The Twistrose Key

by Tone Almhjell

  It could not. For all the mirrors of all the six walls of the Observatory hall filled with the same scene: Lin Rosenquist, age eleven and in dire need, struggling to her feet with dark lines of blood creeping out of her ears.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Rufus of Rosenquist was furious.

  Never had he walked so witlessly into a trap. Moldy lost his mind. Moldy hug. Moldy hero! Well, maybe they still had a chance. Two against three were less pretty numbers, but they should still be able to run.

  If Lin could manage. The little one was shaking, and she was bleeding from her head again. That ratty magical otopathy! Rufus wanted to chuck it all the way to the Cracklemoor. And this time it was all the mirrors. He had to get her out of this building.

  “Lin. We need to leave. Can you make it downstairs?”

  Lin nodded, but she didn’t fool Rufus. Her irises looked like they had been dipped in milk, and her neck was ropy. Too vulnerable. Snap, crack, no problem for a cat.

  A loud flapping disturbed the sighing waves under the glass dome. Teriko was flying straight for their balcony, claws and beak open, one eye fixed on Lin.

  No problem for a parrot, either. Rufus pushed Lin toward the balcony door. “Run! Down and out through Figenskar’s office! I’ll be right behind you!”

  He rushed back to the railing and peeked down. Oh yes, plenty high enough to crush a brittle bone or many. No matter. If that dolled-up chicken wanted Lin, he would have to fly through one seriously angry Rodent first. Rufus climbed onto the railing, balancing on his hind feet.

  Teriko squawked at the sight of him, flapping his wings, treading the air. But Rufus had timed it well. It was too late for Teriko to change his course. Vole and parrot slammed together in an explosion of blue feathers. Teriko grabbed on to Rufus, and Rufus held on to Teriko. They swayed and tilted, and then they fell.

  To Rufus’s eternal relief they fell inward, filling the balcony with thrashing limbs, claws, and teeth. Rufus kicked and scratched as hard as he could, but Teriko was just nastier. Soon the parrot had him trapped under a horned foot.

  “Treat!” he screamed. “Treat!”

  The hook of his beak glittered as he drew his head back to strike. Rufus lifted his hands to at least protect his snout and kicked with his hind legs one more time. He braced himself. Waited three heartbeats, ten.

  But Teriko didn’t strike. Instead he collapsed over Rufus with a dull squeak and made no effort to get back up.

  Rufus craned his neck to see who had come to his rescue. He whistled through his teeth. Not who. What. The narrow end of the telescope dripped with blood. It must have hit Teriko in the head when he kicked him.

  Lucky.

  Not so lucky, though, that he was stuck under Teriko’s lifeless body. His bird bones were hollow, so he wasn’t very heavy. But he was tall, ten feet from his beak to the tip of his tail, and his wingspan was huge. The entire balcony was so full of moldy parrot that Rufus couldn’t get free. He had to settle for wiggling under the horned claws until he could peer out between the banisters.

  Lin’s footfall was lost in the depths of the Observatory, but the mirrors showed her every step. Just now, the little one was reeling from door to door in the hallway. None of them would let her in.

  A chill prickled at Rufus’s scruff. Predator. He looked down.

  Figenskar was standing on the Observatory floor. He had stuffed the snow globe back into a black bag, but other than that, he hadn’t moved. A blue feather swirled past his face and landed at his boots, but the chief observer didn’t even glance at it. He just stared up at the mirrors as patiently as, well, a cat outside a mouse hole.

  This was not right. Figenskar had been chasing Lin all night. He had lured her in his trap, had her caught in a corridor, even. Why was he just watching?

  In the mirrors, Lin had made her way to Figenskar’s office. She stumbled to the back door, but it was no longer open, and there was no key. That pile of dung Marvin must have locked up before he came to the hall to betray them.

  Rufus’s nose twitched. A great many mistakes could have been avoided tonight if he had only had the sense to trust his moldy snout. The parrot dung on the slopes of the Towerhorns, yes. But before that, the odd smell in the Hall of Winter, left by Figenskar’s secret accomplice, waiting to catch Isvan if he should come back. He knew it now, of course; he excelled at seeing how the jigsaw pieces fit once they had been puzzled together by someone else. Pomade. Sticky, stinking pomade. It made him sick just to think about it. And those dainty little tracks in the garden. Marvin all along.

  Rufus turned to the Memory balcony, intending to skewer Marvin’s straggly, fat face with his stare. The guinea pig deserved to know how vile he was, how spineless and cowardly. But he wasn’t there.

  A smug snarl sounded down on the floor. Figenskar’s pointy teeth were all bared in triumph. Lin had pulled the tapestry with the Starfalcon aside and was crawling into the hole in the wall. She had taken the only way left. And, Rufus realized, the only way Figenskar didn’t know about.

  So that’s what he was waiting for. For some reason, Figenskar needed to know how Lin had escaped from the cage. And now that he did . . .

  Mold and twice.

  Figenskar swung his bag over his shoulder and headed for the double door with long, purposeful strides.

  Rufus let all his Wilder fury out. This time he wasn’t going to let Lin down. This time he was going to save her. “Stay away from her!” he screamed, pushing and wrenching Teriko’s wings, not caring if they cracked and broke, until he managed to flip over and gather his legs. He leaped for the balcony door. It was locked. He kicked and clawed, but the moldy door wouldn’t open.

  Figenskar had pushed aside the counter and was leaving through the double door. The cat had a big key in his paw, and even though the mirrors still hissed and murmured, Rufus heard it turn in the lock on the other side.

  “Marvin!” Rufus roared. “Marvin, you giant heap of rat’s dung, are you there? Open the door!”

  But there was no reply. Rufus sank down on his haunches. He didn’t want to watch what was happening to Lin, but he couldn’t bear to turn away, either.

  The mirrors were nearly dark now, except for a pair of trembling hands groping at a ladder inside a narrow shaft. The hands halted for a moment. Then they raced down at a terrible speed, missing and catching every other rung.

  Lin emerged from the shaft into a brooding, red light, legs kicking. Her face was wild as she let go of the ladder and flung herself at the nearest perch. She landed on her feet, but slipped immediately and smashed belly first onto the grime-covered beam. Blood trickled out of her nose and ears.

  Behind her, in the corner of the image, a shadow was gathering. Lin crawled along the perch, but the shadow was quick and sure. It reached out a clawed hand, but before it could catch her, Lin threw herself from the perch to the chain. She slipped again, rushing down in cruel jerks, until she hit the top of Teriko’s mirror. There she stayed with her legs twined around the knot that tied the mirror to the chain, while the metal frame danced back and forth. The little one was breathing hard.

  “Keep going, Lin!” Rufus said through his teeth. “You have to try!”

  But Lin didn’t try, and when the image widened to show more of the scene, Rufus understood why. The door was closed, the heavy padlock in place. Lin had nowhere to go.

  Behind Lin’s skinny shape, a deeper darkness slid down the cage bars. Soon Figenskar stepped into the circle of torch light, twenty feet beneath the mirror frame. He held his paws out and spoke. Lin didn’t stir. The torches reflected in her face.

  The cat shrugged. He opened his bag and brought out a small, twinkling star that filled the cave with golden white and silver milk. Placing the snow globe on the cage floor, Figenskar rested the heel of his boot on top of it. One step and Clariselyn’s soul would be crushed forever.

 
“Mold,” Rufus whispered.

  A tear found its way down Lin’s cheek. She looked up the chain, toward the cave ceiling and the end of the shaft. But no one came to save the little one. Lin lowered her head and let herself fall into Figenskar’s waiting claws.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Lin’s mouth tasted of metal, and her thoughts were scattered birds in a storm of a headache. It took her several gulps of dank, reeking air to remember where she was, and why she couldn’t move her arms.

  Cage. Trapped. Figenskar.

  He had tied her hands back and propped her against the cage bars. Something chafed at her throat—one of his burlap sacks, pulled up over her body and bound tightly at the neck.

  Figenskar was hanging from the chain, upside down, using his teeth on the knot that held Teriko’s mirror. Clariselyn’s snow globe lay in the muck next to a black bag and a red velvet pouch, not far from Lin. And in the padlock on the cage door sat a small hope: the key. She tried to get up, but this time, Figenskar had been thorough. He had bound her legs as well. With a small thud she slumped back against the cage wall. A tiny sound, but it was enough for Figenskar. He twisted around and grinned down at her with a mouthful of needles.

  “Good girl, hmmm? Sit tight for Figenskar. It will soon be over, little Twistrose!”

  He had untied the knot now and was lowering the mirror frame, all the way down, until it dangled two feet above the floor with its front turned toward Lin.

  The mirror was full of shards.

  Someone had picked the broken glass out of the parrot dung, wiped the pieces thoroughly, and placed them back into the frame.

  Figenskar landed softly and sauntered over to Lin.

  “I must confess that I am curious. Did you break the mirror on purpose, or was it dumb luck?”

  Lin blinked. What was he talking about?

  “Come, it won’t change anything if you tell me. Indulge a poor, curious cat. Did you do it on purpose?”

  “I . . . I wanted to cut the rope.” Lin’s tongue felt sticky and numb.

  Figenskar laughed. “I knew it! For a while I thought I was exposed. That it was some ingenious Twistrose plot to stop me. But you only wanted to cut the rope!”

  He picked the velvet pouch up from the ground.

  “I suppose it was just luck that inspired you to steal this as well,” he said, taking a small, glittering object out of the pouch. A sliver of glass.

  It was the shard Lin had plucked out of her wrist up in the secret tunnel. One end was still black with dried blood. Figenskar licked the tip of his tail and used it to polish the shard clean.

  “I knew you must have hidden it somewhere in the Observatory, because you didn’t have it when I frisked you on the Memory balcony. I had my clerks search everywhere you could possibly have set your pasty little feet, behind every door that was unlocked while you were on the loose. Finally I realized that it had to be concealed where you escaped from the cage. And nobody knew where that was except you and that disgusting Rodent of yours.”

  Figenskar squinted up toward the ceiling. From the floor, it was impossible to make out the entrance to the shaft, but the topmost perch formed a grainy line in the darkness. Where was Rufus? Why hadn’t he come?

  “It was stupid of me, I’ll admit, that I never suspected you had found a way out through the ceiling. I was convinced you had wriggled out when Marvin unlocked the door. But I couldn’t find my missing piece. That’s why I had to trick you into showing me where it was. And you did. You walked into trap after trap.”

  Lin blinked again. What did he mean? He had put on that whole show up in the Observatory hall only to get that small piece of glass?

  “Of course,” Figenskar purred. “In my hunt for you this evening, the shard was only a minor detail. But a vital one. No point in possessing a juicy little Twistrose without this!”

  Ever so gently he eased the final shard into place. The splinter of worry was back in Lin’s chest, worming its way toward her heart. What was it about the parrot mirror? What was she missing?

  Figenskar inspected the mirror, pressing at the lines until the glass was even. “It’s a shame you look like something the cat dragged in. But I’m sure my master will be pleased. After all, you are a Twistrose, and you are in dire need. Every single mirror of the hall, all filled with Rosenquist.” He snickered. “That terrified little heart of yours must be dripping with magic gifts, hmmm?”

  With the heel of his boot, he began scraping away the layers of dirt from the cage floor. As he cleared the grime, a pattern emerged, hewn into the rock: three tongues of flame filled with strange letters of slanted lines and dots. Now that the muck didn’t smother it, Lin could hear its whispered chant quite clearly.

  A rune, a powerful one.

  “Do you know, I think this is my favorite part of the plan. Only the chief observers know the location of this rune. As a balance against the Brotherhood’s mighty power.” Figenskar lifted the large, black bag and brought out a steel device that he held up for her to see, as if he were presenting a loaded weapon of particular deadliness. It resembled an arm ripped from its socket, with wires coiling along its length like exposed muscles and ligaments. But in place of a hand, it had a mouth full of shark-like teeth.

  A swell of magic flushed through Lin, pushing at her eardrums. She knew this feeling: sickening, screaming, wrong.

  Technocraft.

  Figenskar petted the device. “My Runemaw. It’s quite something, hmmm? My cooperation with Mrs. Zarka has proved most useful. No more begging and pleading with those pompous fools of Frost and Flame. I no longer need their permission to wield magic.” He pushed a button that poked out between the coils. “And it makes it all the sweeter that I can use my magic to take away theirs.” The device gaped wider, unhinging its jaw like a snake. The teeth looked impossibly sharp, and Lin had no doubt they matched the bite marks in the floor of the Hall of Winter and in the branch of the Palisade of Thorns.

  “Sylver’s third and final guard rune,” Figenskar said, almost solemnly. “They carved it here because of the Starfalcon’s magic. And like the falcon, Sylver’s famous magical protection will now be history.” He plunged the device into the floor. There was a metallic wail like a knife being sharpened, followed by a loud crack and silence.

  Through the stabbing headache, Lin thought of Teodor’s turret, and the warning rune that must be smoking there at this very moment. Was the old fox there? Would he come and find her? But those weren’t the right questions at all. The right question was why Figenskar had destroyed the runes.

  The cat regarded her in the mirror. One of the cracks tore his grin in half. “So, the guard rune is cracked, the mirror is mended, and the little Twistrose trussed in her sack. I do believe the stage is set.”

  He touched the back side of the frame.

  Hundreds of red lights awoke around him. They switched on and off, chasing each other in sharp, angular patterns. Lin’s headache tightened its grip. The mirror was another Technocraft device.

  Figenskar wasn’t cursed with magic ears, because he seemed quite at ease as he took a small bottle out of his bag. It was filled with a dark liquid that left oily marks on the glass when he shook it.

  “Thorndrip. Or as I like to call it: sparrow juice.” He jammed the bottle in a hole in the side of the frame. It chugged thickly.

  “That Soothsinger ditty was really not too hard to decipher, hmmm? Thorns of gold through flesh and marrow? Coupled with the death of a sparrow?” Figenskar flicked another switch. “What else could it be?”

  The mirror frame buzzed and clicked while the red lights flashed quicker and quicker. Brown, sweet exhaust coiled up from the back. The glass wavered, like scorching air, and one by one the cracks disappeared.

  The pain was so severe that Lin had to squeeze her lids shut until the frame stopped humming. When she opened her eyes, white spots
danced across her vision.

  The mirror image had changed. Figenskar’s excited face was gone. The entire cave was gone. Instead the mirror showed a new scene: a great chamber of gray stone, with a gigantic mosaic of a red crow on the floor. The hall had a single window. It overlooked jagged summits in the distance, and a wide, shallow mountain vale whose shape Lin recognized. The Cracklemoor.

  Before the window stood a figure with his back turned.

  He was tall and clad in a black cloak, and his head was hidden behind a stiff collar. But Lin didn’t need to see his face to be afraid. His back sucked in all life and all hope. All her instincts howled at her to run.

  “Smile, little Rosenquist.” Figenskar took off his hat and dropped to one knee without caring that his fur sank into the parrot dung. “Smile for the Margrave.”

  The tall figure turned around and looked at them.

  The Wanderer was his namesake, as well it should be, for set against the night black collar, the Margrave’s face shone white like the star. His slicked hair was pale and translucent, and so was his skin. For the Margrave was neither Petling nor Wilder, but a human.

  Swiftly he crossed the floor, and as he neared the mirror, Lin saw that the skin around his mouth was strangely gray and withered. Leaning close, the Margrave breathed on the glass. Lin caught a glimpse of his teeth of pewter color, set in inky gums. With one long, pale finger, he wrote three words in the fog: “Child of Ice.”

  Figenskar rose, and with a whipping tail, he shook his head. The Margrave bared his teeth in fury, and Figenskar’s tail fell to the ground, but the cat didn’t step back. Instead he breathed another cloud on the glass and wrote his answer: “Twistrose.”

  Lin’s throat constricted, shutting out all air, shutting in all sound. He was offering up her instead of Isvan.

  The Margrave unstoppered a vial with a slim spout and sucked at the black fluid inside.

  “That’s right, master, think,” Figenskar muttered. “A Child of Ice is potent, yes, but not even a Winterfyrst could surpass a Twistrose, hmmm? A Twistrose filled to the bursting with Sylver magic!”