A Breath of Frost

by Alyxandra Harvey

  “Time to go,” Ewan said to Theodora.

  He took her hand and pulled her along through the undergrowth. He didn’t need to knot branches or leave markings to find his way. He wound around trees and through meadows, and they ran until her shoes rubbed blisters onto her toes. He didn’t speak, not even when they burst out into the path and the trees thinned to show the green and gold fields between the forest and the Lovegrove manor house.

  “They’ll come after you now,” she panted.

  “I can handle the likes of them.” He shrugged.

  “But …” She bit her lower lip.

  He stared at her. “You’re truly worried for a woodcutter’s son?”

  She stared back at him. “Of course I am! You saved my life!”

  His smile was rare, she knew it without having to be told. It was a weapon in itself. It made her feel warmer than their mad run through the forest. She blushed and didn’t know why.

  He stepped back, melting into the ferns.

  “Wait,” she said, still trying to catch her breath. “You saved me. My father would reward you.”

  “What do I need money for, Princess?”

  She truly had never met anyone like him.

  She stopped on the edge of the forest, still in the cool, concealing shadows. “Thank you, Ewan.” His name was sweet on her tongue, sweeter than cakes and sugared violets.

  He inclined his head in reply. The branches behind him looked like antlers. He took another step back and was gone.

  That night, as the sun set, she stood at her bedroom window and watched the light turn the color of smoke between the trees. For a brief moment she thought she saw Ewan at the edge of the woods, watching her.

  The next morning she found strawberries in a small basket on the garden wall.

  Chapter 25

  Emma didn’t know how long she’d been unconscious, but it wasn’t long enough for the candles to have burned out. Had it been a dream? Or some kind of memory? She had no way of knowing and no way of asking her mother at the moment.

  She only knew her head still ached like the devil. She must have hit it on the floor when she fell. She clutched it, wincing at the pain. There was no blood in her hair, or wound to account for it.

  Only antlers.

  There were antlers growing out of her head.

  She felt the soft, velvet-covered tines, like branches of a tree. She wondered, stifling a hysterical giggle, if Mrs. Sparrow had slipped laudanum into the strawberry tarts. Emma knocked over a small table in her haste to get to the looking glass by the armoire.

  She really did have antlers.

  They curved gracefully out of her hair, three amber-colored tines on each side. They were thick at the base, dimpled like raindrops on a calm lake. They slanted back slightly and were no longer than the span of her hand. They didn’t hurt exactly, but they were heavy and unwieldy.

  She pulled and pushed at them but they didn’t move, any more than a real stag’s would. She remembered touching the deer and feeling her foot turning into a hoof, her leg covered in thick russet fur.

  Witchery was one thing. An earl’s daughter with antlers was something else altogether.

  Feeling rather wild, she sank onto the edge of the bed.

  Mrs. Sparrow was right. She should be grateful to be at the academy.

  Because now she truly had nowhere else to go.

  Part 2

  Unbound

  Chapter 26

  Emma had been at the Rowanstone Academy for two weeks. In those two weeks, she learned a great many things.

  She learned that the gates to the Underworld still needed to be located. They opened randomly from dusk to dawn and then sealed themselves shut. Restless spirits paced on the other side, just waiting for such an opportunity.

  She learned that rumors of her mother followed her everywhere like a torn hem dragging along behind her, catching up dust and detritus.

  She learned that someone had already sent the evil eye against her, shattering her school charm so that it had to be replaced.

  She learned that burning rowan twigs called the dead, salt worked best against spirits and evil, and iron stopped everything in its tracks, at least temporarily.

  She even learned that staring into her looking glass for hours on end did not make her antlers any less surprising.

  Neither did poking them.

  She had not learned, however, how to make them disappear.

  Mrs. Sparrow assured her that though there was no way to remove them completely, she would eventually be able to glamour them away and venture back out into society once more.

  She had also not yet learned who Ewan was, and why she had hallucinated his meeting with her mother. She could only assume it had been a hallucination, a memory stored in her mother’s magical charm. Emma was reading her way through the library, trying to understand this new world in which she found herself. Magic was tricky; apparently even dedicated and educated scholars couldn’t agree on how to classify it. Some called it divine interaction, others a kind of new science. The best they could agree on was that it was a mystical energy, invisible and unbreakable, such as what made plants grow and stars stay up in the sky.

  Emma could have asked one of her teachers about the strange dream, but she didn’t want anyone knowing more than they already did about her mother. She’d gone to great lengths to hide herself away from the witching world, and until Emma knew the reason why, she felt it safer to keep the experience to herself.

  She was surprised to find she rather enjoyed boarding at the school, though being restricted to the grounds because she had antlers was becoming tiresome. So she would master this spell everyone insisted was beyond her current capabilities. And she would master it between the rosebushes and the marble statue of Hecate, with her fellow students pressing their noses to the windows behind her despite the early hour.

  Emma turned her back on them and took a deep breath. Mrs. Sparrow insisted a calm mind and calm body increased success. She took another breath. Calm body was considerably easier than calm mind. See how calm they would be, with antlers sprouting from their heads. They were heavy. And cumbersome. And they made brushing her hair awkward.

  A small bird descended from a nearby oak tree and Emma flapped her arms warningly.

  Quite aside from anything else, having birds perch on one’s head was vexing.

  Another deep breath.

  She turned clockwise three times, her thumb instinctively seeking the poison ring on her right hand. It was silver and dated back to Tudor times. It was filled with dried fern dust, crushed crystal, and bilberries. She whispered the words she’d been taught. It could be done without the prayer but only by far more experienced witches. “A magic cloud I put on thee; from dog, from cat; from cow, from horse, from man, from woman; from young man, from maiden; and from little child. Till I again return.”

  The rain started almost immediately.

  The Fith-Fath spell was used by those who wished to be invisible or shape-shift into the form of an animal, usually a deer. That she was working it backward was no surprise. Everything felt backward these days. She spent most evenings in front of her looking glass, trying to work glamour. She usually gave up for the night when her face disappeared but her antlers glowed green. And after several soggy carpets and hail in the ballroom, her magical attempts were banished to the walled gardens.

  They were quite large with white pebbled paths, groves, fountains, and extensive herb gardens for spellcraft ingredients. As she understood it, natural magic, such as her ability to work the weather, was innate. Spells channeled that magic but required specific incantations and ingredients, such as herbs and special stones. Cunning-men and weird-wives weren’t natural witches, but they’d learned to harness that same magic for healing and love charms and other assorted spells. Emma fully intended to seek one out if she couldn’t get the hang of this blasted glamour by the end of the week.

  She tried the spell again, spinning and spinning until sh
e was dizzy. The rain continued to pelt her until she sneezed. She wished she could at least learn to make it rain warmly. It would be a great improvement. Her dress clung in damp, cold folds to her legs, and her hair curled against her neck. Thunder shook the sky. When it cracked again, close enough to the school to rattle windows and cause a few startled shrieks, Emma smiled to herself.

  A girl meandered out of the shrubbery, her long, pale hair falling like shining swan feathers to her waist. She was all moon-beams and mist, delicate as pearls and orchids, except for the wickedly jagged knife at her belt. It looked to be made of a kind of white horn, spiraling tightly to a point. Emma thought her name was Olwen. She didn’t board at the school and mostly seemed to spend her time wandering about.

  “Oh.” Olwen blinked at Emma and then at the sky, as if she’d just realized it was raining and she was soaked through. “Good morning. Are you real?”

  “Um … yes?” Emma wasn’t entirely sure why it had come out as a question.

  Olwen’s smile was bright as a harvest moon. “Oh, good. I must be back then.” Despite what Emma had been learning, most conversations still didn’t make sense at the school. “Is it teatime? I’m famished.”

  “Tea sounds like a lovely idea,” Emma agreed. They were hurrying down the path toward the house when the garden gate opened. Well, Emma was hurrying, Olwen had stopped to smell some kind of a tree.

  “Olwen! There you are, finally!” Cormac didn’t even see Emma. She stepped back into the prickly embrace of a hawthorn tree, feeling trapped.

  The last thing she wanted was for him to see her like this. She was wet and pale with cold. And there were antlers on her head. She tipped them back slightly, hoping they’d blend into the branches. He looked as sinful as ever, decadent and handsome; the way chocolate would look if it were transformed into a person.

  He’d helped put her in a cage and left her to the Order.

  After kissing her senseless.

  Why did she keep forgetting that? What was wrong with her? Besides the obvious. Maybe that was it, the weight of the antlers was addling her brain.

  “Here I am,” Olwen agreed. “I’ve only been gone a few hours.”

  “Olwen, you’ve been missing for three days,” Cormac said to his sister. “Again.” The rain tapered off, reduced to dripping off leaves and petals. “Mother has been reading tarot cards all morning to find out if you were all right.”

  “I’m always all right.” Olwen smiled serenely.

  “Let’s go before you catch your death. Isn’t rain wet in the Faery lands too?” He sounded just like a big brother should: annoyed, impatient, and affectionate. Emma hadn’t even realized Olwen was his sister; the younger girl wasn’t out yet so their paths had never crossed. Though it became abundantly clear that she possessed the same inclination to utterly ruin Emma’s chance of a getaway, dignified or otherwise.

  “Why are you hiding in the thorn tree?” She turned to look at Emma curiously. “The rain off a hawthorn is only lucky on May Day and we’ve weeks yet before that.”

  Emma stifled a groan as Cormac snapped his head around to watch her emerge from the tree, leaves in her hair and thorn scratches on her arms. He didn’t say anything for a full minute, his dark eyes widening when he realized her antlers weren’t tree branches after all. He took off his hat, as if it interfered with his ability to stare. “You have … antlers.”

  She lifted her chin. “Obviously.”

  “They’re new.” She wished the sound of his voice didn’t remind her so much of the rain, touching her all over. Even stunned, it sounded smoky and dark and delicious.

  Olwen tilted her head consideringly. “I think they’re lovely.”

  Emma’s brittle smile warmed considerably. “Thank you.”

  “What happened to you?” Cormac asked sharply.

  “That’s not your concern,” she replied stiffly.

  “Olwen.” Catriona interrupted them from the other end of the path, near the dining room doors. “Cook’s made her currant buns.” Her hair was even paler than Olwen’s, so blond it was nearly white. Emma hadn’t yet been introduced; she only knew the other girls whispered about Catriona and dared one another to approach her. Apparently, Catriona could look at you and see your death. Olwen didn’t seem bothered, only looped her arm through her friend’s and threw a smile over her shoulder at her brother. “I’ll meet you in the carriage once I’ve eaten, Cormac.”

  Cormac shot her a crooked grin. “That could take days. I’ve seen you eat.”

  Olwen’s laugh trilled behind her like a bird darting between the leaves. Emma turned to go. Cormac stopped her with a simple question no one had thought to ask her. “Is it painful?”

  “Not exactly,” she replied. “At least not anymore.”

  He stepped closer to her and she couldn’t help but notice that he was looking into her eyes and nowhere else. No one had looked her in the eye for days and days, aside from her cousins. “When did it happen? Who did this to you?”

  Emma sighed. “My own mother, it would seem.” She shook her head. “Never mind, it’s not important.”

  “I beg to differ.” Cormac’s fingers slipped around hers to keep her from bolting. “It’s very important.”

  “Stop it,” she said quietly. His eyebrows raised in question. “I’m not a fool, you know. Despite all evidence to the contrary,” she added with a self-deprecating smile. “I know you don’t care for me and never did. You trifle with girls for your own purposes. And I won’t be trifled with, not anymore. If you want information for your precious Order, gather it in some other way.”

  “You are a fool,” he whispered, his hand tightening around hers. He leaned in until his mouth was barely inches from hers. He smiled crookedly, wickedly. “If you think that.”

  She wasn’t entirely sure what part of her speech he was referring to. It was surprisingly hard to think when he was so close. Her blood raced through her veins, pooling warmth in the oddest places, like the back of her knees and behind her ears. He was going to kiss her again.

  “My lord Blackburn.”

  Or not.

  Daphne stood not three feet away, batting her lashes demurely; so demurely Emma had the urge to poke her in the eye with one of her antlers. Girls trailed after her, giggling and sighing over Cormac. He blinked, looking a little like a trapped animal. “Emma is shockingly remiss in not inviting you in for tea. She’s positively wild now, is she not?”

  “Positively,” he agreed, regaining his customary lazy smile, the one that hinted at the kind of boredom that produced delicious mischief. He glanced at Emma. “But I find myself thinking society manners deadly dull all of a sudden.”

  Daphne’s expression froze. Sophie and Lilybeth’s mouths dropped open. The combined force of the other girls sneaking jealous glares her way made the evil eye charm heat up, as if she’d been too long in the sun.

  “The girls are swooning,” she said with a soft, sad smile. She knew she’d never be one of those girls now, artlessly flirting with a handsome gentleman. Girls wearing antlers instead of bonnets probably didn’t get many chances to flirt.

  Cormac made a move to follow her, but it would take a stronger man than he to forge through half a dozen debutantes intent on talking to him.

  Just as well.

  She had her own mischief.

  Chapter 27

  Moira didn’t need magical itchy feet to know she was in trouble.

  She was always in trouble on this end of the bridge, ever since Atticus claimed it for his gang of Madcaps. She’d flattened him once on principle. He’d been pestering her to join them and hand over her exclusive connection to One-Eyed Joe. She’d refused.

  Somewhat violently, it had to be said.

  Atticus held a grudge nearly as deeply as Piper. She fancied herself his sweetheart but he loved himself more than she ever could. Somehow, that had become Moira’s fault. And they hated that she wouldn’t be cowed. It didn’t help that she was faster than they were and that On
e-Eyed Joe wouldn’t deal with them, only her. They’d chased her with a hellhound once and he’d cursed them with nightmares for a full month.

  When they were at the markets at the same time, she kept to her end of the bridge, but with all the gargoyles being trapped and hunted by the Order, that was becoming more and more difficult. And when she saw the rickety wheelbarrow of onions abandoned at the mouth of the alley, she’d known she had no choice. The wheelbarrow was actually full of small gargoyles that Moira and Strawberry collected on their nightly rounds. One-Eyed Joe gave them a charm to make them look like pungent, slightly spoiled onions.

  The Order paid for every surrendered gargoyle, no questions asked. One-Eyed Joe did a brisk trade for a week or so, but most of them had either already been found by Keepers, or were now too far out of London to bother with. The fewer gargoyles there were left, the more vicious the competition became. Strawberry wasn’t up for it and never had been.

  And seeing the bruises on her face, Moira was suddenly keen to compete.

  They had Strawberry cornered behind a shop that mostly sold grimoires—magicians’ manuals—and dragon’s-blood inks. The building leaned at a sharp angle toward the water and was so close to the wards, the back alley tended to shift in and out of view. Atticus preferred it for his nastier business and when the bookseller tried to chase him off, his customers were pelted with stones and slimy ropes of seaweed.

  Currently, Atticus had turned a pile of broken crates into a throne. His hat was the same virulent violet as his eyes. He liked to claim he was the descendant of a Faery prince but Moira knew it was an illusion. She’d been the one to steal the ingredients for the glamour charm he wore under his collar. One-Eyed Joe made it for the innkeeper’s daughter and she’d traded it to Atticus for a kiss.