Chapter 5: The Courtyard

By Friday noon the whole school was in the courtyard.

Nobody had told them to come.

Two hundred students stood in the snow in grey coats.

They lined the walls and the outside stairs and the sills of the cold windows.

Hedda had brought a bag of roasted chestnuts and passed them round.

"What's the ring for?" she asked me, low.

"Ansgar says to hold it up where they can all see it."

"He's got a mean streak. I like it."

Ansgar stood by the well in his black coat with his left hand in a leather glove, not looking at me.

The north gate opened.

A closed carriage in Royal grey rolled halfway through and stopped at the threshold, where its two Wardens in white cloaks were forced to stay.

The horses stamped.

Caspar stepped out alone.

He wore his best white-and-gold coat, and he'd done something to his face, softened it.

At the carriage window, behind him, I saw a pale face under light brown curls.

Calista.

She didn't look at me.

Caspar walked through the silent courtyard, and when he reached the middle he went down on one knee in the snow.

"Linnea."

His voice carried, because he'd been trained to make it carry.

"I know I'm the last person you want to see," he said.

"I've come to say it where everyone can hear. I was a coward, and I was proud, and I let a misunderstanding grow."

A girl on the stairs sighed.

"I never stopped loving you," Caspar said.

"The talk about Calista is nothing. A childhood friend, someone Mother took in. If I led you to think otherwise, I'm sorry."

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