by A. B. Keuser
Knowing she should turn and walk away, she clenched her fist and looked back toward the path that would lead her to the safety of home. Heart in her throat, she took a timid step forward and peered into the forest beyond. Dark and uninviting, the path wound out of sight beyond the rosebush.
Glancing at the white wall of falling water, she convinced herself that one more wouldn’t hurt. Walking slowly, and glancing back at the forest opening every three steps, she made her way to the second bush. She snipped its blossom as well, but saw a third. This time, she knew that greed would take her too far into the path, and she placed the rose and the scissors gently back in her basket.
A sudden ticking echoed around her. Her breath caught in her throat and she pivoted to the road. Her heart seized a moment before her body caught up with her mind. In front of her, the forest grew back together, its branches twining at an unnatural pace. She ran as fast as she could, careless of her basket bouncing against her side, its contents jumbled and likely to spill out.
Even as her loosened boot came off, she raced for the safety of the enchanted market road. The vines and branches inexorably grew together, weaving a pattern that would trap her inside.
She stopped herself, hands hitting the wall. She pulled in desperately needed breath and let it go haltingly as the last glimmers of rain disappeared.
Her basket fell to the ground as her fists clasped around a hard, metal branch. The cold hardness startled her and she staggered backward.
The “woods” around her were copper and zinc. Whatever glimpse of foliage she had seen before was mere magic. A trick designed to ensnare her—to make her feel at ease.
It had worked.
The ground beneath her feet was the only thing that seemed to remain unchanged. Dirt and grass and….
Cursing, she hopped on her shod foot as she backed away from the sharp pebble that had dug into her tender sole.
She snatched her basket back up and froze as she collected the rose that had fallen with the rest of her things.
The petals moved gently beneath her fingertips – metal, a soft, iridescently purple metal.
A shiver slid down her spine and she let out a shaky breath. She limped gingerly back to where her shoe had flown from her foot; she shoved it back on and retied the laces. When she turned back, the metal wall of branches was a meter behind her. She took an involuntary step backward.
It crept toward her again. Every step she retreated it advanced.
The forest moved slowly, chivvying her to whatever end it intended.
With a deep breath, and a braver face than was strictly accurate, she turned her back on the advancing forest, gripped her basket tighter, and walked sedately toward whatever awaited her. When she reached the third rose, she paused. There was no use in ignoring it now.
Scissors in hand, she snipped its stem and continued on down the path.
By the time she reached the end of the path, she had sixteen blossoms in total. They did not fit in her basket with the lid closed, so she carefully arranged them in a manner that made her look like a flower seller, and finally looked up at the edifice the forest had pushed her toward.
In front of her wooden doors rose toward the cloudless sky, their brass hinges glittering in the fading sunlight. The wood held together by the brass fittings was weathered to an ancient gray. Behind her, the forest clicked, like a clock counting down to something she couldn’t fathom. She didn’t look back. There was a heavy bell pull beside the door. She glanced around, looking for any other option before she took hold of the bottom rung of the chain and pulled. Swallowing her fears, she took a step back as an echoing note sounded around her and a murmuration of starlings flew into the sky.
The forest had created a half circle around her—around the door—and she doubted it would move one way or another until she was through the gate.
Isabelle’s pulse roared in her ears, drowning out the mechanism’s final clicks. Staring at the wall of gnarled metal, she stood frozen, unbelieving.
Movement in the dark, flashes of silver and bronze, and the sound of sand poured into a metal dish escaped the darkness. As twilight lengthened and the round face of the waning moon rose into the steely blue of the evening’s sky, each breath of wind showed her a new wraith.
Two
Chimes echoed through the palace and Arthur looked from the mirror where he’d been trying to clean the most recent piece of metal embedded in his flesh. Skin sore and ragged, he dabbed the cloth at his wound and reminded himself why he suffered. “The pain is worth it.”
He’d kept himself—kept his charges—safe for another month. All it cost him was his sanity, a piece of his soul, and their freedom.
The bells rang again.
The forest gate had never summoned him so soon after the full moon. The orphans the forest collected usually came between the sixth and the fourteenth day of the moon’s cycle. The chimes did not summon him without an orphan to collect.
He carefully pulled his clothing back on, took up the cane he would need for the next several days and made his way stiffly down the stairs of the palace.
The boys were restless. They too had received a new ornament in their skin last night, but the fairy’s magic made sure the boys in his charge were never truly hurt.
He was the only one who felt the metal cutting into his skin. He was able to bear it and dreaded the day their fairy warden realized he would be more likely to give in to her demands if she chose to hurt the boys.
Stepping out into the low light of the slowly setting sun, he wondered if hurting the boys was outside of her power. In the end, the blame for the pain they suffered one night a month could be set squarely on his shoulders.
The fairy’s power was great, even the simple use of her name could make a weak man beholden to her. Arthur tried not to think of it unless he absolutely had to. But Agathina was cruel and cared nothing for the life she’d sentenced him. She had only one goal, and he was her ticket to its realization.
He would not bend, he could not bend. It didn’t matter how long his imprisonment lasted, so long as he stayed the course.
It was why he walked from the castle through the gardens and to the tall wooden gate to invite this new orphaned boy into his home. It was why he would never let this boy or any of the others know that his new cogs hurt him. It was why they would spend eternity in this castle until Arthur was more metal than man, until his body could no longer survive the cruel fairy’s torture.
By the time he reached the gate, the sky bled crimson in the distance and his legs ached as each step dragged the fabric of his trousers over the metal embedded in his skin. He removed the glove he wore over his right hand, and fitted his index finger into the lock. With an agonizing twist of his wrist, he opened the only working gate. As it swung open, he pulled his hand away, returning it to the glove he always wore as quickly as he could. The first of the boys through the door had been terrified of his hand, there was no point in scaring the newest member of their haphazard family with the worst of his disfigurements.
But the clearing had a new surprise for him. A woman sat on the ground, smoothing the grass back and forth. Every muscle in his body tensed, his first reaction to slam the door shut on her and go back to his castle.
Something was terribly wrong.
She realized he was there a moment later and quickly hopped to her feet, snatching up the basket full of flowers beside her and walked up to him with a furious scowl.
“Why am I here?” She waved her hand backward, motioning to the clockwork forest—an enchantment Agathina had placed around his palace long before she’d changed her tactics and begun bringing him visitors.
Wordlessly he studied her, one eye half closed by a copper gear sprouting from his left brow. Confusion turned to amusement as he let his gaze travel down to her basket and the iridescent roses lying atop the other items.
“You weren’t expected.” Without another word, he turned, leaving her with no choice but to follow him. Whe
n he heard her hurried footsteps behind him, he said, “I can promise you, no one in this castle is here of their own free will. None of us wanted this bell to ring again.”
Swallowing, she drew back as if slapped. Blinking, her eyes traveled over him as if seeing him for the first time. He knew she must think him hideous.
He had survived seventy-four full moons as the object of Agathina’s obsession. He’d received seventy-four pieces of metal—bits of cog in his skin. His body was disfigured beyond the point recognition. No one who had known him before Agathina descended would recognize him now. He was the ugly beast the dark fairy had made him, and no matter how reviled this woman’s appraisal of him made him feel, he would not pander to Agathina in order to regain what he had once had.
Grasping the handle of her basket more firmly, she squared her shoulders and said “Take me to the master of this monstrosity.”
He flinched at her last word, and wondered what she thought he was. Likely a butler or some other mangled minion. Just as well.
“This place has no master,” He said, motioning for her to come in. “It’s a prison with no warden and we are trapped here no matter what we do.”
“That is impossible.” She shook her head, the black curls that escaped from her still sodden hair flicked specks of water to her shoulders. “There has to be a way out.”
“There isn’t. You’re stuck here like the rest of us.”
He didn’t say the final thought that went through his head. She’d be stuck, or she’d be dead. He doubted Agathina would let her stay.
“A dark fairy controls the castle and those of us who live within.” He told a half truth. “We are her playthings.”
“What does she want from me?”
He had no idea. In fact, he was certain Agathina had not planned on her.
“It might help if you told me who you are.”
She flinched and straightened, as if she’d only just realized she spent the last few minutes bickering with a man she didn’t know. “Isabelle Marchant, I’m no one. If she’s looking for a ransom, she’s not likely to get one for me.”
The forest brought him orphans, if there was no one to pay a ransom for her; it was likely she too was orphaned. In spite of himself, he studied her.
She was exquisite. Long black hair swept up behind her head with an ivory ribbon wrapped around her brow and she glared at him from pale gray eyes that looked unearthly against her chestnut skin. His conclusion was dire. She was exquisite, her beauty the sort that would have weakened his knees even if they had not already been damaged.
She wore the sturdy walking dress one might see on a governess if it weren’t for the bright colors of her coat’s pattern. He cast his gaze away from the way that coat hugged her generous curves. The jumbled items visible in her basket were not things a governess could afford.
He ducked his head in a half bow. “Arthur Velois. As for what she has planned, I don’t think she expected you.”
He certainly hadn’t.
He had a month ahead of him that would be filled with finding ways to hide this woman upon Agathina’s return. It meant a month of keeping her away from the dark fairy’s mechanical spies and a month of trying to figure out the impossible.
It was likely that he only had a month before Agathina killed them all in a fit of pique. Fairies were not known for patience or a sense of fairness.
He reached out to close the doors and heard her say, “This is a mistake. I’m not supposed to be here.”
“We’ve discovered something we can agree to, at last.” He was joking, but when he turned back to her, it was clear his sarcasm was the last thing she wanted.
He didn’t want to explain, didn’t want to tell her that she’d stumbled into a battle of wills between a prince with the right blood and a fairy hell bent on tethering herself to the mortal world. He didn’t know how to explain that she’d wound up in a purgatory that existed only because of pride and a deal with the devil.
Pausing, he had to reconsider that sentiment. Agathina was terrible, but she wasn’t the devil. She was simply an evil fairy who had hooked her claws into him when she got the chance. And then he’d made it even worse.
At least they had a full month before the moon’s face allowed her to return.
As they walked back to the palace, the boys who were still curious about those who came through the gate appeared, peeking out from their hiding places. They crouched behind bushes and glanced over the tops of dappled flowers at the oddity that had joined them.
He hoped their curiosity would fade quickly.
With one final glance toward the gate, he led her forward through the gap in the hedgerow.
On the other side of that verdant wall, children ran amok beneath remnant fairy lights from the night before. They chased each other in loping circles as the one with the ball tried to keep it and the others tried to steal it from him. They scrambled over the terrace railings, overturning pots and throwing dark, rich dirt onto the cobblestones. Screaming at each other, they called out all sorts of nonsense. In short, they acted like the hellions they were.
Until they caught sight of her. Then they stopped dead in their tracks and those who’d not yet seen crashed into them from behind.
“All boys?” she asked as she surveyed the manor’s front lawn, her breath barely a whisper beside him. “It looks more like a school than a prison.”
Arthur looked up at the spires of his home. What sort of school did she think inhabited a castle? If it were a school, he supposed he would have learned his lesson long ago.
“The enchanted path draws orphans to the castle.” He would not voice the truth of it. He could not tell her it was a prison designed especially for him. “And none of them have ever walked through that gate looking quite so well fed as you. Colonel Eggdropper could barely stand when we opened the gate for him.”
She blinked at him like he had suddenly gone mad and turned back, studying the gate with concern in the furrow of her brows and shivered. “That is an awful enchantment.”
Arthur sighed and looked at the boys in his charge. “A dark fairy’s means are never kind.”
One of the boys raced out of the castle shouting “TEAKETTLE!” at the top of his lungs.
The children scrambled away from the front door.
With no time for an explanation, Arthur grabbed the girl by the arm and ran, despite the pain that laced through his legs. He hauled her into the small shed four of the boys had dived into. The boys slammed the door shut and hunched below the window.
“Let go of me!”
“Quiet, if you please. Complaints at this juncture will only make you look like us.”
She looked at him, startled, and then looked down to the boys. Realization dawned on her face. She hadn’t noticed the cogs imbedded in the boys’ skin.
Satisfied she wouldn’t betray their hiding place, Arthur peeked over the windowsill and tried to ignore the heat of her too-close body.
Agathina’s time within the mortal realm was limited. Her enchantments kept the world open to her, but she could not survive here long… not without an anchor to their world. And so she’d left him with metal biting into his flesh and a host of clockwork guards.
Half enchantments, half mechanicals, his wardens kept vigilant watch over the castle and its denizens. The boys had taken to calling them teakettles, and Arthur could not fault them for the apt description.
“What is that?” Isabelle asked from behind him.
He didn’t turn as he answered her, watching it trundle out of sight. “That is one of the dark fairy’s watch dogs. Stay out of their way, stay out of their sight, and she won’t know you’re here. That is the best possible outcome.”
“If she doesn’t lift the enchantment, how do I get home?”
Arthur felt the bitter taste of regret bubble up in his throat. “She’ll never let us go. You’re stuck here, like we all are.”
Three
Seeing Arthur’s barely contained rage in
the shed window’s reflection of his marred face, Isabelle let him lead her into the castle without a word. She refused to believe she was a prisoner here. There would be a way to get out—she simply had to find it.
The children scattered like spooked sheep, disappearing down the half dozen corridors that branched off the entrance hall.
The castle was enormous. And it was filthy.
Dust piled on sideboards and stair railings; clothing lay discarded in corners beneath cobwebs. All manner of mechanical toys littered the floor, and for the first time, Isabelle realized she and Arthur were the only two adults within the palace walls.
Everywhere they went boys popped out of nooks and crannies. Each had at least one piece of metal sticking out of his skin. She felt eyes appraising her everywhere they went.
“Arthur!” A sudden shout from behind had her hobbling escort turning to look at the boy who’d called to him.
The boy running toward them looked like he was barely seven. He skidded to a stop, gaping at her with eyes wide as saucers. A gear sprouted from his brow in much the same place as that of her escort, but the boy had a brown substance smeared across his cheek. She hoped it was chocolate.
It took a moment, but when he finally composed himself, he broke into a wide grin and turned to the man he’d called Arthur. “Don’t just stand there like a lump! Introductions should be made.”
Beside her Arthur laughed once, haltingly, and turned to her.
“That’s quite alright.” She turned back to the boy and held out her gloved hand. “Miss Isabelle Marchant at your service, little master.”
Taking her hand, the little scamp kissed the back of it as he bowed deeply. “Lord Cat Chaser, Sixth Viscount of Wobbly Buttress. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
Beside her Arthur tapped his cane on the dirty tile of the floor. “Lord Cat Chaser is our resident kettle confounder.”
Isabelle looked down at the boy with worry creasing her forehead and asked, “What does that mean?”