The Twistrose Key

by Tone Almhjell

  He lifted up the burlap sack for his master to behold. Lin dangled helplessly before the mirror while the Margrave considered her from under hooded lids.

  She knew him.

  It was hard to see in that haggard, grown-up face, but she recognized the heavy eyes, the pinched nose, the forward-leaning posture. The boy in the shadows. The hidden Twistrose statue with the dead crow at his feet. The Margrave was Edvard Uriarte.

  “What happened to him?” she croaked.

  “The Margrave’s mouth is withered from drinking Thorndrip. It helps him control the Nightmares, but it poisons him.” Figenskar cocked his head. “That will change tonight. Tonight, on Wanderer’s Eve, the Margrave will become the most powerful lord in all the Realms, a Blood Lord, with all the magic he could wish for. It says so in the prophecy. It says so in the song.”

  “No!” Lin struggled, but Figenskar’s grip did not ease one bit.

  “Oh yes. All the Margrave needs to do is drink his special draught, and he will become stronger than death itself.”

  Behind the Margrave, mounted on a wheeled hospital rack, hung another Technocraft contraption. A metal ring with three slim thorns of gold, and pots and tubes hooked up to the thorns, and a great glass vial to cook liquid down to the right thickness.

  A Thorndripper.

  “You see, my little Twistrose,” Figenskar murmured, “the blood of sparrows cannot make a lord. But the blood of a child . . .”

  At last the splinter of worry hit home. She understood. It was she, Lindelin Rosenquist, who would suffer the death of a sparrow. The heart beats, ready to rip and rend. A scream built in her chest, but all that escaped was a tiny mewling.

  “Poor little girl,” Figenskar hissed. “Trapped in the sack, can’t run, can’t breathe, can’t do anything about it.”

  The Margrave watched Lin struggle. He opened his mouth to breathe on the mirror, and in the gray-tinged fog he wrote, YES.

  “No!” Lin cried. “Rufus will never let you take me. He will come. He will stop you before you can even cross the Sylver Bridge!”

  Figenskar laughed his squint-eyed laugh. “Silly child! I will not cross the Sylveros Bridge at all, and neither will you. For Operation Corvelie there is no need.”

  He searched along the bottom of the mirror frame until his paw found a small lever. He pushed it. All the red lights flared, and once more, the frame began to creak and buzz and shake.

  Another violent surge of Technocraft tore through Lin’s body, and she let out a pained, terrified gasp. For with the surge of magic, the mirror glass had melted away. The frame was no longer a window.

  It was a doorway.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  The chief observer of Sylver bowed low for the Margrave. “Excellent decision, my lord of Nightmares,” Figenskar said in his silkiest, smoothest voice. “And now for the second part of our plan.”

  The Margrave sucked at the Thorndrip and lifted his arm, like an officer on a battlefield, or a puppet master of very long strings. And into the mountain hall they came creeping, rank by hulking rank, lining up on the red tiled floor until the crow mosaic was lost under their claws.

  Trolls.

  Snow trolls with teeth like broken icicles, river trolls on many-jointed legs, and even a few Summerhill trolls that eyed Lin with hot malice. All of them carried burning torches, and all of them waited for the Margrave’s command. He controlled them, as he had controlled the army at the Whitepass.

  “Do you know, I’ve changed my mind?” Figenskar could not stop himself from gloating into Lin’s ear. “This is my favorite part of Operation Corvelie. I deliver a magical child for the Margrave’s draught, and he delivers Sylver into my hands. You see, the trolls will slice through the good people of Sylveros like claws through butter. And when the brave, the stupid, and the unfortunate have been killed, who do you think will turn up with his sack full of troll’s bane to save the rest?”

  He let go of Lin momentarily to scoop his red velvet pouch off the floor. “Crammed full of acorns and silvercone seeds and round, white river pebbles. All the treasures that the gatherers have failed to find in the Winterwoods this year, and there’s more in the casket upstairs.”

  “That’s why you’re working with the Margrave?” Lin cried. “To have a troll invasion so you can pretend to save Sylver?”

  “Just a modest troll invasion. I do want to make sure I can handle it.” Figenskar chuckled. “After tonight, the Sylverings will bring flowers to my statue, not yours. Except mine won’t be in Eversnow Square. It will be in the Great Square, right in front of my palace.”

  On the Nightmare side of the portal, two of the Summerhill trolls had stepped forward to seize Lin when she came through. Their long fingers twitched, and their jellyfish eyes glowed with hatred. Over by the Thorndripper, the Margrave made an impatient sound in his dead, withered mouth. “The child,” he wheezed, as if every word pained him. “The Wanderer is setting. Send her through now.”

  “Certainly, my lord.” Figenskar slid his claws into the burlap sack. Chill air poured through the opening, tearing at Lin’s hair, and the Summerhill trolls slavered as Figenskar pulled her closer to the doorway. She struggled with all the strength she had left, bending and tossing her head. “Help me! Please! Help!”

  “Nobody can hear you,” Figenskar said. “Nobody’s coming. Time to go, little Rosenquist!”

  “Don’t do this!” Lin pleaded. “Figenskar, think of your human child! I know you loved a child once, you must have!”

  Figenskar growled. “I loved her, yes. She loved me, too, even if she poked me cruelly. One time only I bit her back, and then her father went and drowned me in the river. So spare yourself the sniveling, Lin, because inside a burlap sack, love and pleading mean nothing. Nothing at all.”

  He lifted the sack off the cage floor. Tears streamed down Lin’s face. “Please,” she whimpered. “Let me go.”

  A voice cut the air above their heads.

  “That’s right, Figenskar! Let her go!”

  Lin’s eyes rose on a wave of delicious hope. Clinging to the end of the chain was Rufus. In his hand he gripped a little pocketknife, blade against the rope that held the mirror.

  “Let her go, or this whole Technocraft piece of mold goes to ground!”

  Figenskar froze. “Rufus,” he said, and there was such hatred in that one word that Lin’s scalp prickled.

  “Surprised, Figenskar?” Rufus said. “You shouldn’t be. Doors can’t keep me out. I am, after all, a Rosenquist.”

  “How?” Figenskar hissed.

  Rufus snorted. “Oh, Marvin had the key. I just had to make him understand what his boss had planned for poor Isvan.”

  The grip around Lin’s neck tightened. The tips of Figenskar’s claws were razors against her skin. “I’ll break her neck.”

  “No, you won’t,” Rufus said, clipped and cool. “This Margrave of yours seems to want a magical child for his draught, and you’ve already lost one tonight. I bet he wouldn’t like it if you lost another. Hmmm?”

  Figenskar snarled. His claws slid in and out of his paws as he considered. In, out, in, out.

  In.

  He flung Lin to the floor and dove away from the mirror. With a smooth tumble he was back on his feet, clutching Clariselyn’s snow globe.

  “Fine! But this I’ll crush with pleasure.”

  Rufus bared his teeth. Only now did Lin notice that the pocketknife trembled against the rope, and that his injured tail hung limp beside him. “Give me the snow globe, and I’ll give you the pocketknife,” he said.

  “Give me the pocketknife, and I’ll give you the snow globe,” Figenskar countered, edging closer to the mirror again. Rufus started sawing at the rope. The mirror danced and squeaked, the portal shimmered.

  “Wait,” Figenskar cried, holding the snow globe out from his body. “I’ll throw it to
you if you throw down the knife.”

  Rufus stopped sawing and nodded curtly.

  “On three,” he said. Lin held her breath.

  “One.” Figenskar’s tail lashed.

  “Two.” Rufus removed the blade from the rope. A few fibers had been cut, but nowhere near enough to sever the rope. The icy wind from the portal ruffled Lin’s hair. She heard grunting and scraping from the Margrave’s hall.

  “Three!”

  And chaos erupted.

  Rufus dropped the pocketknife. It sank into the parrot muck. Figenskar tossed the snow globe, but he threw it wide, so Rufus had to let go of the chain with everything but his tail to catch it. He hung upside down from the end of the chain, hugging the globe to his chest, bleeding from his wound.

  Figenskar lunged toward Lin. She bucked and fought to get away, biting at his paws, and at last she could scream.

  In the Margrave’s hall, all the trolls screamed in answer.

  And so Figenskar never noticed the squeak squeak of danger until it was too late. Suddenly, a clear sound rang through the cave, clean and true in the rasping churn of troll voices, like a guitar string breaking.

  The rope had snapped.

  The mirror hit the ground with a great clunk, sinking a foot into the parrot dung. Groaning and creaking, it remained standing. The frame sparked. The red lights flashed. A few of the shards winked back into existence, showing not the mountain hall, but the cave.

  On the other side, the Margrave gave a terrible roar, so wild with rage his withered lips split.

  Ever so slowly, the mirror frame began to tip backward, tilting the Margrave’s face more and more toward the ceiling until he was lost from Lin’s view.

  There was a choked whine from Figenskar. Tail quivering with dread, he leaped forward in an attempt to keep the mirror from toppling.

  Lin had no time to consider. Twisting around, she threw her bound legs into the air and slammed them into Figenskar’s back, shoving him forward and into the mirror.

  He howled and flailed, but to no avail. The sputtering portal swallowed his front paws. His hat and shoulders disappeared. His back sank into the shower of sparks. And when the whole Technocraft piece of mold thundered to the cage floor, Figenskar’s howl was sliced to silence.

  Glass exploded everywhere. Lin curled into a ball, trying to hide her face with no hands to cover it. Shards rained all around her like arrows, piercing the muck, some only inches from her head. But by an incredible stroke of luck, not a single one of them hit her.

  When everything grew quiet, she raised her head. The mirror lay flat on the ground. Tiny spirals of smoke still seeped out of the frame, but the red lights were gone.

  Rufus had made his way down from the rope and came skipping through the broken glass, throwing himself down in the muck next to Lin.

  “Little one! Are you all right?”

  “Yes!” Lin said, and it was true. The relief that rushed through her was so strong it swept away both the dizziness and the metallic taste in her mouth. Rufus sniffed at her, whiskers taut with worry. “Oh, your poor ears . . .”

  But Lin stared at him in wonder. “How did you get the mirror down? You threw down your knife!”

  “So I did. And knives are well and good for whittling crosses and such. But you’re forgetting something. Something Figenskar, too, forgot. Not only am I a Rosenquist and a Wilder. I am also a pesky Rodent!”

  And with that Rufus leaned forward and gnawed through the ropes that bound Lin in the wink of an eye. As he freed her from the burlap, Lin couldn’t help but laugh.

  “What’s that?” Rufus grinned. “One point to Rufus of Rosenquist? Let’s make it two points, for both of us. We just saved Sylver from an invasion of Nightmares.”

  “For now. But actually, let’s make it three. Because now we have this.” Lin lifted the snow globe in the air. Grimy and dirty, it shone brighter than ever, silver milk and golden white. “That is, if we can find Clariselyn in time.”

  Rufus turned the key in the padlock. “I sent Marvin ahead to find Teodor. And you know, this time I think he did as I told him.” He pushed the door open.

  Lin turned and looked back on the parrot cage. The Starfalcon cage, she corrected herself, and she ached for the great white bird that had once been trapped here. What a terrible place to lose all hope. For a moment she thought she felt a stone cold draft on her face.

  But the mirror remained on the cage floor, broken, the glass spread in the muck like a red halo. In the middle of the empty frame lay something bloody and limp and striped.

  Half a cat’s tail.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  The Rosenquists raced down Observatory Hill toward the heart of the city. The streets and alleys were deserted. Nothing moved but lacquered signs that swung gently in the breeze, and the torn flap of a poster of the pretty Wanderer’s Eve sky that said “See you in the Square!” In the real sky, only a thin strip of black remained between the Sylver Fang and the churning, shining Wanderer.

  Pressed against the fur on Rufus’s chest, Clariselyn’s snow globe shone, too. He had to carry it, because Lin’s feet were not to be trusted. Sometimes they barely touched the ground, other times they felt like lead, sinking through the frozen layer on the snow. The Observatory had done this to her, she knew that. Once more she had been in dire need inside its bowels, and once more, the Starfalcon’s gifts had flooded her. She felt the magic chasing through her, untamed and fickle, pushing bile up into her throat.

  As they scaled the final hill before the Great Square, a gigantic thunderclap broke over the city and blasted past them, deep and hard. Rufus caught Lin’s arm to steady her. “There’s a storm coming. We have to find her fast.”

  “We do,” Lin answered. “But that was not thunder. Didn’t you feel the tremors? I think something just exploded. Something involving massive powers.”

  “Oh, mold. You’re right. Look.”

  The Great Square was packed with people. Their bodies were a black mass that concealed the ground completely, and they were not in a festive mood. The orchestras had stopped playing. The popcorn stands had been abandoned. The Sylverings stood completely still, facing toward the belfry and the great main door beneath it, as if they were listening to a speech. Except the door was closed and the steps empty.

  But Rufus wasn’t pointing at the ominous gathering. He was pointing at a fat, brown chimney of smoke that rose from one of the red storage barns behind the House.

  The Machine Vault.

  “Come on. Let’s go round the back,” Rufus said. “I was going to suggest it anyway. We can’t risk going through that crowd.”

  They backed down from the hilltop unseen and slipped into the alleys of Heartworth. On the street outside the Machine Vault they found an unlikely pair: Clariselyn Winterfyrst, leaning on the storage barn bridge, and Nit, the calculation clerk, fretting beside her. The cracks in the barn’s foundation had spread several yards out from the stairwell, and dirty smoke oozed up from the entrance to the Machine Vault.

  “Clariselyn!” Rufus ran toward her. “We have it! We took your snow globe back!”

  But the Winterfyrst stared right through him. Her dress was smeared with soot and brown liquid, and the pallor had returned to her face. When Rufus tried to give her the globe back, she made no move to accept. “Where is Isvan?” Rufus asked. “And Teodor? Could he help?”

  “You . . . You’re a Twistrose!” Nit’s tall forehead was all wrinkles and wonder. “A real Twistrose! No wonder you stood up for me!”

  “Hello, Nit,” Lin said, somehow finding a smile for the little Rodent. She was glad he had made it out of the vault.

  “I think the Winterfyrst is in shock,” Nit said in his high-pitched, too-soft voice. “She won’t move or speak. Even when I’ve told her she should get away from the Thornvapor.”

  Lin winced at the fat s
moke that gushed up under the cogwheel. “What happened down there?”

  “Mrs. Zarka saw them when they arrived at the House,” Nit said. “With Isvan and the broken snow globe. She saw it as an opportunity to prove her craft, to convince the House that whatever Rufus might tell them about the dangers of the Machine, it was too valuable to forbid. She felt confident she could reconstruct the globe using the shards as the base. So she sent me to the House to invite Teodor to the vault.” He darted a glance at Clariselyn. “But Teodor wasn’t in his chambers, and when I learned that she was Isvan’s mother, I asked her instead. I hope . . . I hope I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “You tried to use the Machine to reconstruct Isvan’s soul?” Lin said. “That machine was dangerous enough making buttons and shoes!”

  “I’m sorry . . . But Mrs. Zarka insisted, and the calculations actually added up, and Clariselyn seemed most eager, so . . .”

  “I had to let Mrs. Zarka try.” Clariselyn’s voice was no longer melodic and rich, but a hoarse whisper. She held on to the barn railing, knuckles all blue. “I am a Frostrider, ever bound, ever sworn to protect the balance of the Realms. To give my life if need be. But not the life of my child.” She glanced at her snow globe as if it disgusted her. “Using Technocraft in this way would be wrong, I knew that, but . . . Not using it would be worse. I had to let her try.”

  “But she failed,” Rufus said.

  Nit cleared his throat. “I suppose the Machine was still unstable after we changed so many parts earlier. Everything started shaking and the walls were coming down. I tried to get everyone out, but Mrs. Zarka wouldn’t leave the Machine . . . I . . . I should go back and find her.”

  “You can’t.” Lin shook her head. “The whole barn might collapse on your head, and that smoke . . .”

  “Thornvapor,” Nit repeated, wringing his hands.

  “Whatever it’s called, it might kill you.”

  Clariselyn let go of the railing. “Isvan’s snow globe. Everything. Everyone. Lost.”