Winterspell (41 page)

“I'm glad you're here,” Anise said at last, and she looked not a queen in that moment but a girl. A girl like Clara—breaking, and determined not to.

A second sting of betrayal then, as Anise nestled into her arms to sleep. Clara felt it, and lay awake with it long into the night.

It changed nothing, she decided. This night changed nothing—except that she should leave sooner, before Anise charmed her completely, before she forgot herself.

She poked Anise. A genuine thrill of gladness shot through her when the queen opened her eyes, and frightened her.

“Are you charming me?”

Anise was blearily puzzled. “What?”

“I know magic folk can charm. Is that why I feel so . . .” She stopped, embarrassed.

“I would not dishonor you with such a deception.” Then a sleepy smile, a soft caress. “Not you, dear Clara. I suppose you truly love me.”

Love? As Anise drifted back into sleep, Clara thought it over, troubled. No. Not love. Not
yet
. But certainly fascination and empathy, and the potential for something more. Something overpowering, something magnificent and electric. Love? Clara turned away from the word. The queen held her close. Warmed, Clara let her eyes fall shut.

“Sleep,” Anise whispered. “You need rest for tomorrow.”

Ah, yes. Tomorrow.

The party.

A
t sunset the next evening, after a day of fevered preparations, Anise paraded Clara down the twisting main thoroughfare to the base of the city, near the outer wall. There stood two enormous tents, newly fashioned for the occasion—one blue and gold, one plum and black. Towering ironwork signs spelled their names in bright, flashing lights, as if they were part of a traveling circus:
ROTTEFEST
, the blue-and-gold tent;
KABARET DREADFUL
, the plum-and-black.

Faeries lined the route, in garish masks and furs, in headdresses that trailed across the black cobblestones and looked suspiciously made of human hair, inlaid with feathers and strings of metal. They cheered and danced, and their skin shimmered. They held humans close on bedazzled ropes like pets.

“Everyone's waiting,” Anise said, pointing down at the tents. She wore a glistening gown of blue and plum, a cool contrast to Clara's gown of emerald and gold. Their hems dripped with diamonds, and their skin shone with unholy amounts of glitter. “They're breathless to see you. I'll show you off, and everyone will dance, and it will be perfect.” Anise pressed a hot kiss to Clara's hand. “They'll see. They'll
understand
us, Clara, once they see us together like this.”

Clara tried to imagine the masked eyes following her down the street looking at her with anything but hatred and jealousy, and failed.

At the entrance to Rottefest, she paused. The sounds coming from within assaulted her—relentless, pounding music and savage cries. Swirling lights flashed across Anise's face. Clara was terribly afraid, but Anise took her hand and grinned.

“Come,” she said, “they're waiting for us.”

Clara had no choice but to follow. She forced a bashful smile as Anise escorted her inside, through an immense ballroom where grotesquely masked humans held trays of food at the ready—bright blue flower bulbs stuffed with pink fruit, white cakes striped with crimson frosting. Other humans hung in cages from the ceiling, blood seeping through their stockings. Their masks were white, with no eyes and great, gaping mouths.

Anise guided Clara to a black throne at the height of the room. From there they could see everything—the whirling dancers on the tiled floor and the white-masked humans tumbling in their cages, prodded by laughing faeries with sizzling spears. Borschalk, lurking nearby, glaring at them from within the cloud of his pipe. Hangers-on, half-clothed and bearing gifts, waiting patiently in line on the winding steps that led to Anise's throne.

Anise laughed behind her hand. “Look at them, scrambling to find you presents.”

In fact, Clara felt sick to look at them. She felt such hate bubbling from them and wondered that Anise could not feel it too. She was beginning to lose her courage, here in this pulsing, raging room. The strange euphoria from the previous night had been replaced with a slithering unease. As she nibbled at strange skewered creatures she could not name, faery courtiers with elaborate headdresses and nacreous tattoos filed before her. They bowed, murmured adorations, placed various delicacies and shining gems at her feet.

“My lady,” they murmured. “For you, my lady.”

Clara churned out smile after false smile, and even that much seemed dangerous. As the faeries petted her hands, kissed her fingers,
looked at her cuttingly from behind their feathers, she found it hard not to constantly recoil.

By midnight Clara's head ached from the noise, and her lips burned from the dessert Anise had made her eat—a spindly purple plant whose thorns, Anise insisted, were divine if you managed to suck out their insides without pricking your tongue. Clara was desperate to move, to slam her hand into the air, summon a Door, and get out of there. If she had to watch one more group of human slaves paraded across the stage in frenetic dances, whipped on by soldiers and jeered at by the audience, she would lose her mind.

At the first spare moment, when no courtiers loitered lazily at their feet, Clara touched Anise's arm. The queen turned, sucking the last thorn from the purple stem in her hands.

“Come closer,” she drawled, thickly. She was drunk—drunk on wine, drunk on sugar. “Act like you're sharing something particularly salacious with me. It will intrigue them, and impress them.”

Clara forced a coy smile and leaned in, her lips brushing the jewels lining Anise's ear. The queen shivered. Her eyes drifted shut.

“Last night,” Clara said, low, “we talked of many things.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“We talked of remaking the world.”

“We talked of our mothers.”

“But remaking the
world
,” Clara insisted. “Isn't that what you said you want to do?”

“Of course.”

Clara sensed eyes upon them—Borschalk on the prowl, eyes keen behind his nightbird mask. He was not alone in watching them. Faeries throughout the room—on the stage, across the shining floor, in the throngs of dancing bodies—kept sharp attention upon them. Clara leaned closer to Anise, trailed her fingers down her arm.

“Surely
this
”—Clara looked pointedly around them—“is not what you meant by remaking the world. The humans, my queen.
They're being
tormented
. Your courtiers are hurting them.”

Anise laughed. “Well, you can't expect them to change overnight, can you? First we will win them over, make them respect you.”

She sounded lazy, horribly unconcerned. Clara drew back, fuming. “I thought you meant it,” she said, ashamed to hear how her voice trembled. “I thought you wanted to change things. Or did you just say what you think I wanted to hear?”

Anise, still lounging, grabbed her arm, held it fast. “How dare you! Don't you trust me, Clara?”

“How can I, when you let them—”

“Because they doubt me, Clara. They see how I've treated you, and it doesn't make sense to them. If I don't let them have their fun, they'll turn on us both. We need this night.”

Clara's mind screamed with suspicion. There was too much amusement on Anise's face as she surveyed the ghastly activities being inflicted upon the humans—too much bloodlust, too much smug delight. Clara folded her hands tightly in her lap, struggling for composure amid such battering waves of disappointment. The waves woke her up, flung her mind out of its Anise-fog. Clara had so wanted to believe her. As impossible as it would have seemed only days earlier, she had wanted, for a time, to
stay
. To explore this thing, this blossoming closeness to Anise. There was a certain safety here, under Anise's beautiful wing, and a certain . . .
deliciousness
.

Remaking the world together. What an outrageous farce, if Anise's gleeful expression was any indication. Lies, layers of lies, mazes of lies. That, Clara was starting to realize, was her lot in life—to always be fighting against deception.

It did not matter. She could not stop pretending. “I'm sorry. I didn't know—”

“Don't apologize.” Anise shifted, the slits in her gown sliding open to reveal long white legs dusted with silver powder. “That's your first mistake.”

Anise snapped her fingers. An attendant beside the throne flipped switches on a mechanical board lit with dials. The lights, swinging overhead, shone a new, harsher blue. In response the dancing faeries scattered across the floor shouted their appreciation. The paint streaking their bodies glowed in unearthly colors. The volume of the music increased, the vibrations leaving Clara feeling tightly wound and uneasy.

Anise pulled Clara to her feet, and Clara realized, with a start, that they were the only two people in this entire frantic party without masks to hide them.

“Come, Clara,” Anise purred, drawing her close. “Dance with me.”

* * *

They danced for hours, surrounded by hundreds of faeries—an undulating press of feathered masks, masks of bone, masks of thin metal plates, corsets of creaking leather and chain, collars of ridged wire. High in the rafters hooded faeries pounded on drums the size of motorcars. Sweat, tinged with the smell of the sea, stung Clara's nostrils as she was whirled between Anise and countless nameless, faceless courtiers. They moved against her, obscenely close, murmured vaguely threatening compliments in her ear, and kissed her hands. Some of them gripped her waist too hard, making her cry out.

When she was returned to Anise, she clung to the queen's body gratefully.

“Enjoying yourself?” Anise asked, laughter in her voice.

How to answer her? Every so often a faery passed through with a tray of iced creams and thin sugar pipes. With everyone watching her, Clara had no choice but to partake. Her head ached, her mouth had dried out, her vision danced with colors, and even the lightest touch to her body sent shuddering heat flooding through her. She had never felt more alive, nor closer to death. She found herself craving more, grabbing for offered pipes with an eagerness that worried her even as she reached for them; she needed her senses sharp and focused if she was to survive the night.

If she was going to escape when it was over.

Her heart gave a twinge of unrest. A plan had come to her in Anise's arms. She still did not know where her father was being held. Perhaps if she stayed—oh, if she
stayed
—she could barter for him; she could dull the memory of her former life in Anise's embrace. But it was too dangerous here, too blissful one moment and horrific the next.

“I much preferred last night to this party,” Clara answered, letting her eyes fall shut to relish the room's unnatural spin, the hot points of light that were Anise's fingers on her waist. “Too much noise, too many people.”

Anise laughed shrilly. They migrated from blue-and-gold Rottefest to plum-and-black Kabaret Dreadful, where the light was darker and snakelike sugar pipes hung from the ceiling. Faeries attached themselves to the openings like suckling babes. The occasional bold human smashed them out of the way and managed a desperate few gulps before being dragged off.

“Borschalk thinks,” Anise slurred as they moved against each other beneath the revolving lights, “that you mean to betray me.”

Clara tried not to react. The sugar in her blood made it difficult to school her features, but hopefully Anise would not be able to tell. The queen was even unsteadier than she.

“Does he?” Clara said.

“He thinks you don't deserve me. He wants you out of my bed, and himself back in. But you're prettier than he is. You're sweeter.” She leaned close, conspiratorial, wound Clara's hair around her finger and brought the red coil to her lips. “He thinks you don't love me. Not really, anyway. He thinks you're in love with that boy.”

Clara's heart began to race. This was the opening she needed, but she could not enjoy it. Such betrayal, such a bitter regret. She felt sorry for Anise, and embarrassed for her—and terrified for herself.

She let out what she hoped was a careless laugh. “Nicholas?”

“Well?” Anise tugged on Clara's arm, insistent, petulant. “Do you?”

“Maybe I did, once.” That was true enough, and her pulse leapt with shameful longing. “But then I met you.” She brushed a damp strand of hair from Anise's cheek, and the queen's eyes widened with hope. “We are the same, you and I. How could there ever be anyone else?”

Bending low, cupping Anise's face sweetly, she brushed a kiss across her lips. Anise gasped against her mouth, shivering. New music began, even more frantic. The faeries surrounding them threw up their hands. Cannons on the perimeter of the room fired sparkling jetties of flame into the air.

Anise, bright-eyed and ferocious, yanked Clara close and kissed her deeply. The kiss stung with duplicity, and with horrible, horrible delight. Clara knew she should have been celebrating, and part of her was. She had said the right things. She could feel Anise's joy thrumming against her body, and joy would make her careless. The queen whispered frantic endearments, then dipped to whisper them against Clara's throat. When she laughed, it was bright like morning.

The music pounded on.

A
t two o'clock Anise stumbled with Clara into a curtained alcove on Kabaret Dreadful's mezzanine, lavishing her neck with kisses.

“My queen,” Clara gasped, trying to detach herself. “Wait.”

Anise pouted, her lips swollen blue.
“What?”

This was madness. Yet Anise was drunk, close to collapsing, and if Clara could, in these last moments, get from her even the tiniest hint . . .