I did not forgive her at once.
That is the truth. I sat on the cold step with my hands in my lap and watched a single yellow lemon swing from the little tree. Part of me wanted to shake her and to shout. Seven years of silence. Seven years in a cell, with no friend at the door. Even if she had been afraid, she could have written me one letter.
But that was the other life. Not this one. In this life, Vivienne was only a seventeen-year-old girl with a sick little brother and a very bad secret. She had not done it yet. And I knew, with a that was almost painful, that if I pushed her away now, she would fall straight into the arms of the man with the raven ring.
"Elise?" she whispered. "Say something. Please."
"Do you know what a is?" I said.
She shook her head.
"It is when two people agree to stop fighting, even before they have decided who was right." I turned to face her. "Here are my terms. First, you will tell me everything the man asks of you. Every word. Every letter, every message, every meeting."
"Yes."
"Second, you will not answer his questions the way you used to. You will tell him only what I say."
Her eyes grew very wide. "You want me to lie to him."
"I want you to protect your brother," I said. "And I want to protect you. Do you understand? I cannot do it alone. But if we do it together, we might win."
She gazed at me. Then she threw her arms around my neck and cried again, but differently now.
Nora, who had been waiting patiently by the garden gate, came forward at last with a clean . She pressed it into Vivienne's hand without a word.
"Thank you," Vivienne .
"My lady," Nora whispered to me in a low voice. "May I say something?"
"Always."
"Lady Vivienne is a coward. That is true. But so are most people." She hesitated. "I was a coward once. I let a boy take the blame for something I did. It was a very small thing, and he was only once. But I still think of it. The brave ones, my lady, are the ones who are afraid, and who choose to do the right thing anyway."
I looked at Vivienne's red nose and eyes. "She is not brave yet."
"No," Nora said gently. "But she might be. If somebody trusts her."
That evening, before we left, I did one more thing.
I took off my mother's pearl earrings, the only valuable thing I still had from her, and pressed them into Vivienne's palm.
"Elise, no. I can't."
"They are not for you. They are for Theo," I said. "Sell them to a in the south market, not near the palace, and use the money for a doctor. A good one. Not a cheap one."
"I'll pay you back, I promise!"
"Pay me back by being brave," I said, and kissed her forehead.
Theo stood at the top of the stairs, coughing, with his tin soldier in his hand. As I left, he lifted the little soldier in a stiff salute. I him back, and my eyes burned.
I thought: *This time, nobody will be left behind.*