Glittering Shadows (34 page)

“Urd was always the one who could stand this sort of thing,” Ingrid said, as they climbed the steps. The upstairs seemed colder than downstairs, as if the radiators had been shut
off, and only an occasional light was kept on. The palace was relatively new, but it smelled of antiques, of objects very slowly rotting away. “I don’t like these games, these rules,
all this
talk
.”

“Here is your room, Lady Skuld,” the guard said, opening a door. A fire already crackled gently in the hearth. “Shall I show you to yours, Lady Verthandi?”

Nan would never get used to this “Lady Verthandi” business. “Not yet. Let me talk to my sister a moment.”

When the door was shut, she spoke softly. “Do you plan to control him? Is that it?”

Ingrid sat down on the floor by the fire and pulled off her shoes, then stared into the flames.

“Ingrid?” Nan crouched beside her. Her stocking feet and her pose, like a girl settling in to pick daisies, suggested the old Skuld as much as anything she might have said.
“Please. If you do care about me at all, reconsider this plan. Otto might shake off the enchantment, or he might do something awful to you before you even get that far. When I came to see
him, he imprisoned me all alone and kept me in a stupor so I couldn’t use the wyrdsong. You said yourself, he’s not a good man. There must be another way.”

“You and Urd wanted the tree to die.” Ingrid’s voice sounded small. “I was so scared that if it did, you wouldn’t be reincarnated. We would lose our magic. I would
be alone.”

Nan took her hand. “But I’m here now.”

Ingrid wouldn’t meet her eyes.

“Is the tree dead?” Nan asked. “Are you keeping it alive with this dark magic?”

Ingrid remained unresponsive. Her eyes were wet.

“Ingrid, what did you do?”

Ingrid finally looked at Nan. “The greatest magic always comes from sacrifice.” She took off her stockings. “I want you to see me as I really am.”

Her skin seemed to shimmer. A layer of illusion dropped away. Her legs were made of the same carved wood as Thea’s hand and Sebastian’s leg. Her arms were made of wood. And when Nan
turned to look at her sister’s face, blank wooden eyes looked back at her.

Nan thought she might be sick. “What happened?”

“Yggdrasil’s life and mine have become one now. If I die, it dies. If it dies…there isn’t much left of me. It was the only way.” Her face was eerie with tears falling
out of her dead eyes. “I asked for Otto’s help to save the tree.”

“Did you know he had killed me? Please—tell me what happened.”

“The tree was sick. And Urd said maybe it was dying. We thought maybe it was because King Otto and the Chancellor were searching for magic users and making use of them. So you went to King
Otto to ask him to change his ways and help us. I guess he didn’t like that. But you and Urd felt that it might be a futile quest anyway. That maybe the world was—” She sniffed.
“Growing out of magic, or something.”

“Why?”

“Urd said, with all the new inventions—like the motorcar, and the telegraph—the world was changing. Magic could no longer remain a gift that belongs only to those who need it,
and our powers weren’t enough to protect magic anymore. Technology was becoming more powerful than us. You agreed with her. But I was so scared. I wouldn’t give up, no matter what. So
when you and Urd were killed, and the Urobrunians destroyed the tree—”

“You went to Otto,” Nan said, heart sinking.

“I borrowed a horse from the nearest village and I rode all night, because if I wasn’t quick, magic would have died, and—” She wiped her nose. “I wouldn’t be
able to find you and Urd again. Otto had a reviver at the time, so he sent him with me, and the man revived Yggdrasil, but he said it was sick, so it was just going to die again. I didn’t
know what to do.”

“So you fed the tree with your own body…”

“Yes. I read of a dark healing spell in the books Urd had left behind, and made myself limbs from the wood of the old Yggdrasil, so its roots could feed off my life. But I wasn’t
enough; Yggdrasil was still weakening. When I heard about Prince Rupert’s accident, I thought maybe I could help him and he would have to help me. And then it worked so well. The tree grew
stronger. I just kept going.”

She shivered and the illusion returned. Her blue eyes blinked the last of her tears, and she started to laugh in a low, pained way. “See? There is nothing you can do. I can’t be
saved, not the way you want to save me. And I won’t be stopped. I’ve already given up everything I have.”

Nan nodded, feeling numb, of both mind and body, as if her toes and fingers were turning to wood as well. She shifted, as if to stand, and then she thought,
I might never talk to Ingrid
again. Not as my little sister.

“Ingrid,” she said, swallowing back tears. “You should have just let us be reborn as humans. You did this so you wouldn’t lose us, and now you’re losing us anyway.
And we’re losing
you
.”

“It was a mistake,” Ingrid said hoarsely. “I know it was now. But I have to keep going. I don’t want to die.”

“I do remember you,” Nan said. “The girl you were, across all your old lives. I love that girl. And as long as I live, I will never forget you, and us, and our happy days in
the forest.”

“Wait—Verthandi, don’t say good-bye!” Ingrid cried, grabbing her arms, digging her fingernails into Nan’s skin, like she had suddenly realized that Nan really was
going to let go. “No—no, don’t. There must be some way you can help me. Please, help me!”

“But I can’t. The tree was dying. This magic you’ve done—it’s dark. I don’t even know how much power I have now to stop you. All I can do is beg you to end
this.”

“You
always
knew how to fix things.” Ingrid drew her legs in and dropped her head on her knees, sobbing in a choked way. “I can’t end this. I need you.”

Nan looked at the ceiling, colors flashing as she blinked away her own tears. Part of this journey was saying good-bye to all of it. Not just Skuld, not just Yggdrasil, but Verthandi, too, and
all her memories.

She pulled back from Ingrid, leaving her there on the rug, sobbing and broken. There was nothing more to say. It tore at every fragile, human part of Nan’s heart, but she knew…Ingrid
should have listened to fate.

She should have let Yggdrasil die.

G
uards hovered outside Ingrid’s room, ready to usher Nan to her own room or back to the dance floor. “Whatever you wish,” they
said, but obviously they were also watching her closely. She wouldn’t be able to leave Neue Adlerwald without a fight.

She returned to the dance to grab Sigi and explain it to her under all the noise provided by the band.

“That’s the saddest story I’ve ever heard,” Sigi said.

“But she won’t give up on keeping the men enchanted and the tree alive, unless she has a change of heart after she sleeps on it, but I’m not hopeful.”

“Do you know how to stop her? Or should we just go home?”

“If she has Otto on her side, and she has all the men she brought with her—and none of them can be injured—well, that might give Irminau the edge when they invade Urobrun. But
I don’t want to kill her. Why did she have to put me in this position?”

Otto glanced over at them and smiled, showing his teeth. Nan forced herself to smile back.

“Well, while you were gone I asked about the Mausoleum.”

Nan frowned. “You don’t think that’s a suspicious question?”

“The girl I was talking to asked if I was with you—well, ‘Verthandi.’ Apparently you’re a bit of an underground hero. A lot of people remember the last time you
were here, and they feel that you came to save the magic users and Otto killed you for it.”

Nan hadn’t even considered that angle. “So she’s on our side?”

“Seems so. She said the Mausoleum is where magic users go when they’re too spent and sick to work anymore. It’s in the east wing. We have to try and find it.”

“I wonder what Jenny could do to help us, if she’s that weak.”

“Regardless of Jenny, I thought I should try to get photographs of the Mausoleum. Sebastian could use them for articles to show Otto’s cruelty.”

“Good plan. But I imagine it’s guarded.”

“Yes, and I need daylight to be sure of good pictures, so it can’t be during the night.”

“I think daytime is best anyway. Easier to give an excuse if we’re caught.” Nan swept her eyes around the ballroom. Like the rest of the castle, it seemed too vast for comfort.
The dancing couples had too much space to move. Had this room ever been filled? Nan just wanted to get out of this place, but she couldn’t balk after coming this far.

“Sigi, the girl who told you about the Mausoleum…maybe she could tell us how to get in. I don’t want to trust anyone here; I’m not sure what else to do. We need an
ally.”

The girl was the Lady Marie, a young woman with a serious face that didn’t match her cheerful blond curls. “I’ve never seen the Mausoleum myself,” she said. “Prince
Rupert told me about it.”

“Did you know the prince?” Nan asked.

Lady Marie nodded. “Of course. I saw him every summer and winter holiday. What a shock when he died. I know he would have abolished these practices the moment he became king.” She
was speaking in the barest whisper now. “It will be guarded, but I’ll see what I can do. I’ll try and find you tomorrow.”

“All right,” Nan said, hoping the timing would work out and this girl was trustworthy.

True to her word, Lady Marie approached them while King Otto was showing Ingrid the gardens, even in the brutal winter wind. Nan and Sigi were along for the tour, at the back of
the group, while Otto talked about winter berries and showed off his pen of reindeer.

“Why don’t you come with me and warm up?” Lady Marie offered. Looking over her shoulder, she hurried them into one of the palace’s back doors, bringing them into a
servants’ entrance.

A stout maid with her gray hair in a bun was waiting for them inside, holding a plate of food. “Hurry,” she whispered, starting to lead them down the corridor.

“Good luck,” Lady Marie said, before going back out the door. Apparently she was willing to show them this far, but not willing to get caught. Not very reassuring, but at least it
was one less person to worry about if something did go wrong.

“The guards are sympathizers with the resistance movement here,” the maid said. “But we’ll have no excuse for you to be in the Mausoleum if you’re
caught.”

“Thank you for trusting us,” Nan said.

“But you are Verthandi! We haven’t forgotten you.”

“Are many of you in the household against Otto?”

“Oh yes,” the maid said. “But we stay quiet. He’s very popular outside the household.”

“I’ll never understand how tyrants can be popular,” Nan said.

“I do,” Sigi said. “Everyone seemed to love my mother, and I could easily see her turning into a tyrant if she’d been given the chance.”

“Hush now,” the housemaid said, adjusting her tray of food into one hand as she opened the door into the hall and peered out, then motioned them forward.

They approached a room in the far corner of one of the palace wings. They passed through warm squares of sunlight that fell upon the marble floors, formed by huge windows at the end of the wing.
Another maid was just coming out of the door carrying a stack of empty trays and dishes. The guards at the door ignored them.

Behind the door, a record played classical music that Nan expected was soothing to most ears—even to her, it came close to sounding pleasant. The beds had grand, tall headboards, and
carved wooden partitions blocked the room into private spaces for the beds’ occupants, while still allowing a sense of open space with the soaring ceiling above, which had been painted with
scenes of clouds and rosy-cheeked people dancing along the border.

The people in the beds, however, looked deathly ill. Fragile skin stretched over their bones. Every thread of hair on their heads was silver, and a few had no hair at all. One of them slept with
a rattle in his chest with every breath, another slowly lifted a spoonful of soup to her mouth.

The maid was still edging around the room nervously, and Sigi got out her camera, wasting no time. Luckily she had already been carrying it for the garden expedition.