The streets had thinned since the height of Carnival. The drums still throbbed somewhere in the distance, muffled now, carried on the wind like a fading heartbeat. Lanterns guttered in doorways, smoke drifted from spent torches, and the cobbles gleamed damp beneath the moon.
Katelijne walked beside Edwin, her cloak pulled tight, her pulse still unsteady. The night's chaos clung to her skin — the music, the laughter, the dizzy whirl of dance, Joseph's lips against hers. Each memory flared too bright, as if anyone might see it written on her face.
Edwin said nothing at first. His pace was measured, his hands clasped loosely behind his back. She braced for his disapproval, for the sharp words she had always feared when he caught her in secrets. But when he finally spoke, his tone held neither scorn nor anger.
'You're quiet,' he said softly, as though remarking on the weather.
She glanced at him, wary. 'So are you.'
A ghost of a smile tugged at his mouth. 'That doesn't often happen, does it?'
Katelijne let out a breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding. The silence between them felt different tonight — not heavy with judgment, but waiting. For once, she wondered if she might speak and be heard, not corrected.
Katelijne slowed her steps, watching the lamplight catch in the puddles at their feet. Words crowded her throat, half-formed, foolish, too dangerous to speak. And yet, if she held them in, she thought she might burst.
'It was… different,' she said at last, her voice scarcely louder than the wind. 'The barn. The music. Everyone laughing, stamping their feet, no one caring who I was or what I wore. For a moment I felt—' She broke off, uncertain.
Edwin's gaze flicked to her, steady, unreadable in the dark. 'Felt what?'
Her fingers twisted in her cloak. 'Free. Not weighed down. Not measured.' She gave a small, almost guilty laugh. 'I danced, Edwin. Not the way Mother taught us. Not the careful steps for the guild hall. I spun until I nearly fell over, and I didn't care who saw. How foolish was I?'
She braced herself for his censure. Instead, he exhaled slowly, as though something in her words had struck home.
'That doesn't sound foolish,' he said. 'It sounds like living.'
His quiet acceptance startled her. She looked at him more closely, searching for mockery, but found only a faint sadness in his eyes.
'You're not angry?' she asked.
'Angry?' He shook his head. 'I've spent enough nights wishing I could step outside the life expected of me. How could I be angry that you managed it, even once?'
His words warmed her, soft as the glow of a lantern on stone. For the first time, she felt she could tell him everything — not just of the dance, but of the secret ache behind it.
They walked a while in silence, their boots whispering over the cobbles. At last Edwin spoke, his voice low but steady.
'You've always covered for me,' he said. 'Ledger pages slipped beneath your hand so Father would not notice my absence. You know well enough where I go.'
Katelijne smiled faintly. 'To your painters.'
'Yes.' His sigh clouded the night. 'At first I thought it was only practice — sketches, exercises, nothing more. But it is not only the painting. It is what happens when I am with them. They speak in colours, in lines and shapes, and for once I am not the merchant's son, not the apprentice chained to ledgers. Among them, I am simply Edwin.'
Katelijne glanced at him, hearing the quiet wonder in his voice.
'It is freedom,' he went on. 'The act of painting itself feels like stepping through a door into another life — one where colour and light matter more than coin. But more than that, it is the company. They do not care if my coat is plain or my hands ink-stained. They argue, they laugh, they let me belong. I can be myself there in a way I cannot be at home.'
His words tugged at something deep inside her. She knew that ache — the yearning for a space where no one measured her worth by pearls or by silence.
'And yet,' Edwin added, the bitterness returning, 'I can never stay in that world. I always return to the warehouse, to the accounts, to Father's frown when a figure is miswritten. A dutiful son, with ink-stained fingers and no breath of colour. I am split in two, Katelijne. The one I am — and the one I can never be.'
Katelijne's throat tightened. Floris's promises echoed in her mind — his grand halls, his sisters' cutting glances, the endless weight of duty.
'You've found something precious,' she said softly. 'A place to belong. Don't let it go.'
He gave her a faint smile. 'We are alike, you and I. Trapped, though our cages are carved in different shapes.'
They turned down a narrower lane, the lanterns thinning until the shadows pressed close. Edwin's steps slowed. He glanced once behind them, then spoke more quietly, as if the dark itself might overhear.
'There is something else,' he said. 'Something I have never said aloud.'
Katelijne's breath caught. She waited.
'It is not only the colours, or the talk, or the freedom of those gatherings,' he went on. 'It is the company. The men there — they are not like Father, or Floris, or the aldermen who puff their chests and boast of contracts. They are softer, sharper, stranger. Some paint saints, others paint courtesans. Some drink too much, some argue until dawn. And yet, with them, I can just be… who I am.'
His voice faltered, and when he spoke again it was barely more than a whisper. 'There are men whose company I seek more than others. Not as comrades, not as rivals. As something… more. I thought it shameful once. I thought myself broken. But when I am with them — when their laughter fills the air and their hands are stained with colour — I do not feel wrong. I feel alive.'
Katelijne slowed her steps. The words rang raw, and she felt the weight of the trust he placed in her.
'You've carried this alone?' she asked softly.
He gave a brittle smile. 'To whom could I speak of it? To Father, who sees only trade? To Mother, who sees only reputation? No, Katelijne. Only you.'
She reached for his hand, squeezed it tight. 'Then you shall never be alone in it again.'
For a moment he let her hold his hand, his eyes glinting in the lamplight. Then he let go, shoulders easing, as if a weight had shifted.
'Thank you,' he murmured.
They walked on in silence, Edwin's confession still hovering between them, fragile as glass. Katelijne wanted to say more — to tell him how brave he was, how much his honesty meant — but the words tangled in her throat. The night itself seemed to hold its breath.
Then, as they turned a corner, a roar of laughter spilled from a tavern ahead. The light there was harsher than lantern-glow: fire flaring through the open shutters, smoke and song rolling out in waves.
Edwin slowed. 'We'll take the next street,' he murmured.
But Katelijne had already stopped. A voice boomed above the din — deep, confident, unmistakable. Floris.
Her chest clenched. She edged closer to the wall, peering toward the window. Through the smoke she caught sight of him, his gold chain catching the firelight as he leaned back in a carved chair. A woman perched on his lap, her bodice loose, pale skin bared where her gown had slipped. His hand cupped her waist as though it belonged there, his head bent to her neck.
Katelijne's breath stilled. The room tilted.
Edwin caught her arm, pulling her back into the shadow. 'Careful.' His voice was tight, urgent.
'Did you see?' she whispered.
'I saw.'
They stood pressed against the wall, unseen in the dark, watching the laughter, the careless way Floris's hand traced the curve of the woman's back. His companions cheered him on, tankards raised.
Katelijne's stomach turned. Her cheeks burned hot, then cold. This was the man her mother praised, the man her father weighed as a worthy match, the man who placed a rosary in her palm as if binding her to piety and devotion.
Beside her, Edwin's jaw was hard as stone. 'So this is the virtue he boasts of,' he said bitterly.
Katelijne could not speak. She pressed her fist against her mouth, her pulse hammering. For a heartbeat she wanted to storm inside, to tear the pearls from her wrist and fling them in his face. But her legs would not move.
'Come,' Edwin said at last, his grip firm but gentle. 'We've seen enough.'
She let him draw her away, each step heavy, her mind reeling. Behind them the tavern roared with laughter, Floris's voice booming above the rest.
Katelijne kept her eyes fixed on the dark ahead, but inside she burned — with anger, with shame, with a wild, unsteady freedom she had not expected.
For the first time, she no longer feared Floris's hold on her future. She loathed it.