin, which is not exactly the normal day job for a baron. One expects to see someone of your title sitting in a bank or running some business. Not dancing for the enjoyment of anyone who buys a ticket."
"The lovely thing about the devaluation of the Rumonin titles is that barons are no longer expected to be the high and mighty royalty that they once were. There's so many of us now that I suspect we're more common than bankers," he said.
"There may be an unprecedented amount of barons, but it does not lessen the fact that most are still wealthy enough to live in the apartments on the palace side of the city."
"My family is barely above the middle-class, and our house may have been on the fashionable side of town, but there were steep debts that came with it. My father kept the collectors off by cashing in favors with his political ties, and by working at the bank. So you guessed partially right. Had I followed what my father and mother wished, I would be a baron sat behind an office desk, pushing around money to try and make it seem like the State had more than the pittance it spreads thinly over the populace."
"And you rebelled against your family?"
"It's nothing like those romantic novels, which I'm sure you're imagining. I didn't declare to the gathered royalty at a ball that I was denouncing the lifestyle and going to dance with the ballet. I simply packed my things one night and set out to make my own way. No one knew I was Baron Popov, and I used the money I earned from odd jobs to pay for everything. My parents knew that I was out on my own, though I never told them exactly where I was holing up in the months it took me to earn a spot in the National."
"Do they mind your dancing?" I asked, adjusting my shawl to cover my shoulders. The air in the room was chill and dry, raising the hairs on my arms.
"It depends on the day, but for the most part they tolerate it." Ferdinand walked away, but kept talking, his voice growing fainter as he stepped into the bedroom, and growing louder as he came back with a small blanket over one arm. He unwrapped it and laid it over my shoulders and across my lap, his hands lingering on my forearms for a moment longer than they needed to. "I suppose they know they can't dissuade me, but they don't want to encourage it. So they try to pretend that I have some mysterious job they don't know much about, and they tell their friends that I live far away. They've only been to two of my performances. Mother cried. She loves my dancing. Father said it was a good job. They acknowledge my talent and passion, they just wish I wouldn't pursue it in quite such a plebeian way."
"They couldn't think anything else of your dancing," I said. "This may sound conceited, but I've never met anyone to match my dancing until you. You're every bit as good as I am."
He laughed. "Well, thank you. I know it is a high compliment, since I've seen the way you dance. I don't think it is quite true, though. You capture an audience, drawing them into the world that you are feeling. I can only entertain them for the few hours that they sit in those seats. You remain with them long after. They remember what they felt while you danced for them. I even heard the corps begrudgingly acknowledging your talent."
"They did not," I said, firmly.
"Oh, they did. A little one, looked like a small dog, was yapping to the others that she didn't think it was fair that you got all the treatment. Later on, Rachel told me that she thought it was getting a little ridiculous with the corps being featured so much less than the principal."
"I couldn't help it, and I won't feel bad for it. Without the perfection of dance, what would I be? I don't care if they think I am favored or being treated as special, as long as my dancing always improves. I live for it..." I trailed off as I remembered that there would be no lessons until Mr. Lennox returned. If he returned. I clenched my fists, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in my stomach.
"What about your family?" Ferdinand asked. He said it hesitant and soft, knowing that I would not be living with Mr. Lennox if I had any family still living.
"I don't remember much of them at all," I said. "I only remember my mother, in bits and pieces. I think perhaps we were of middling wealth. I remember a new dress at birthdays and Easter, and they could afford to send me to classes."
"What happened to her?" he asked, though I knew he must already know. The majority of Rumonin's orphans all came about in the same way.
"We were separated during the first Vigilant Men attack," I said, remembering the smell of fire and the choking feeling of smoke in my lungs. "She had to save my siblings, and I was too small to keep up. I lost sight of them, and then Mr Lennox found me and took me in. I never saw them after that, and I'm not certain if they lived or not. I couldn't remember my surname, so I've never been able to look for them."
"I'm sorry," he said.
"You see that I owe my life to Mr Lennox. I would've been killed if they had found me out on the streets on my own. Those days were not ones that took kindly to children and compassion."
"You may owe your life to him," Ferdinand said, "but you don't owe him the right to tell you what to do with it."
"I do now," I said, and we both looked down at the glinting golden band on my finger.
Ferdinand closed his hand over it, hiding it from view. "I'll go find us something to eat for lunch, and then we'll stay here until the roads are safer."
I nodded as he stood up and went to change into something more appropriate for braving the weather and possible riots. He returned a moment later, dressed in worn brown furs and a matching hat. He paused by my side, and for a moment I thought he might kiss me goodbye, but then he walked on and I was left to sit in silence.
--
It was so strange to spend time with Ferdinand, just our two selves. It was uncomfortable and awkward, with neither of us knowing what to say. We ate what he brought back for lunch without a word, and what little conversation we had for the rest of the afternoon and evening was the kind that could be found at any function where strangers were forced to be pleasant. I wanted more than anything to be easy with him, to return to that time when I'd danced with him under the stage as if we were one body. Yet, whenever I thought I might be warming, I'd catch a glimpse of that dull golden glint on my finger, and my heart shut down.
Ferdinand, for his own reasons, kept his own wall between us. He answered my questions readily enough, but offered no more of his own questions after our discussion over our family. It wasn't until the sun had set, and the rooms plunged into complete darkness due to no one lighting the street lamps, that he spoke to me first.
"Ready for bed?"
I nodded, and he led me to the bedroom. Not much was in the room beyond a dresser and a bed, but it was small and cozy.
Ferdinand motioned toward the bed, which sat made up with fresh linen and a pillow.
"You sleep here, and I'll be out in the main room," he said. "Call me if you need anything. I won't mind." He glanced toward the window which still stood hidden behind the old blankets, as if he expected someone to jump through. I smiled and thanked him.
He shuffled out of the room, taking the candlelight with him. I waited a moment and then went to the doorway, peeping through to see him setting the candle down on the floor before laying down next to it and pillowing his head with his arm. He lay on the small, threadbare carpet, his fur jacket pulled over him as a blanket. I watched his form bathed in the halo of light for a few minutes. His eyes were closed, but I knew he didn't sleep. The shadows played on the sharp planes of his face, and my heart burned in my chest. A moment later, he picked up his head and blew out the candle, launching the room into complete darkness.
I picked my way back to his bed, using the blanket he'd given me earlier that day. It was too thin and the room too cold, but I didn't dare take down the thicker quilt that hid the road. The idea of someone spotting me while I slept was terrifying, and I'd rather the chill. Besides, my eyes were so heavy on their own that I doubted even a snowstorm could keep me awake much longer.
The limp pillow pressed up against the iron headboard smelled like Ferdinand, and I inhaled as I laid down. When we'd danced, I'd never really noticed a distinct scent on him. Even with the pillow pressed into my face, I couldn't identify what it was exactly. Only that it smelled like him, bringing his face to my mind as I closed my eyes. My jangled nerves settled and I pulled the blanket to my cheek, curling up in the bed, and slipped swiftly into sleep.