“Wait,” I called out.

But the carriage kept moving. I stood stock-still in the center of the road, certain they would stop. Certain that my mother had seen me or sensed my presence, and that the door would open, one slender hand emerging to beckon me inside. But the horses plowed onward, slowly disappearing into the distance.

“You been waiting in the bushes all day, im-be-Cécile? Good thing I got here before dark, or the trolls might have snatched you up for dinner. Not that you’d make much of a meal.”

I turned round to glare up at my older brother, who sat slouched in his saddle. “Hardly. I spent the morning doing your chores.”

“Aren’t my chores anymore.”

Fred dropped a stirrup for me and I swung up behind him, cursing my long skirts when they caught. “Bloody stones and sky.”

“Gran will wash your mouth out twice with soap if she hears you talking that way,” Fred said, starting down the road at a slow walk.

“You going to tell?” I asked, although I wasn’t really paying attention. The carriage was already out of sight. I dug my heels into the horse’s side, trying to urge it faster, but Fred checked the reins. The animal sidestepped, ears pinned back, so I left off the effort.

“Nah,” Fred replied. “She’d probably say you’d learnt it from me and wash mine out for good measure.”

“Probably.” I leaned around him, considering whether I’d be better off hopping down and running on my own two feet. “Could we go a little faster?”

“Ain’t I good enough company?” Fred turned around and grinned at me. He’d gotten taller in the intervening months, although no wider. Holding onto him was like holding onto a broomstick.

“Clearly we’re the ones who aren’t good enough company,” I retorted. “You haven’t been back once.”

The smile slid from his face and he turned back around. “It’s hard to get leave.” His voice was dark, the tone indicating to me that there was more to the story than just an overbearing commander.

“Maybe they think you’re coddled enough without time off, living with your mother and all,” I teased.

“I don’t live with her!”

I flinched, startled by the venom in his voice. “But I thought…”

“Well, you thought wrong. I live in the barracks now, and frankly, I’d rather sleep on the streets of Pigalle than spend another night under the same roof as her.”

My chest tightened and a million questions demanding answers sprang to my mind. But before I could say a word, Fred laid the reins to his horse’s shoulders and we were galloping full tilt down the road. I almost toppled off the back, but it wasn’t the first time he’d pulled such a stunt on me so I’d unconsciously been holding on. And anyway, I was far more concerned with the anger he’d directed at our mother than with the prospect of falling off a horse. What had she done?

As we tore down the lane toward the farm, I leaned around him to get a better look at the carriage. It was stopped. The coachman had secured the reins and was climbing off so he could open the door. My father stood a few paces away from the carriage, shoulders managing to be slumped and tense all at the same time.