Winterspell (35 page)

She shifted, at a loss. “Are you going to kill me?”

“No.”

“Am I your prisoner?”

“Yes.”

Clara sucked in a breath. “Will you hurt me?”

“Probably.”

A beat. Two. Clara felt the slow crawl of fear pull at her. She looked away.

“I did not want your mother dead,” Anise said flatly. “I am many things, but I'm not stupid. It was obvious that your mother was a good soul. Naive but good. She saved my life once, and I therefore spared hers. A life for a life. And that's all I'll ever say about it. Do you understand?”

Clara nodded.

“Look at me.”

Clara met the queen's eyes, afraid what she would see there. “Yes, my queen. I understand.”

Anise smiled, though her eyes were still hard. “You're not stupid either, are you, Clara?”

And what was one to say to that? The truth, Clara supposed, but she couldn't help feeling this was all some kind of trick. “No.”

“No, I knew you wouldn't be.” She looked down at the ruined table imperiously. “Destructive, but not stupid.”

Clara found herself fascinated despite her better judgment. How old was Anise, anyway? She could have been a fellow debutante, but there was an agelessness about her, striking in such close quarters, that made her difficult to read.

“Where is my father?” Clara watched Anise carefully. It was risky to
ask, but she was desperate to see how Anise would react. “I know you have him. What have you done with him?”

Anise turned, sharp with arrogant amusement. “Ah-ah, Clara. We already decided you're not stupid, didn't we? Don't act like it.”

It might be too bold, but she might as well continue. Why not, after all? No Godfather, no Nicholas, no one left but Clara to find her father, and maybe she was better off now, on her own. A sob choked her voice. “Why did Borschalk take him, anyway? Why couldn't he have killed the prince and his mage and been done with it?”

There, that was better. “Prince” and “mage”—anonymous words, even harmless.

Anise looked at her keenly. “He took your father because he could not take you. Your power prevented it. And because, after I saw you fighting my loks, I wanted you. More than the little prince, I wanted you.”

“Why?” Clara blurted out, too shocked to stop herself.

Anise gave a smile too secret to interpret, and said nothing. Clara dropped her eyes, unnerved. This was infinitely more frightening than a queen barking atrocities from her throne or interrogating Clara in a dark dungeon. And infinitely more dangerous.

As Anise called her attendants back in, ordering that clothes and fresh food be brought, Clara watched tensely from the bed. If she was indeed a prisoner, then this, she realized, was to be her cell—the queen's chambers, lush and opulent, and full of glittering delights.

But
why
?

She thought she might have preferred the dungeon interrogation. At least then she would have known how to react.

T
hey slept together, in the same bed. Anise had demanded it.

Well. The queen slept the untroubled sleep of a child, sprawled beside Clara in the piles of silken sheets. But Clara lay there, exhausted and impossibly awake as the moon crossed the terrace windows.

It had been a strange, surreal evening, with Anise whirling about her chambers like some madcap hostess, pulling Clara into and out of increasingly elaborate gowns. As though Clara were a child, Anise had fed her glazed fruits and bright blue tarts, blackened meat doused in honey, and for dessert, puffs of sugar from gilded pipes that left Clara's mouth dry and her head heavy.

Was everything to Clara's taste? Did Clara prefer the gold gown or the blue one? How did Clara prefer her sugar? Via pipe, or directly to the vein?

Clara thought it inappropriate and bizarre—she was a prisoner, wasn't she? Why was she being so doted upon? Her mind rebelled at the illogic of it. Anise's attendants scurried tirelessly in and out of the room, lugging armfuls of shimmering garments. Clara found the attendants fascinating—their hair, braided in a style similar to the queen's; their high-shouldered, iridescent suits with swirling coattails and elaborate embroidery. They eyed Clara with everything from hate to genuine puzzlement. Apparently she was not alone in thinking
Anise's behavior odd. She was not sure if their confusion made her feel better or worse.

As Anise watched, her legs lazily propped up on the back of a chair, they laced Clara into a filmy peach gown with an obscenely low-cut bodice and shoulder-baring sleeves that trailed to the floor. It was then, pinned under the weight of their silent scrutiny, that Clara began to cry.

It came out of nowhere, infuriating her. Was she doomed here, as in New York, to be perpetually weak? She was supposed to be implacable and unafraid, pushing and probing Anise until she found the information she sought. She was supposed to find her father. She was not supposed to let princes and faery queens get the best of her. Nevertheless, tears slipped out from beneath her closed eyelids onto tightly pressed lips.

At once Anise snapped her fingers, and the attendants stepped back.

“Clara? What is it?”

To avoid a reprimand Clara forced open her eyes. “I . . . My queen, it is nothing.”

“Don't lie to me. You're crying.”

“It's embarrassing to stand here like this, to be so . . . unclothed.”
And I thought you would be torturing me, not pampering me. I am still confused because you were not the one to kill my mother, if that is in fact the truth. I have not yet had time to process this change inside me, and I miss Nicholas terribly, even though I shouldn't. I am wondering where he is.

None of that seemed particularly safe to say.

Anise blinked, as if the thought had not occurred to her. “Humans are so strange about nakedness. It's just a body, Clara, the only one you will ever have. Why spend life ashamed of it?”

At a loss, Clara shook her head.

“You should stand up straight, for one. And stop hiding your face.” Anise waved her attendants out of the room and led Clara to
a full-length mirror in the corner. “Look how beautiful you are. No, don't turn away.
Look at yourself
.”

Ashamed, mortified, Clara did. Her reflection was surprising. The black dye had vanished from her hair, and her natural red was now more vibrant than it had ever been before. Her skin glowed with newness; her eyes were afraid but bright and clear. The way she looked now was, she assumed, a product of—what had Anise called it?—her
transformation
, and it entranced her. She had never looked more like her mother. Her silhouette in this gown was scandalously adult; she tried to look away, to cover herself, but Anise's hands were firm, forcing her to stare, forcing her to remain still.

The queen pressed her cheek to Clara's shoulder, eyes sharp on Clara's face in the mirror. “Such pretty skin. You blush pink and silver, human and mage.” There was something wistful in her voice, and in that moment Clara dared to observe the queen. Anise's face was unguarded, soft—and then her eyes found Clara's in the mirror.

“Don't be afraid of your power.” Anise's gaze was so steely that Clara flinched. “You're different now, don't you see? You're like me. You're the only one of your kind, and there are those out there who will never let you forget it. You cannot shy away from yourself. Look the world straight in the eye, and it can do nothing to hurt you.”

Clara stared, hardly breathing, mesmerized. She did not know why Anise was doing this, but she could not look away, for they were beautiful together in the mirror. She thought it with a pinch of shame. Glittering and powerful and different. Enemies, full of abomination blood.

Their eyes locked. Anise's breath was hot on Clara's shoulder.

They
were
enemies, weren't they? Clara blinked, and the moment fell away. She realized with a start that Anise could be charming her—surely that was it, the reason behind that charged moment. But then, Clara could not trust anything she had learned from Nicholas; the very memory of him was suspect.

Frowning, Anise turned and dragged her finger irritably across a tray of iced cakes. Clara watched her suck the frosting off her fingertip.

“Time for bed,” Anise announced, calling her attendants back in to clean up the mess. “We've a busy day tomorrow. And no doubt you are tired.” Anise turned, mischievous. “
Lady
Clara.”

So now Clara lay, rigid in bed beside her, listening to the queen breathe, the words “Lady Clara” lingering in her mind. She wondered how much Anise had observed, through her many birds and her army of mechaniks, of what had happened to Clara in Cane. Had she seen Clara crash the train? Had she seen Nicholas kiss her on the terrace?

Oh, Nicholas.
Clara closed her eyes, wanting to curl in on herself but afraid of waking Anise. She missed him—his nearness, his smile, the look in his eyes when she would catch him watching her. She missed him with an ache she didn't understand, considering what she had witnessed. Was he, wherever he was, missing her as well? He missed the potential of her, she assumed, the weapon that had slipped out of his grasp. It was all happening just as Godfather had warned it would.

She shifted miserably onto her side. Such an act of betrayal, she knew, should have turned her irrevocably against Nicholas, but she could not stifle the twinge of longing in that piece of her heart that had, for years, belonged to his corner of the shop.

Traitorous. Treacherous, duplicitous. That's what he was—not a friend, and certainly not anything deeper. Clara sharpened the words on the whetstone of her mind, forcing herself to feel the cruel slice of them.

Much later, half-asleep, she had an unsettling revelation.

The gowns, the food, the mystifying indulgences—could it be that Anise was like the witches of old, fattening her up, softening her for some terrible fate?

She glanced at the queen, her thin shoulder white and lovely in the moonlight.

If that was Anise's plan, Clara resolved, she would be disappointed.
At least one thing in this mess of confusion and loss still rang true: her father remained somewhere in Cane, and he needed saving. Felicity needed saving. She counted, struggling through the haze of the past several hours for a guess at the time. Twelve days in Cane, three days in New York? It was an unsteady guess, however, and left her feeling strung out with worry.

Tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow she would confirm the day and begin to plan her escape. She would let Anise powder and pamper to her strange heart's content, but meanwhile Clara would be working, observing, seeking. Somewhere in this palace was the information she needed. She would find it and escape with it. Maybe she would even find her father here. Maybe he was closer than she dared hope, breathing the same air, watching the same moonlit snowstorm.

Anise shifted, her hand curling through the soft sheets, reaching for Clara in her sleep but not quite touching her.

Clara, uneasy, moved away as far as she dared, her momentary feeling of resolution fading. Could she really—she, Clara Stole—hope to best a woman with such power and resources at her own baffling game? Clara didn't even know what the game
was
.

As if to encourage her, her blood surged, sending chills across her skin. Curious, half beneath the bedcovers so Anise would not wake and see, she picked at one of the cuts on her arm until it broke and bled.

Yes, there it was—silver, with hints of red. A tiny drop of it beading on her skin.

She stared at it, and though it frightened her, shining and foreign, she wondered if it weren't also a bit beautiful. Maybe this was the key to her freedom, and to her father's.

Maybe, she thought, spreading the blood with her fingertip, she could use it.

* * *

The Summer Palace was immense, a colossal architectural sprawl, and Anise could not resist showing it off.

For much of the next day, she ushered Clara through corridor after corridor, room after tremendous gilded room. Mirrored galleries led from one ballroom to the next, through opulent curtained rooms where faeries lounged in regal dress, smoking long, thin cigarettes and whispering behind illuminated fans. Dark ironwork bled through the castle like black lace, arching over every doorway, embellishing every winding staircase. Anise's pride was so satisfied that she even answered Clara's question of how long she had been at the Summer Palace.

“Oh, not long,” she said gaily. “Three days, I think. Yes, three.” Then she had taken Clara's hand and bid her look out onto the gardens, where tapestries of ironwork flowers stood, stark and sinister, against pale flagstones.

It
had
been nearly twelve days, then, as she had guessed, and almost three in New York. She had time—not enough for true comfort, but enough to breathe more easily. Her relief buoyed her spirits; effusively she praised the gardens' clever design, and Anise beamed at her.

As they progressed through the palace, Clara would on occasion catch a hint of movement in the shadows—a faery dragging a human along by a thick black chain, or a human standing hunched, motionless, masked, as a faery picked bonbons from an offered tray.

Even if they tried to hide it, human and faery alike all looked after Anise with longing. They sat up straighter when she passed, or thrust out their chests, or flipped their hair into a more becoming style. If she showed them even the slightest bit of attention—a nod, a light touch to the shoulder—they would shudder and smile.

Their eyes would turn to Clara and burn with jealousy. They frightened her, those looks.

At midday Anise merrily introduced her to a dining hall full of stone-faced courtiers as “my new prisoner,” the sole evidence of which was the possessive way that Anise held Clara's arm. Clara had been combed, dusted with luminescent powder, laced into the gown from the previous night, and fed a grotesquely rich breakfast of sweetcakes
and wine while Anise had watched from the bed with a secret, lazy smile. Clara felt uncomfortably like a pet rather than a captive, and the courtiers' sycophantic smiles, thinly veiling disgust and distrust, added to the effect. Each of their reactions Clara tucked away for reflection. She felt that there was something in these observations she could use, and later she would mull them over in her mind.