Felix, his eyes straight ahead, grimly said, “It better. They have rifles.”
A few minutes later, the soldiers approached them, riding two abreast. Isabelle’s nerves were as taut as a bowstring.
Hugo nodded solemnly at the first riders. The men looked him and his companions over but didn’t stop. The two lines moved quickly by. Isabelle saw that they wore the uniforms of the French army. They were Cafard’s men, they had to be. Thankfully, the grand duke was not among them. The riders’ commander brought up the rear. He, too, peered closely at them as he trotted by.
Keep going, Isabelle silently urged him. Nothing to see here.
“Halt!” the commander suddenly bellowed to his men, turning his horse around.
Isabelle’s heart dropped.
“Let me do the talking,” Tavi said quietly. “I have an idea.”
“You have an idea?” whispered Hugo, his hands tightening on the reins. “God help us all.”
“Why are you about at this hour? Where are you going?” the commander demanded, looking at Hugo.
But it was Tavi who answered him. “Where are we going? Where would we be going with two coffins in the back and the churchyard just up ahead?” she shrilled. “It’s hardly a mystery, Sergeant!”
“It’s Lieutenant. And it’s very early in the day to be going to the cemetery.”
Tavi gave him a contemptuous snort. “Death doesn’t keep bankers’ hours. My husband here”—she slapped Hugo’s shoulder—“must be in the fields by sunup. My brother-in-law, too,” she said, nodding at Felix. “My sister and I just lost two brothers to this blasted war. Their bodies came home yesterday. One was a married man. Now my sister-in-law here”—she gestured to Ella—“is a widow with three small children.”
Ella lowered her head and sniffled into the horse blanket.
“They have no one to provide for them. My husband and I must take them in,” Tavi continued. “Four more mouths to feed when we’ve barely got enough for ourselves. So, Lieutenant, if you are satisfied now, can we move on? Bodies don’t keep in the heat.”
“The queen is missing,” said the lieutenant. “The grand duke fears she’s been kidnapped. He’s given orders to stop anyone who looks suspicious and to inspect all wagons.”
Tavi laughed out loud. “The queen is a great beauty, lieutenant. Who is a beauty here? Me, in my old dress? My sister in hers? Or perhaps my four-eyed sister-in-law?”
Ella looked up. She squinted through Hugo’s eyeglasses. The lieutenant’s gaze passed right over her.
“Let me see your feet. Each of you ladies,” he said. “It’s well known that the queen has the daintiest feet in all the land.”
One by one, the three girls showed the lieutenant their feet. Isabelle’s were big, her boots filthy. Tavi’s, too. Ella’s were absolutely enormous in Felix’s old, battered boots.
“Now, if you’re finished harassing a grieving family …” Tavi said.
Hugo made ready to crack his reins, but the lieutenant held up a hand.
Now what? Isabelle wondered, panic rising in her.
“You could be smuggling the queen in those coffins,” the lieutenant said. He directed two of his men to the back of the wagon. “Open them up!”
Isabelle was paralyzed by fear. She glanced at the others. Felix’s shoulders were up around his ears. Hugo was saucer-eyed. Tavi had turned pale, but she hadn’t given up.
“This is a desecration!” she shouted. “Have you no shame?”
The two soldiers selected for the task glanced uneasily at each other.
“That was an order!” the lieutenant barked at them.
The soldiers dismounted from their horses.
“The bodies are several days old!” Tavi protested. “Must our last memories of our loved ones be an ungodly smell?”
An ungodly smell.
With those words, Isabelle’s paralysis broke. She knew exactly what to do. She turned around and faced backward, pretending to watch the soldiers. As she did, she snaked her right hand under the seat. Her fingers found the wooden box there. Slowly, carefully, she wedged them under the box’s lid.
Anticipating that the coffin lids would be nailed down, as coffin lids always are, one of the soldiers pulled a dagger from his belt to pry them off. He shoved the blade in under one of the lids and levered the handle. A few nails screeched free of the wood. As they did, Isabelle made her move.
She slid the lid off the wooden box and unleashed the sweaty dead dog.
The carnage was magnificent.
The horses shrieked. Three of them threw their riders. Some of the soldiers lost their suppers. Even the lieutenant turned green.
Isabelle, Tavi, and Ella, sitting right over the rank abomination, felt their eyes burning from its fumes. Tears poured down their cheeks, making them look even more like the bereaved family they claimed to be.
Tavi saw her advantage and took it. Standing up in the wagon, she shook a finger at the lieutenant. “You should be ashamed of yourself, sir!” she shrilled. “Disturbing the dead! Upsetting mourners! Making a poor widow weep!”
“For God’s sake, seal it up!” the lieutenant thundered, his hand over his nose.
The soldier who’d pried up a corner of the lid now frantically hammered it back down with the butt of his dagger.
“I’ve half a mind to tell the good Colonel Cafard what you’ve done,” Tavi continued. “We are not kidnapping anyone. We are poor, grieving folk trying to bury our loved ones!”
“My apologies, madame. Drive on!” the lieutenant said, waving his hand.
Hugo nodded, then clucked his tongue. Martin trotted off. Isabelle, still facing backward, quickly slid the lid back over the dead dog. It lessened the stink, but Hugo urged Martin into a canter nonetheless, in an attempt to outrun the lingering fumes. A few minutes later, they crested the hill, leaving the soldiers behind them.
When they’d made it down the other side, Hugo stopped the wagon. He leaned forward, breathing heavily. His hands were shaking.
“That was very, very close,” Felix said, a tremor in his voice.
“We don’t know if that’s the only patrol. We should keep going,” Isabelle urged.
Hugo sat up, having caught his breath. “I need my glasses back. Before I drive us off the road.”
Ella handed them to him. “Thank you, all of you. You saved my life,” she said.
“It was Tavi,” said Hugo. “She made that thing.”
Tavi shook her head modestly. “It was Leeuwenhoek.”
“Who?” Ella asked as Hugo started off again.
“It’s a long story. I’ll tell it to you one day. If we live long enough,” Isabelle said grimly. Hugo coaxed Martin into a canter again. As he did, one of the wagon’s wheels caught a pothole and jounced Tavi to the edge of her seat.
Ella grabbed hold of her, then took her hand to keep her safe. She took Isabelle’s hand, too. As the wagon sped through what remained of the night, neither Isabelle, nor Tavi, nor Ella let go.
The stars were fading as Martin trotted up the drive of the Maison Douleur to the linden tree. Before Hugo had even brought him to a halt, the others were out of the wagon.
An inquisitive whinny carried through the grounds. Isabelle knew it was one of the two rescued horses that now lived in the pasture. Martin whinnied back. Ella stared at what was left of the mansion.
“I’m sorry, Ella. It was your home. Long before it was ours,” Isabelle said.
“I don’t miss it,” Ella said. “I hope all the ghosts escaped when the walls fell in.”
Felix and Hugo had already carried one of the coffins to the base of the linden. Felix pried the lid off with a knife he’d tucked into his pocket.
Tavi and Isabelle carried the second coffin. Felix pried the lid off that one, too. Then they all turned to Ella.
“How do we do it?” Felix asked her. “How do we summon Tanaquill?”
“I—I don’t actually know,” Ella said. “Isabelle, do you?”
Isabelle felt a flutter of panic. “No,” she said. “I can’t remember exactly what I did.”
Ella took a deep breath. “Let me think … I remember walking to the linden tree after everyone had left for the ball. I was so upset. I wanted to go more than I’ve ever wanted anything. With my whole heart. And then suddenly, she just appeared.”
“A tall woman …” Felix said, with a shiver in his voice.
“Yes,” said Ella.
“With red hair and green eyes and sharp teeth.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because,” Felix said, pointing past them to the ruins, “she’s already here.”
Tanaquill walked out of the shadows.
She wore a gown made of black beetle shells that gleamed darkly in the moon’s waning light. Her crown was a circlet of bats. Three young adders curled around her neck; their heads rested like jewels on her collarbone.
Tanaquill addressed Ella. “I did not expect to see you back here. And certainly not in the company of your stepsisters. All you wanted when last we spoke was to get away from this place. Now you return?”
“I would not be here, standing in front of you, if Isabelle had not rescued me from a traitor’s plot. If Octavia had not thrown my enemies off my scent. I owe them my life. Now Isabelle needs your help, Your Grace.”
Tanaquill circled Isabelle. She placed a sharp black talon under her chin and lifted it.
“Have you found all the pieces, girl?”
“Yes, Your Grace. I—I think so. I hope so,” Isabelle said.
“And now that your heart is whole, what does it tell you?”
Isabelle looked down at her clenched hands. She thought of Malleval and tears of anger welled in her eyes. She thought of the grand duke coolly arranging the deaths of his young king and queen. She remembered the sweet weight of a sword in her hand.
“It tells me impossible things,” she whispered.
“Do you still desire to be pretty? Say the word and I will make it so.”
Isabelle looked up at the sky for some time, blinking her tears away. “No,” she finally said.
“What is it that you wish for, then?” Tanaquill asked.
“An army,” Isabelle replied, meeting the fairy queen’s eyes. “I wish to raise an army against Volkmar and the grand duke. I wish to save my family, my friends, my country.”
“You ask a great deal,” Tanaquill said. “Nothing comes from nothing. Magic must come from something. Coaches can come from pumpkins; that is child’s play. But an army? That is far more difficult. Even I cannot make a private out of a pebble, a major out of a mushroom.”
“We brought you these,” Isabelle said, hurrying to the coffins. She picked up a figure—an officer holding a saber across his chest—and put it in Tanaquill’s hand.
Tanaquill regarded it. She cocked her head.
“Please, Your Grace” Isabelle said. “Please help us.”
Tanaquill’s deep green eyes caught Isabelle’s. Held by their gaze, Isabelle felt as if the fairy queen could see deep inside her. Tanaquill stepped back, raised one hand high, and swirled it through the air.
A breeze rose. It turned into a wind. And the wind curled in on itself, spinning in a widening gyre.
Isabelle’s pulse quickened as the wind whirled the figurines out of the coffins and spread them across the lawns, the gardens, the paddocks and fields.
When the coffins were empty, the wind stopped.
And a new sound rose.
Isabelle felt the ground under her feet rumble and shudder.
Creaks and groans and sharp, shattering cracks were heard—the sounds trees make in a violent storm. Isabelle looked out over the hills and fields, illuminated now by the dawn’s first light.
Felix’s tiny carved figures were growing.
Isabelle’s heart beat madly as she watched them. Wooden bodies drew breath. They stretched tall, heads back, arms open wide to the sky. Wooden cheeks flushed with color. Blank eyes ignited with the fire of war.
Shouts carried across the fields as sergeants ordered men into formation. Isabelle heard the heavy metallic clunks of rounds being chambered and rifles being shouldered. A sea of blue uniforms flowed around her.
Two horses jumped the paddock fence and galloped to Tanaquill. As the fairy queen stroked them and spoke to them, Isabelle realized that they were the two she had rescued. They looked nothing like their former selves. Their coats gleamed; their manes rippled. They huffed and blew and raked at the ground, impatient for their riders.
Tanaquill stepped back as two men—lieutenants, Isabelle reasoned, judging from their uniforms—claimed the horses. They swung up into their saddles easily, lengthened their reins, then turned to Isabelle.
“Our general, mademoiselle. Where is he?” one of them asked her. “We await our orders.”
Isabelle craned her neck. She looked past the lieutenants. Out over the garden. The paddocks. Searching for their general. He would be tall and powerful. Scarred from his many battles. An intimidating man with a fierce bearing.
But she didn’t see him.
“Where is he?” she asked, turning to Felix. “Where’s the general?”
“Isabelle …” Felix said, shaking his head. “I—I didn’t carve one.”
“Felix, what do you mean, you didn’t carve one?” Isabelle asked, panicking.
“I was going to carve him at the end. I’d finished the soldiers and all the other officers—I just didn’t get to the general.”
“What are we going to do?” Isabelle said.
“What about the marquis?” Tavi asked. “He would make a good general.”
“Yes! The marquis!” Isabelle said, turning to Tanaquill. “I’ll go fetch him. It won’t take long. It—”
“There’s no time,” Tanaquill said, cutting her off. She pointed at the enchanted army. “Look at them.”
The soldiers’ movements were becoming stiff and jerky. Their color was fading. Their eyes were dulling.
“What’s happening to them?” Isabelle asked, distraught.
“They are warriors. They exist only to fight. If they have no general to lead them into battle, their fire fades. The magic dies.”
Isabelle’s panic bloomed into terror. She couldn’t lose this army. It was the only chance Ella had. The only chance their country had.
“What about Felix? Or Hugo? Can you transform one of them into a general?” Isabelle asked.
She turned to the boys, expecting to see Felix wearing a uniform, to see Hugo with a sword, but they remained exactly as they were.
“What’s wrong? Why didn’t anything happen?” she asked.
“That is your wish, not theirs,” Tanaquill replied.
Isabelle turned to the two boys. “Please,” she begged them.
“Isabelle, I’m a carpenter. I haven’t even reported for training yet. I’d get these men killed,” Felix said.
Hugo shook his head; he stepped back.
Isabelle pressed the heels of her hands to her head. “What can we do?”
Tanaquill circled her again. “What is your heart’s wish, Isabelle? Its truest wish?” she asked.
“To save my queen, my king, my country,” Isabelle babbled madly. “To save innocents from being slaughtered.”
But again, nothing happened.
“To give these fighters a general who is brave. Who’s a true warrior. Who will give everything to the fight—his blood and tears. His body and soul. His life.”
Tanaquill stopped in front of Isabelle. She pressed a taloned hand to her chest.
Isabelle could hear her heart beating, louder and louder. The sound was crashing in her ears. Filling her head.
Tanaquill’s voice cut through it like thunder. “I will ask you one last time, Isabelle—what is your heart’s desire?”
Isabelle tried to speak, to form words, but her heart was pounding so loudly, the sound filled her throat and they wouldn’t come.
She closed her eyes and a thousand image
s swirled through her head. She saw herself as a child, happy and free. Before she was told that she was less than, that all the things she loved were the wrong things.
She saw herself flying over fences on Nero. Galloping over fields, the mud flying from his hooves. She saw herself climbing to the top of the linden tree with Felix, imagining the branches were the rigging of a pirate ship. Fighting duels with a mop handle. Fighting off a hungry wolf from the chicken coop with nothing but a broomstick.
Those childhood images vanished and others came. She saw herself fighting against Maman. Against dull boys she wouldn’t have willingly spent ten minutes with, never mind a lifetime. Fighting against the endless dreary days of teacups and cakes, fake smiles and small talk.
Isabelle saw now that she’d been fighting her entire life to be who she was.
With anguish, and hope, and yearning, she asked her heart how to win that fight.
And her heart answered.
She covered Tanaquill’s hand with her own.
And Tanaquill, smiling, said, “Yes.”
Isabelle opened her eyes and looked around.
Tanaquill had stepped away, into the shadows under the linden tree.
But Tavi, Ella, Felix, and Hugo were frozen in place. They were staring at her. Tavi was smiling. Ella was wide-eyed. Hugo was openmouthed. Tears were spilling down Felix’s cheeks.
Isabelle looked down at herself and caught her breath.
Her worn dress was gone. She was wearing leather britches, a tunic of chain mail, and a gleaming silver breastplate. In her hands she held a finely made helmet. The weight of her armor, and the drag of her sword at her hip, were sweet to her. She felt taller, stronger, as if she were no longer made of blood, bones, and tender flesh, but iron and steel.
A high, fierce whinny echoed across the gray morning.
Isabelle turned and saw a black stallion cantering up the drive. He was wearing a blanket of mail and a silver faceplate. He looked fierce and majestic, a horse fit for a warrior.
He slowed to a trot, then stopped in front of Isabelle and snorted. Isabelle laughed. She patted his neck.
Stepsister Page 30