Girls Made of Snow and Glass

by Melissa Bashardoust

  She was walking back to the cart on the edge of town when a hand shot out and grabbed her by the arm. Lynet jumped, but it was only an old woman, wisps of white hair escaping from beneath her tattered shawl. “Is it you?” she muttered, peering past Lynet’s hood to her face. “Are you the princess?”

  Lynet went rigid in fear, looking around to make sure that no one was paying them any attention. The woman’s grip on her arm was stronger than she would have expected from someone who looked so small and frail, but then, the woman would have to be strong to live so long in the North.

  “No, ma’am. You’re mistaken,” Lynet managed to say in a broken whisper.

  “I worked at Whitespring, in the kitchens,” the woman said. “You wouldn’t have noticed me, but I know your face—it was your mother’s face too.”

  The woman was speaking more loudly now, and Lynet didn’t know how to make her stop, to release her arm. Bribe her? But that would only confirm her suspicions, and then she might tell someone else, and the news would spread through the North that the princess had been seen in one of the villages on the way to the South.

  If Lynet wanted to get away, she would have to convince the woman that she was no delicate princess, no fragile butterfly. Lynet wrenched her arm from the old woman’s grip, and the woman almost lost her balance from the violent movement. Lynet opened her cloak just a little, placing her hand lightly on the hilt of the dagger at her waist. “You’re mistaken,” she said again, more firmly this time. “Now leave me be.”

  The woman stared at the weapon as she retreated. “Of course,” she said. “Of course. Sorry to bother you.” And then she turned and hurried away.

  Lynet let out a long breath as she continued back to the cart. She felt more shame than relief. She wasn’t used to this kind of guardedness; it felt unnatural on her, like a dress that didn’t quite fit. There was a kind of ache in her chest, a gaping feeling. Is this how it feels to be strong?

  Back in the cart, she kept thinking of the old woman, of the girl and her spoiled apple, of how easy it would be for Lynet to step outside of the cart and clear these roads herself just by telling the snow what she wanted. She’d caught sight of a few workers along the way, shoveling snow off the road, and she was tempted to help them, to simply ask the snow to move aside and watch as it obeyed. Clean roads, fresh food—she could see the ways to counteract the hardships of Sybil’s curse, yet she was running away.

  But wasn’t that what she had to do to survive? Hadn’t Mina kept her own secrets rather than use them for anyone’s good but her own? If Lynet wanted to match her stepmother’s fierceness, to be stronger than she used to be, then she would have to learn to keep her own secrets as well.

  * * *

  The cart emptied a little more at each stop until Lynet was alone with the merchant, who thankfully paid no attention to her. She was fortunate she was alone when they crossed the Frost Line, because the moment it happened, she visibly jolted.

  Even if she couldn’t see for herself that the snow was gone, she would have known it at once. She simply couldn’t feel the snow anymore. She had never thought she could feel snow in the first place, but now that it was gone, she could sense its absence, like a low buzzing in her ear that had suddenly been silenced.

  And then there was the warmth that was slowly spreading through her body, making her feel heavy and listless. When she lifted her arm, it seemed to move more slowly than usual, like the air itself was trying to push it back down. Looking at her hand, she remembered her experiments with Nadia, and she wondered if her skin was still cold to the touch. She’d have to be careful not to let anyone brush against her here; her cold skin wasn’t too strange in the North among the snow, but people would probably think she was ill if she was icy to the touch even under the sun.

  I don’t fit here, she thought suddenly, and she wondered if Mina had felt the same way when she had first crossed the Frost Line from the other direction. Mina always felt cold, no matter how many years she had spent in the North, and Lynet knew, without being able to explain why, that she would never get used to the heat under her skin now.

  Lynet looked around and found an entire world she had never seen before. Green hills rose up near the horizon, and above them the sun was almost painfully bright now that it wasn’t hidden by dense clouds. She had seen trees before, of course, but she only knew them to come in two varieties: green or bare. As the cart jostled along the path, she watched their surroundings change. She saw trees with red and gold leaves, trees with pink flowers, trees full of fruit or berries. She marveled at them all, thinking of Mina’s rooms, her attempt to bring these colors to Whitespring. How faded those colors seemed now, compared to the sights in front of her.

  They passed through miles of farmland, rows of wheat and other crops that Lynet didn’t even recognize, but they never needed to stop—the road was smooth and unobstructed. Lynet closed her eyes and conjured the maps of the kingdom she had studied in her lessons, picturing the narrow strip of land, both protected and isolated by its heavy mountain ranges along the northern and western borders and the wide expanse of sea to the south and east. A little less than halfway down from the northern border was the Frost Line. Mina had once said that her journey north had taken nearly a week, but Mina’s village had been closer to the kingdom’s southern border. Lynet’s destination, the largest city in the South, was farther north, not too far south of the Frost Line, and so the hardest part of the journey was already behind her.

  They reached the city as the sun was beginning to set that night, almost three days after she’d begun the journey. Lynet stared, mesmerized, at the pinks and golds spread across the sky. Now she knew that she had never truly seen a sunset before.

  The merchant would spend the night here before continuing on his way, so the cart moved on, slowly now, through the winding city streets, constantly stopping as people walked by with no regard for the horses. The air was warm and enticing with the smell of burning meat, and when they crossed a bridge over a river, the remaining sunlight reflected off the water so brightly that Lynet had to look away.

  Mina had told her once that this was where Gregory went during his visits south, to the university that Mina had reopened not long after becoming queen. Thinking of the university made her think of Nadia, of course, but Lynet pushed her out of her head, trying not to imagine how different this journey might have been if Nadia had run away with her when she’d asked. It was risky, perhaps, to go to Mina’s father for help, when Mina was supposed to think she was dead, but Lynet remembered the way Mina always bristled when she spoke of Gregory, and she remembered the way Gregory had been so pleased to see her the one time she’d run into him. She wasn’t sure where his allegiance would lie, but he was the only one who could answer her questions, and so she had to take the risk.

  When the cart stopped in front of an inn, the merchant helped Lynet step down, and she thanked him for taking her all this way. At first, all she could do was stand still on the street while everyone moved around her, the whole city spinning as she fought to keep her balance. When she’d recovered, she asked the merchant where she could find the university, and he simply pointed at a spot ahead. When Lynet looked, she saw a large dome rising up above the other buildings not far away. She thanked him and started walking in the direction of the dome.

  But the streets here were not simple lines pointing straight ahead. They wound and curved, leading Lynet away from the dome, and then toward it again, and then slightly to the left. All the while, she was sweltering under her cloak and trying not to notice the strange stares people were giving her as they passed by in light, airy clothes, their arms bare. Lynet thought she must have looked like a storm cloud passing through.

  And everywhere she went, she kept hearing Mina’s name.

  “Stop fidgeting,” a mother told her child. “What would Queen Mina think if she saw how impatient you are?”

  “To Queen Mina’s health!” two men exclaimed as they passed a mug between
them.

  As she neared the university, she heard a rabble of drunken young students laughing and cheering. “To the queen!” one of them called out, and the others answered in turn, “To Queen Mina! To the southern queen!” The southern queen—how different those words sounded now, compared to when the Pigeons sneered them.

  They love her here, Lynet remembered, pulling her hood farther down over her face. She had heard Mina tell her father about grateful letters she’d received, but she had never fully considered how important her stepmother must be to the South. To these people, Mina was their champion, and Lynet wondered, then, how they would have felt about her father’s plan to give the South to his northern daughter.

  The sun was a little bit lower by the time Lynet wound her way through the heart of the city and reached the university. She looked at the massive main building in awe. Glass tiles decorated the walls of the university in various patterns, shining brilliantly in the sunlight.

  Lynet followed a group of students through the university gates, into an elegant courtyard with blooming pink roses climbing up the sandstone walls. In the center was a low, round fountain covered in colored tiles. Lynet would have liked to look more closely at a real garden, and a fountain that wasn’t frozen over, but she didn’t allow herself to become distracted. She went through the round arched doorway and marveled at the parade of color and light everywhere she looked, the setting sun throwing dramatic shadows of the arches and balustrades on the tiled floors. There were no straight lines here, none of Whitespring’s sharp edges—from the tiles on the ground to the window frames to the roof above her head, the designs were all round or curved.

  A grand marble staircase dominated the entry hall, and Lynet started her ascent, hoping to find someone who could lead her to Gregory. She had to pause when she reached a large stained-glass window on the landing. The remaining sunlight came pouring in through the window in a tapestry of color, and she wondered if the windows in the chapel at Whitespring had ever looked this way, in the days before the curse. Lynet looked down at her hands, the light painting her skin in different hues of orange and red and gold.

  And then she looked up at the window as a whole, and she gasped at the image: a queen with red-tinged hair and golden skin, the sun rising behind her. The window was a tribute to Mina, in return for her reopening the university.

  Lynet could only stand there a short while—the heat was becoming nearly unbearable to her—but she could still see the window’s design behind her eyelids when she blinked. She kept thinking of Mina, who had grown up in the sun but now had to resign herself to lighting fires in an attempt to re-create its warmth. She felt strangely ashamed to be here now, like this was Mina’s territory and she was trespassing, and she pulled her hood closer around her face.

  Down one of the halls, Lynet found an older woman with a confident stride and stopped her to ask if she knew where she could find the magician Gregory.

  The woman’s eyes narrowed as she swept her gaze over Lynet’s inappropriately heavy attire. “The queen’s father? You won’t find him here now.”

  The woman’s stern tone made Lynet shrink back a little. “Doesn’t … doesn’t he live here, though?” she asked.

  “He comes here often to visit the library,” the woman said. “But no, he doesn’t live on the grounds.”

  “If it isn’t too much trouble, could you maybe tell me where he does live?”

  She made a vague gesture in the air. “Somewhere nearby. From what I’ve heard, he keeps his home private because he doesn’t like to be bothered, but if you’re really so desperate to find him, you can try going to the apothecary. He may know more.”

  The woman continued on her way, leaving Lynet standing bewildered in the hall. She wished she hadn’t backed off so easily or been so intimidated by the woman’s forbidding attitude, but at least she had an idea of where to look next. Now she just had to find the apothecary’s shop.

  But not tonight. As she went back down the stairs, grateful that the darkening sky now obscured Mina’s image in the window, she decided she would retrace her steps to the inn where the merchant had stopped and stay there for the night. And in the morning—well, in the morning, she would want to see the city in the light of day. The apothecary’s shop could wait. After all, before that night in the chapel, even before her father’s accident, she had wanted to come south to see who she could be when she wasn’t just her mother’s daughter. The discovery of Mina’s powers—and her own—had made her forget her original reason for wanting to come south, but now that she was here, in a bustling city full of strangers, she knew what she really wanted to forget—the sound of Mina’s voice in the chapel, the sight of her father on his deathbed … and herself.

  Most of all, she wanted to forget herself.

  23

  LYNET

  The South was much noisier than Lynet had anticipated. She’d felt a little nervous, but quite fierce, as she’d locked the door to her small room at the inn, lying down on the bed with her dagger beside her in easy reach. She had told herself that despite her exhaustion, she would have to sleep lightly, to be aware of every step outside her door. A girl alone in a city had to be vigilant.

  But she needn’t have worried about sleeping too heavily. At home, the snow had seemed to muffle all sound, creating a world of whispers and hushed movements. But here, that barrier was gone, the curtain lifted, and so Lynet did hear every step outside her door and on the floor above her. She heard the sounds of shouting and laughter on the streets outside her window. She heard the rattling of wheels and the clopping of horses. She heard every sound the city had to offer, and when she rose early in the morning, the sun streaming in from her one window, she had barely slept at all.

  The heaviness that had come over her when she’d first crossed the Frost Line had never left. She still felt a little like she was trying to tread through choppy water, her movements a fraction slower than she expected them to be. You’re not whole without the snow, a stubborn voice in her head insisted, but she ignored it.

  Lynet emptied her purse onto the floor, counting the snow coins that still remained. She was grateful they hadn’t melted, and now she wondered if she could dissolve them back into snow and make more. Concentrating, she watched the coins become snow with the same wonder as before. Then, before the snow could melt, she pictured double the amount of coins as before. But as soon as the snow transformed, her body seemed to rebel against her—an ache in her chest like something was wringing out her heart, a sudden fatigue like the energy was draining out of her.

  She shut her eyes, taking deep, labored breaths until the pain faded, but the lethargy clung to her like a thick, muggy fog. Using her power up north hadn’t felt like this, but she had been surrounded by snow there, so aware of her connection to it that it had felt like part of her. And now, that connection was missing. She couldn’t afford to use her power again unless she had to, not if she wanted to stay upright.

  Gathering the coins back in the purse, Lynet eyed her heavy cloak with disgust. Wearing it in the evening had been unpleasant enough, but the idea of throwing it over her already heavy dress as the sun beat down on her through the window was unbearable. Even her thick hair seemed a burden, and she lifted it up off her neck, wondering if she should just chop it all off.

  And why shouldn’t I? Her father would never have let her cut her mother’s hair, but her father was … her father wasn’t here to stop her. Before she could lose her nerve, she retrieved her dagger and cut off her hair in an uneven line that stopped at her shoulders. She immediately felt cooler, and she let out a sigh of relief, some of her energy restored. But more than that, when she saw the mess she’d made of her mother’s curls, she felt a curious kind of stillness come over her. Or no, not stillness—because her heart was pounding, and she thought she could even feel the blood flowing through her veins—but harmony. Every piece of her was finally moving together, no longer pulled in different directions to create that restless feeling unde
r her skin.

  She laughed, knowing that no one would hear her—or that it wouldn’t matter if anyone did. Being alone in a city full of people was a frightening prospect at times, but now it made her feel bold. She ventured down into the city, following the road to the busy marketplace. She bought herself a new dress, the red silk sliding over her fingers like liquid. She would be happy to be rid of her wool dress, now torn and dirty from her travels, but she decided to keep wearing her cloak when she was out, despite the heat. Always in the back of her mind was the fear that someone might recognize her. She hadn’t heard her own name since she’d run away, and she wanted to keep her identity a secret—at least until she found Gregory.

  Tomorrow, she promised. She would try to find him tomorrow. She needed time to study her surroundings first.

  For the rest of the day, she did just that. She wandered through the marketplace, letting the wave of the crowd pull her past baskets full of pomegranates, a stall twittering with the songs of caged birds, and carts of rolled-up woven rugs. She took note of a doll maker’s shop, reminding herself to come back with the hair she’d cut this morning and see if he would buy it from her. She went down to the river that she had crossed last night and walked along its bank. She saw a group of children wading up to their ankles in a shallower part of the river, and she did the same, ignoring the echo of her father’s voice telling her to be careful.

  She did go to the doll shop the next day with a long braid of her hair, and before she left, her purse a little heavier, she asked the doll maker where she could find the apothecary. Following his directions, she went along the main road that snaked through the city in a large spiral until she turned down a shadowy road with a few scattered storefronts. She could tell which was the apothecary’s just by the smell that surrounded it, a heady mixture of lavender and rosemary.