“Marlis has a tough outer shell, but I know this betrayal by her father has rattled her through and through. She would have to be serious about joining us to take Volland with her.” He motioned to the thin, scholarly man who was now going up the stairs after her. “He was one of her father’s top advisers, and it’s a huge risk for him to sneak out of the Chancellery.”
Sebastian’s adviser stood up, and Sebastian nodded to him, then glanced at Thea. He half-smiled. She dropped her eyes, nervous now, and stood up. “I should go,” she told Freddy. “I need to—to write Mother. I’ll visit her soon, of course—I just don’t want to break the news in person.”
“Yeah,” Freddy said. “Of course.”
He knows something’s wrong. I’m not acting right. I can’t remember how to act.
She hesitated, but didn’t know what to say. To either of them.
Stupid, stupid. Freddy punched the stone wall of the basement stairwell so hard that his entire hand throbbed.
Who cares? You’ve known this girl for—what—two weeks?
But what the hell else is there?
As far as he was concerned, the entire world might have been two weeks old. The men who had raised him, the people he had known, and the life he had lived—all gone. His bed—gone. Familiar maids? Gone. Books? The clock he’d been repairing? Clothes that weren’t borrowed? Letters from his parents? All gone.
He had seen the way she looked at Sebastian. Whatever had compelled her to dance with him before, it wasn’t only enchantment.
Not that he could blame her. Sebastian was undeniably handsome, and much stronger than Freddy. Of course, right now he could barely walk, but he’d still gotten the benefit of a first impression. What was wrong with your first impression? Let me count the ways. You had to act fake because Gerik was there, your touch gave her a terrifying vision of her dead father, you had never been out of the house before…and basically you still haven’t.
Why wouldn’t she want someone worldly? Someone who led arsenal raids? Someone with the respect of hundreds of men? All Freddy had was creepy magic, no friends, no experience outside of books. He couldn’t help that—and she probably couldn’t help wanting something else.
He punched the wall again, in the hallway now. He remembered he had an immediate duty as well, to let the Chancellor go, and the less time he spent with his magic tied to that man, the better. It sounded like it should be a momentous event, not something done in a manner of seconds in a quiet hallway. However, he didn’t want to honor the Chancellor with any ceremony.
Just a snip of the thread, and that was the end.
He did feel obligated to tell Marlis, though. Some sympathy was in order, and this was certainly not a situation addressed in etiquette books. He stepped out into the garden behind the house. He hadn’t been out here yet, but he knew the gardener was a witch who was still harvesting baskets of vegetables despite the freezing temperatures. Sure enough, a man was puttering around with a wheelbarrow full of compost.
“Hello,” Freddy said. “You’re the gardener?”
“Yessir.”
“Do you have any flowers?”
“A few.”
Freddy already saw them—a patch of little sunflower-looking blooms. He didn’t know the names of many flowers. They didn’t seem appropriate for mourning—maybe it was better that way. “Can I cut a small bouquet?”
“Of course.” The gardener was barely paying him any attention. He was wearing a dirt-streaked cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up, despite the frigid temperatures. Freddy lingered a moment, watching him work fresh dirt into the soil. The cold wind stirred the leaves of lush heads of greens and carrot tops. It was like peeking into another world, where everything worked differently—where magic brought only beauty.
He found Marlis sitting on the floor of Ingrid’s room with an open trunk full of books. Handwritten, by the looks of it. She was reading one, her shoes kicked off, her elbow resting on Ingrid’s bed.
“What are those?” he asked.
She looked up from the book, finally. For a second, her expression was far away and she didn’t look like Marlis at all. Her face had a curious radiance, like her blood was made of the same silver as his hair. Then she blinked out of it. “These are my journals, from all my years. I remembered them last night. They’re the reason I knew I had to leave, how I knew it was real. I needed to see if they were here.”
“Anything useful?”
“Oh yes.” She noticed the flowers, and the light in her eyes faded. She held out her hand. “I know what those mean.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I doubt it. I wouldn’t be, in your shoes.” She grabbed the flowers out of his hand and frowned at them. “I don’t even want to believe any of it. My father, I can almost accept that he would lie to me, but Mother…” She shut her eyes briefly. “I—I pitied you. I looked down on you. At least you know who your real parents are.”
“What you are really goes beyond parents, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t know if that’s any better.” She smoothed the brittle pages of the book in her hand. “I’ve just been reading and reading. These books go back to King Albert the Fifth. Almost four hundred years ago! I wrote all these. It doesn’t seem possible.”
“Are they triggering any memories?”
“Just bits and pieces. No better than dreams.” She huffed.
He sat down on the bed. “Be patient. Maybe you’re not ready to remember it all immediately.”
“I don’t have time to be unready.” Now she flipped through the pages, too fast to be reading them, like she wanted him to go away.
He leaned back on one elbow. “I know it’s a lot to take in. You said you knew the name Urd, but…you didn’t know what it meant, did you?”
She paused. “I knew the sound…the wyrdsong. I hear it all the time. I used to ask Papa about it when I was little, and he would give me medicine so I didn’t hear it for a time, and I stopped telling him or even talking about it.”
“How come you never talked about any of this?” Freddy asked. “It amazes me that even as a kid, you were so reserved.”
“You were, too, don’t you think? You were just nicer about it. You never talked about the magic you had to do, or how it made you feel. How did it feel when they started putting you in front of dead people every day when you were, what, seven or eight years old? You didn’t want to talk about it, did you?”
“I don’t even remember what I felt.”
“Well, you said nothing at the time.”
“You would’ve written about it in your diary if I had, wouldn’t you?”
She was plucking petals off the flowers, biting her lip hard. “You’re right,” she said. “I don’t know anything.”
“I never said you didn’t know anything.”
“How could I not know I was a Norn? I’ve been reading these books for hours. In the past, it seems like I always knew. These books say the wyrdsong has the power to influence men’s thoughts. A lot of good that does me—it doesn’t say how to use the power, or what direction I’m supposed to influence them in. Seems like I’m just supposed to know. And I don’t. If I had known, I’m sure I would never have let my father do what he did to you and all those people underground.”
He grabbed the flowers from her. “Look at these poor things. They aren’t going to have a petal left.”
She wrapped her arms around her knees, looking into space with red-rimmed eyes.
“It’s not your fault,” he said.
“According to these books it is,” she said. “I should be protecting magic.”
“According to these books, you were supposed to know who you were. Something must have gone wrong. Nan and I already suspected that might be the case. I don’t suppose the books offered any clues?”
“Maybe.” Marlis put the old book aside and opened a different one, with a relatively clean cover and modern binding. “Read the last entry.” She opened to a page and handed it to him.
/>
June 8th, 3rd Year of King Otto I
The blight on Yggdrasil seems to be spreading. Men from Urobrun have been poking around, getting closer to the tree than any time I can remember. We have handled these scouts so far. They are hired men, easily persuaded. But…
We might have to enlist King Otto’s help to protect Yggdrasil from Urobrun. I hope he proves reasonable, though I have doubts. He strikes me as arrogant, and some of his policies make me suspicious. They seem intended to track magic users.
It is getting more difficult for us to protect the tree and its children in the face of today’s weaponry and communications.
Sometimes I am not sure how all of this could have a good end. All things must die in time…even Yggdrasil…even us.
When he looked up again, Marlis was staring into the dark corners of the room with hollow eyes.
“This is the last entry?” he asked.
“As far as I can tell.”
“Yggdrasil had a blight? Does that happen often?”
“The books imply that was the first time. Apparently there is a barrier of magic around Yggdrasil and normally no one can get near it, but the barrier grew weaker and black blotches appeared on the trunk.”
“If Yggdrasil was already dying when Urobrun destroyed the tree…but Ingrid brought it back to life—” He halted. “What if Ingrid didn’t just plant a new tree? What if the tree was revived? And just as people become different when they are brought back to life without serum, the tree’s magic has become twisted? The limbs are its own way of feeding itself?”
Marlis caught her breath. “If that’s the case, is Ingrid in control or not?”
“I don’t know. And if Yggdrasil dies, will you and Nan die, too?”
“I think the part of me that is human would still live. And that would be that. If my writings are true, magic would be gone.”
“I suppose I could have a normal life,” he said.
But the way she looked at him, he knew she understood. It was one thing to wish for a normal life when you thought you could never have one—it was another thing entirely to lose your power.
The next morning, Thea had barely woken up when Sebastian wanted to see her in his office.
“I have an opportunity for you, if you want it,” he said as soon as she walked in the door.
“Good morning to you, too,” she said, still rubbing sand out of her eyes.
“Sorry. Good morning. I’m bad at preamble. Too much to do.”
“I’m not a morning person.”
“I’m getting that impression. Anyway—I know you want to do more than waitress, but I found you a waitressing job.”
This was not something she expected—or welcomed. “Are you kidding?”
“The reason is, the proprietress herself is a rustic, and she gets a lot of Irminauers in. Some of them might be sympathetic to my father. It’s easy for me to know what the factions within Urobrun are doing, but the news from Irminau is slower and less complete. I want to know what my father’s up to, as much as possible. If you could play the part of a rustic girl, chat it up with those customers…”
“I can’t do it like this! Sometimes I wished for a third hand at work.”
“They do make very functional prosthetics. Some of the men who lost arms in the war made do very well with hooks.”
She felt the color drain out of her face. “Hooks? How am I supposed to play the part of a flirtatious waitress with a hook?”
“The same way you did before.”
“It’s awkward and ugly!” Sebastian could really be dim about some things. “Besides, when does this job start? I’m certainly not ready now.”
“Well, you’re really working as a scout for my intelligence. They aren’t in desperate need of a waitress, so you have some time. Say, a month?”
She started to cross her arms, but even that felt awkward without her hand. “Where is this job, anyway?”
“Café Scorpio. I know the proprietress. I’ve only been in there once. It’s a small place. Quirky. I’m sure people, being people, will stare sometimes—but eccentricity is welcomed.”
“I’ve heard of it.” Thea was at least passingly familiar with every nightspot in Lampenlight, but Café Scorpio was on the fringe of the district, with a night act consisting of belly-dancers and the vamp Ina Brand, nicknamed “The Sultry Serpent” for the snakes she wore like accessories. “Is it a nice place?”
“Would I send you into a bad place? Of course not. It seemed nice enough to me.”
Thea wondered if Sebastian was the sort of person who would really notice whether it was nice or not. She could imagine him having nonstop conversations about politics and barely noticing the decor, the performers, or the staff.
Someone rapped on the door. “Sebastian, sir, Mr. Huber is downstairs.”
“Ah, that’s the prosthetist,” Sebastian said. “Send him up.”
“Already?” Thea was certainly having no trouble shoving aside her romantic feelings for Sebastian on this particular morning. She usually liked that he got right to the point, but not when it came to something so personal.
Sebastian’s secretary Kircheis rushed in and thrust papers into Sebastian’s hand. “Still no announcement of the Chancellor’s death,” he said, “though Brunner was asked to meet with some of the ministers.”
“So they want to negotiate a compromise before they make the announcement. Brunner isn’t taking them up on it, is he?”
“No, he’s holding firm. That paper is the latest pamphlet the UWP is circulating, and it doesn’t pull any punches.”
Sebastian skimmed the pamphlet.
“You should have warned me,” Thea hissed at Sebastian. “I’m not ready for—” She cut herself off as soon as his eyes rose to hers. He’s been through all this, she thought. She didn’t want to demand anyone’s sympathy, but she wouldn’t mind if he offered her a little. Some space, at least, to mourn.
“It’s just a fitting,” he said. “It won’t hurt.”
Thea composed herself as best she could. Maybe at least they could give her a false hand that would look normal if she covered it with a glove, then she could go out without the dreaded stares. She wondered how bulky it would be.
“Good morning, Mr. Huber.” Sebastian lifted his hand as the man walked in, a balding fellow with reddish hair and bright blue eyes.
“Good morning, Mr. Hirsch. I could hardly make sense of your message. What on earth happened here?”
“I had a magical leg and Miss Holder here had a magical hand, and, to make a long story short, the magic went awry.”
“I’m afraid I can’t compete with a magical limb, though I’ll see what I can do for you.”
“That’s fine,” Sebastian said, waving the UWP pamphlet impatiently before putting it down. “I have an ordinary artificial leg now, I’ve just outgrown it. I don’t have time for my body to get in my way—I just need something that fits, and as quickly as possible.”
Mr. Huber tsked at him. “You need to take care of that body of yours, young man, or it’ll get in your way whether you like it or not. You look like you haven’t slept in days.” He opened a bag and rummaged in it, bringing out a few measuring implements. “When you get to be my age…” He glanced at Thea.
“What about you, my dear? Are we making an artificial hand or a hook? Or both?”
“Both,” Sebastian said. “She should have options.”
Thea was starting to tremble. This just sounded so real, and of course, what happened was real. She thought she already knew that, but each new aspect felt like a boot stomping on her chest, leaving her short of breath and wondering what had happened.
She expected Mr. Huber to measure her arm, and was surprised when he also measured her shoulders. “To operate the hook,” he explained, “you’ll use your opposite shoulder with a slight motion that will come very naturally with practice. It’s two hooks, really, that can open and close to grip things through the use of bands.”
“Tha
t sounds bulky.” And hideous.
“Not as much as you might fear. It will fit under most clothes without much notice, and you’ll soon find you can do almost everything you used to do. I’ve helped men who lost both hands and are able to live quite normal lives. Thanks to all these conflicts, people have come up with very functional solutions.”
There was that word again, “functional.” No one described hands as functional, because they were so much more than that. Slender. Beautiful. Expressive. Deft. Soft. She forced herself to display good spirits as he took a plaster cast of her arm, but storm clouds gathered inside her. Mr. Huber had said she might have “quite” a normal life—she didn’t need him to tell her that normal life was over.
“My name is Marlis Horn. Most of you will know me as the Chancellor’s daughter.” Her voice echoed through the theater, hundreds of faces staring back at her in the darkness. She kept returning to Wilhelmina and General Wachter. They actually came.
She’d had no idea if they would even respond to her invitation. Wilhelmina looked confused, while Wachter kept surveying the surroundings—a drab but spacious venue in the bohemian district of Langstrasse—like he expected an ambush. Wachter had brought enough of his own men to fill three rows of threadbare chairs. They looked out of place in their sharp uniforms. She expected more were watching the place outside, but in here they were outnumbered by over a hundred revolutionaries and several hundred more common people.
“At least,” she said, “that’s who I thought my father was. Three days ago, he gave me this letter.” She held the letter up as evidence. The audience wouldn’t recognize his handwriting from their seats, but the very suggestion of its existence made Wachter sit up a little straighter. Wilhelmina looked at him. Marlis couldn’t make out their expressions in the dim light.
She read the first part of the letter aloud. “‘And then we tried to capture the Norns. You were the only one we could find.’ This, you see, was my father’s dying confession to me.”
The audience rumbled. The capitol had not announced her father’s death yet.
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