Girls Made of Snow and Glass

by Melissa Bashardoust

  But no—Lynet had thought of this—he would need Nadia before removing her heart. Nadia would stall him until she had a chance to wake again—

  But I made Nadia promise to leave if I was poisoned. Why had she done that? What had she thought would happen after she was poisoned, if no one was there to protect her from Gregory while she slept? I thought Mina would never poison me in the first place. And so she had let her emotions weaken her judgment yet again. For all she knew, Nadia had been mistaken, and Gregory could perform the surgery without her if necessary. Or maybe he didn’t need Nadia to remove the heart, just to transfer it to him, and Gregory was about to cut out her heart while she was still alive.

  “No—” Lynet choked out. She tried to rise to her feet, but she merely inched forward on her knees a little, fighting to keep upright. She tried to cover her heart with her hand, a futile but instinctive attempt to protect herself, but her hand wouldn’t obey. And despite everything, she looked to Mina to help her, as she always had. “Don’t let him—”

  But Mina did nothing, said nothing, as Gregory came to stand at his daughter’s side. “It shouldn’t be long now,” he muttered. “Stay here until she’s dead. I’ll return shortly.”

  He left, and Lynet was alone with Mina again, her face as blank as snow.

  Snow, Lynet thought, her mind growing foggy. I still have the snow. She could use it to protect herself, to keep Gregory away—but when she called to the snow on the roof, a spasm of pain went through her chest, and she cried out. The poison was shutting down her heart, freezing her blood, and freezing her magic with it.

  And yet the most painful detail of all was that Mina could just stand there and watch.

  “It wasn’t supposed to happen this way,” she muttered through gritted teeth, her head bowed from its own weight. “I had too much faith in you—or too much faith in myself, to think I knew you so well.” Her tongue grew heavy. “I know you now. I see you.” With a final effort, she lifted her head to look Mina in the eye. Now, finally, she saw those eyes clearly—they were black, shining, and empty, two glassy stones placed in a human face.

  Lynet looked away before she saw herself die in them.

  33

  MINA

  Mina huddled in the chapel, shivering at the cold wind that came in through the broken windows. Her thoughts were as chaotic and confused as they’d been when she’d first run from the North Tower, Lynet’s heartbeat still echoing in her chest.

  What a queen I am, she thought bitterly. Hiding away from a girl half my age. And what would a true queen do? Strike down any threat, of course, even if it meant killing her own stepdaughter. That was what her father would have her do.

  Mina was wrenched out of her daze by the sound of hurried footsteps. When she heard them at the chapel door, she didn’t even turn around.

  When Mina did look up, Felix stood over her, his voice cold and impersonal as he said, “This is for you.” She looked up, and he was holding something out to her—a folded sheet of paper, yellowing at the edges.

  Lynet’s letter. She looked up at Felix in surprise. “You went to see her?”

  He nodded. “I did her a terrible wrong, and I had to atone.”

  How easy he makes it sound, she thought. Just like Lynet—Felix was too inexperienced to understand that sometimes it was too late to atone, too late to stop moving forward on the chosen path. She snatched the letter from him. “Do you really think this letter can change anything?”

  He shook his head slowly. “I don’t know. I just promised her I would find it and take it to you. I warned her that I couldn’t make you read it if you didn’t want to.”

  Mina sighed and unfolded the paper, glancing quickly at the first lines as she leaned back against the altar.

  My dear Mina, I can’t leave without saying good-bye.…

  She frowned, wrinkling her nose at the musty smell of the old paper. She had thought it was only the paper that was old, and that Lynet had written a letter to her, but this wasn’t Lynet’s handwriting. She didn’t recognize this hand at all. Her eyes swept down to the bottom of the page, and the name Dorothea made her suck in a sharp breath.

  Felix tilted his head. “Should I leave you?”

  “No,” she said quickly. “Don’t … don’t go.” She had no desire to be alone with her mother’s ghost. Felix sighed and settled beside her, careful not to let even their shoulders brush against each other.

  At first Mina imagined that this letter was her mother’s last good-bye before taking her own life, but as she read—going over some of the sentences several times—she started to frown in confusion. Her mother’s words didn’t match what Mina knew, what she expected. Mina couldn’t understand the words until she put aside the story she knew and focused on the one she held in her hands now.

  The letter wasn’t just a good-bye. It was an apology—and not for killing herself, but for running away.

  I wish I could take you with me, but I don’t know where I’ll go, if I can take care of myself, let alone a child your age with your poor health. Your father says your heart is stable thanks to what he’s done, but I can never tell if he’s lying, if he’s only trying to trick me. I’ve never been alone before. No one ever told me how hard it was to be a mother, how much of a child I would feel even when holding my own child in my arms.

  The paper was stained in places—smudges of ink during hesitant moments, stains that might have been tears.

  I know I should stay, and that it’s wrong for me to leave you here with him, but I can’t stop myself from hating him and I know that he sees it in me, and that he hates me for it too. And I’m sure that if I stay, he would do me some harm. But he wouldn’t hurt his only child, not after he worked so hard to save your life. I’ve failed you too many times, and I don’t deserve your forgiveness, though I hope that one day you might still try to think kindly of me. I won’t look for you, in case you don’t want me, but I’ll always be waiting, in case you ever find your way to me again.

  And then, miraculously, the words that made the least sense of all—

  I love you, Mina. I love you so much. I wish I could be stronger for you.

  Mina’s hands trembled, both from anger—She left me—and from joy—She loved me. She ran her fingertips over those last words again and again, wanting to hold them, to transform them into something with weight and shape, something she could carry with her. All these years, this letter had been hiding the secret of her mother’s love. Where had it been? How had Lynet found it?

  She had gone to Gregory, Mina remembered. Lynet was always so curious, always snooping where she shouldn’t be. Gregory had kept this letter, or perhaps he had forgotten about it, but he still knew that Dorothea hadn’t killed herself. He had lied to Mina—about her mother’s death, about her mother’s love, about the way her heart worked. You cannot love, and you will never be loved, he had said, and he had been wrong.

  Didn’t you see how much I loved you? Lynet had asked.

  No, no, she’d only ever seen the world through her mirrors, surrounding herself with distorted images and believing that they were real. Lynet is younger and more beautiful than you, and she will replace you, one of them had told her, and she had believed it while ignoring the joyful smile on Lynet’s face as she talked with her stepmother, the love that poured out of her with every word. Mina had let reflections fool her, too afraid to look beneath them for a heart she didn’t think she had. She wondered when she had started to imagine that Lynet was as cold and heartless as she saw herself.

  Felix now put a tentative hand on her shoulder. “Mina?”

  Mina dropped the letter carefully on the ground and turned to take Felix’s face in her hands, studying him intently. All those times he had said he loved her—had he truly meant them all? Even now, when he was angry with her, he had stayed with her simply because she had asked him to. She shyly ran her thumb along the line of his mouth, and she remembered what he had said to her in the crypt. And when I touched you, it felt
like the first time, the night you made me. She felt that way now, because it was the first time—the first time they were both alive together, separate and yet the same. The first time she felt an unfamiliar warmth spread through her chest and knew that she loved him, as he loved her.

  “Oh, Felix, I’m sorry,” she breathed, thinking of how she had almost wanted to kill him that night.

  She started to draw away, but he caught her hand in his and brought his head down to press his lips to the veins on her wrist, where her pulse should have been, embracing the parts of her that she thought were broken, just as he always had. And then they were both in each other’s arms—him holding her fiercely, one hand buried in her hair, her murmuring “You love me” over and over again against his cheek.

  “Lynet was right,” he said, pulling away from her. “She said that letter might do you some good.”

  Mina couldn’t answer. Her mother had still abandoned her, leaving her to her father, and Mina felt a wave of resentment, a dizzying sort of despair as she wondered how her life might have been different if Dorothea had been brave enough to stay or to take Mina with her. I wish I could be stronger for you. And yet when Mina said those words to herself, she didn’t hear her mother’s voice, but her own—I wish I could be stronger for Lynet. Dorothea had run away from being a mother. Mina had not run away, but she had still failed Lynet. It was only the dead mothers who were perfect—the living ones were messy and unpredictable.

  Is there a cure for me, do you think?

  I’m not sure that you need one.

  Lynet had known. She had understood that Mina’s heart wasn’t as damaged as either Mina or Gregory had claimed. She had read the letter, but more than that, Lynet had loved her. Even now, Lynet loved her. And Mina … Mina made her decision at last. She would do what her mother hadn’t been able to do—she would protect her daughter.

  Mina rose from the chapel floor, picking up the letter, and walked toward the door. Felix followed close behind. “Is she still in the tower, do you think?” she asked him. “I left the door unlocked.”

  “I would think she is,” he answered. “The guards said she came freely, without trying to run or fight.”

  Mina would go to her, then, and Lynet would see that she had the letter, and she would know at once—that Lynet had understood her better than Mina understood herself. And the crown? The Summer Castle? a treacherous voice whispered in her ear. Only one of you can be queen. It was true. She faltered in her step as she hurried down the long hall that led to the east wing, and Felix held her arm to keep her from stumbling. But what was the false and fickle devotion of Whitespring compared to the love that Lynet had shown her? What was the heavy feeling of a crown on her head compared to the pressure of Lynet’s fingertips against hers, as she had lent Mina her heart? It was only the South that she still wanted, the South that gave her reign any meaning at all, but would Lynet even want to take that from her, as Nicholas had?

  I have to trust her, she thought. I have to earn her trust in me. She continued toward the stairs that would take her up to the North Tower—

  —where she nearly collided with her father, headed in the opposite direction. He looked worse than she had ever seen him before, his skin stretched taut over his bony frame, and he jumped when he saw her, reaching for the wall to support him.

  Mina ran her thumb along the paper in her hand, remembering the words written there. Her mother had run away from Gregory because she didn’t know how to protect her child from him. Mina wouldn’t allow herself to do the same.

  “I won’t do it,” she said as she approached him near the stairs. “I won’t poison her.”

  Gregory laughed weakly. “I’m not surprised,” he said, waving his hand dismissively in her direction. “You’ve always allowed that girl to manipulate you.”

  For a moment, Mina’s vision went red, and then she thrust the letter at him. “Is that why she gave me this?”

  He took the letter from her, but there was no sign of recognition as he frowned down at it. He unfolded the page and only then did his face fall, his hands tightening on the paper. “Where did you get this?” he hissed.

  “Ask Lynet. She’s the one who found it, probably when she was with you. You told me my mother was dead. You told me she killed herself because she hated me—” She cut herself off, her voice wavering dangerously as she spoke aloud words that she’d only ever thought to herself in shame.

  He looked ready to tear the paper in two, he was clutching it so tightly, and so Mina snatched it back from him, tearing a corner of it in the process. “I didn’t hide that letter from you,” Gregory said, his voice a low growl. “I must have tucked it away somewhere and forgotten about it; otherwise I would have burned it. Does it matter whether your mother is dead or not? She abandoned us both.”

  Mina shook her head. “No, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that she loved me, as much as she could, and you told me that I can’t love or be loved. Was that a lie too?”

  He hesitated, eyes darting still to the letter in her hand. At last he said, “I don’t know.”

  She choked back a whimper. “Of course you don’t know. You’ve never known anything about love.”

  But that wasn’t entirely true. He knew that if he raised his daughter without love, and that if he told her often enough that she wasn’t capable of it, she would soon start to prove him right, if only because it was all she’d ever known. He had reshaped her in his own image, not by taking out her heart, but by convincing her that she was as unable to love as he was.

  Gregory’s face contorted, and he started to reach for her when his eyes went to Felix, standing aside in the hall. His hand dropped, and he said in a fierce whisper, “You’re nothing like me. If you were, that girl would have been dead hours ago.”

  “I’ll protect her from you,” Mina said. “I won’t let you near Lynet ever again. Nicholas was right to keep you away from her. Do you understand? I will not hurt her, and I won’t let you do it either.”

  Gregory pouted at her in a semblance of pity, but his eyes were glittering with some secret amusement. “Oh, Mina, you’re the one who doesn’t understand. It’s already been done.”

  She took a startled step back. “What did you say?”

  “Don’t you hear the footsteps?” he said, standing aside.

  Mina did hear them now, echoing down the curved stairwell with each even step, a mockery of the heartbeat she didn’t have. She watched in growing horror as she recognized the figure now descending the stairs with perfect grace—first her dainty foot, taking small, careful steps, and then the hem of her familiar green dress, until a woman as composed and elegant as Mina could ever hope to be emerged from the shadows of the staircase. She wore Mina’s face, except there were no wrinkles to disturb her beauty, no signs of age or distress. She wore Mina’s hair in braids, not a single hair in disarray, no gray hair peeking out around the temples. She was Mina’s reflection come to life, identical in every way—except for the eyes. The eyes were chilling in their emptiness.

  For a moment, she simply stood there, looking at herself—a version of herself without any feeling, any heart at all. This is what he wanted me to be, she thought. And just the sight of her made her realize how wrong she had been all this time, how deeply she could love—because Lynet was possibly dead at this moment, and while Mina could feel the blood draining from her face, this other Mina didn’t care at all.

  Gregory snapped his fingers, and the other Mina collapsed in a pile of glass shards that scattered along the stairs. “I had to use what little strength I had left to make that thing because I knew you wouldn’t do it,” he said, his voice weary but dripping with contempt. His face was a mask of loathing as he turned to Mina. “Do you see, Mina? I don’t need you after all.”

  Mina shoved him aside and nearly tripped over the pieces of glass as she raced up the stairs, cursing herself for leaving the poison in her room, for leaving the door unlocked, for marrying Nicholas and getting involved in
Lynet’s life at all. When she reached the top of the stairs, the door gaped wide open, and she ran inside, letting out a strangled cry when she saw Lynet’s body sprawled on her back on the floor, her hair spread out around her head. One of her arms was stretched out at her side, and Mina saw the glint of a silver bracelet on her wrist—the bracelet that had been on her bedside table, next to the vial of poison. Her father had taken this first gesture of trust between them and used it to kill her.

  She’s not dead, she can’t be dead. Mina fell to her knees beside her daughter’s limp body, cradling Lynet’s head in her lap. She died thinking it was me—that I killed her.

  Mina felt rather than heard another presence and looked up to see Felix standing in the doorway. “Your father is gone,” he said. “I don’t know where he was going.”

  “That doesn’t matter now,” Mina rasped. She leaned down to kiss Lynet’s cold forehead. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t want this to happen, I—” I love you, she wanted to say, but the words caught in her throat. She’d never been able to say them to Lynet when she was alive, and so it seemed wrong only to say them now that she was dead. Using the fabric of her skirt to protect her skin, she managed to unclasp the bracelet and slide it away, hoping its removal might revive her. She put her fingers to Lynet’s wrist to check her pulse, and for one breathless moment, she was sure she would feel Lynet’s heartbeat echoing through her again, but instead she felt only her own emptiness, Lynet’s heart now as silent as Mina’s.

  She was still sitting on the floor, crouched over Lynet, her body in her arms, when the surgeon appeared in the doorway, breathing heavily. “Your father told me to come at once. He said—” She broke off as she took in the sight of Lynet’s lifeless body.

  Mina almost ordered the surgeon away. She had been the one to lead Lynet into this trap in the first place, setting this whole disaster in motion. But then a sliver of hope—so small, but still so dangerous—made her reconsider. Was it possible that Lynet wasn’t dead yet? The court surgeon would know better than she did.