Winterspell (24 page)

Clara blurted, “You met her, then?” Nicholas cut a look her way, but Clara ignored him.

“Oh, yes.” Afa smiled, a curious mix of dreaminess and fear. “She looked me over, made me strip off my clothes. She told me I have lovely skin.”

Absently Afa traced a line up her arm. Following the memory of Anise's hand? Clara watched her, mesmerized. The thought came to her, preposterously:
Would Anise think
I
have lovely skin?

“She charmed you, in other words,” Nicholas muttered.

In an instant the dreaminess vanished from Afa's face. Clara stepped back, like she had been cut loose from a taut line. Even Bo seemed dazed.

“She would have done the same to you, Your Highness,” said Afa, quiet but defiant.

The atmosphere in the room had altered. The music drifting down from overhead held a sudden sinister quality. What acts were the humans upstairs being forced to do? Or doing
willingly
, if it meant they could keep their warm beds and their no doubt clean supply of sugar?

Clara wrapped her arms around herself, feeling lost and small.

“Karras said something about seeing us in the morning,” Nicholas said after a moment. “As long as you're here, you will need to look like you belong,” Afa said, “and I'm sorry to say that it will not be the most dignified of disguises.”

“Dignity is a luxury I care little about.”

“And then what?” Clara had to push on; she
had
to. Nicholas might have said he would help, but she was the only true advocate for her family. She straightened to look at him. “After we are disguised, what will we do then?”

“We'll strategize,” Nicholas said, managing a small smile. “If we're to find your father in this mess, we'll need a solid plan, won't we?”

Clara smiled back, and when he rose, she took his offered hand. But she did not clasp it too tightly, keeping a tiny separation of air between them, like a buffer.

T
hat night, Clara dreamed that her blood was freezing over.

Her dreams never made sense. They were always snippets of things, half-cloaked images that seemed familiar one moment and alien the next.

And they were never nice dreams.

As recently as last month, she had snuck out of the mansion after one such dream and fled to Godfather's shop. He never asked questions, or asked her to explain her dreams. But he would sit and hold her as though she were still a child, and make her a cup of hot cocoa to soothe her troubled nerves.

Then he would tell her stories. Sometimes his stories—of Cane, Clara now realized—would be dark, terrifying, violent, and Clara would listen to them with morbid fascination. On her nightmare visits, though, his stories would be soft and full of beauty—docile white dragons, as blind as babies; starlight on high, cold hills; lovers whose devotion was strong enough to bring life to an entirely new world.

But tonight, in her narrow bed in this booming pleasure-house, there was no Godfather to tell pretty stories and stroke her hair.

Instead she dreamed. Ice swept through her body in brutal surges. She tried to tear it out, to open up her skin and let out the burning cold, but her hands were tied. She had no choice but to heave and twist and sob herself hoarse as her insides crackled with searing cold and the taste of silver burned her tongue.

“Clara,” a voice called out through the blinding silver light that had become her world, “wake up!”

Wake up.
It
was
a dream, then.

She woke up.

Above her, worried eyes inspected her face. Nicholas straddled her hips, pinning her arms to the pillow. A thin red scratch marred his cheek, beneath one of those metal bits snaking out from under his hair.

She tried to speak, but the nightmare still had hold of her voice.

“You had a nightmare.” Nicholas cocked a wry eyebrow. “And you hit me when I tried to wake you. I had to restrain you.”

“Sorry,” Clara whispered. Lingering dream images, streaked silver, flashed across her vision. “I dreamed that my blood . . .”

She couldn't finish. The sensation was difficult to put into words, and besides, the pressure of Nicholas on top of her was beginning to transform from a reassuring reminder that she was alive and in the waking world into something else. It was neither pleasant nor unpleasant; it was . . .
close.
The weight of him, the warmth. But too close, or not close enough?

The night before, they had washed and been given a fresh change of clothing. Afa and Glyn had brought ointment and bandages, tended their wounds. The cleanliness left her feeling oddly exposed. No grime to mask the lines of Nicholas's jaw, and not a lot of fabric between them. Their tunics were of insubstantial linen.

She stared up at him, uncertain.

“What?” Nicholas's voice was low, curious. He touched her cheek. “What did you dream? Something about your blood?”

“It had turned cold.”

“Cold? An odd thing to dream. Did it hurt?”

Clara turned her head, pulling away from his touch. His fingers were feather-light against her face, and the feeling unnerved her. “Did you really watch me from inside the statue? All my life?”

For a moment Nicholas didn't say anything. Then he moved to sit on the edge of the bed, and she relaxed.

“I did. Well, for most of it, anyway.” He tilted his head, not quite smiling. “Does that make me sick, do you think? Spying on a little girl?”

She should sit up, move away from him—
something
—but she couldn't. Her leg was touching his, and it was comforting. If she closed her eyes, she could almost transport herself back to the shop, to that safe, shadowed corner.

“Perhaps a bit,” she admitted.

“But then again it's not as though I could help it. And I thought nothing untoward, at first. You were this awkward, amusing thing. You made me forget myself every once in a while. It wasn't until you were much older that I started to want . . .”

Now it was he who couldn't finish. Clara felt embarrassed for him, and for herself, and unspeakably attuned to him. She sat up and covered his hand with one of hers. He turned to her, his eyes searching her face, and the space between them grew charged with . . . curiosity, perhaps. Nervousness.

Wanting.
The desire for comfort, for closeness and discovery, but, oh,
what
was this unbearable tightness in her belly? Fear, maybe. No one had ever been so close to her, not in this charged, careful way. Clara had, in fact, done her best to avoid such a thing. But Nicholas's eyes had the same familiar shape as the statue's had, and she could not avoid their pull.

She wanted to move closer to them, to him.

She
did
move closer, a mere shift of weight. But it was enough.

His gaze fell to her lips.

The door opened.

Clara jumped away from him, cheeks burning.

Afa cleared her throat delicately and folded her hands at her waist. Behind her, Karras grinned.

“Well, then,” he said. “You're off to a good start, aren't you? Perhaps it'll be easier to hide you here than we thought.”

Clara chanced a look at Nicholas, but he would not look at her. His brow was troubled, the lines of his body taut.

“Karras, don't be crude,” said Afa mildly. “Come. Eat breakfast with us. And then—”

“We'll get to work,” Karras said. He gathered Clara to his side as she exited the room. “By the time I'm through with you, you'll look like you were born and raised here.”

A disturbing thought. The moment with Nicholas had left her unbalanced, and Karras was no help, crowding their passage and pressing her closer to Nicholas. He was silent beside her, and she hoped just as thoroughly unsettled—though if he was, he hid it well.

That irked her. She put space between them and lifted her chin.

“After we are finished,” she said firmly, “I would like to discuss the rescue of my father.”

“Not to worry,” said Afa. “Bo is already hard at work on a plan. She's quite taken by the both of you and considers it a solemn duty.” She smiled, then pressed Clara's hand. “We will find him, Clara. There are people in this country who still have some fighting spirit in them, more than you might think.”

Clara hoped she was right—and that at least some of them would care to help a stranger.

She was not sure, if the situation were reversed, that she would do the same, not if Felicity or Father would be put at risk.

Fighting for the helpless and wronged had always been her mother's job.

* * *

Karras had not exaggerated.

After breakfast he situated Clara and Nicholas in a richly ornamented dressing room, lined with crimson curtains and shelves of perfume bottles, jeweled combs, canisters of powder and rouge. Another man, tall, silent, and bare-chested, accompanied him.

“Don't mind Lenz,” Karras said as he settled Clara on one stool and Nicholas on another. “He doesn't talk much.” Karras met Clara's eyes in the mirror opposite them. “But between you and me, I
couldn't care less about that. He's got truly magnificent hands.”

Clara felt a blush warm her body, and she tried to both smile politely and ignore Nicholas's gaze. At breakfast he had watched her with a new quiet about him. Every time she caught his eyes, he looked away. When she allowed herself to remember the weight of him against her body that morning, heat climbed from her toes to her lips.

“Now,” Karras said, retrieving a steaming cup of tea from a stove in the corner, “first things first, drink this.”

Clara took the cup and hesitated. The smell of the tea was bitter. “What is it?”

“Protection, just in case. All the female doxies drink it. And I'll give you a pack of the herb to keep with you at all times, so you can brew more whenever you feel you might need it. That cup should keep you safe during your stay here, at least. But depending on how long you remain in Cane . . .”

“Safe?” She was utterly perplexed.

Karras had been fiddling with a drawer full of supplies, but at the sound of her voice, he turned, his face soft. “Safe, yes. A doxy's life is hard. Life in
Cane
is hard, and everywhere you turn you'll find desperate people—people who would not hesitate to hurt you for their own pleasure.” He placed his hand on her arm, perhaps seeing the dawning comprehension on her face. “I'm not saying that anything will happen to you. But the possibility is there, and drinking this regularly will help protect your body from any . . . lingering effects of unpleasant encounters. Do you understand?”

She did, afraid and embarrassed, and acutely feeling her body's vulnerability. She crossed her arms over herself and sipped.

“I'm sorry to have frightened you,” Karras said, his voice gentle.

“No. It's . . . fine. I'm grateful.” And to prove it, she knocked back the rest of her drink in one foul gulp and spluttered, coughing.

The mood somewhat lifted, Karras grinned. “Excellent. Now, how to handle this hair of yours? It's like a beacon.” He picked up a lock of her
hair between his thumb and forefinger and examined it before letting it fall back into place. “But first you need a bath.”

Clara frowned. “But we bathed just last night.”

“Ah, but you can't have too many baths, can you? Our standards here are exceptional. Doxies are many things, but filthy is not one of them.”

Lenz laughed.

“Well, at least not literally,” Karras added, smirking.

He drew a curtain across the length of the room, separating Clara from Nicholas, and led her behind an ornate filigreed screen in the corner. He turned on a brass spigot in the wall, and steaming water filled a porcelain tub painted with golden naked figures.

“Go on and bathe,” Karras said. “I won't peek.”

Clara did, as quickly as possible. When she had finished, Karras settled her back onto the stool in a robe so soft that Clara felt indecent wearing it, the fabric kissing her every curve. She sat rigid, hunched, her arms wrapped about herself. Perhaps if she didn't move, she wouldn't feel the fabric slide so intimately, wouldn't realize how slight a covering shielded her from Karras's eyes.

He seemed unaffected, however, combing dark paste through her hair and humming under his breath.

“Karras?” Clara whispered. She had to say
something
. “I have a question.”

“Ask away.”

“You spoke of doxies before. What are doxies?” Clara thought she knew, and it pained her to have to ask, but she needed to learn everything she could. She could not be intimidated by impropriety—and she could not help but be curious.

“I'm a doxy,” said Karras. “Lenz is a doxy—Afa, too. She's one of Pascha's favorites. We man the pleasure-house, entertain the faeries.”

Clara watched half-dark, half-red strands float to her feet as Karras trimmed a short length from the ends of her hair. “Who is Pascha?”

“The faery who runs our house. Nasty priss of a man, but if you keep him happy, he isn't so bad.”

“And . . .” Clara closed her eyes, afraid of the answer. Too similar to Felicity, too small, too frightened, despite her bravado. “Bo isn't a doxy, is she?”

Karras made a horrified sound. “Absolutely
not
. No children here. Even faeries, it would seem, have their standards. So far, anyway.” He handed her a damp cloth. “Now grip this in your teeth. This part might hurt.”

Avoiding her still-tender wounds, he pasted something up and down her bare legs, from ankle to so high up on Clara's thigh that she jerked away, afraid.

“Don't be afraid, love,” he said softly. “I'm not looking too close.”

Then he covered the paste with cloths and ripped them free, one by one—along with every hair on Clara's legs. She cried out into the rag. Similar sounds from Nicholas's side of the room brought her some comfort.