<<You are not his>>. He meant this to me very firmly. It was then that I realized I could feel his intentions with more clarity, more intensity than before. Being near the rescued pyre had this effect on me. It was as if he unlocked my hearing. Or rather, my understanding.

I took my arm away from my friend and held it against my chest. No. I did not belong to that pyre, nor did I belong to this one. I belonged only always to myself. And if it pleased me to stumble toward perilous pyres in winter storms, I would do so as often as I liked.

Vincent narrowed his eyes, for he knew I was more obstinate than even he. <<You must withhold yourself from him. You must>>.

Episode 32: Yet Another Pyre Warning Against A Pyre

I welcomed exhaustion. It meant I had done something with myself. My body had been used up in some vigorous endeavor. My mind had forged complex thoughts and battled nightmares with valiance. And so I never feared being righteously spent.

My bed caught me as I threw myself into it, and my eyes shut before I meant to close them. I awoke, naught but a few hours later, to an old bother of a woman throwing open my curtains and wrenching my covers from me.

“Have you no semblance of decency, child? Sleeping in your full clothes? With the stench of the outdoors on you, no less! I am tired of warning your father that you have been made utterly useless. Worse than useless! You are a travesty to all Femmedom! Up! At once!”

I intended to ignore the Grand Femme Cybil, but she refused to stop speaking. The only way to rid myself of her incessant presence in my chambers was to leave them.

“You must have a bath, you wildling!” she cried after me as I snatched a dress from my wardrobe—any dress, for I hardly cared at that moment what I might have looked like at a later point in time—and left my room. I had not even taken off my filthy boots before I slept, which meant I would have to return to wash my bedding. But not until after my grandmother found a new occupation.

I pushed open the heavy front doors, headed for the river, when Rosemary caught me, linking arms with me and twirling. I couldn’t tell whether it was the surprise or the spinning or seeing her upright and living that made my heart explode, but explode it did.

I made circles in the deep snow with her, my dress flying out of my arms, until we were giddy enough to fall over. I suspected for many years that Rosemary did not really possess the capacity for dizziness, but that she feigned it for me so I would not be embarrassed to fall over alone.

She beamed, and I probably beamed back.