Girls Made of Snow and Glass

by Melissa Bashardoust

  His voice was low and gentle, and he reached his hand to brush a thumb against her throat, a faint smile on his face as he lived for a moment in his memories. But before he could touch her, Mina flinched and turned away from him. She couldn’t bear to see the earnest look in his eye or hear the conviction in his voice. Nothing that he said was a reflection of her anymore. He had moved beyond her reach.

  His fingers grazed her arm. “Mina—”

  “Stop it,” she said, turning to face him. “Do you think you’re capable of love when I’m not? Do you imagine yourself more human than I am?”

  He looked at her with concern and pity, and her chest ached. She’d made a man out of glass, had made him to worship her, and yet at this moment he was more flesh than she was. And she hated him for it.

  “And what will happen when I grow old, while you remain as you are? Will you still love me then? Will you still want to hold me in your arms? Or will you find a new queen to serve? Maybe that’s why you couldn’t bring yourself to kill Lynet. Because you found a prettier face than mine, a new face to adore.”

  He put his arms around her, and even though she wanted to push him away, she clung to him instead. “You’re wrong,” he said, and she heard the rumble of his voice in his chest. “I don’t think I’m more human than you. I think we are the same, and I think you give us both too little credit.”

  “I can’t trust you anymore,” she said, even as she held on to him. “You’ve lied to me. You’ve kept secrets. You’ve become … more than what I intended you to be.”

  “And yet I still love you.”

  “Exactly,” Mina said. She reached up and took his face in her hands. “And why do you think that is? You think you love me for my charms, for my sweet nature? That girl with the peach is dead, Felix. And one day you’ll realize it, and I’ll look into your eyes and see nothing there but contempt and pity.” It was painful enough when it happened with Lynet, she thought but did not say. She could prevent it, though—with one thought, she could turn Felix back to glass, shatter him where he stood. She had almost done it once, and only his growing humanity had saved him. What would save him from her now? What would save Lynet?

  Felix placed his hands gently over hers. “Mina—”

  “No,” she said, drawing away. She was horrified of her own thoughts, of her urge to destroy anyone who came too close to her. She suddenly found the crypt suffocating. “Don’t follow me,” she said, and she moved around Felix to get away, half expecting him to reach out and stop her.

  But he didn’t, and when Mina stepped out of the crypt back into the open air, she thought of what she had almost done to him, and she hoped for his sake that he would never reach out to her again.

  28

  LYNET

  As soon as the sun had risen, Lynet and Nadia set out on foot along the road north. Even after pooling their money together, they were reluctant to spend it until it was necessary, since Lynet didn’t want to use her powers again until they crossed the Frost Line, where she hoped the snow would revive her.

  Lynet didn’t know if she should be sad to leave the South or excited to go home. Home. She had never had the chance to miss Whitespring before, to think of it as anything but the only place in the world. But now it was home—it was hers—and she already felt the pull of the snow calling her back.

  Several times she noticed the wonder on Nadia’s face as she took in the color and light of the South. Lynet remembered that Nadia’s father had been southern, and she thought of what it must mean to Nadia to walk under these trees, knowing that her father might have once done the same. She had waited so long to come so far, and now she was leaving it all behind for Lynet’s sake. Did Nadia resent her for it at all, or did she feel she owed this to Lynet, after giving her secrets to Gregory?

  Lynet kept reminding herself of that betrayal, reopening a wound that was threatening to close. But when Nadia took her hand to help her climb over a fallen tree, or made excuses to stop and rest when she noticed Lynet’s labored breathing, it was too easy for Lynet to let her guard down again, to remember only the sweetness of the friendship they had shared without the bitter taste underneath it. And yet, she knew Nadia never forgot the deal she had made with Gregory—Lynet could always see it in the shadows around her eyes, in the corners of her hesitant smile.

  When night fell, they stopped to rest under the drooping leaves of a willow. Lynet laid her cloak out beneath her and looked up through the leaves at the visible patches of sky—a deep blue rather than a cloudy gray like at home—marveling at all the stars. Nadia settled beside her, both of them leaning against the wide trunk.

  They’d only exchanged a few impersonal words between them since leaving the city. It hadn’t been too noticeable when they were walking, but now, with the two of them sitting side by side, their shoulders barely touching, the silence surrounded them as completely as the willow leaves.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  The timidity in Nadia’s voice was a sharp point pressing at Lynet’s heart. This rift between them gave her no satisfaction, not when all she had ever wanted was to know Nadia better, to talk to her freely. She felt a fresh surge of resentment toward Gregory for having ruined their friendship before it had even begun.

  “Ask me.”

  “Are you scared to go back?”

  Scared? She had never wanted to admit when she was scared. Mina was never scared, or so she had believed. “I’m only scared it won’t work,” Lynet said, her throat dry from having been silent for so long. She stared straight ahead at the outlines of the dangling willow leaves. I’m scared I won’t be enough. “I’m scared that some wounds can’t be healed.”

  “Some wounds never heal,” Nadia said. She shyly reached for Lynet’s right hand, turning it over so her palm was facing up. “But many do.” Nadia’s fingers ran over the scars that striped Lynet’s palm where the dagger’s handle had burned her. Her hands were soft, her touch soothing, so Lynet didn’t move her hand away.

  “How can you tell which can be healed and which can’t?” Lynet asked in a whisper. And she knew they both heard the other question that hung unasked between them: Which one are we?

  “Practice,” Nadia said. “Experience.” She hesitated and began to draw her hand away, but then she said, “Hold up your hand.”

  “What?”

  “Hold up your hand, like this.” Nadia held her hand up, palm facing outward. Lynet did the same, and Nadia pressed their fingertips together. “Now wait.”

  Lynet fidgeted, her earlier confession making her feel exposed, restless. But she waited until the only sensation was their twin heartbeats, Lynet’s quick and jumping, Nadia’s solid and even. Soon, Lynet’s heart began to slow, and she couldn’t tell whose pulse was whose anymore.

  “My mother used to do this with me when I was a child, whenever I was afraid,” Nadia said. Her voice layered over the beating of their hearts sounded like a song. “She said that if my heart was racing too quickly, I could borrow hers for a while, until my own was calm again.”

  Lulled by the rhythm, Lynet’s thoughts turned to Mina. She could still remember the moment in the chapel when Mina had made Lynet feel her lack of a pulse, and Lynet wished she could return to that night and respond differently—to reach out to her instead of silently shrinking away.

  Her own words echoed back to her like an accusation: I’m going back for my home, my family—don’t you think any price is worth that? Of course Nadia had agreed—she had decided that spying on some girl she didn’t even know was worth the chance to keep her father’s memory alive. Wouldn’t Lynet have done the same if she thought it would bring her closer to Mina?

  Lynet let her hand fall, guilt stirring in her chest. “Nadia…” she started, searching for the right words, a safe ground between thanks and apology. “I want you to know that I understand what the South means to you, and that I appreciate your leaving it for my sake.”

  There was a pause, and then Nadia said, “Part of me did
think I would find traces of my father here—in the people of the South, in the hands of other surgeons. In myself, maybe. But I think the truth is that I was trying to escape my parents, too. I wanted to stop seeing their faces, still marked from illness, right before we buried them in the snow. I thought if I went south, I could imagine them alive again. I could find something full of movement and life and energy to distract me from those memories.” Lynet heard the rustle of Nadia’s hair as Nadia turned to look at her. “But I didn’t need to go south—I had already found what I wanted.”

  Lynet was keenly aware of her thudding heartbeat. “Where did you find it?” she asked.

  “She fell out of a tree one morning.”

  Lynet hid her face, certain that even in the darkness, Nadia would be able to see the confused emotions written there. Anger and betrayal fighting for victory against forgiveness and something else that she didn’t understand, the words hidden underneath her skin somewhere she couldn’t reach. I’ve missed this. I’ve missed her.

  But when Lynet turned back, Nadia wasn’t looking at her, either. She was twisting her sleeves in her hands, her head bowed low, hair blocking her face. When she spoke, Lynet could hear the cracks in her voice. “Whenever I think of what Gregory wanted from you, whenever I think of the role I played…” Nadia lifted her head, turning to face Lynet with all of her sorrow and regret on display, and Lynet knew this was an offering. Lynet had told Nadia her secrets, and now Nadia was giving her the most difficult secret she possessed—that behind her air of competence and control, she was as lost and uncertain and lonely as Lynet had been. “Lynet, I’m so sorry,” she breathed.

  Lynet didn’t look away this time. She could absolve Nadia with a word, if she wanted, and part of her did want to—her resentment was no raging fire that gave her strength, but a painful weight on her chest that made it hard to breathe. But she waited so long to answer, the silence stretching between them, that the moment for forgiveness passed.

  She leaned her head back against the tree and shut her eyes. When Nadia spoke again—just Lynet’s name, soft and questioning—Lynet pretended she was asleep.

  * * *

  At dawn, Lynet and Nadia continued following the main road until they came upon a group of merchants going north with bolts of colorful fabric. The merchants agreed to take them past the Frost Line in one of their carts in exchange for the contents of Lynet’s purse, and so Lynet and Nadia left the South nestled between silks and linens.

  Lynet kept her eyes shut for most of the journey—the rocking of the cart on the uneven road and the moving landscape around them made her feel nauseated. But then, on their second day traveling in the cart, Lynet felt a jolt all through her body, like she was suddenly waking up after dreaming about falling from a great height. Her eyes snapped open, and there, all around them, was snow.

  They had crossed the Frost Line.

  She nearly cried from the relief of seeing the snow. She felt like she’d been holding her breath for a long time and had suddenly released it, the world around her clear and vivid again.

  But it wasn’t enough just to see the snow. She needed to feel it on her skin, to sink into it and hear her heartbeat resounding all around her. Soon, she promised herself.

  She had forgotten, though, how much slower the carts moved through the North, how often they needed to stop to clear the roads, and more than once Lynet wanted to test her power and sweep all the snow off the road with a wave of her hand. But she waited until the cart stopped at a crossroads. From here, the merchants would go west toward the estate of a nobleman whose name Lynet vaguely recognized. They didn’t bother trying to sell their expensive fabric in the villages, taking them straight to the wealthy estates instead.

  Lynet practically leaped out of the cart while Nadia thanked the merchants, and she headed north into the woods. Nadia hurried to catch up with her, but Lynet only went deep enough into the woods for the trees to shield her from passing view before sinking to her knees in the snow. She hadn’t fully grasped how warm the South was until now, when the heat was finally seeping out of her.

  She heard Nadia calling her name, asking her something, but nothing was louder than the blood rushing under her skin, nothing brighter than the white snow, like a beacon calling her home. She sank deeper into it, lying on her back with her eyes shut, and simply lay there for a while, breathing in and out to the rhythm of her heart until it grew steady—not too fast, not too slow.

  She opened one eye and saw Nadia watching her from nearby, a fond smile on her face. Lynet remembered what she’d said about finding what she had been looking for in the North, soft words spoken in the dark, and she liked the version of herself that she saw in Nadia’s eyes.

  But when Nadia noticed that Lynet had seen her, she turned away, as if she had no right to watch her anymore.

  It was almost evening, so they decided to walk to the nearest village and stay the night there before continuing on to Whitespring the next day. When they reached the small, crowded streets of the next village, Lynet remembered the last time she had passed through a village like this, how she had seen all the ways she could help and yet had shrunk away and even threatened a stranger. The memory shamed her. Perhaps returning to Whitespring was a mistake, but it was a mistake she needed to make.

  Her cloak wasn’t strange or out of place here, but she didn’t want or need it anymore—it was one more layer between her and the snow—and so before she could talk herself out of it, she tore the cloak off and gave it to a young woman who was walking by, her own cloak thin and torn. She pressed the heavy cloak into the girl’s hands, moving on quickly before the girl could refuse or ask questions.

  She thought Nadia might worry about her being too visible in her bright red southern clothes, but she only said, “That was kind of you,” before following Lynet onward to the village’s dingy inn.

  Lynet had a full purse, her magic effortless again, but for the rest of the journey, neither she nor Nadia mentioned the idea of riding in a cart, or even suggested that Lynet try making a cart out of the snow. With each step closer to Whitespring, Lynet’s fears became harder to ignore, and so she was relieved to walk the rest of the way, to prolong these last stolen moments with Nadia before they returned to their roles of the princess and the magician’s spy.

  After four days of traveling, Lynet and Nadia finally reached the woods outside Whitespring just before dusk.

  Nadia drew a long breath. “Are you sure about this?”

  Lynet nodded, staring straight ahead. “I’ll stay near the edge here, to the left, so it’ll be easy to find me.”

  Nadia looked at her, and though she said nothing, her eyes spoke of fear, of remorse, of some forbidden hope. There was a question poised on her lips, but instead of asking it, she turned away, her hair hiding her face.

  Lynet might have offered some reassurance that they would see each other again, that she understood why Nadia had acted as a spy, that she was finding it harder and harder to blame Nadia for what she had done. She might have reached out and brushed the snow out of Nadia’s hair. She might have asked her own question, one that had been swimming in her mind since she’d seen those two young women in the city square. But now, so close to Whitespring, Lynet was becoming more fully aware of the danger ahead—not just for herself, but for Nadia as well. And so she knew what she had to say instead.

  “You can still turn back if you want,” Lynet said. “You don’t owe me anything.”

  Nadia shook her head, facing Lynet again. “That’s not why I’m doing this. If you want to turn back now, I’ll go with you, but I’m not going alone.”

  “Then promise me that you’ll leave Whitespring if Mina or Gregory poisons me.”

  “Lynet—”

  Lynet held up a hand to stop her. “Here,” she said. She pressed the full purse into Nadia’s hands. “If anything goes wrong after I wake, or if Gregory figures out that you switched the poisons, I … I don’t want anything to happen to you. Go south again i
f you wish, but promise me that you’ll leave Whitespring as soon as you can.”

  Nadia didn’t answer at first. She studied the purse in her hands, silently deliberating. “Is that your first order as queen?” she said at last.

  Lynet tried to smile. “Yes.”

  “Then I promise.”

  She didn’t say more, but Lynet saw the question forming on her lips again. And she knew, as strongly as she felt her connection to the snow, that if Nadia spoke now, this good-bye would become impossible. “You should go before it gets too dark,” Lynet said, the words falling heavily to the snow at her feet.

  Nadia gave a short nod, eyes glistening. She turned and started down the path to Whitespring without another word.

  Lynet watched her go until the wind sent the snow flurrying up along the road, forming a white veil that hid her from view.

  29

  MINA

  The snow had fallen over the patch of earth where Sybil’s statue had once stood, as though nothing had ever been there at all. From her window, Mina frowned. The continuing presence of winter seemed to be mocking her, reminding her of her failure.

  A series of quick raps on the door interrupted her thoughts. Mina knew it must be Felix. When she called him in, he fixed his eyes on a spot over her shoulder and said something about an urgent request to see her.

  She kept looking at him, startled by the way his eyes were no longer blank and endless, but rich and full. He was an empty outline who had been filled in at last.

  “Who is it?” she asked him. “Did you recognize the person?”

  Felix nodded. “The surgeon you dismissed.”

  Mina turned away, thinking of the vial of poison that still sat by her bed. “I’ll see her in the throne room,” she told Felix. “Bring her to me there.”

  * * *

  Two of her guards showed the surgeon in, with Felix behind them. Mina had gazed around in awe the first time she’d entered the throne room all those years ago, but the surgeon showed no reaction to the room’s grandeur, her eyes fixed straight ahead as she approached the throne with single-minded focus. Mina wondered if the girl had to convince herself to turn Lynet over, or if this betrayal came easily to her.