Glittering Shadows (35 page)

“Jenny is here,” the maid said, motioning Nan forward while Sigi snapped pictures. Nan was struck by the contrast of Sigi, her eyes alight with the prospect of capturing a powerful
moment, and the witches who laid here near death. She was almost shy to approach Jenny—as if, deep down, a part of her was responsible for her suffering. The Norns were supposed to protect
magic users. Her powers should have left her when the tree died. None of these people should be here.

Jenny’s brittle silver hair was in a braid that fell across her shoulder. She was sitting propped up on numerous pillows, with a book on her lap. Seeing Nan approach, she shut it and set
it aside, lifting it with effort although it was of ordinary size. Nan shuddered to think that Freddy had been headed to this state.

“Are you here to help me?” she asked, but she sounded doubtful.

“Maybe. Rupert sent me and told me to check on you.” But Nan could see Jenny was beyond help.

“Is Rupert well?”

“Yes, he is.”

“You’re the Norn, aren’t you? I was a young woman the last time you were here. People still talk about it.” Jenny coughed. She seemed worn out even by this short
conversation.

“Do you know anything about Yggdrasil? I was told that a reviver helped bring it back to life.”

“Yes, he did. But that man died, years ago.”

“So the tree doesn’t need the reviver.” Disappointing, but not surprising. “I came back here because I was trying to stop King Otto from abusing magic users anymore, but
I’m not sure I can do anything now. I need to return to Rupert. If you have any information that could help him…”

“Hurry,” the maid said, constantly looking over her shoulder.

“If I was younger and stronger, I could have helped you fight,” Jenny said. “I could have killed him. I should have killed him…tell Rupert…not to hesitate to kill him. He
should not feel guilty because it’s his father. He’s an evil man, and we all know it is so.”

Nan felt a chill, wondering if this advice should apply to her as well.
Should I have killed Ingrid already?

The maid tensed at the sound of voices in the hall beyond.

One of the door guards stepped in and said, “The king is coming.”

“The king never comes to the Mausoleum!” the maid said. “You need to hide!”

S
igi and Nan climbed under Jenny’s bed. Luckily, the expensive beds were quite spacious. The maid nudged Nan’s arm with her toe,
pushing her farther out of sight.

“Here,” Jenny whispered, and then a blanket dropped over the side of the bed.

Sigi was breathing hard. Nan laced their fingers together. They couldn’t move without potentially shifting a limb into view.

The voices outside the room came closer until they were through the doorway. Judging by the footsteps, Nan guessed at least twenty people were in the party. The maids greeted Otto with,
“Your Majesty, to what do we owe this honor?”

“This is Lady Skuld,” Otto said. “She says she can help these poor souls.”

“Yes,” Ingrid said. “I can restore their strength.”

Nan’s eyes widened. Was Ingrid going to—?

She heard—and felt, through the floorboards—heavy objects set down. Lids creaked open. These must be the several trunks Ingrid’s men had carried all the way from Urobrun.
Ingrid said gently, “I will help you” to one of the witches near the front of the room, and then she spoke to the rest. “There will be no pain, but you may want to turn away if
you’re squeamish.”

Nan saw the plan clearly now. She had assumed Ingrid would target Otto first. But this approach made more sense. These magic users were useless, weak as they were. She must have promised him
that she could restore them. All they had to do was make one small sacrifice of their broken bodies. The trunks must hold the wooden limbs.

A woman groaned weakly as a saw ground through bone. Ingrid hummed a low note. Nan gripped Sigi’s hand tighter as Sigi looked queasy. This couldn’t have taken long, but the grinding
seemed to go on forever.

“Ohhh,” the woman said, her voice dry and fragile. “I see the sacred tree.”

“Yggdrasil,” Ingrid said gently. “My Yggdrasil. Look upon its beauty and take it into your heart, and your strength will return to you.” Something fell with a small,
solid weight onto the floor.

“Get that cleaned up,” Otto directed someone in a low tone of restrained irritation. “Let’s not have blood staining the floors, shall we?” There was a brief scuffle
of footsteps.

“My king, just a little blood is a small price to pay to have your witches regain their strength,” Ingrid said, and she sounded a little irritated at him as well, for caring about
his floors in the midst of her spell. “Come, madam, see if you can get out of that bed now.”

The bedsprings creaked. Stocking feet moved softly on the floors. “I can walk,” the woman said. “Will my hair grow back, too?”

“In time, if you are careful,” Ingrid said. “You can only use your magic sparingly. But you won’t die here.”

“Oh my lady.”

Nan was tensed, ready to move. She couldn’t let Ingrid exploit these witches on their deathbed and gain all their power. But if she made a move, it was just her against Ingrid and Otto
both. If she could just take what she had learned, along with Sigi’s photographs, back to Sebastian, that might be the best she could do.

Or am I just being cowardly?

Her bones ached from resting against the hard floor, staying so still. Ingrid’s feet came into view as she approached Jenny.

“Don’t touch me,” Jenny said.

“You don’t want to be strong again?”

“Not for this price,” Jenny snapped.

“Stubborn,” the king said. “No use talking to her, Lady Skuld. Just do what needs to be done.”

Jenny groaned with effort. Her feet hit the floor and the blanket that had helped conceal Nan and Sigi tumbled to the ground. Nan pressed closer to Sigi to stay out of view.

“Jenny,” the king said warningly. Nan heard a few guns pulled from holsters.

“Just shoot me, why don’t you? I don’t care anymore.”

“Shh.” Ingrid’s slippers shifted, inches from Nan’s face, and springs creaked as Jenny sat down hard on the bed. “Is that any way to talk? I understand your anger
at the king, but I’m here to help you begin your life anew, without any pain. Only beauty.” Her voice had slipped into its most bewitching cadence.

Ingrid took a step toward the end of the bed.

Jenny’s body shifted slightly on the mattress. Ingrid was singing the wyrdsong, but it didn’t sound as Nan knew it. It was the siren song that drove men mad and the low growl of a
beast in the shadows. As soon as she thought she knew what she heard, it changed into something else, as if she never quite heard it at all. It ground into her mind, deeper by the moment.

Damn it.

Nan scrambled out from under the bed. “Ingrid! You must stop!”

Ingrid stepped back in surprise, the wyrdsong dying, her bloody bone saw in hand, about to touch Jenny’s wrist. Jenny’s eyes had gone blank. “Verthandi? You—you
can’t stop me. I’ll hurt you.”

Nan’s only chance was to reach for her own power, the power she barely understood and would soon lose. But what was her power, now? Her Yggdrasil had already died. She could only pray that
the brighter forces in the world would still work through her.

There is only one Yggdrasil, Verthandi.
The words stepped into her mind, an answer to her prayer.
And it wants you to set it free. The time of magic has ended.

The walls rumbled with Nan’s wyrdsong. Was she singing? Was she speaking? Her consciousness stretched out beyond her body. She was one with the air, one with the floor and the walls.
Ingrid clenched her fists, her mouth open like she was screaming. Her wyrdsong responded, a roar of fury and pain.

Lightbulbs shattered in the wall sconces from the force of their power. King Otto and his entourage stepped back, drawing closer to the wall. The floor was covered in bloody footprints.

What power we would have had, when we fought together,
Nan thought.

Please. Don’t make me kill my sister.

Ingrid’s song began to wither, as if she had heard Nan’s words. Some of her men and the sorcerers she had just bound to her were gathered close around her.

“Go,” she said.

“She can’t go,” Otto said.

“Go!”
Ingrid repeated. “She will go, and it won’t matter. We will conquer Urobrun. My powers are greater than hers. But I want a fair fight.”

Nan looked at Jenny. She was too weak to travel with them. She shook her head and waved Nan away like she had become a nuisance. “Just go, go with my blessing. Do what you can, don’t
waste yourself on what is impossible.”

Sigi had climbed out from under the bed, hesitantly. Nan grabbed her hand, nodded at her sister, and then she flew out the door.

T
hea still couldn’t help a brief flash of resentment that she was now relegated to a tiny, odd club at the end of the district, but the girls
were all friendly, and the welcoming atmosphere made the Telephone Club seem in contrast like a factory where her personality was a product pumped out by the hour. The waitresses there moved in
cliques and competed for the best tables. Occasionally they stooped to catty rumors and shoved shoulders in the hallway.

The first day, when Thea’s nightmare came true and she dropped a glass onto the floor, Hedda immediately appeared at her side. “What was it? I’ll get another one.” She
came back in moments with a new glass of wine and a dustpan and broom to sweep up the glass.

There were only three full-time waitresses besides Thea. They had all worked there at least six months. Her old boss wouldn’t have considered any of them perfect enough to hire. Lori was a
very freckled redhead—even her lips had freckles—with an alien quality to her ice-blue eyes. Ruthie was too tall; she could imagine her old boss saying, “A man doesn’t like
a woman who can look down at him.” Hedda had a faint scar carved down her cheek and a severe beauty. Thea imagined most people would’ve thought Hedda was the spy if anyone was.

Hedda could be very sharp with customers, but she was sweet to Thea, like a big sister. She seemed to sense Thea needed reassurance. On her first day, she said, “We’ll start you with
a table of university professors. They’re so nice, and they just talk about dinosaurs.” If it was slow, she doubled up with Thea and helped her serve. Lori and Ruthie were just as nice,
even though Thea got huge tips from the very first day.

Pity tips.

Thea tried so hard not to do anything pitiable, but apparently just existing was enough. A lot of people did ask her about her hand and if she’d been injured in the riots. She said she
was. It was the easiest explanation. So they often saw her as a hero, who’d been brave enough to go out and stand for the revolution.

But she didn’t feel like a hero either. “I expect most heroes just stumble into it,” Hedda said.

Half an hour into the evening, the curtain would rise and the café’s star, Ina Brand, stepped onto the stage, wearing a short dress made of silvery fringe. Her arms were bare and
sleeved with tattoos. Thea had never seen a woman with tattoos. Her black-rimmed eyes bugged with dramatic effect when she performed, and her hair was a short, wild mop. Sometimes she wore a
peacock feather headdress. And she started the show with a serpent draped around her arms. It was quite a presentation even before she opened her mouth, but she also had a sultry voice, and all the
men seemed riveted by her. Thea kept watching her, too—she wouldn’t want to have tattoos and a serpent, but she had always been drawn to performers and their utter composure, the way
they could take the stage night after night and create a mood and a character and have hundreds of people watch them.

All in all, she enjoyed the job, but night after night she came home with nothing to report to Sebastian.

“I didn’t see anyone who looked like they worked for the king,” she told him, sitting on the edge of his desk. “Again. Are you sure they go there?”

“It’s only been a week. But you know I like to hear everything.”

“Well, two of the men were talking about Marlis’s New Year’s party,” she told him. “They were Brunner’s men. They seemed excited about it.”