Winterspell (51 page)

“Always, to you.”

“Are you better now?”

He met her eyes. “I can fight.”

“And you will.” She jerked her head at the others. “This way.”

For a time the way was clear. Clara's power reached far beyond her, following the path of the tunnel's cool, still air, but something awaited them at the end of it—something that confused her.

When they reached it, she saw why.

Their tunnel ended where it formed a junction with another one, in a T shape. At the junction stood a steel door, ajar. From within glowed a wavering blue light.

Kora peered suspiciously at it. “And what do your two-blood senses tell you about this room?”

Clara ignored her. The air here was rank, but more than that, it
felt
rank, lined with something insidious and torpid. The wrongness of it pulled at her, insisting she investigate.

She glanced at Godfather. He nodded; perhaps he felt it too.

She opened the door.

Beyond it lay a room lined with beds. Each bed was draped with
once-rich fabric gone black with mold and decay. The chandelier in the center of the room crawled with bats and their waste.

On each bed lay a mage.

Their bloodshot eyes fluttered open and shut; they wore sweat-stained robes of silk and satin. Tubes extended from the flesh of their upper arms into an elaborate mess of pipes in the ceiling, where a slow swarm of mechaniks buzzed, blue crackling between them. Pistons hissed rhythmically as bright blue liquid flowed down from the ceiling, through the tubes, and into the mages.

Ralk lowered his bow. “What in the name of the stars is this place?”

Godfather bent at the nearest bed, pulling down the skin beneath the mage's eyes. The mage groaned and twisted, as if in a dream, and when he exhaled, smiling distantly, blue foam gathered at the corner of his mouth.

“She's keeping them drugged.” Godfather inspected each one, disgusted. “They're alive, but barely.”

“Why?” Kora looked small and suddenly frail. “Why would she do this?”

Clara stood in the middle of the room. “She bonded with them.” She could feel the bindings, stretching from the mages up into the castle, to wherever Anise was, like invisible, sinister chains. As if in response, something tugged her toward Nicholas.

Ralk was furious. “But why?”

“Perhaps she believes that the more mages are bound to her, the more control she, as a royal, will have over the land.”

Godfather nodded. “The land that is rapidly spiraling out of her control.”

Nicholas leaned hard on a bedpost, skin shining with sweat. “She keeps them blue and keeps them sweet, drugs their minds and drugs their meat.”

Clara's hand flew to her dagger. “Nicholas?”

“I'm fine. I hear her, though. Riddles and songs. She's in a corner
of me somewhere, rocking. Dancing. Digging.” His dark eyes searched her face. “Clara, you must think me—”

“Brave. Yes.” She took his hand. “Strong. That's what I think.”

His eyes softened, and for a moment he seemed fully himself. There were tired lines around his eyes and mouth. Then a shock ripped through him. He shoved Clara back toward the door.

“Leave! Go! Now!”

Clara felt it the next instant—a disturbance in the air, the ground trembling as something rushed toward them. A door at the other end of the room swung open. Four faeries entered, in uniforms of braided leather cords and high black boots.

One of them was Borschalk.

* * *

“Ah,” Borschalk said, his face tight with hatred. “If it isn't the queen's little princess.”

He darted toward them, the other soldiers at his heels.

Clara readied herself to fight, but before she could strike, white light flashed to the ceiling. An electric explosion littered blue sparks to the floor; pipes of sugar burst, spewing liquid. Metal beams fell from the ceiling, blocking Borschalk's path.

“Go!” Ralk summoned another arrow.

Clara hesitated, but Nicholas pulled her on, and as they barreled back through the door they'd entered through—Godfather and Kora behind them—they heard another crash, the crack of bone, a scream.

Kora cried out, “Ralk—”

“Wanted us to run.” Godfather pushed her on.

Clara led them down the dripping tunnel, trying frantically to maintain focus for navigation, but the door was slamming open behind them, and heavy splashes marked Borschalk's pursuit. She felt giddy with fear.

Up,
she thought, instinct taking over.
Out of these tunnels.
She did not want to die trapped underground like a rat. But the tunnel was
bending, eternal. Nicholas's breathing rattled behind her. Then she felt it, a draft from the right. A fresh wave of air.

She turned them into the dark. At the rear Kora made an arrow; it was stronger here, in the fresher air. She notched it, let it fly. It shot into the dark behind them, and a faery screamed.

Clara's headset crackled, and Bo's voice spoke in her ear, tiny and worried. “Clara? What's happening? I lost you there for a while.”

“Underground.” There was blue torchlight ahead, stairs, and then an archway. Clara ran for the steps, and the others followed.

“The city's gone mad, Clara. I can see everything from here. The wall's
swaying
, and the storms—”

“Can't talk, Bo!”

They reached the top of the stairs, raced into a wider hallway with bare black walls and iron sconces, and high windows near the ceiling. Power gathered at Clara's fingertips, surging out from her gut.
We need an escape,
she directed it, and it obeyed, slamming through a half-formed door that cascaded into lifeless mechaniks at her touch.

“Wait,” Nicholas murmured. “I know where we are.”

He pushed past them into the room beyond—a wide gallery, with tall pointed windows of dark glass webbed with iron, drapes with frayed hems, a high ceiling.

A throne, black and monstrous, glittering with blue jewels.

“They came at us here.” His voice was haunted, his face drawn. “They crashed through the windows and crawled down the walls. . . .”

Then he fell, screaming. A ridge of plates erupted across his collar bones, tearing open his shirt.

Behind them Kora screeched. Clara turned in time to see her jerked back, through the door and into darkness. Her bow flew from her. Awful crunching sounds ripped through the air; the crackling blue electricity burned Clara's nose.

Borschalk leapt into the throne room, his hands dripping silver. He locked eyes with Clara and raised his spear.

“Get
back
,” Godfather said, shoving her toward Nicholas, but Nicholas spun out of her grip with a savage cry and ran toward the faeries, his sword at the ready.

Clara hurried after him, barely dodging Borschalk's spear. She spun around and met it with her bare hands, shoving him back off his feet with a surge of power that surprised even her. Borschalk's face flickered with uncertainty. Clara thought,
You're right to fear me.
But then the moment passed, and he attacked.

He was strong, his bulk lean and hard, but Clara matched him blow for blow—spinning to kick his legs out from under him, launching icy waves of magic at him that he couldn't quite dodge. One caught his foot and sent him flying into a window.

Behind her, Nicholas cried out in pain.

She whirled. He fought one of the faeries, and Godfather the other, and they were both faltering. The faeries were lithe, their weapons quick. As recklessly as Nicholas wielded his sword, as many times as his blade hit faery armor, it would not be enough. Clara could see that. The curse was taking its toll on him.

And Godfather—he was trying so hard, and holding up fairly well, considering, but he was unsteady without his cane. His opponent's spear caught him under the arm. Silver blood spurted; he stumbled, but still managed to point over Clara's shoulder and cry out.

Clara turned at his warning, saw the faeries—four,
six
—spilling in through the door.

They were outnumbered.

Desperately she leapt at them and thrust her arm out, parallel to her body. The magic in the air blasted toward them, knocked them off their feet.

But Borschalk was leaping for her; she could feel his shadow bearing down upon her.

She rolled away, avoiding the crash of his body. Instantly he was up, lunging for her on all fours, bestial. Long strands of jewels
dangled from his right ear, and Clara recognized them as Anise's.

Nicholas dove onto him, wild, and plunged his sword into his back. Borschalk howled, reared up, and threw him off. Nicholas skidded across the floor, metal scraping metal, and was still.

Clara stared at his prone form in terror. A cry from behind her drew her attention. The faeries were swarming on Godfather, and Clara's heart soared with pride to see him fight so beautifully, despite his wounds, despite his weakened magic. He fought with dim light and sword, his coat swirling about him. This was the man she knew, the man who had taught her everything.

But it was not enough. He was falling; the faeries were closing in on him. Nicholas was still; Borschalk, wheezing, crawled toward his fallen spear.

She closed her eyes, grabbed hold of her power, and shoved it down—past the riveted metal floor, beyond the layers of surging mechaniks ready to move at Anise's command, into the stone and earth of Wahlkraft's oldest foundations.

Once there she found the pillars and beams supporting the throne room, and delved below them into the heart of the earth. There—fresh earth and pockets of air. She could breathe again, and so could her magic. And it
hurt
, the scale of magic she was about to release; it tore at her muscles, blinding her with pain. But she forced herself to focus, and felt for the ground, and pulled.

The floor began to buckle.

The faeries paused, looking about them.

Clara found Godfather, caught the dear, lone gray eye. “Protect him.”

For an instant he looked devastated, as though something had crumbled inside him. But the floor was wobbling dangerously and the faeries were yelling in panic, scrambling to get away.

A great weight beneath them snapped. Godfather hauled Nicholas to his feet and staggered with him to safety. They barely
made it to the room's edge before the floor collapsed, the foundations giving way, the earth driven apart beneath them. The faeries fell, scrabbling for purchase on the tilting floor. The last one she saw was Borschalk, clinging to a beam. Her magic pulsed through the room more thickly than air, making it difficult to breathe, crusting his reaching hand with ice.

Then the beam snapped, and he slid into blackness.

Across the chasm that had been the throne room, Godfather threw himself and Nicholas to the ground. Clara stumbled back against the throne, shielding her eyes.

The impact had woken Nicholas. He called for her through the clouds of black dust. She saw his figure, his balled fists, his stricken face. “Clara, no! What have you done?”

At Clara's ear her headset crackled, whined, and settled into a low buzz. “Bo? Bo, are you there?”

Nothing. The light at her cheek went dim.

Nicholas was beside himself. “Clara, stop!”

She turned to face the throne, behind which a great curtained doorway led to stairs cloaked in darkness.

Clara,
Anise's voice whispered merrily in the walls.

Furious, her eyes watering from the sting of wreckage, sugar, and sulfurous rot, Clara wiped the sweat from her palms. “Where are you?”

Come and find me.

The walls moved, undulating. Then they lit up, and a face appeared in panels on every wall—bleeding and swollen, unshaven. Netted in blue lightning.

John Stole was screaming. Magic burned angry lines across his face. Tiny black mechaniks scampered up his throat, swarming him like bees. He clawed at them; his screams became inhuman, hysterical. Behind him Clara saw a green sky and black towers.

He was twisting strangely.

She looked harder. He was in
midair
.

“The roof!” Godfather cried out from where he lay, nursing what looked to be a broken leg. Silver pooled beneath him.

She nodded. Yes. High above everyone, for all the kingdom to see. Anise could not resist putting on a show.

Nicholas reached toward her, screaming her name, begging for her to stop, but she turned away and pushed past the throne's curtains into the staircase soft with shadows. Whispers laughed at her heels. Her father's screams and Nicholas's fading pleas followed her up.

And up, and up.

The whispers said,
Clara.

Clara.

Clara.

T
he stairs led up a tower and then out onto a network of slender walkways that jutted out from the battlements and connected clusters of towers like a lattice. Grotesque statuaries and elaborate parapets lined each walkway, and gargoyles protruded from the rounded tower walls—sea serpents, loks, monstrous stags. The castle was black and shining, and the sky was lit by a storm.

Above Clara's walkway hung a man in a burning blue net. He was frozen in place, his limbs twisted.

Father.
She barely resisted calling to him.

Anise waited, pale in white furs, her hair loose, as it had been
that night.
Clara hardened herself against the thought.

“Finally,” Anise said, bored, amused. Her eyes were everywhere. Kambots lined the jagged towers, silent and waiting.

Clara stepped out onto the walkway. It was stable, but around her, towers shifted and climbed, spooling and unspooling like spindles being crafted from shadows.

Everywhere—affixed to the battlements, hanging from railway trestles—chromocasts displayed Clara's image, and Anise's image, and the image of her father, like a hall of lit-up mirrors. It was as though this were a stage and she and Anise the players.