“Azalea?” said Mother. “Goosey, what are you on about? Are you all right?”
Azalea leaned against the dresser, clutching the knob of the drawers behind her.
“No, Mother,” said Azalea. “No. I’m not all right. Nothing is all right. It never will be all right again.”
Mother beckoned to Azalea, the twinkle in her eyes shining. She took Azalea’s hand, having her kneel. Azalea’s green, gauzy skirts poofed out around her. Mother kept Azalea’s fingers clasped in her warm hand, and she turned Azalea’s hand over, inspecting her palm.
In addition to the tiny crescent scars where her nails had dug into her skin so often, new red marks had broken into her flesh when Azalea had lost her temper earlier. They stung, with the additional welt of the reins when she had fallen. Mother considered, touching the palm gently.
“You used to do this,” she said. “When you were younger. You would get so angry.” Mother smiled. “I had hoped you had outgrown it.”
Azalea pulled her hand back.
“Some things are worth getting upset over,” she said.
Mother tilted her head, reached out, and brushed an errant strand of hair from Azalea’s face, and wiped a tear streak away with her thumb. Azalea blinked and turned her head, a little surprised she hadn’t woken up yet. The dream never lasted this long.
“You’ve done very well, Azalea,” said Mother. “You’ve always taken care of your sisters. I’m so pleased with you.”
“Right,” said Azalea. “I’ve done a bang-up job, haven’t I.” She thought of her sisters, curled up in mirrors, and she cringed.
“But,” said Mother. “Your father. You haven’t done very well with him.”
Azalea turned quickly. Her eyebrows knitted, searching Mother’s face. Mother had the twinkle in her eye, the touch of a smile on her face, as she always did, but she searched Azalea’s face with equal intensity.
“Sorry?” said Azalea.
Mother brought Azalea’s hands into her own and, with a flash of silver, folded them around her handkerchief. Her hands were soft and warm, so warm they calmed Azalea’s trembling fingers, the warmth spreading down her arms to her chest. Something twisted in Azalea’s heart. She bit her lip.
“We’re going to try this again,” said Mother. She smiled, and the room seemed to brighten. “You’ll take care of your sisters, and your father? Your whole family? Will you promise, Azalea?”
Azalea’s throat tightened, and her eyes stung. Her palms throbbed at points, pressed together against the fabric.
“He…doesn’t need anyone,” she mumbled. “He said—he said he couldn’t abide—”
“That was when he needed you more than ever,” said Mother. “And he needs you now. He needs all of you. Please, Azalea. Please promise me.”
Azalea looked into Mother’s eyes, which shone with tears. Something pricked in Azalea’s heart. She remembered all the times she had lashed out at the King with scathing words. How she had taken the oath with burning anger in her chest, and how she had danced out of sheer stubbornness. And now it was her fault that Keeper would—
Azalea pressed her hands tightly around the handkerchief and clenched her jaw. Her eyes blazed, but not with temper.
“Yes,” she said. “I will. My whole family. I’ll set things right. I promise.”
A wash of tingles flowed through her body, beginning with her very center and enveloping the rest of her, flooding to her fingertips. The feeling overwhelmed, much stronger than it had been a year ago. It overcame her, filling her with breath. Azalea blinked and felt the droplets of tears on her lashes.
Mother smiled, and it wasn’t tight with pain. Her eyes shone. She leaned down and kissed Azalea’s hands. Her lips were warm.
And this time, Azalea didn’t need to look at Mother to know her lips were the pretty rose red they hadn’t been a year ago. Instead she closed her eyes and pressed her fingers against the weave of the handkerchief, and inhaled the scent of white cake and ointment, and felt Mother’s warmth spreading through her. She let it fill her soul.
And then, she awoke.
—unk!
Her head smacked against the wood, bursting into throbbing pain.
Azalea lay sprawled on the floor. Her eyes and cheeks were wet. Everything—Keeper, sisters, the blood oath—flooded to her. She leaped to her feet.
No thin, hard fingers pushed her into a dance. About her, the dancers backed away from her in a ring, their eyeholes gaping.
And…
She clutched something in her fist that hadn’t been there before. Azalea opened her hand and squinted at it in the dim light.
It flashed silver.
Mother’s handkerchief.
The embroidered initials; the bit of silver lace along the sides. Azalea swore she smelled white cake on it. The King’s words, from several days ago, echoed in her mind:
This magic has caused many strange things to happen….
“No kidding!” said Azalea. She held it up.
The dancers backed away. They became oddly translucent, like glass, flickered, and the moment before disappearing, their faces filled out with eyes and powderless complexions, before they fell to the floor as bits of ornament shards, a rainstorm of glass.
The black aura about the walls faded back into brick. The storage room was empty again, glass scattered across the floor.
A brilliant feeling overcame Azalea. It drowned out the throbbing and the pain in her ears. She sprang up the stairs, racing with a newfound energy. She had to save her family.
CHAPTER 26
The palace wasn’t the palace anymore.
Azalea emerged from the fireplace to find their beds of patched bedsheets and lumpy pillows and the round table gone, replaced with curling, crystalline baroque furniture. A chandelier dripped from the domed ceiling of painted cupids, and the darkness felt almost tangible swirling about her. The windows—no longer draped—now were thickly covered with a mess of thorny branches, pressing against the panes and strangling out the light.
“Just like in the history books,” said Azalea. “With the palace surrounded by thorns—”
FFFFFput!
A tiny arrow, just the length of her hand with a little metal heart for the tip, had imbedded itself in the wall next to Azalea. Azalea pried it from the wall and looked up. Painted cupids swam about on the ceiling.
“Oh, that’s not in the history books!” Azalea threw the arrow at them. The cupids scattered. She dove for the door.
FFFFputputputput!
A dozen tiny arrows hit the door as Azalea slammed it behind her. She wondered how much of the palace had been magicked, and looked at her handkerchief. If it was anything near as strong as the sword—and Azalea knew it was much stronger than it had been before—then perhaps Keeper wouldn’t be able to magic anymore. It might even mean he would remain trapped inside the palace, like he had been trapped in the passage. This gave Azalea hope. First—her sisters and the King. Then she would find Keeper.
Azalea ran in a maze of gaudy, unfamiliar halls, searching in vain for stairs or anything that would lead her to the library or the ballroom, which was the only room in the household that had more than one mirror. The portraits had been magicked, and old parliament members and great-aunts leered down at her with bloodred eyes. Voices murmured and whispered, beyond her conscious mind.
In a swirling golden hall, which may at one time have been the portrait gallery, Azalea caught a flicker of light coming closer.
“Oh!” she called, taking a step back. “Who is that?”
A small clickety click click sounded as the candle drew nearer, far too low to be held by anyone. It moved on its own. The little brass dish had been split and the ends curved to points beneath it, giving it legs. It looked like a toddler, its candle to the nub, and it stumbled around in lost little circles.
“Oh…there now,” said Azalea, leaning just in front of it. It reminded her of the sugar teeth. “Do you know how to get to the ballroom?”
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br /> The candle went foof.
“Ack!” said Azalea. She smothered the fire in the folds of her skirt, leaving the odor of smoked fabric. The candle skittered away on its ungainly brass legs. Azalea made to chase after it for a good kick, but stopped. A much larger clickety click click sounded at the end of the hall. In fact, it was more of a clankety clank clank clank.
The tiny candle fled behind a sofa leg. Light flared up at the end of the hall, and a giant mass of tangled iron clanked into view. Candles dripped from it. Azalea recognized the old chandelier from the north attic.
Azalea jumped to the fireplace in a billow of skirts as the chandelier sprang at her. She overturned the poker stand and snatched up a hearth brush. The chandelier dove at her, flame first. Heart screaming, head throbbing, Azalea jumped aside and smashed the hearth brush against it. Two candles went out, then sprang to life again.
The chandelier reared up. Azalea ran, leaping in bounds.
It smashed after her, onto the long, thick crimson rug—
Snap!
The rug encased the fixture in a smooth, snapdragon movement and curled in on itself, smothering the light and crushing the chandelier with a sickening crunch. Azalea panted as the last glowing light in the rug died.
“Right,” said Azalea, relieved she had jumped over the rug instead of on it. “Let’s not touch that.”
The tiny candle clickety clicked to her, timid. Its flame was low, as though apologizing.
“Have you seen the King? Or the girls?” said Azalea. “The ballroom?”
The flame sprung to life and took off, little legs skittering like mad. Azalea, hope blossoming through her, ran after it.
Minutes later, through twisted golden halls of gaudy ornamentation and staircases with whispering pictures, Azalea skidded through the entrance hall and into the ballroom. This portion of the palace, she was relieved to see, had not been magicked at all; they remained the boring paneled wainscot white-ceilinged rooms they had been before.
She ran to the first ballroom mirror and nearly screamed.
Delphinium stared back at her. Tears streaked her cheeks, and she hugged herself, shivering. Her eyelashes were frosted. On her pretty, peaked face, next to her ear, slashed three jagged scratch marks. They bled.
Keeper! thought Azalea. She pressed her hand against the glass, and Delphinium’s quavering hand met it.
“Delphi,” said Azalea. “Bear up. I’ll get you out of here. Where are the others?”
Delphinium spoke, but no sound came. She shook her head and pointed to the next pier glass.
Eve quavered from the inside of the next glass. She held her spectacles, which had frosted over, but her eyes lit with hope when she saw Azalea. Azalea managed some soothing words, then ran to the next mirror, which held Ivy. She huddled on the reflection’s floor, her cheeks tear stained, chewing on a strand of her hair. Azalea pressed her hand against the glass, trying to comfort her.
In the next curled Hollyhock, rolled up in a little ball, her hands tucked up her sleeves. Then Flora and Goldenrod, hugging each other to keep from quaking. Clover, Kale, and Lily pressed close in the mirror next. Clover had wrapped both the girls up in her shawl and had her arms about them to keep them warm. When she saw Azalea, like the other girls, her eyes lit.
Jessamine worried Azalea the most. She huddled alone in a ball, unmoving, not even shivering. When Azalea spoke to her, she did not stir. Only when Azalea knocked on the glass, hard, did Jessamine’s eyelids flicker. She was so tiny—only four. She couldn’t keep warm for long.
A knocking sound came from the eighth and last mirror, and Azalea found Bramble, hands pressed against the glass and long red hair coming unpinned in strands. Her thin lips were purple, but she looked determined. She gestured feverishly at Azalea, her lips pursing even thinner all the while. She held her hand out flat and pretended to scribble across it.
“Write…a letter?” said Azalea.
Bramble nodded. She pretended to shove her hands in pockets she did not have, and bounced up and down on the balls of her feet, before breaking into silent chatters.
“To Lord Teddie?” said Azalea.
Bramble, trembling, nodded.
“Yes?” said Azalea. “To say what?”
Bramble swallowed and opened her mouth, then closed it, then swallowed again. She shivered, keeping her yellow-green eyes on her feet.
She mouthed the words “I’m sorry,” and shrugged. There was a tear streak down her cheek.
Instinctively, Azalea brought up the handkerchief to wipe Bramble’s face. It seemed to put a light into the mirror, and Bramble’s eyes lifted. She warmed her hands near it, as though it were a flame.
“Magic?” she mouthed.
Azalea, hopeful, rubbed furiously against the glass. Perhaps she could somehow rub her sisters out of the mirrors—
But it did nothing. Bramble shuddered and shook her head.
“Not enough,” she mouthed.
Even so, Azalea ran to Jessamine’s mirror and pressed the handkerchief against it. After several moments, Jessamine stirred, and her eyes opened a touch. Behind her figure, in the mirror, the tiny spider candle skittered away, leaving a streak of gold. A dark, handsome figure crossed the floor behind them, and Azalea turned quickly, keeping the handkerchief pinned to the mirror behind her. Keeper!
He did not go to her, but instead went down a length to Clover’s mirror, and placed his fist hard against it. All three girls cowered under it.
“Release it, Miss Azalea.”
Azalea hesitated. Keeper smashed his fist against the mirror, a hard cranch, and it cracked. Kale gave a silent cry.
“Release it!”
Hating herself, Azalea threw the handkerchief to the floor. In an instant, her head thwacked against the marble and Keeper’s long, pointed fingers wrapped around her neck.
“Where is your father?” he snarled.
He hadn’t found the King yet! Azalea tried to blink the blotches from her vision.
“Well?” said Keeper, his fingers tightening.
“I don’t know,” said Azalea.
Keeper shoved her against the marble again, and colors burst before her eyes.
Graveyard.
The word came to her mind, fully formed.
“Graveyard,” Azalea said in a choked voice. “He’s in the graveyard.”
Keeper’s black eyes narrowed at her.
“Mother—” Azalea’s throat seemed to squeeze to her ears. “She died a year ago today.”
Keeper’s eyes remained thin slits, but he lightened his grip, a touch. Azalea inhaled fresh, sweet air.
“The graveyard,” he said. “Naturally.”
In a moment he stood before Jessamine’s mirror, giving the handkerchief a wide berth. Jessamine was curled up and shivering, her dark curls askew. When she saw Keeper looming above her, she began to cry in tiny, noiseless wails.
He stretched out his fingers and, with some effort, stroked the mirror like a beloved pet. He placed his palm flat against the glass and closed his eyes.
His face became gaunter, almost translucent, and the mirror changed as well. Like light against a dark window, Azalea saw her own heaving reflection, transparent on the glass. Slowly it grew stronger and more opaque until Azalea was fully reflected. Jessamine’s reflection let out a cry—
—and Azalea saw it was the real Jessamine, curled on the ballroom floor.
Head pulsing, Azalea rushed to her side, hoping to warm her quivering body. Keeper shoved her away and snatched Jessamine up, striding out of the ballroom. Azalea staggered after him, realization pouring hope into her chest. She’d been right about the handkerchief! Keeper couldn’t leave the palace!
“You know where the graveyard is, Miss Jessamine?” he said, carrying her under his arm like a sheep. He pulled the entrance hall door open. Tangled ropes of black branches twisted over it like snakes, masking the doorway.
Keeper closed his eyes and placed his hand on the tangled mess of branches, a
nd his face grew ashen—just as when he had raised the water, those many months ago. His breathing labored. The tangled movements of the branches sped, and they parted in pieces, letting a stream of sunlight through.
“You can’t come back in until you find the King,” said Keeper, heaving for air. “The bushes won’t let you in unless you have him with you. Understand? Don’t be gone long, my dear.”
Azalea grabbed a shawl from the coatstand and wrapped it tightly around Jessamine.
“Don’t come back,” she whispered. “Find the King. But don’t let him in. Don’t come back!”
Jessamine blinked her bright blue eyes at Azalea. Keeper grasped Jessamine’s arm and threw her through the opening in the branches. She stumbled out and nearly tripped down the long, gray stone stairs.
“Yes, find the King,” he said. “Tell him I am killing the eldest princess—slowly.” He slammed the door.
Azalea dashed for the handkerchief, but Keeper caught her first, boxing her into the ballroom, and threw her into the curtains of one of the windows. The rope tassels twisted and wound of their own accord, wrapping themselves around her already-sore wrists. She bit back a cry as they tightened, sending shoots of pain up her arms.
“Let’s savor this,” he said.
With the utmost delicacy of his long fingers, Keeper tugged the pins from her hair and flicked them behind him; they clinked against the floor. Azalea struggled, squirming to keep her head away from Keeper’s fingers, but the cords kept her bound. Tendrils of auburn hair cascaded to her waist. The girls in the mirrors watched on with wide eyes. Azalea writhed with humiliation.
“There now,” Keeper whispered, when the last pin had clinked to the floor. “Don’t you look pretty.”
He leaned in to her. Azalea could smell the musty, empty-teapot metallic smell he carried with him. She couldn’t believe how she once had actually wanted to kiss him.
“Tell me,” he said in a low voice. “How did you get the handkerchief back? I should like very much to know—”
He stopped short at a tiny sniffling noise behind him. Turning, he stepped back to reveal Jessamine, standing at the ballroom doors, small and shivering beneath the shawl. Her black hair hung over her shoulders, stringy and dripping from the melted snow. She was alone. Keeper’s eyes narrowed.
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