Winterspell (33 page)

A gamble, but one she had to make. She could not stay here.

She would run.

At the heart of the ruined village, in a paddock once meant for animals, the refugees gathered. Clara saw them, and could have kept
going—
should
have kept going. But a spot of blue pulled at her: Bo, her expression forlorn.

Then—Nicholas, unmistakable, in profile. He was saying her name.

Run, my Clara.
Godfather would advise her so, but Clara could not resist. She snuck closer to the crowd, close enough to hear. She listened hard—maybe he was trying to persuade them to trust her, to treat her well and apologize for binding her. Maybe that comment about
using
her had been a tiny white lie, a momentary diversion.

“. . . but what if she doesn't want to bind with you?” That was Igritt.

Clara gripped the corner of the burned-out cottage she hid behind. Ash flaked away at her touch.

“It doesn't matter if she doesn't want to,” came Nicholas's voice, and it was hard and unfeeling, with no nuance of emotion to reinterpret. Nothing but toneless resolve. “I will make her.”

Oh.
Clara reeled back; it was a kick to the gut, a claw to her heart. Oh no, no, no.

Using
her. His comment had not been a lie.

* * *

Bo was the first to protest—and the only one, Clara noticed. She bit her tongue to keep from screaming out her hurt.

“You can't do that, sire,” Bo said, furious. “How dare you even think it?”

“The prince can do whatever he likes,” one of the male refugees said. “That's why he's a
prince
. And anyway, why should we care what one dirty little half-breed mage wants, if she can help us fight for our country?”

“But what if she can't?” someone said uncertainly. “Seems like an unnecessary cruelty.”

“She can,” Nicholas said, a dark figure in their midst. Clara raked her eyes over the lines of his body, searching for familiarity and finding none. Even his statue-self had been warmer. “I'm only sorry that it took me this long to bring it out of her. Even more lives could have been saved had her power manifested sooner.”

Moments flew at Clara in rapid succession, their masks torn away to reveal bitter truths—on the train, in the alley where they had rescued Bo, in the doxy quarters—oh, even on Pascha's terrace. Nicholas had been so eager for her to describe her dreams.
What did it feel like, Clara, when the train exploded? Tell me your nightmares, Clara; don't let your fear get in your way; fight, Clara,
fight.
Kiss me, Clara; it can't be helped.

She sank to the ground, and tears of shock burned hot tracks down her frosted cheeks. Had Nicholas, at every moment, been trying to spur her blood into its true self? Every touch, every smile, every glance of fierce solidarity—Clara and Nicholas, together against the evils of Cane—a manipulation.

Cries of support for Nicholas rose from the refugees. A new zealotry emanated from them, amplifying with each passing moment. Nicholas was saying something, but she dared not listen too closely. Erik and Igritt said nothing, Clara noticed. Perhaps, having known her for longer than the others, they were not so keen to hear her discussed in this way: a weapon, newly unearthed, ready to be aimed.

Clara stumbled to her feet. She thought of Bo and sobbed—to leave her here with such people . . . but she could not stop, not even for Bo. She would run, she would flee across this miserable tundra with its canopy of trains, and if they tried to follow, if they tried to subdue her, she would bring down such an icy hell upon them—

What an idea. Power she might have, but to use it like that? Unthinkable. And how could she even pretend to try? It hurt her, it blinded her; even now it was cracking her wide open.

She ran across the frigid soil, tripped over lichen-slicked rocks—for how long? Hours. Ages. Get away from Nicholas,
get away from Nicholas
. His betrayal was a cruel hand on her heart, squeezing.

She tripped over an unexpected pebbled ridge and did not rise. A small black thing tumbled out from her skirts, clacked thrice, and was silent. A mechanik? And why not? Perhaps it had latched on to her
during the horrific climb up the ladder, found her abominable body distasteful, and gone dormant. She laughed through her tears. Maybe it would awake soon and call its friends. They would swarm upon her while she slept, fold her into a statue-self of her own.

The night was dark and getting darker. She let the blackness take her, and the mud in her mouth tasted like ice.

* * *

Clara woke coughing up blood, spattering silvery pink onto the ground. It had snowed, light on her body like a dusting of sugar.

A soft breeze wafted across her skin, stirring the snow, warming her. She smelled salt.

Clara,
the voice crooned.

The voice! She had forgotten about it. She raised her head, forcing her eyes to focus.

“Clara,” the voice said again—real now, feminine and clear. She smelled sweet breath on her face, saw beautiful slate-colored boots. White furs, gray robes, a sash of ermine, a collar of leather cords.

“You poor child,” the voice said. A warm hand cupped Clara's cheek. “Whatever have they done to you?”

Fear seized Clara's heart. “Anise?”

A lovely face appeared before her, skin as white as snow, white hair, a furred turban.

Anise smiled. “It's time for you to come with me now, Clara.”

Clara shook her head. “No. I can't.”

“Oh? And why not?”

Because you had my mother killed.
Through the haze of her fatigue, Clara remembered this simple, awful truth, and she nearly spit it at the queen's feet. But she was too weak for that. She teetered on the edge of consciousness, and her world pulsed silver-red. Had she ever known anything but pain?

“I can help you,” Anise whispered. “I know. I'm the only one alive who knows.”

Clara shuddered. She was tired, hungry, cold. Someone was lifting her, settling her onto softness, tucking her into warmth.

Ah, the warmth! A blissful thing that made her weep with gratitude. Wind drifted past them; they were moving. Anise hissed guttural words to someone, and Clara's heart filled with hate—
you had my mother killed
—but the warmth soothed her, as did a faint sweet smell. Perfume? Sugar?

Woozy, she forced her eyes open. They were in a black mechanized sleigh. A cadre of faeries on loks surrounded them, and a blue-eyed kambot perched on Anise's shoulder, staring at Clara coldly. And Anise was stroking Clara's arms, bundled with her in a blanket trimmed with fur, telling her it was all right now, poor, wrung-out thing. She would be safe now; she was with her queen.

F
rom the moment I was born, I was taught to hate them.

Everyone was. Every parent raised their children on tales of what would happen if they wandered too deeply into the forest or too far down the southern roads. Beware Mira's Ring and the spirits who wander there, screeching for warmth they will never have. Beware the high mountains, where the dragons lie curled and waiting for dusk to fall, where the nightbirds perch on bone-white trees and sing their mischievous songs.

Beware the southern roads, where the paths turn overgrown and the whirring of unnatural things turns beneath the earth, for that is where the faeries dwell.

The first time I cut open a faery while it still lived, I was six. Father stood behind me, folded his hand over mine to steady it. His crown glinted in the cold laboratory light, the light of the mages; he had come straight from court, eager.

“From neck to navel,” Father whispered at my ear. “Keep the blade straight and your weight even.”

The eyes of the royal surgeons were upon me. So were those of the Seven. Drosselmeyer, who had bound himself to me, was closest of all. I could see him nodding in approval as the knife sank into the faery's white flesh and blue blood trickled out in dark rivulets.

Fascinated, I pressed the blade deeper, watching the blood pool. The faery, bound to the table with mage lightning, screamed. Though
the sound was muffled, I plainly heard its fear and fury.

The sound enraged me. That it would dare to be afraid or angry, after what its kind had done—raiding our villages, forcing the humans farther north, attacking outposts with strange weapons that no one could understand. Dark weapons that seemed impervious to even mage magic, for these weapons were always shifting, collapsing, and reforming. They were never the same from one minute to the next. Faeries had always been inventors, tinkering with their toys in the shadows, obsessed with crafting things. But these weapons were different. They shot . . . things, dark, clacking, mechanized . . . I want to say creatures, for they seemed almost alive, and they swarmed like locusts. These dark things devoured anything in their path—stone, earth, flesh—and rebuilt it as magic-bound metal, black and shining, reeking of salt and sea winds.

We
had
to understand the faeries' magic, this inexplicable magic that they had been crafting for years underground, under Anise's guidance. We had no choice but to understand it, whatever the cost. Otherwise it would destroy us. Even at six years old I knew that. I saw it every day as I sat by my father as he held court, watching report after report of raids cross his desk, of human villages overrun with iron, choked by a magic that built, and built, and built. . . .

So I cut deeper, too deeply. My blade became reckless, and before I knew it, I stood over the faery, whose torso I had sliced to pieces with my tiny surgical knife.

I panted. Sweat dripped from my fingers. I could not see anything but a foggy haze of white and blue—faery flesh, faery blood. I felt sick. I thought I would cry. I didn't understand what I had done.

“It's all right,” Father said to me. “We've all done it.” The Seven smiled at me knowingly. Drosselmeyer squeezed my shoulder as though the experience had bonded us even more irrevocably together.

“They deserve it,” I said after a moment. I can still hear my own voice, the memory is so clear. A high voice, a boy's voice. “They deserve to die.”

“Yes,” Father said, and held out a cloth on which I could wipe my hands. “They all deserve to die.”

How shall I even begin to describe the beauty and splendor of the city that now lay before her . . . Not only were the walls and towers of the most magnificent colors, but the shapes of the buildings were like nothing else on earth.

S
he is mine.

It was the voice again, whispering through Clara's sleep-fogged mind.
Her
voice, Anise's voice, gleefully whispering aloud: “Mine, she is mine.”

The words should have bothered Clara. She was no one's but her own, and she was certainly not the property of a murderous queen. Above her head the wind gusted, but here in Anise's nest of furs Clara was warm and content.

She tried to rise, uneasy at the thought.

“Hush,” Anise murmured against her ear. “We've a ways to go yet. Rest. I have you now.”

Clara subsided and did not stir again.

* * *

Lights woke her, in flashing blues, pinks, purples, greens.

Clara tried to speak. “Where are we?”

“The Summer Palace.” Anise helped Clara upright and pressed their cheeks together. When her mouth moved, the corner of her lips brushed against Clara's.

Already Clara was fading again, her insides still throbbing with pain, as though they had been viciously rearranged. She peeked out over the furs to see spiraling towers of iron and gold and white; turrets of blue; watchtowers marked by green lights; and the winding, dark roads of a
tiny but grand city. The streets wound lazily upward to a gray palace lined with thin lights in white, green, blue. Above, a hub where railways converged. A dim roar buzzed at Clara's ears—laughter, music. Cannons firing. The snap of firecrackers, the tang of gunpowder.

“We have the most indescribable parties here,” Anise whispered. “You wouldn't believe the number of runaway slaves who try to sneak in. They impale themselves on the ramparts. They drown themselves trying to swim the river.” She laughed, a sensuous sound. “Oh, Clara. You'll love it here with me.”

As Clara tried to digest this, they passed over a curving iron bridge. On the other side Clara saw faeries in extravagant dress traveling a network of winding roads. Among them was a human in rags, carrying a tray of lemon ices in crystal goblets. He was being led around on a chain, and oozing sores marred his skin.

Though she struggled to keep her eyes open, it was in vain. Even in unconsciousness, lights danced behind her eyes, and everything smelled sweet.

* * *

“Take her to my rooms,” Anise was saying when Clara awoke next. “And fetch Ketcher. She'll need to be examined. She's horribly weak.”

Clara tried to open her eyes, but it was too bright. When she tried to shield her face, she found she could not lift her arms. She was being lowered onto a soft surface of warm furs and cool tasseled pillows. Each touch stung her oversensitized skin, and she lay there shuddering.

Someone sat beside her.

“Beautiful girl,” Anise whispered, “do not fear.” She fingered Clara's frayed tunic and clucked her tongue. “First thing, after you're well—new clothes. I do so hate the cold, but I'll admit, one can do much more with a winter wardrobe. You'll look ravishing, Clara. I'll dress you only in the best.”

A rustle of movement near the door. Anise rose.

“Over here, Ketcher. I'm not sure what we can do for her, but I'd
certainly suggest something to spice up her blood. It must be stretched so thin. . . .”