by Lani Lenore
Here before him, he had the perfect solution to his problem. He needed no fancy ceremony or preparation. He could have simply opened his mouth and devoured this girl before him. It would be done, and he would grow stronger. He knew it was the smart thing, but he could not resist a more fulfilling idea. He’d been munching away on every newborn rat he could fit into his belly. He felt much stronger. The Rat King could stand to waste a bit of time.
“This is ridiculous,” he sneered, shaking his head. “All for a nutcracker’s love?”
He turned around to look upon the child sovereign. She didn’t appear hurt, only angry. This made his own anger grow.
“But I’m a fair rat, and since the Lady has amused me so, I’m in good spirits! I like a gamble every now and again,” he hissed. “I have something that will be just right for you, in fact. I call it das Skeresa.”
The mice around Olivia hushed at the mention of this, shuddering in their skin. The girl did not know what this meant, and so she could not be afraid. The rat went on to explain.
“It’s a device of execution, but the grand thing about it is that it can be rigged to snap only after a certain amount of time. But don’t worry. If your Armand comes to save you, I’m sure that there will be no worries.”
Olivia glared.
“He’ll come,” she insisted, and the belief behind her words made the rat glower more harshly than he had in a long while.
“So be it,” Augustus growled, moving forward.
“But master…the ritual,” one of the mice protested.
The huge, dirty claws reached down and gripped the girl, lifting her off the floor, and the rat began to carry her away. Olivia did not scream, and the rat did not care.
“It can wait,” he said, “for this.”
Chapter Thirty–Three: Leech Wife
1
Anne couldn’t remember a time in her life when she’d ever questioned what she wanted. When she was young, she’d known she wanted more than a seat on the lower–class rung of society, working in textiles and hardly able to make ends meet with a family and several kids. A destined life, avoided.
Moving to the city with her aunt of average wealth had not been the end of her problems, and she couldn’t say she was happy there, but she’d managed to avoid life in the church, despite misfortune. It wasn’t much, but when she’d met with Mr. and Mrs. Ellington as a potential caretaker for their disturbed daughter, she understood how she could have that more which she desired. She’d always known the truth about herself and had made sure that she was able to embrace all of her qualities, good or bad.
Now, sitting in the dark of the music box where Armand had left her, Anne knew she was unsure for the first time. She told herself she would have to go forward with her life, but how could she? Anne contemplated this until she began to shiver, though she wasn’t sure if it was because she was distressed or because she was cold for tossing the wretched ceremony dress into the corner of the box.
She sat, hugging her knees with her hair falling down over her body, warming her slightly. There were many feelings pressing on her at that moment. There were grand feelings of fulfillment that made her want to simply stretch out and sigh in contentment, but because of those feelings, she felt sick with worry and sadness.
The woman knew what she had to do–return to her old life–but there were reasons why she didn’t want to do that. Life was not any simpler here, but in a different way, her rightful existence was just as harsh. Here, she was running for her life, but she didn’t have to fake who she really was…other than not being recognized as flesh. Olivia was happy here, and perhaps this was where the girl belonged.
Aside from all that, Armand was here.
He was a toy now, but he was certainly the one she had thought she’d never find. He could be terrible at times, but he was what she deserved. He was the one for her in this world and in any other. Anne knew she would never love anyone else. Could she live without him now that she’d found him? Only time would tell, but he was the one she would take with her to her grave, even if they could not be together.
She thought about their intimacy, reliving what she’d felt even though it had been over for a while now. She closed her eyes and hugged her bare shoulders. What was going to happen the next time she tried to make love to a man who didn’t have wooden hands and metal ridges against his arms that warmed with her own body heat? Would it be possible to enjoy it at all? Would she think about him?
Footsteps in the dark outside the box changed the route of her thoughts, and when she turned toward the furthest wall, she saw Armand jump in over it. He’d taken his weapons and gone scouting for enemies, just to be safe before they ventured forward. The sight of him lifted her mood, but made her equally sad again. She rose to meet him.
He’d brought her back another doll’s dress. It was a dark, burgundy color with puffed sleeves and laces up the front to tie it on. It wasn’t too fancy and it wasn’t too long. Anne wasn’t picky. In fact, she hardly looked at it at all.
“There’s a vent not far that will take us straight out into the hallway,” Armand told her as she took the dress from him and began to put it on.
“How will we find out for certain how to break the curse?” she asked, her voice muffled through the material sliding over her head.
“I was doing some thinking,” he said, adjusting the leather straps that held his weapons, “and to be honest, I’m not sure that there is a way to know for certain.”
At those words, Anne’s head emerged from the dress, and when she only stared at him in disbelief, he began to tie up the front for her as he continued speaking.
“I’ve tried many times with the mice, torturing them to try and get them to tell me what they know, but they only tell me the same few things over and over again. I don’t think we can get much more out of them, because I don’t think that they know as much as I’d hoped.”
Anne wondered if she should have been upset, looking up at Armand. She’d not even noticed that her dress was hanging properly now. How could they accomplish anything if it was impossible to find out? What good would it do to find out more about William and Todd, or even to do anything but die and rot if there was no way to reverse this curse? Then again, wasn’t it her desire to stay with Armand that was ripping her in half on the inside?
“However,” Armand said, bringing her back to him. “I can think of a couple who might know a bit more about this curse.”
The woman looked up at him and shook her head, not following his words.
“The doll Clara, or perhaps that misfit,” he explained.
“Misfit?”
Armand turned and began to walk toward the wall of the box.
“Some unfinished product of the toymaker,” he clarified. “It was in Olivia’s room after the rodents had already invaded, and it attacked me, so I can only assume it is working with my enemy.”
Anne nodded, but his mention of the misfit meant little to her beyond that it might know the secret of her curse. She didn’t know that the very misfit in question was that one she considered to have saved her life when she’d been locked in the unrelenting embrace of the Rat King.
“So, we’ll be off to find them then?”
She reached for Armand’s hand. When it did not accept hers, she looked down to see that, instead, she had accidentally gripped the dismembered arm that she had first seen on the floor of the box where she had awoken. It was now attached to Armand’s arm, clenching with wooden fingers and aligning itself with the forearm. As if it was a dead human arm, Anne withdrew her fingers swiftly from it.
“It’s Brooke’s,” Armand told her, noticing. Sorrow filled her eyes at the memory of the fallen soldier. Armand didn’t explain that the arm was still conscious. He simply let Brooke be dead to her. “I can use the blade.”
Brooke… Poor Brooke… His hand touched the side of her face, pulling her to look at him. Anne stared into his empty eyes where the bloodstains started and ran down the wood. She si
ghed, but it was steady.
“I’m fine,” she insisted gently. “Are we off to find…her…or the misfit?”
“I think it would be in our best interest to identify the situation in the house with your two plotting gentlemen.”
Anne shivered at the mention, remembering that it had been those two who had pulled her away from Armand and led her to be captured, but she also remembered the things that she had heard them say.
“I did find out some things,” she said, trailing off as she folded her arms and looked toward the ground.
“Yes?” he urged after she was unknowingly silent for too long.
“The men are trying to murder Agatha–Olivia’s mother,” she informed him. “I heard them say something earlier on about her getting worse, and then again about her death seeming natural. I know the woman has been sick for a bit, so I only assume that they must be poisoning her slowly, but they said that soon she would be dead. Beyond that, Todd is planning on taking Olivia away with him after her mother is dead, though I can’t imagine that Euan would allow that.”
Armand listened impassively, at hearing of those events. They didn’t mean anything to him personally.
“What do you want to do about this situation?” he asked, crossing his arms.
The question took Anne by surprise. She looked up at him, not sure what he meant.
“Pardon?”
Armand had decided he wouldn’t urge her on one way or the other. She would see all her options soon enough. He dropped his arms.
“We’ll look around,” he said. “Perhaps they’re still about.”
The nutcracker climbed out of the box and helped Anne out as well, aiding her as they made their way down from a shelf in the toy room–which was also Pirlipat’s ruined kingdom. The grate in the wall was already broken, so the two of them had little trouble passing through and stepping out into the dim hall. The cat’s eye marble had been lost somewhere in the tunnel when Anne had been abducted, so her human eyes did as well as they could through the lack of light.
As they walked, Anne contemplated what she needed to do about her situation. Agatha would be killed if she didn’t do something, and though she didn’t care for the woman personally, being in a house with murderers and pretending that she didn’t know was a bit more than she thought she could handle. The men might get away with what they were doing unless she could find some evidence against them. What better way to do that than when she was small enough to creep around?
It would likely be in William’s office that they would find something, or perhaps in Todd’s luggage…
Abruptly, Armand held out his arm, blocking her path and forcing her closer to the wall. It wasn’t long before she heard the footsteps treading quickly and heavily down the hallway. The ground beneath her shook with their approach. Shortly after, there came the sound of a second set of footsteps. These moved faster, as if trying to catch up with the first, and then around the corner appeared Todd. William was right behind him, reaching out to grip the youth’s arm.
“Have you lost your mind?” William questioned in an angry whisper, pulling Todd back and forcing him to turn. “You can’t go storming through the house like this.”
“I’m telling you, Anne is up there with Olivia, or maybe they locked the door just to pretend that she’s still there, but they’re actually gone.”
William shook his head. Anne looked on from the floor, trying to concentrate on everything they did. Todd was blaming her for something? Had they found out that Olivia was missing? Her heart jumped into her throat.
“Why would Anne do that?” William asked the flustered young man.
“What if she found out what we were doing?” he asked. Then he crossed his arms and looked at William accusingly. “Did you tell her?”
“Of course not,” the man replied, taken aback. “I’m not that much of a fool.”
“You know,” Todd began. “It would be so easy to just pin this all on her. If we could actually let it be murder, no one would question that it wasn’t Anne. She has every reason in the world to have done it. Besides, poisoning is a woman’s crime. It’s perfect.”
Anne gasped shortly at the notion. How dare Todd even mention such a thing! To try and frame her for murder? William, however, didn’t take too well to those words. He gripped Todd’s collar and pulled him closer.
“I don’t want to hear another word about that,” he said menacingly. “I told you that Anne was to be left out of this. You know what I wanted in the first place was to make her my wife.”
“Fine,” Todd relented, pushing William’s hand away, “but if she’s done something to Olivia, I won’t let this go lightly.”
“Let’s just look around and see if we can find Anne elsewhere,” William suggested. “I’ll get a key and we’ll see if we can get into Olivia’s room. Just try to be calm.”
Todd sighed heatedly, but he nodded.
“I’ll look downstairs,” William said, starting off. Todd lingered a moment before he moved off in the opposite direction along the second floor corridor.
At her place on the floor, Anne had to lean against the wall to steady herself. Had that man just said what she’d thought? After Agatha was dead, he was planning on making her his wife? To give her the life that she’d wanted over all else for so long? Her legs felt weak. She stared at the floor looking troubled, and she seemed to forget that Armand was there at all.
Armand didn’t make any comments about what he had heard. In fact, he didn’t even look at her.
“Let’s follow the angry one,” he suggested flatly.
2
The small feet of the girl doll, Clara, treaded on through the shafts and into the lair she called home. She’d left the Lady’s Kingdom after Edge had not returned to give her any news about Anne. Bored with the lag in the battling between the toys and mice, she had gone out to see the situation for herself. All the while though, Clara wondered if she truly wanted Anne anymore.
Was it worth the trouble? Especially now that she’d found something she liked better? Certainly, Edge was not as soft and fleshy as Anne, but what did that matter? So he was as hard and cold as glass. Could Clara say she was any different? She only knew she couldn’t imagine being without him. Would the Master approve? Perhaps. She didn’t know, but she needed to know that Edge was alright, even if Anne was not.
She knew where the Master had been planning to hold the ritual, and she made her way there. It was a large room that the mice had been working on for the whole of the time that they had been in this house. Still, it wasn’t quite finished, but work on it had mostly ceased. Other than the white floor, she hardly looked at the details of the room when she stepped inside, finding it mostly empty.
She saw her master sitting at a table at the far end of the room. He was alone, resting there with his head lowered and his hands clasped before his face. His long fingers were coated in blood. The red substance had run off the tabletop and pooled on the floor beneath.
Clara approached with hesitant steps, feeling uneasy. Had the ritual gone on? Were these Anne’s remains? Where was Edge?
Eventually, the rat heard one of her tiny footsteps. He jerked to attention, and the child stopped immediately, dipping into a curtsey and averting her eyes in respect.
“There is no need for that, Schätzchen,” the Master said, though when she looked back at him, she could see that he wasn’t in the grandest of moods. His mouth was turned down at the corners, and his eyes showed his weakness. Still, he did not seem upset with her intrusion.
“Come closer,” he bade.
Clara obeyed, going directly up to the table and stopping just before her shoes touched the edge of the blood pool. The Master rubbed his eyes and took a deep breath.
“You know I love you very much,” he said to her, “and that is why I know you are the only one who will not let me down.”
The girl remained quiet, unsure of what he meant. Where was Edge?
“I am tired, my precious. Ti
red of evading.”
Evading?
“I have prepared myself. The ritual was not completed, but there is new strength in me. I have the Lady in my custody. If he tries to save her, I want you to head him off. If not, I want you to find him. Bring him here,” he said. “It’s time to end this.”
Clara knew whom he must have meant. The nutcracker. She remembered the first time that she had seen him. It had been in a cold place–colder than her own skin. She’d had a comprehension that was foreign to her now. She’d known about a different world–a different language that she could no longer grasp fully, save for sometimes when the Master spoke it.
She’d looked upon the nutcracker for the first time and had seen him crushing her helpless master in the snow. She’d thrown a rock at him. Then the nutcracker had chased her. Clara had run, but she had not been afraid of him. She only knew she hated him, and every time she had seen him since had been the same. That nutcracker demon had never tried to do her any harm, after all, and many times she thought she had seen him looking at her with sorrow, but that meant little to her. Clara would be glad when he was dead.
She didn’t want to go to him–didn’t want to see him at all–but because of the past and the little that she knew of it, she knew she was the only one who could deliver him. Clara nodded her head solemnly.
“Yes, father,” she said obediently.
Chapter Thirty–Four: That Little Drop of Poison
1
Todd went along his way, out from beneath William’s watchful eye. He knew he had erased some of his credibility with his uncle because of his outbursts, but were his worries about Olivia’s nurse not well–founded? Anne was a sly one; he could tell. She could have easily taken Olivia away and expected them not to find out until the morning. Or perhaps she visited Olivia often at night for some unknown reason. If she did, who would know it? Todd knew it was ridiculous, but still was possible.