Winterspell (36 page)

Amid the day's uncertainty, however, Clara noticed one obvious thing: that she and Anise glided through their tour at a speed that did not allow her much time to pause and look around. They raced down this hallway and through that gallery, meeting these courtiers, one after another, with little rest, and Anise seemed to be taking an odd, circuitous route, doubling back through places they had already seen. Clara supposed that was to keep her disoriented so she wouldn't notice anything too specific—potential escape routes, promising-looking doors. Indeed, when Clara slowed to adjust her skirt at the mouth of one particularly shadowed corridor, Anise yanked her on impatiently.

“We do not dawdle, Clara,” she said, digging her fingernails into Clara's arm. “Don't try my hospitality.”

All the same, Anise could not have known the extent to which Godfather had honed Clara's observation skills. She did in fact notice a great deal. The labyrinthine Glass Hall, made entirely of crystal and mirrors, hid irregularities in the gleaming walls that could indicate the presence of masked doors. There were fewer soldiers standing guard on the third floor than on the second. Forever on the edge of her sight, kambots trailed them throughout the palace, following Clara's progress with unblinking blue eyes.

She could not help but wonder, with a thrill of hope, if those same unfeeling eyes had seen her father.

T
hey dined alone in Anise's chambers at a table trimmed with gold and set with crystalline finery. Clara could hardly eat, for Anise had been watching her keenly all day. Even now her eyes were sharp over the rim of her goblet.

“What did you think of the palace?”

Surely this was not an idle question. Clara dabbed her mouth with her napkin to give herself a moment. “It is astonishing, my queen.” That, at least, was true. “Beautiful and grand. Did you design it yourself?”

Anise was pleased. She leaned back in her chair, licking the wine from her lips. “Of course. This was all crude farm country before I arrived.”

“Before you overthrew the king, you mean?”

Clara hadn't meant to say that aloud. She cursed the sugar pipe smoking delicately at her side—there had to be a way to partake in this pastime of the queen's without letting it fog her reason.

“The good prince has told you much, it seems.” Anise took a long drag from her pipe, and exhaled so the smoke curled around her. “Tell me, what crimes does he accuse me of, from his virtuous pedestal?”

As Clara tried to think of how best to answer this and what lies to tell, a high, thin wailing began, floating in from outside. Was it sirens? Some sort of alarm?

Anise hissed something under her breath and rose, kicking her chair across the room. Clara jumped back. It was easy to forget, given Anise's slight frame, how strong she was.

But then came the startling thought—shouldn't Clara, as a fellow two-blooded monster, be as strong herself? She flexed her arms and legs, subtly, testing. Wishful thinking? If only she had the chance to assess her power without arousing suspicion. If only she knew
how
to assess it.

In the anteroom of the queen's chambers, doors slammed open, and Borschalk—slightly limping, dappled with cuts and bruises—entered the room, his bow stiff with pain. Clara could not help but be disturbed at the sight of him and wonder what wounds his clothes concealed, although it was nothing, she reminded herself, compared to what had happened to her mother. His expression was blank, but Clara caught, when his eyes flicked to hers, a flash of unmistakable hatred.

“My queen, I apologize for disturbing you, but there is—”

“I know what the alarms are for.” Anise snatched a heavy brocaded coat, beaded with crystal, from a pile on the floor. She hardly spared a glance for her injured lover as she swept toward the doors. “Clara, come. You need to see this.”

Clara took a furred coat from the same pile, nearly tripping over herself in her haste to catch up. Borschalk limped doggedly behind, ruining Clara's brief flare of hope that she could make a run for it with Anise so distracted.

Outside on the wide obsidian steps that marked the palace entrance, Clara shivered in her coat and fine satin slippers. Beyond the steps, a dark road wound down to the surrounding city. Faery soldiers stood at attention in two lines on either side of them. Snow fell in biting gusts.

Borschalk clapped his hands once. A group of soldiers stepped forward and threw dirty heaps of something to the ground. Anise toed through the heaps, her coat trailing behind her.

No. Not heaps. Clara realized it with a slow trickle of dismay.

The heaps were
humans
, clothed in rags, rouge and white paint smeared across their faces. Their rags were the bedraggled remains of costumes. On their feet they wore dancing slippers stained with
blood. They looked, Clara thought, like entertainers who had escaped some macabre circus—perhaps they were.

“You thought you could escape me.” Anise's voice was soft as she circled the humans, running her bejeweled fingers along their backs. One of them, a young man, began to sob. “Haven't you seen what happens to runaways?”

They did not answer. Their eyes fixed on anything but her.

Anise stopped in front of them. She did not raise her voice. She did not have to. The sweet lilt of her words was terrifying enough. “Answer me, or you will die in the most undignified manner possible.”

“Yes,” one of the humans gasped, a woman with chunks of stringy hair dyed green.

“Yes?” Anise kicked her, watching coldly. “But didn't you want to come here? I know many people who would kill to serve at the Summer Palace. I'm sure some of you did kill. Or betray your loved ones. Or”—Anise gestured at the sobbing young man and laughed—“cut off your own arm in some sort of black market trade, to get here.”

Borschalk, a monster in the snowy evening light, ripped a crude prosthetic from the sobbing man's shoulder and smashed it on the ground. A mangled stump remained behind. The man convulsed, screaming. Clara wanted to turn away, but she could feel Anise's attention on her and didn't dare.

“I'm offended at your lack of gratitude,” Anise said, pouting. “Your race hunts mine in a war that lasts decades, simply because we are different from you, because our magic confounds you.” She paced as she spoke, regal and splendid. “You cut us open, you raid our villages, you lock us in dungeons and laboratories. And when I rose up against you and beat you, I allowed you to live despite your crimes. I even offer those willing to work for it a chance to live here, at my own palace. But even after I provide you with everything you could want here, you repay me by trying to escape. It's insulting.” She paused, her eyes flashing. Clara could hardly breathe. She imagined Nicholas poised over a faery patient,
like Dr. Victor and his wayward girls—scalpel ready, poisons in tiny lined-up vials. She felt torn between revulsion and sympathy. If someone had done that to Clara's own people, would she not be as violent and vengeful?

She found, uneasily, that she could not answer her own question.

“But I can be magnanimous.” Anise pursed her lips as if deep in thought. “I'll allow you to choose your punishment. You may either be executed immediately . . .”

Terrified for the humans, Clara imagined herself and her father being held before Anise as these people were—being judged and threatened, their lives hanging by tenuous threads. She imagined Felicity there too, done up in tear-streaked makeup and torn skirts, weeping for mercy like the one-armed young man. Something within her began to rebel, something furious and frightened and frigid. On her wrist, where she had smeared the drop of her blood, a spark of silver caught her eye. When she looked down, it had gone.

“Or,” Anise continued, “you may keep your lives but your rations of sugar will be permanently suspended.”

At once the humans struggled to their hands and knees, crying out piteously.

“No, please!” They crawled toward Anise, fumbled at the hem of her coat. “Anything,
anything
but that. . . .”

The one-armed man sobbed loudest. Anise knelt before him and smoothed back his hair. “Do you want some sugar?”

“Yes! Yes, my queen. I do, desperately.” He kissed her fingers, slobbering over her rings. “Please, please . . .”

Clara had to look away.

“Very well.” Anise nodded at Borschalk, who grinned. “Then you shall have it.”

Clara knew that she would never forget what happened next. Even if this did turn out to be a dream, as a tiny part of her still chose to hope, and she awoke safe in her bed—even then, Clara would remember the
faery soldiers shoving needles into the humans' arms, emptying syringes full of glowing blue liquid into their veins.

The humans smiled, eyes drooping as the liquid sugar pumped through their blood. They began to glow softly, their skin tinged blue and green, a sick gleam flickering in their eyes.

When the dosage became too much, they began to convulse. Their skin bulged and ruptured, spewing blood and steaming blue liquid. They vomited, but it did not help; they were choking on sweet chemical blue. Their screams—half in pain, half in mad ecstasy—rang across the plaza. The sound tore through Clara, hammered against her bones. Stirred her. Electrified her.

This could happen to her father. Maybe it already had.

Perhaps she could fight for them. She blinked, the idea startling her, as if it were not her own. As if it were born of something
more
than herself. In response, her blood came alive. Her senses snapped to cold, furious attention.

This, it occurred to her, was a chance to see what her power, her new silver strength, could do.

Clara took a hesitant step forward, dreadfully afraid. Deep in her bones something cold and stinging churned. She had no idea what she was doing; she hoped it wouldn't kill her.

Anise let the humans writhe in agony for long moments, spoiled blood gurgling at their blue-tinged lips. Her soldiers, decorum forgotten, roared with laughter.

And Clara, eager with anger and fear, let loose the energy building inside her.

It erupted, like a scream held back for too long. A cold wave of pure force burst out from her, as if set free by the opening of her hands. Somewhere in this ear-popping din Clara felt a vital, unseen line hanging down from the churning sky, connecting her and the heavens, and even, she felt, connecting her to the stars beyond.

She reached for it and tugged.

Lightning flashed, burning her hands, knocking her flat. The wind shrieked more loudly even than Anise's trains.

Silence fell. A quaking, charged aftermath.

Clara raised herself up, shaking, her chin raw where it had scraped the ground. Across the way lay two soldiers, burned alive and screaming. The ground around them was charred and slick with ice, as if some great force had dropped out of the sky and flayed them.

For a moment no one said or did anything. The snow continued to fall. The gathered soldiers stared at Clara in astonishment, and the humans, barely alive now, looked to Clara through their agony. They were dying, and yet their eyes now held a last, desperate hope—because of
her
.

Borschalk was the first to move. He unsheathed a great broadsword and stalked toward her. He did not have to say anything; his intent was plain.

“Don't.” Anise raised her arm. “Don't touch her.”

Clara swayed, her hands outstretched. She felt dizzy, battered. Her skin crackled with energy, and her fingers glowed faintly, like the lightning that had crashed down from the sky.

If this was magic, she thought woozily, then no wonder Godfather was so unpredictably mad, and Anise, too. Magic hurt. It was brutal, and she felt stupid for ever thinking she could hope to control it. She stumbled, and the watching soldiers muttered in alarm. Some of them moved back; others readied their weapons.

A beat, and then Anise took Borschalk's sword and turned to the humans. The one-armed man raised his hand—“No,” he gasped, “wait”—but then Anise beheaded him, and then the others, in four swift strokes. Her lip curled at the mess now staining the steps.

“Take them to Ketcher,” she said, pointing at the still-screaming soldiers, “though he won't be able to do much for them. Borschalk, escort Clara to my chambers.”

Borschalk grinned that terrible grin and seized Clara's arm hard
enough to bruise. She cried out, and Anise's eyes snapped with rage.

“You would be wise, Borschalk, not to hurt her, or even touch her.” Beneath her smirk, something sad sparked in her eye and then was snuffed out. “You've only experienced the barest sliver of what I can do to you. Are you eager for more so soon?”

With a tiny growl Borschalk released Clara's arm and bowed. “No, my queen.”

They left Anise there, a pensive white spectre on the steps, and hurried back through the palace. News of what had happened was already starting to spread. Murmuring courtiers peered out of their parlors, and human slaves in the shadows gaped past their sores. Clara tried to ignore what this could mean, fear hammering at her breast, and focus on their passage. There, on the northern end of the first floor, was a dark receiving hall lined with candles, and there, on the southern end, a grand hall, perhaps Anise's court. She checked them against the map she had drawn in her mind during the day's tour.

“You take pleasure in what she has done to me, perhaps,” Borschalk said, low, as they approached Anise's chambers, high in the southernmost tower.

“No, I don't,” Clara whispered, and it was the truth. “I swear to you—”

“And I swear
this
—that I am watching you, and that, my queen's orders or no, punishment or no, I will drain you of every silver drop before I allow you to betray her. Do not think for one moment, mage filth, that you are safe here.”

He did disobey Anise then, as he wrenched Clara's arm to shove her inside the queen's suite, and his bruised face crawled with loathing—but there was also, she thought, an uncertainty there. Caution.