Winterspell (21 page)

The girl drew herself up, her eyes keen. She spat red blood. Human, then. Or at least not faery. “Name's Bo.”

“Bo. That's pretty.”

Bo's eyes flitted over the men's bodies. “You killed them, did you? Why?”

Nicholas looked up, surprised. “They were hurting you.”

“Ha. All right. So what do you want for it?”

When Clara did not respond, baffled, Bo frowned. “No one fights for free. You want me to clean something, steal something, what?”

“Is that really the way of things?” Nicholas said quietly.

Bo's eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, just imagining a place where little girls don't get assaulted in the street and then ask their rescuers what the payment is.”

“Look, whoever you are—” Then Bo paused. Her face changed, and on it Clara saw recognition. Her stomach sank as Bo's eyes flicked between her and Nicholas, and back again.

“Huh. So that scum wasn't joking. You
are
the queen's bounty.” Bo pointed at Clara. “At least
you
are. I recognize you. But you—” She raised an eyebrow at Nicholas. She drew a shaky breath, stepped forward, stepped back. For a moment her hardness slipped away, and she looked her age. “You, I couldn't see so well in the chromocast. And now I see why. Probably the queen didn't
want
us to see you so well.”

Clara could hardly breathe. Nicholas's hand was on his sword, but his eyes . . . oh, his eyes held within them a careful light.

“What do you mean?” he said slowly.

Bo's face was hard once more, teetering on the edge of collapse. Her expression warred with itself. “Where've you been? Hmm? Or aren't you who I think you are?”

“I'm sure I don't know—”

“There are old stories.” Bo got to her feet, glaring at him, twice as formidable as she was tall. “And some of us remember 'em. Not many. And some of us don't like to talk about it. Not safe to talk about it. But some of us remember 'em. Some of us've been taught. More of us than the
drekks
like to think.” She thrust a finger at Nicholas's chest, and her voice shook with an emotion too deep for anyone so young to bear. “It
is
you, isn't it? Afa has an old book, she does, so old, and there are pictures in it. Scholars' accounts, ones the
faeries didn't burn. And you're in it. At least I think you are. People sometimes draw pictures on the streets, in the dirt, on walls. The faeries burn them up, of course. They don't want anyone to remember. Maybe I'm dreaming. Maybe I'm dead. How is it possible? You don't look any older.” Her face did crumple now, but when Nicholas reached for her, she stepped away.

“Bo,” he said gently, “it
is
me. I've been somewhere . . . else. Somewhere where time works differently. I was trapped there, so I didn't grow as I would have here.”

“Prove it, then,” she spat. From her jacket she withdrew a small knife, held it steady. “Or I'll gut you, rescuers or no.”

Nicholas knelt and put down his sword, and though Clara wanted to scream at him to stop, to run, she couldn't. On his face shone a naked sorrow—for this girl, crying quietly, with her knife and head held high; for the people tearing themselves to pieces in the streets hunting him; for this place that was nothing like he thought it would be.

His eyes locked on Bo's, Nicholas began to sing:

“The rider and the pirate queen,

The bravest souls there's ever been,

The mason and the fiddler, too—

They came for me, they came for you. . . .”

Clara drew in a sharp breath; it was the tune from before, the one he had hummed in the marketplace. It was so startling to hear his low, somber voice in this way that Clara could do nothing but stare. He seemed careful, as though afraid to sing the words too loudly, and tender—perhaps to comfort Bo?

Bo's expression was full, tumultuous though she did not lower her knife.

Nicholas continued:

“Sinndrie sent the falcons wide,

With Zoya standing by his side.

Their message flew through rock and tree . . .”

Bo stepped closer, her face tight with emotion, and sang,
“Beneath the mountains, o'er the sea.”

Nicholas smiled, and when they kept on, it was together—two hushed voices, one childish and one, Clara was startled to realize, rather kingly. And the longer they sang, the more solid became the sense of
rightness
surrounding her, as though the air in this dank alleyway could hear the melody and was responding to it—blooming, as a flower would. It was such a tangible sensation that Clara scanned their surroundings, expecting someone to be watching them, but it was only the darkness, and a sense that something unseen was pulling, yearning, toward Nicholas and this blue-haired child.

Bo must have felt it too; as they sang, she looked about her, afraid—afraid that she would lose this sensation? Afraid that she was imagining things?

“The fiddler came from ice and snow,

The rider, where the red sands flow,

The pirate left her eastern throne,

The mason dug through earth and stone.

They brought us music, light, and life.

They brought a ship, a horse, a knife. . . .”

Bo had trailed off, trembling. Nicholas took her hand and smiled.

“Through stormy seas and secret rifts,

From Beyond they came . . .”

“. . . as gifts,”
Bo finished. And then she threw her arms about his neck, whispering, “Your Highness, sire, you've come back,” into his
shoulder. The sense of magnetism that had been building around Clara faded abruptly, leaving her feeling small and untethered.

“What just happened here?” she said, breathless.

Nicholas turned to her, his eyes urgent, his voice fragile. “I wondered if it would still work, with their tricks clogging the air. The old songs, when sung by a member of one of the royal families, call to the land, and then the land recognizes us, draws near. An unmistakable sensation, and as good an identifying mark as any brand of the flesh. I had thought, with the faeries' corruption . . .” He laughed, put a hand on the oil-stained ground as though it were an old friend. “I thought it might not work. I had been afraid to try.”

“Not even faeries can ruin the old songs,” Bo said fiercely, wiping her eyes. “Not even Anise.”

Nicholas gave her a grateful smile. The whole exchange stung Clara with jealousy, and with fear. She doubted she would ever feel such deep-seated kinship with New York—grieve for her homeland, love it as Nicholas so obviously did his. She had forgotten how to care about the city that had taken so much from her. Forgetting was the only way she had found to keep moving every day. You did not carry out ribbon-cutting ceremonies for coffin houses and actually
care
about what you were doing, or think that it mattered; that way lay perpetual, soul-crushing disappointment.

Clara watched Nicholas rise to his feet with Bo in hand, apprehensive. He murmured reassurances to Bo—that he wasn't leaving again, not if he could help it; that he would fight for her, for all of them, for the old songs and the safety to make new ones, for this place that had once been their home and would be again. He turned to Clara with the beginnings of a blazing look on his face—the look of resolution—and it frightened her.

She wondered if, with this one girl and this one moment, Nicholas had changed his mind about helping her in favor of something a good deal more personal.

She cleared her throat politely, feeling like an intruder. “Maybe we should move somewhere more secluded?”

Bo put up her chin. “Who is this, anyway? Friend of yours?”

“Yes,” Nicholas said, his eyes finding Clara's softly, “and a dear one. She saved my life, in more ways than one. She is to be treated with as much respect as I am. Well. Maybe not quite as much.”

He winked, and Bo smirked good-naturedly, but Clara did not think it funny, unease twisting within her as Bo led them away through the shadows. To a safe place, she had promised. But the trains were forever whistling overhead, and they seemed to laugh at Clara.

What's worth more to a dethroned prince?
she wondered.
One measly mayor from a distant land?

Or his own people, thousands of them, millions, all broken and dying?

The logical answer seemed plain to Clara, but she refused to acknowledge it.

B
o led them through the city for what felt like hours, taking a circuitous route that often had them doubling back through streets and alleyways they'd already traveled. She seemed to know every nook and cranny of this place, every building safe to cut through and every bridge hiding secret doors.

Clara observed as closely as she dared, mindful of the birds flapping metallically overhead, and the multicolored panels—still with their messages of curfew, sugar, and various restrictions, and, occasionally, the image of Clara and Nicholas climbing from the train—playing for empty streets. Empty, that is, save for the random shadowed figure, scurrying and swift, and gloved faery patrols, indolently beautiful in their uniformed black. Bo seemed to know how to avoid them, and they passed unseen—three humans in a sea of danger.

Danger dressed in fur and diamonds. Danger simmering blue.

Another thing Clara noticed: the city was changing.

It had been crude, unorganized, filthy. A tumbling, shambolic marketplace. Now the cobblestones were growing cleaner, the buildings more orderly. Doors of polished stone displayed elaborate engravings of dancing, writhing figures. Lanterns gleamed gold and pink; shopfronts boasted baubles and delicate trinkets. The air became scented
with fragrances so rich that Clara's head spun—musk and vanilla and unfamiliar spices.

Occasionally the ground rumbled beneath their feet, accompanied by distant flashes of pale green lightning. They would steady themselves on the nearest wall, and wait for the tremors to pass. Dust rained down on their heads, shaken loose from the rooftops.

“What is that?” Clara whispered.

“Hurry on” was all Bo would say, glaring at the sky.

They came to a cluster of buildings with walls of peach-colored stone. Before Clara could get a good look at the exterior, Bo led Clara and Nicholas around through an alleyway, and then down through a grate in the ground.

“Never linger in one place for too long,” she said, helping them down into a surprisingly clean passageway. “Even if it's outside your own home. The queen has spies everywhere.”

Immediately Clara said, “Those birds. The mechanized ones.”

Bo nodded. “Kambots. Crude little things, but they have their uses if you know how to rework 'em.” Her grin gleamed in the dark.

“They are surveillance tools?” Nicholas asked.

“Some people call 'em the queen's eyes. She can look through 'em, they say. Don't know if it's true or not, but they're no bloody sparrows, if that's what you mean.”

Through another few turns in the passageway, down winding stone steps, and they stopped before a door edged with amber light. Bo rummaged through her jacket and pulled out a gleaming pair of lock picks.

Instinctively Clara leaned closer for a look. Bo turned away with a sneer.

“What're you looking at? Give me some room, eh?”

“It's all right, Bo,” Nicholas said. “Clara is excellent at this sort of thing.”

Bo looked her up and down. “Is that right?”

“I . . . had a good teacher,” Clara said quietly.

After a moment Bo thrust the picks into Clara's hands. “Well, then. Let's see you try.”

The dim light was enough to see the latch—a crude, unfamiliar apparatus that seemed cobbled together with spare parts. Most interesting, it boasted two keyholes, into which the picks barely fit. For a few moments Clara leaned against the door, eyes closed, pressing the picks into place, feeling for the twin catches. They were subtle, tiny things that, Clara guessed, had to be pressed with the right simultaneous combination of weight and timing . . . Ah.

The catches gave way and the latch clicked open.

Bo retrieved her picks, grinning at Clara. “His Highness wasn't lying, was he? Not bad, miss.”

“Clara.” Nicholas put his hand lightly on Clara's back, but it brought her little comfort. “Her name is Clara.”

“Well,
Clara
, you're all right,” said Bo, slipping inside.

There, two women and a man—all human—greeted Bo with varying degrees of relief. The man closed his eyes and murmured words. One of the women—pale golden skin, dark hair and eyes—pulled Bo into a tight embrace.

“You're late,” the woman said. “Oh, Bo, dear sister, I thought . . . Did something happen?”

“Almost. Would've, were it not for these two.”

Three sets of eyes turned to Clara and Nicholas.

“The queen's bounty,” said the other woman, tall and broad-shouldered, straightening with recognition, but the woman holding Bo silenced her. She approached Nicholas with the same careful reverence Bo had in the street.

“Bo,” she said, low. “Who is this?”

Bo did not answer, watching the woman's face expectantly.

The woman put a hand on either side of Nicholas's face, barely touching him, eyes searching. Clara shifted uncomfortably at her nearness, but Nicholas remained still, letting her examine him.

“He sang one of the old songs,” Bo said, gentle, at the woman's side. “He sang it with me, and I felt it.”

“The land?” The woman's eyes were twin sparks of hope. “It recognized him?”

Bo nodded, and Nicholas took the woman's hands in his own. “I am sorry to have left you.” He met her eyes, utterly sincere. “To have left was a great crime I could not prevent.”