“Is that why you said Papa was alive?”
“Of course. We have an understanding among the higher staff that we would use Freddy in any case like this. We would have brought back Vice Chancellor Walther, if he hadn’t died in an explosion. But—of course, to do this, we must find Freddy.”
“We will get Freddy,” she said. “I’ll do whatever I must do. First I have to get home.” She knew Volland had heard every word of Papa’s strange mutterings.
Volland didn’t ask questions. That was how he was; he knew she would tell him more the moment she felt like it, and he could be patient until then. “Of course,” Volland said. “Go home and then tell me what you need. We’ll figure out a plan.”
“I’ll hurry,” she said.
The ride home seemed both ponderous and miserable. She had never wanted so much to sob, but the tears stayed locked in her throat. As the guards ushered her into the house, she overheard the chauffeur comment, “Nothing warms that girl up,” as if she were heartless just because she wouldn’t show him her grief.
All the household staff and aides had heard that her father was in the hospital fighting for his life, and they wanted to fuss over her. She told them to go away, knowing how cold she must look to them, with her face severe and her eyes dry.
She locked the door to Papa’s office and yanked drawers from the desk until she found a letter in a hidden compartment.
If you are reading this, something must have happened to me. I can’t imagine it will ever come to that, but I must plan for every contingency, and I love you. I want you to be safe. I know you will doubt my love after you read this letter, but I hope you will be able to come back to it later, for confirmation of what you know to be true in your heart.
The heart in question was already sinking into her stomach. She read quickly—the letter was quite long, as Papa was always verbose once he got going.
We’ve always said you look like your mother. And it’s true. I think sometimes she loved you more fiercely than her own blood because of it. Your mother would never admit she believed in coincidences, much less miracles, but I know that was what you meant to her. To both of us.
You were adopted, Marlis. Your mother was unable to conceive. And we had reason to keep you close and safe.
In the forests of Irminau, there is a monastery dedicated to seeking out the children they call “the Nornir.” The monks and many rustics believe there are three women reborn over and over, who protect the magic that comes from a sacred tree deep in the forest, and that this magic is a tool God uses to influence human fate. If a Norn is born into a family that can’t properly care for her, the monks will offer the child a home.
Let me be blunt—I never believed in that nonsense. Magic is simply a force—a weapon, more often than not. But I can’t deny that magic seems to crop up more often in the north, closer to the tree. My job is to protect my country. To destroy that weapon. So we destroyed the tree. Either we would destroy magic entirely, or we would destroy a powerful symbol of Irminauer belief. And then we tried to capture the Norns. You were the only one we could find, a babe in the care of monks who swore you were sacred.
If the legends were true, magic would have died with the tree, but magic still plagues us.
If the Nornir still live and you are what the monks believed, you would have grown into my enemy and manifested magical abilities, but you, my dear Marlis, seemed to follow in our footsteps. You share my political ambitions and your mother’s scientific curiosity and her way of looking at every angle before forming a conclusion. A guardian of fate? A tool of gods? I scoff at the idea. You have grown into a modern young woman—without magic.
Could the lore of the Norns have been wrong all along? Perhaps so. You seem to believe in this world we have built. I hope you will keep fighting for it and not against it. I hope you will forgive me for my dishonesty and understand the measures I took to find out the truth, and then to protect you from it, because my love for you is one thing that has always been true.
The letter was dated several months before. She wondered if his words were still true. She had tried to persuade him to accept “barbaric” magic.
She paced the room fervently, crumpling the letter in one hand and twisting her mother’s necklace in the other.
“You left me…to find this after you were dead?” she whispered aloud. The whisper only made the house seem emptier. The guards and servants outside the room made no noise. Papa’s office was cavernous, the light on his desk failing to chase away the shadows in the corners. “Did you ever mean to tell me?”
She was not his child. She had never spent nine months tucked inside her mother to emerge into their arms. She had been born far away to complete strangers. And she was—
What was this? A Norn? What did that mean? She didn’t even know who she could talk to about this. What to do, what to think?
She finally stopped pacing at the window. The sky was so heavy and gray that she wouldn’t be surprised to see the year’s first snow. She was so alone, always. If Papa were truly to die, every day might look as heavy and gray as this, even if the sun was shining.
But he lied to you anyway. Just like he lied to Freddy. He didn’t trust you to handle the truth. What other reason for hiding it away in this—cowardly—letter!
She threw the letter at the wall. Her shoulders shook.
You can’t tell me this after you’ve escaped into death. You’re going to look me in the eye and tell me why I should still fight for you.
“We have word that the Chancellor may have been killed,” Sebastian said, making a general announcement to the gathered men.
Over the past few days, Freddy’s mind had turned away from the world he had left, but Sebastian’s announcement brought his past back into sharp focus.
The Valkenraths, the Chancellor…the glittering, controlled world of the government elite had felt so immutable when he was captured in the heart of it. It was hard to imagine it could be so changed.
“Though we only have hearsay to go on now,” Sebastian continued. Standing next to him in front of the tall drawing room windows was Yann, from the same revolutionary group as Arabella. Freddy had punched Yann the night the workers escaped, so he would recognize him anywhere. Yann noticed him, too, though he didn’t look surprised. He must have known the reviver was with Sebastian.
“We don’t know who shot the Chancellor,” Yann said. “Whoever executed this plot, they weren’t from the UWP circles. Of course, the radio says he was merely injured. One of our spies in the capital swears this is just a story, and he’s always been reliable.”
No doubt if the Chancellor was dead, they must be scouring the city for Freddy more fiercely than ever.
“Everyone in the Chancellor’s circle has surely been holding their breath these past few days, waiting to see if Irminau will capitalize on Urobrun’s vulnerability and initiate war,” Sebastian said. “The government won’t want to make this public knowledge yet, to buy some time.”
“What if King Otto marches right in?” Will asked. “Can we stop him? Can anyone?”
“The UWP has a plan,” Yann said. “We want to establish a citizen army as quickly as possible. That’s why I’m here, to see if you’ll help us.”
“Of course we will,” Sebastian said. “The sooner we can secure the city for the revolution and get the Chancellor’s camp out of the picture, the better chance we’ll have of fending off King Otto when he makes his inevitable move.”
“Things are obviously advancing very quickly,” Yann said, motioning to Sebastian’s hand, which clutched a stack of papers. “I wondered if you’d be able to attend a strategy meeting tomorrow morning as soon as the curfew lifts?”
“I’ll be there.”
Yann nodded and left.
“I’ll be damned if Yann claims the country,” a burly dark-haired man said, once Yann was gone. He looked like he’d enjoy snapping Yann in half.
“I don’t think Yann will personally ‘claim’ the
country,” Sebastian said. “Anyway, Yann’s just the messenger. Brunner is now the head of the radical UWP, and I rather like him.”
“But you’re our leader, Sebastian,” Aleksy said.
“Well,” Sebastian said, “Brunner has greater numbers and is quite competent as a military leader. At this time, he will serve better. Even if we don’t agree with the UWP entirely, King Otto has a lot of magic on his side, and we have to be able to present a unified front against him.”
“I agree with Sebastian,” said Heffler, a thickset man with serious eyes who seemed well-respected. “We don’t have the numbers to operate on our own. All the rebel groups in the city are falling in with the UWP right now if they know what’s good for them.”
Sebastian took a few strolling steps along the vast floor rug, which had grown rather dirty with all the coming and going. “I doubt the UWP will ultimately gain control of the country,” he said. “At least, not these current leaders. They’re stepping into a huge mess. Things will go wrong, and someone will be blamed. If the Chancellor is already out of the way, the next group to step in will likely also suffer. Even I’m not entirely sure what direction to go in yet. Let the UWP make the mistakes first: While we’ll support them in their efforts, we will distinguish ourselves enough to step out of their ashes.”
“What if they are successful?” another man asked. Freddy didn’t know his name, but he had a lion’s head of hair.
Sebastian shrugged. “Let’s worry about that when it happens.”
A man ducked his head in, to share what he’d just heard on the radio: “Now they’re reporting that they’ve caught Gerik Valkenrath.”
Thea had come in through the side door during Sebastian’s speech, wearing an apron from her nursing duties. At this news, she looked at Freddy with concern and started moving through the crowd to reach him. Despite last night, he wanted to soften when he saw she still cared. It’s not her fault if she’s enchanted, he tried to remind himself as he rushed toward the radio. Freddy had expected to hear one of the officials delivering the grave news; he didn’t expect to hear Marlis.
“We are still looking for Gerik’s ward, Frederick. I would like to assure him that he will not be blamed for Mr. Valkenrath’s actions, and I will personally see to his safety and comfort if anyone has any news of his whereabouts.” She spoke clearly and pointedly, and he could almost see her eyes flashing with frustration.
“We are also seeking two accomplices of Gerik’s, Karl and Marianne Lang. They are considered to be very dangerous, and if anyone has any further information about them, I beg you to come to the Chancellery.”
Freddy sucked in a breath. Damn Marlis.
“Are you all right?” Thea whispered.
He nodded, not wanting to confide anything in her when he couldn’t trust her.
Now Gerik himself was permitted to speak. Freddy’s old guardian sounded like a stranger, his easy, arrogant manner replaced by a voice that was low and subdued.
“I want to apologize to all of you for the events of the other night and all the years that preceded it. I was in charge of the effort to cure this disease, and I take responsibility for this breach of security. In my shock and, admittedly, my cowardice, I did not come forward when I should have, but I am as appalled as anyone that Irminau would do this to our people. We must not allow them to win. I hope justice will be served.”
Freddy approached Sebastian as the crowd broke up. “Can we talk?”
Sebastian nodded. “In my office.”
Ingrid followed. Freddy shot her a glare. “Just you and me, Sebastian.”
After shutting the door, Sebastian sat down, found a cold half-empty cup of coffee, and took a swig.
“That broadcast was a thinly coded message to me,” Freddy said. “Karl and Marianne Linden are my parents. She can’t state outwardly that she’s looking for me because I’m the reviver, but she can toss out a threat. She’ll punish my parents if she can’t have me.”
“So you want to go back to the Chancellery?”
“I have to go.”
“And suppose they decide they’d like to torture you and find out where you’ve been? And you lead them right back to me?”
“They don’t want to torture me,” Freddy said. “I can do a lot for them. They want my power.”
“Maybe that’s true, but…”
Freddy kept thinking of Thea in Sebastian’s arms. He didn’t want to bring that up now—he didn’t like showing that kind of weakness, and it seemed so petty. As for Thea or Sebastian, he didn’t know what was going on in their heads. Sebastian probably didn’t know Thea had kissed Freddy, and Thea might not even remember. Don’t take it out on him.
“I think I can help you,” Freddy said. “I came from that world, and they need me. I know Marlis, and her love for her father could be a weakness—I’m the only person who can keep him alive. I can get some good information for you, and they won’t kill me. What other person can you send into the enemy den knowing they won’t kill him?”
“Bah,” Sebastian said, sounding defeated. “I can think of a hundred bad things that could come of this.”
“I can think of bad things no matter what path I take,” Freddy replied. He wondered if maybe a part of him wanted to go to Marlis because at least he knew what she was about. He didn’t have to constantly guess if he was around enemies or friends, like he did here.
“Are you going to bring the Chancellor back?”
“I might. And he’ll know every breath he takes is thanks to me.”
Sebastian dropped a few stray pencils into his empty coffee cup as if they were thoughts he was sorting out, and then glanced up. “Ingrid said you can’t control your magic. I do know you can end someone’s life, of course—we’ve seen that. But do you think you’ll be able to keep a handle on the situation under pressure?”
That was Freddy’s weakness. He loved using his magic, and he still hated releasing people into death. When he let all of the workers go, many of them had been injured by the Urobrun Army. He had seen and even felt their pain. That made it easier. But to kill the Chancellor would be a challenge.
No, not to kill him. He’s already dead. I can’t forget that. “I will admit that controlling my magic has been difficult in the past, but I’ve learned a lot since then.”
Sebastian looked torn. “I have to think of my men, to keep them safe.”
“I’m leaving Thea here. If I thought I was putting her in danger, I wouldn’t go.” He couldn’t help a possessive note entering his voice. Part of him wanted a challenge from Sebastian so they could get it all on the table, but that wouldn’t do any good if they were enchanted. I just have to focus on helping her. “I can manage this. You asked me to trust you, and I have to ask you the same.”
Sebastian tapped his fingertips together, thinking it through, then said, “All right. I don’t like it, but I’ll trust you.”
Thea couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Freddy, stop and think about this for a moment! They offered no proof that they have your parents.”
“I realize that.” He seemed distant. “But I think there is something I can do there, as opposed to here, where I can only sit around and wait.”
“We’re all waiting right now. All I’ve done is bring trays of food and fluff pillows! Our time will come.”
His brows twitched, betraying his worry, but he still sounded firm. “I hope so. For now, you’re safe here. And I’ll be back.”
“You can’t promise that,” Thea said.
He took her hand and held it. His silence explained it all. He didn’t want to go, but he would.
Down the hall, Ingrid had been talking to Sebastian in a low tone just outside his office; now she looked at Freddy. “You can’t possibly be leaving us just when we need you most,” she said.
“I’m afraid I am.”
“Sebastian—you’re letting him go?”
Sebastian scratched his head. “Well…”
“You can’t possibly.�
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“I can’t tell my men I believe in freedom and then force Freddy to stay. And Freddy has a point—in many ways, he has the upper hand.”
Ingrid’s expression was fierce, and Thea felt uneasy. Freddy ought to trust Ingrid. He was thinking of his parents, who might not even be in danger, when Yggdrasil was in danger. “Freddy, if the Norns don’t think you should go, then you shouldn’t go,” Thea said.
“I’m going. I’m sorry.” He looked past her to Sebastian.
“I’ll get someone to escort you,” Sebastian said.
He said softly to Thea, “I hope I can explain later.”
When he let go of her hand, she felt a strange sensation—the quick twinge of pain that sometimes appeared down her forearm, and then nothing at all. She touched her palm where Freddy’s hand had just been.
“Feeling all right?” Ingrid approached Thea once Sebastian and Freddy had left.
“Yes, of course.” Thea shook her head.
“I’m sure that announcement took you aback, just as it did me.” Ingrid straightened her angular shoulders and walked over to Thea. “Sebastian should not let Freddy go. I’m not sure what impulse guides him sometimes.”
“I know Freddy’s hated being cooped up here, and we all feel helpless. I know someone must do these smaller tasks, but—” She sighed.
“If you wanted to do something more important—”
“I do.”
“If you were willing to fully embrace the protection of Yggdrasil, you could tap into its power, too.”
“How?”
“Come with me. I’ll show you.”
Ingrid led Thea into her bedroom, and they settled on her quilt. The room had one small window, and the curtains were drawn, the sunlight creeping in only around the edges. Their knees were close as Ingrid took her hands. A brief twinge of discomfort rang through her—she was not usually so intimate with people. She wanted to snatch her hands back. Ingrid smiled a little. Her eyes were round and blue, her lashes fair. “You already have some of Yggdrasil inside you, from when I healed you. But right now—” She paused, as if she heard something in the silence. “You must not be afraid if it leads you to dark places. I don’t know if you’re ready to accept that. Magic is always a marriage of darkness and light.”
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