“Do you know why Denmark won the first war and lost the second?”
She hesitates, eyes narrowing. She thinks I’m changing the subject, refusing to answer her question.
But I’m not.
“People say we never should have entered the second war in the first place . . .” she begins.
“Perhaps not. There was a crucial difference between the two wars. In the first, when my father and brother fought, Britain came to our aid. In the second, they didn’t.”
“What does that have to do with the jewels, Philip?”
I close my eyes.
I think of the birds, when they suddenly stopped singing.
War.
I think of the bodies.
There was a man in the trenches next to me who had magic. He reminded me of that little boy in the alley. Flicking his fingers.
A shudder rips through me.
I think of the first dead body I ever saw. In the morgue that night with Tønnes.
“Was it terrible for you?” Helene asks softly. “The war?”
“Have you ever known fear, Helene?” I ask. “Did you know that it has a taste?” I thought I knew what fear was when I was a little boy, worrying about my mother, my brother, worrying about going hungry. But this—this was utter destruction and humiliation. Palpable fear was like dank mildew in my mouth the first time I tasted it. Cannons loaded with case shot, shells hissing by, men with shredded faces. I still dream of it some nights. Ambulance carts filled with straw you could wring blood from.
“Philip—” Helene begins.
I hardly hear her now. I’m halfway back there again. I didn’t pay for some poor farmer to take my place on the battlefield in that second war, like so many other people as rich as I was did.
Maybe I was trying to live up to my father’s memory, still walking in my brother’s shadow. Maybe I felt as though I deserved it, after what had happened in the mines. There was human waste everywhere in Dybbøl, after bombs destroyed the latrines, waste mingling with decaying body parts and giving rise to typhoid fever. Sludge, mud, and brain matter.
I remember the moment when the birds stopped singing.
In mines and in wartime, that’s a sure sign that death is near.
I open my eyes. “Do you know why the British didn’t come to our aid the second time? Because of Queen Victoria. Bloody Queen Victoria.” I blink toward the stars. “The British public wanted to help us. We were the underdogs. But her eldest daughter had married the crown prince of Prussia. So she sided with them. These seemingly little events, they shape the destinies of thousands upon thousands. That one marriage changed the fortune of a whole country. Sealed Denmark’s fate, cost us a quarter of our land, our dignity, generations of Danish lives. No one was singing ‘The Brave Foot Soldier’ when we marched home. Half of us never left there at all.”
I swallow, my mouth dry as bone. I look at the red stone on my finger.
“If you could prevent that from happening ever again, would you? If there was something you could do to change that, you would do it, wouldn’t you? If it were in your power?”
“Is it?” she asks, her voice crystal clear and strong.
I swallow back the taste of mildew. “You think we’re so different, Helene, but we’re the same. We both clawed our way up from the hands we were dealt. Now we’re putting our pieces in place. Both of us are playing the long game, aren’t we?”
And if we do it right, we won’t just win.
We’re going to change the whole damn board.
Chapter Seventeen
Marit
November 25, 1866
Tivoli and Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens
On the night the Vestergaards visit Tivoli, Liljan wrangles us a holiday outing for the staff. We invite Ivy, as well. Walking as a group through the looping, pruned boxwood hedges of Tivoli’s grounds, I subtly set the pace near the front, keeping us within a calculated distance of the Vestergaards.
Colored lamps float on strings above us and adorn the walking gardens like a necklace of beads. The moon is a bright pearl sliding among them. There’s a heady scent of sugar and alcohol as concessioners dot the dirt lanes, selling dried figs, raisins, sugared apples on a stick. I’ve never been to Tivoli before, but my father always talked of a time he came here with my mother right after they were married. My father said my mother screamed bloody murder on the roller coaster, clutching his hand so tightly she threatened to break his fingers—then promptly asked to ride again. I don’t remember what she looked like, because she died when I was three. I never had a photograph of her, but I’ve invented an image of her in my head, dark haired and rosy cheeked and quick to laugh, always clutching my father’s hand.
Her name was Johanne.
It’s actually a lovely evening, and I am wrapped tightly in a wool coat and gloves I lined with lush scraps of sable. When I shiver a little, Jakob lends me his scarf, and I pretend as if I’m tucking my nose deep into the wool because I’m cold. Not to breathe in his scent.
“My feet are cold,” Liljan announces, stomping.
“More gløgg!” Rae suggests gleefully.
“Look, Vee,” Brock says, pausing at a candy stand. “They have lemon flavor. Your favorite.”
I use the moment to slip away and draw nearer to Eve and Philip. They seem deep in conversation, and Eve flinches at the sputtering fireworks above our heads. The explosives crackle and smoke, and when I’m almost within hearing distance, the crowd suddenly starts to stir. Whispers rustle and rise into the air around me like dragonfly wings taking flight. Royal guards. The king is here. I steal a final glance at Eve but lose all hope of keeping track of her in the moving crowds and reluctantly turn back.
I didn’t think anyone noticed I’d slipped away. But of course, I couldn’t be that lucky.
On the carriage ride home, Brock pulls out the handful of hard candies he bought, wrapped in a little package. He pours them into his sister’s hand like a trickle of crystallized tourmaline. “You know, Vee, you could make a mean hard candy out of glass,” he says. “It would look just like these do. But it would break someone’s tooth.”
Ivy examines the lemon candies in her palm. “You’re not nearly as unkind as you like to think you are,” she says to him, which makes me promptly choke on my gløgg.
“Have you always gotten on so well?” Liljan asks them. She throws Jakob a smirk. “Our mother used to lace us together in one of her old corsets.”
“I can hardly picture that,” I say.
“He would read my diary,” Liljan says indignantly, as though she’s still put out by it.
“The musings of a nine-year-old,” Jakob says. “Scintillating. And mostly full of complaints about me.”
“It’s not as if I could even lock it. You were so infuriating.”
“And then you retaliated. You . . .” Jakob says, his cheeks flushing.
“Yes! Turned the back of your trousers brown,” Liljan says, suddenly shrieking with laughter. “As if you’d soiled them!”
“For the record,” he says dryly, straightening his collar, “I didn’t.”
“Stop,” Liljan gasps, clutching herself, tears rolling down her face, “or I might.”
He gives her braid a tug with such a simple affection that it makes me suddenly yearn for either Ingrid or Eve, or both. Liljan pushes his hand away and initiates a game in the frosted windowpane of the carriage.
“What were you doing tonight when you snuck off from us, Marit?” Brock says, leaning over to whisper low in my ear, and I bite back a surprised yelp. “What? You didn’t think I’d notice?”
“Why are you always spying on me?” I whisper. I grind the heel of my boot warningly on his toe. “Cur.”
“Hi, Pot,” he says, kicking me off. “I’m Kettle. Why does my spying make me a cur but yours is somehow fine? I know you were following the Vestergaards again.”
“It’s different because I’m doing mine out of good intentions,” I say.
�
��Everyone’s intentions seem good to them,” Brock says. “You better learn that right quick, little seamstress.”
Ivy dips her head toward us. “What are we whispering about over here?”
“Just making sure Marit doesn’t wander off and get lost forever,” he says menacingly, and I shift to crack the growing tension in my neck. Ivy twists her hands together and plays with the end of her long white braid.
“Brock, listen,” she says, and her voice is no longer teasing. “Stop torturing poor Marit.” She takes a deep breath, as if steeling herself, and says: “There’s something I have to tell you.”
Brock stiffens a little at her serious tone. “Go on, then. What is it?”
She looks out at the sky of ink beyond our window, exhaling a weight from her shoulders. “I’m never coming back to work for the Vestergaards, even if they ask me to,” she says simply. Her breath carries the tart and sweet from the lemon candy. “Because I’ve stopped using magic. And I think perhaps you should too.” She draws Jakob’s and Liljan’s attention. “All of you—really. I’m sure there are other jobs for each of you that won’t require so much of yourself. You know, I’ve learned that in most other estates, the servants don’t stay past two, maybe three, years at most.”
“Vee—” Brock says, paling. “You know this is the best thing out there for us. The Vestergaards pay the highest wage. They’re never cruel. We’re free to leave anytime.”
“It’s true,” Liljan agrees reluctantly, pulling her blanket tight up around her neck. “I’m so free to leave that I actually want to less.”
“It’s a good life, for now,” Brock insists. “We know how to cut corners, how to siphon and spare magic. We help each other. Look out for each other.” He lowers his voice. “You know I don’t believe Aunt Dorit has actually used magic in years.”
“I know that was true before,” Ivy says. She hesitates. “But . . . it seems as though Helene is asking for more magic than before. Ever since Eve arrived.”
“It’s not Eve’s fault,” I say too quickly, instantly defensive. “She doesn’t have any idea about the magic. She wouldn’t even want it, if she knew.”
“Well, then,” Brock says after a beat filled with meaning, “maybe she should find out.”
I shrug, trying to pretend as though it doesn’t matter to me, because if he discovers that it does, our balance of power will shift again. And I’m not giving him one more thing to use as leverage over me.
“I can’t leave yet, Ivy,” Brock says, and he almost sounds bitter. “I’m not going to be like Father. I’ve been careful, saving up. If I stay two more years making a Vestergaard salary, you and Mother won’t ever have to worry about money again.”
“You are nothing like him,” Ivy says kindly. She plays with the end of her braid again. Puts her hand on his. Her fingers are small, her nails bitten.
And then the carriage stops so abruptly that Liljan and I are practically thrown out of our seats.
I land halfway onto Jakob’s lap.
“I’m sorry,” I start to say, flushing madly at the curve of his body against mine, when there’s an insistent pounding on the carriage door.
“This is the Danish Police Corps,” a voice bellows from beyond it. “We need to search your carriage.”
The door swings open.
“Good evening,” a man says, holding a lantern up to peer at each of our faces. He has a thick mustache and is dressed in a navy blue uniform. Behind him are three other uniformed men, the firelight flickering in shadows across their faces. My stomach instantly knots, and for half a second, I see the men who came to our house that night Ingrid died. I look for a scar shaped like a fishhook.
But then I blink, and they are back to being regular policemen.
“Apologies for the disturbance, but we are looking for someone,” the first man says gruffly. “A woman has gone missing from a house in the area.”
“Missing?” Jakob asks.
“A house servant. Female.” He scans our faces carefully. Double-checks a paper in his hand. “Have you seen anything unusual tonight? An older woman traveling alone on this road? She would have been sixty-five years old, with graying hair.”
We shake our heads no.
“Godspeed to find her,” Jakob murmurs. “It’s cold out there tonight.”
The policeman nods dismissively. “Take care and keep your eyes open.”
He closes the door.
“Oh, dear. I hope they find her soon,” Liljan says, peering out the window. The carriage jostles to a start again.
“Unless she doesn’t want to be found,” Ivy says. “She’s a house servant. She might have run away.”
“Ivy—” Brock says, and his face hardens. “What’s gotten into you? I can tell something is wrong. You’ve seemed off the whole night. Did something happen at the glass shop?” His voice drops to almost a whisper when he adds: “You can tell me.”
She watches the first falling snowflakes through the dark glass of the window. And then a sudden shudder rips through her.
“I saw someone get the Firn,” she says softly, as if she’s far away. “A little boy.” She squeezes her eyes closed. Swallows. “He was so young. He sort of looked like you, Brock, and his mother always came in the shop with him, and then—last week—out in the street.” Her voice wavers. “She must not have realized that he was using it all the time, to keep her out of the rain. His mother screamed. I saw the way it went through him,” she says, the air in the carriage suddenly turning taut and too warm, “like dark branches. His body looked so unnatural, lying there in the street. I saw the way his mother tried to shield him, so no one would look at him with that expression—with disgust, or fear, or like he was something not human—when he was just this sweet little boy.” Ivy has a look in her eyes, a haunted one, of a nightmare suddenly becoming real in front of her. “How stupid we are,” she whispers, “to even risk it.”
A feeling of heaviness and foreboding settles over each of us, as thick as a blanket. She has broken the unspoken rule, the same one we had at the Mill—that we never acknowledge the dark future that potentially awaits all of us. And I realize that Ivy doesn’t have to make fake hard candies for anyone to be fooled. I’ve been doing it to myself. I can’t forget that even though there is sweetness in my life at the Vestergaards’, I’m really sucking on a piece of glass.
“Ivy—” Brock says.
“I’m done using magic,” she declares. “I wish you would be too.”
Ivy’s hands tangle in her braid as the carriage stops at a streetlight at the glass shop and she climbs out. She’s choosing life at the expense of her home, and her family.
But she’s had all those things for years.
Now that I’ve had the faintest taste of what a home, what belonging, can feel like—perhaps going back to safety, and loneliness, is actually worse.
* * *
We arrive back at the Vestergaards’ just in time to see Eve disappear through the front door. I breathe a sigh of relief. Philip is returning to his carriage when we climb out.
He gives us a nod of acknowledgment, even raises his hand in farewell, which surprises me as a kind gesture. Many people of his stature would not acknowledge a group of servants at all.
And that’s when I see it. The ring he wears.
My stomach tightens and my fingers suddenly feel like ice.
I noticed it offhandedly at the theater, but of course it didn’t have any significance to me then.
I don’t bother to hide my stare as he gets into his own carriage, his hand on the door, the driver holding out the lantern in such a way that I can clearly make out the glinting shade of red.
The stone he wears looks exactly like the one my father hid as a clue for me.
Chapter Eighteen
“Jakob,” Liljan whispers the next morning.
She grabs his sleeve as he passes by our room on his way downstairs and then furtively shuts the door behind him.
“Um, hello, Marit,
” he says, glancing awkwardly around our little bedroom.
He seems to be avoiding looking at me sitting on my bed.
I abruptly stand.
“I need some help. I want all the records on the Vestergaard jewels we can find,” I say. “Sales, inventories, types of jewels they mine. Every scrap you can possibly turn up. Do you think you and Liljan could help me?”
“All right . . .” he says, weighing the request, and he seems better able to focus now. “You find a new lead to follow?”
“I know it’s a lot to ask,” I say, hedging. Risking their jobs. Thrusting them deeper into this mystery. I pull out my father’s hidden stone from my pocket. “I think Philip was wearing this same strange jewel last night.”
Jakob turns to Liljan. “Are you up for it?”
“Espionage!” she begins with enthusiasm, but then she suddenly freezes.
Nina’s footfalls are on the stairs, and they are rising rapidly toward us.
“Hide,” Liljan whispers urgently, and I point Jakob to the narrow space between the wall and my straw mattress. I kneel and pretend to fold my uniforms in the trunk to block Nina’s view.
Just in time. She knocks once on our door and then barges in without waiting for a response.
“Marit,” she barks. “Eve says she needs this mended. Immediately.”
She’s holding Eve’s dress from Tivoli last night.
“Yes, ma’am,” I say, and snatch it from her as quickly as I can. When I step back, I can feel the faint warmth of Jakob’s breath on my leg.
She gives us each a half-long look, squinting as if she can sense our nervousness but can’t quite pinpoint why. Then, after an eternal moment, she abruptly turns and moves on.
I clutch Eve’s Tivoli dress, with its lush rose-pink color I chose just for her. Run my hand along the satin until I find a tiny, clean rip in it. Almost as if someone cut it intentionally, with scissors.
With my heart in my throat, I turn over the hem and discreetly thumb into the secret pocket.
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