"Your reputation is at stake—and mine, not that it has ever mattered to you for one godsdamned moment in your life!"

Wyll had never shouted at me like this before. I sat on a chair in the room where Father had died; Wyll had taken it over as master of the house. My straight-backed chair was uncomfortable, but not as uncomfortable as the troubled stare of Wyll's wife, Yolenn. She, heavily pregnant at the time, was looking at me with a mixture of disapprobation and sympathy. She rested her hand on her stomach as if to guard the child within it—whether from Wyll's tirade or my own bad influence, I could not tell.

"I can't have this any more, Agnes. You have me at my wit's end. I've half a mind to send you back to Oranslan. You can be among other people and maybe learn some manners, some prudence—some—something!"

I had wanted badly to run away last night—to sail away on a ship, to go someplace I had never been before. I still wanted to leave that house. But the new horizon I had in mind certainly wasn't the home country. From what Master Leisher had taught me, I knew that Oranslan was a bastion of Society; the thought of going there to be among people who valued that questionable institution did not appeal to me in the slightest. "Please—please, Wyll, don't."

He rounded on me, his face red with anger and his hair disheveled. He was not himself; what a change I had caused in my mild-mannered brother. "You give me no choice! You run around like a wild thing every moment of the day. You harass the servants—even Sybill, who's never had a harsh word for you or any of us in all of her years, the saintly woman. Look at you now: your hair's a mess, you go barefoot like an urchin—and for you to wander about alone of an evening—! They found you halfway to Annisport, all on your own! You'll be the talk of the countryside, meeting with soldiers in the dark!"

I didn't fully understand what he meant. "But I came home," I said.

"Aye, and you're lucky Captain Dremmer is a man of honor, Agnes. Had you met with someone else, you might not have been so fortunate. It hardly matters either way—whether you're ruined or not, a rumor's good enough to ensure you'll never be wed! If this happens again, I swear to you by all that is good in this world, I will drag you to Annisport and put you aboard a ship bound straight for the Crown City to stay with our uncle there."

I blanched. I had received some comfort and clarity the previous night after my tentative return to music, and my meeting with Dannie. Even though I still longed to escape that house where I knew I would never be happy again, I needed to put right what I had broken. I hardly heard what he'd said about being wed; that was far from my mind, a distant future. The more urgent matter was to avoid being sent away. If I left, I wanted to do it on my own terms. "It won't happen again. I promise you."

He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly, looking at me. When he spoke again, he was calmer. "I don't dissemble, Agnes. I'll do it. One more chance. It's all I can spare. I've a child on the way; I need a peaceful household. What if it's a daughter? I can have only virtuous women here."

Lowering my gaze to rest on the floor at his feet, I nodded.

"You've embarrassed us, Sister. Sorely. We are fortunate that the captain will contain the tale of your late-night ramblings. In gratitude for his kindness, I've invited him to a dinner a few nights hence. You will prepare something pretty to play for him; you've left off your music overlong. Think what Father would say—all those years of instruction, gone to waste. Practice it, Sister. You'll be marrying in the next few years, if you can behave long enough to do it, and your music is one of the few graces you have."

That Wyll used Father's memory against me in such a way was cruel. Aside from that, I did not much like the thought of playing again for an audience—or of marriage. But I knew I was in a precarious position now, and willfulness and disobedience would not serve me. Besides, I could not hide from myself the desire to play again, to sing. The brief song from the night before had opened the floodgates; I knew now that could reclaim my passion. I had to.

Wyll released me, and I went to my room, reflecting on all that had happened in a night and a morning. As I turned Wyll's words over in my mind, I began to understand what he had meant. My reputation. Soldiers in the dark. Going abroad alone, unchaperoned ...

I was a young woman now. He meant that people might think me too free with my affection. I knew how it was between women and men. The idea made me blush, and I thought of Dannie, of the kiss we had shared just a couple hours before my chastisement by Wyll.

Dannie had said he wanted me to kiss him; that had surprised me. What surprised me more was the same curious urge as I'd felt last night: the urge to do as he wished. Almost without thinking, I'd fallen into his arms. The kiss itself had been the same to me as it had the first two times. I was left wondering what made it all so special.

The ribbon Dannie had given me was sitting on my night table. I picked it up and ran it through my fingers, reflecting. I wondered if I loved Dannie. I thought he must love me, if he had wanted to kiss me. Maybe the need to please him meant I loved him, too.

Even though I had pushed Dannie away in my despair, I cared for him. Now that I had come back to myself, I wondered what our future might hold. Wyll had mentioned marriage, though, and that likely meant that Dannie and I had no future at all.

I had always known, vaguely, that I must marry one day, but it had seemed a faraway problem. I wondered now what it would be like. When would I wed? Who would be my bridegroom? Where would he live? If I avoided being sent back to the homeland, it would only be to contend with this new problem. Marriage would certainly mean parting from Dannie, the only friend I had ever had.

I was not sure that I loved him, but I was certain I could love him more than anyone else in the world.

What if we could escape together? I wouldn't need to fear Wyll's threat to send me to Oranslan, and I would not need to fear the matter of a husband unknown. Dannie and I could go somewhere else, anywhere else, and make a life for ourselves away from all the suffering that had happened in this house.

Perhaps Dannie could be my way to escape. If he loved me, perhaps we could go away together.

It had been a long time since we'd been close. There would be rebuilding to do of the relationship I had broken in my pain and my distraction. But, placing my fingers on my lips, I remembered the kiss in the kitchens and thought that perhaps we were halfway to rebuilding what we'd had once upon a time. Perhaps halfway and more.

He might help me out of love for me; the question of my love for him was hardly important.

I shook my head and turned my focus toward the more immediate future. If Captain Dremmer was coming to dinner and Wylliam wanted me to play, I would have to practice; this much I needed to do to keep myself safe from Wyll's threat to send me away. Perhaps I had lost my skills on the harp after so long away from it.

I put the ribbon aside and went to pour some water into my basin to wash my face. The water was cold and refreshing, but when I straightened and reached for the towel, I felt a familiar, terrifying sensation.

My outstretched hand gleamed. My fingers were webbed.

The transformation that had happened the morning of my father's funeral flashed through my mind. I snatched up my skirts and looked down at my skinny white ankles through sudden, panicked tears. I waited, cold sweat tickling my spine, but there was no evidence of a change in my legs.

I dried my hands on the towel. I watched in horrified fascination as the gleam faded and the webbing between my fingers receded.

It was the water.

Why now? Why, after all this time?

I stood there for some time with tears streaming down my cheeks, trying to make sense of it and trying not to succumb to the panic that danced at the edges of my mind.