Magic Under Stone (3 page)

I smiled, just a little, at that. Sometimes my bravery only brought me trouble, and it was good to know that it could bring someone peace.

“I know it all must look a little bleak right now,” Karstor continued. “But we never know what fate has in store for us.”

It was true. A year ago, I was just a foreign girl of no importance, dancing in a cheap show, and today I was having breakfast with one of the most powerful men in the country. Tomorrow, I would be on a train north to find a man who would, I hoped, be more powerful still.

Chapter 2

The train brought us as far as Cernan, the northernmost stop on a route that stretched almost the entire length of the coast. This place was a far cry from where we had begun, the grand station in New Sweeling, with its golden halls and stairs, statues and glittering gaslights.

There was no one to meet us, of course, although plenty to stare at us. The train station was hardly more than a shack, and the few people who had gotten off with us were quickly met by their relations. At least, I assumed they were relations because they looked the same, but as I glanced at one lean, weather-beaten, dark-haired individual after another, I wondered if the entire town wasn’t related.

I halted to check my map. “I didn’t think this town would be so small. I hope we can hire a hack.”

Erris was quiet, as he had been for most of the journey. We had started out talking about the sights flying by our windows, and he
had made jokes, but I could tell he was relieved when I fell silent for long stretches.

A young man approached, perhaps only a year or two older than my seventeen years. He hitched up his trousers with the hand not grasping a cigarette. “You people looking for something?” He placed a subtle emphasis on
you people
. I wondered if he could tell Erris was a fairy, but perhaps not, for I was the one who seemed the focus of his scrutiny. Fairies looked much like Lorinarian humans, but my black hair and brown skin marked me as a foreigner.

The man at the ticket counter, the porter, the families greeting each other—all their attention subtly shifted to see what we would say.

“Yes, we are,” I said, folding my map halfway. “Ordorio Valdana.”

You could have heard the trees growing in the ensuing silence.

An older man who had just stepped off the train marched into the conversation. “Ordorio Valdana? What would you want with him? What’s going on?”

Erris finally spoke. “We’ve come a long way, from New Sweeling, looking for Mr. Valdana.”

We could have told them the ambassador of magic himself had sent us, but the less talk we left in our wake, the better.

The younger man took a drag on his cigarette. “The minute I saw them, I said to myself, I bet they’re here to see that old lunatic. Well, he’s not even home, so you might as well get right back on that train.”

I had grown sadly accustomed to being condescended to ever since I’d arrived on these shores. They’d have to do better than that to get rid of me. “When will he be back?”

“Probably not until spring,” the older man said.

The older man’s wife had been waiting behind him, but now
she joined his side and the conversation. I half expected the man in the ticket booth to abandon his post and trot out his opinion as well. She said, “You know that man sold his soul to the devil?”

“Come again?” I didn’t know if she meant it literally, or if the fact that Mr. Valdana was a necromancer had biased the town against him.

The men nodded. “You don’t want anything to do with him if you know what’s good for you.”

“What’s good for us?” Erris repeated. “No, we certainly don’t know that. Where does Mr. Valdana live?” he pressed.

The townspeople exchanged looks, as if deciding to wash their hands of our fate. The old woman pointed toward the bald-topped mountain looming north of the train station. “On the shore by the mountain.”

“Thank you,” Erris said, bowing in a courtly way that left them flustered. “Come on, Nimira.”

I was relieved to see him taking charge, but then, finding Mr. Valdana was the only thing he cared about since learning that his sister had been married to the man. Melia’s husband was, in a sense, the only tie Erris had to what once had been a boisterous royal family of ten children. Yet, I was terrified that after we met Mr. Valdana and heard the fate of Erris’s sister, he would have nothing else to live for.

I didn’t delude myself that I might be enough. Never mind that he was all I had too. It had been a long time since I’d had anyone to care for.

Erris carried both our bags to a waiting hack. “We’re headed for the shore, by the mountain.”

The driver’s eyes narrowed. “Mr. Valdana?”

“Yes.”

The driver snorted. He could have been a brother to the old man we’d spoken to a moment before; they shared the same large nostrils and jutting chin. “You’ve got money?”

“Of course.” I patted my pocketbook.

When the man pointed his eyes forward again, we took that as permission to board. Erris gave me a hand. He touched me only sparingly now, perhaps ashamed of what he was, and yet every time our skin met, my body betrayed me with tingles.

I settled my skirts as Erris climbed up beside me, the weight of the clockwork skeleton beneath his clothes making the bench groan, but the driver didn’t notice.

“You young folks know that Mr. Valdana’s sold his soul to the devil, don’t you?” he said, snapping the reins.

“Truly?” I asked. “How do you know?”

“His parents were good people,” the man continued. “But Valdana was always a strange one. When he came back from New Sweeling after all those years with that half-fairy baby—”

Erris leaned forward. “Baby? Half-fairy baby?”

The driver stiffened and withdrew like a lumbering old tortoise pulling in his shell. “Who are you folks, anyway?” he said. “I’m sure you heard he isn’t even home.”

“We just want to look at the place,” I said. “We heard he’s a legendary sorcerer, and we’re ... curious.”

“I’m a sorcery student,” Erris added. I was glad he had offered a good explanation. Women were not permitted at sorcery schools in Lorinar, so I couldn’t think of much reason I would seek out a famous sorcerer myself.

No response from the driver, but I didn’t think he believed us. We made such a strange pair I doubted any explanation would legitimize our presence.

I was a little surprised no one recognized us from the papers, for that matter, which showed how far we had traveled. Just a month ago, the story had been on the front page of the
New Sweeling Times:
the lost prince of fairy, Erris Tanharrow, found trapped in the body of a clockwork man, thirty years after the war in which he had disappeared! Here, we were anonymous again, if not unnoticed.

The carriage jolted along the surprisingly well-maintained road, past trees just beginning to turn color. Autumn began early this far north. The cool sea breeze felt pleasant now, but I could tell winter would be long and bitter—already the air whispered a warning of things to come.

We drove through thick forest around the foot of the mountain, turned a corner, and there, visible in the distance where the land jetted toward the sea, was a formidable stone house with red trim around arched windows, giving it a surprisingly fanciful air. I knew it must belong to Mr. Valdana.

“There it is,” the driver said.

“I didn’t expect it to be so fetching,” Erris said, which prompted a sharp grunt from the driver, as if he scolded Erris for appreciating the house of such a man.

There was barely a driveway carved through the trees. Some of the windows were open—a white curtain even fluttered outward from one—but there were no signs of life.

“Shall I wait here while you satisfy your curiosity?” the driver asked.

Erris was already climbing down. “No,” he said. “We’ll be here a while.”

“Mr. Valdana isn’t home!” the driver said, sounding almost angry that we would want to spend time there.

“But someone is,” Erris said, offering me a hand again.

Curse the electricity of desire that shot from my fingertips to my heart at his touch! My body didn’t seem to know that beneath his clothing, Erris was nothing but clockwork.

If that were ever to change, Mr. Valdana was our only hope.

Chapter 3

Overgrown grasses brushed my skirts as we approached the door. I put a hand to my hat as a strong wind, scented of the ocean, swept over us, almost roaring as it stirred a million leaves. Erris stopped for a moment and looked around, a strange expression on his face—half wonder and half sadness.

I can’t feel the trees anymore
, he had said to me, the first day after he had been granted a kind of life again.

He knocked on the door.

We waited long enough that I took a turn knocking. Someone was home, but would they ever answer the door?

“Maybe we should try walking around the back,” I was saying, just as the ancient hinges creaked and the great slab of carved wood swung open with a groan.

A girl looked out at us. I couldn’t help but notice her scar before anything else—it spread across her cheek, leaving the skin red and mottled, suggesting an accident with a lantern or candle, perhaps.
Without it, she might have been lovely. She was almost as dark as me, with glossy hair the deep brown of pine bark and bold, round eyes. She was tall and slightly plump, in a simple blue dress and apron, no corset.

“Who are you?” she said. She was holding a broom, and I had a feeling she wouldn’t hesitate to strike us with it if she felt the need.

“Erris Tanharrow. My sister was Melia Tanharrow.” Erris cupped his hands in a fairy gesture I’d seen him make before. It seemed to indicate a plea.

Now the bold fire in the girl’s eyes was replaced with something welcoming. The change was startling. She held the door open for us. “Oh, yes. Of course. We had hoped you’d come!”

There was a chill in the dusty room, which had a museum quality to it—the tapestries on the walls were faded; the chairs were ornate and obviously fine, but the fabric seats were frayed. A few newer needlepoint pillows were strewn about and looked quite out of place. There was a sheepskin rug in front of the fireplace and, above it, a painting of a lovely woman carrying a beacon in one hand and a sword in the other. Candles lined the mantel, unlit but dripping with wax.

“The Queen of the Longest Night,” I said softly, gazing at the painting. She had been the one to grant Erris life. Necromancers sometimes worshipped her, for she led spirits into the next world.

“Er ... yes,” the girl said. “I’m sorry it’s so dusty. I try and keep up with it during the summer while Mr. Valdana is here, but ...” She shrugged.

I assumed she must be the housekeeper, then, and she appeared to have no help keeping up the house. She looked about my own age.

“Mr. Valdana told me you might come,” she continued. “Maybe ... maybe you can be of some help. I’m Celestina.”

“What is it you need help with, Celestina?” Erris asked. “We are actually here to ask for Mr. Valdana’s help ourselves.”

“Oh, he won’t come back until spring, I’m afraid,” Celestina said.

“Is there any chance he might?” Erris persisted.

“Or maybe we could go to him,” I suggested. “We can’t wait until spring.”

“I don’t know where he’s gone,” Celestina said. “He travels the world. He might be overseas, he might have crossed the gate into fairy. The northern gate isn’t far at all.”

Erris frowned. We didn’t dare go to the fairy lands just now. Although Erris was the direct heir to the throne, his cousin had ruled for the last thirty years and would not be happy to see Erris.

“You could wait for him to return,” Celestina offered.

“All winter?” I already missed Karstor’s apartment full of art and books, with fresh baked goods every day.

Celestina paused, wrestling a difficult question, before she said, “I’m taking care of Mr. Valdana’s daughter, Violet. She’s fifteen, but it’s a wonder she’s lived this long. She’s very ill. Maybe ... you could help. You’re her uncle.”

“Erris has a niece? But back in New Sweeling, the sorcerers said all the fairy royals died in the war except for Erris,” I said. “If Violet is really his niece, why don’t the sorcerers know about her?”

“Violet is protected by an enchantment,” Celestina said. “If the two of you were to leave this house, you would forget she existed within hours. If I left, I’d forget her too, although it might take a few days since I spend so much time around her.”

“Did Ordorio make that enchantment?” I asked.

“It was the Lady. The Queen of the Longest Night.” Celestina shook her head. “I’ll explain later, if you decide to stay. And if you don’t, you mustn’t speak of this anywhere, even if you do remember bits and pieces of it. I’m putting my trust in you because I’m rather at the end of my wits. Please, won’t you look at her?”

“Of course,” Erris said. “Of course I want to see her anyway. My sister’s child ...”

Celestina led us up a steep and narrow staircase and stopped just before an open door. Her voice dropped. “She’s in here.”

We followed her into the room. Here was the origin of the white curtains I had seen fluttering out of the open windows, matching the white curtains on the canopy bed. They were tied back, and within the airy cocoon, a girl lay sleeping on the pillows. The moment Erris laid eyes on her, his footsteps quickened to her side.

“Mel ...,” he said breathlessly. “She’s the very picture ...”

She was like the ailing young women in romantic fiction, with just a thread tethering her to the mortal plane. Her cheeks were flushed, the rest of her pale as could be, long brown hair rippling across her pillows and nightgown. She barely looked fifteen.

Erris put a hand to her forehead. He looked so tender. My heart ached for him to see this girl who apparently looked like his sister and know his sister was gone. But I couldn’t help my own heart’s aching, thinking how lovely Erris was and how I had saved him, yet he remained elusive. I didn’t want to need him. I didn’t want to feel selfish and wish I were the one to capture all his attention.