The Twistrose Key

by Tone Almhjell

  Lin searched for words that would make the Winterfyrst feel better. But she couldn’t think of any. The lines on Clariselyn’s face cut into Lin’s heart, too. She was supposed to save him. She was supposed to save Isvan. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  Rufus looked from one to the other, whiskers drooping. “But we still have your snow globe. And the Wanderer still shines on Sylver.” He proffered Clariselyn her snow globe once more. “Here. Take it.”

  The Winterfyrst let her hands fall and considered the globe. They all did. The crack in the glass had lengthened until it reached from pole to pole, and a thin band of red leaked from it, tinting the light pink. The music had turned sour.

  “You saw what happened when I tried to make an ice horse,” Clariselyn said. “And that was a simple song, one we learn when we are very young. The Wandersnow is the most powerful and complex magic a Winterfyrst can perform. My globe is not strong enough. Not with that flaw.”

  Rufus tried to swish his tail, but his troll wound wouldn’t let him. “Are you saying that even if we have a snow globe, and a Winterfyrst, and a wandering star in the sky, we still can’t make the Wandersnow?”

  “I . . .” Clariselyn fell silent. Someone was watching them from the street corner. His tweed coat had come unbuttoned and his pupils showed purple in the dark. And when he moved toward them, hunched and fast, Lin thought he no longer carried himself like an old man, but like a fox hunting in the woods, choosing his moment.

  Teodor gave Lin and Rufus a look, but it was Clariselyn he greeted. “My sister of Frost. I am delighted that Sylver is no longer without a Winterfyrst. I will not ask you where you have been. We shall have time for old friendships once the Wandersnow is conjured. Will you come with me to the belfry? There is work for you.” He held out his arm for her to take.

  “She can’t.”

  Teodor turned to Rufus. “I beg your pardon?”

  In reply, Rufus simply held out the snow globe.

  Teodor stared at the crack. “How . . . ?”

  “Isvan is dead. His snow globe is destroyed,” Clariselyn husked. “I laid him out in your chambers at the House.”

  Teodor’s tail hung very limp, but he straightened his sleeves. “I will do what I can.” Clariselyn searched for answers in her old friend’s face, and when he offered her his arm once more, she took it. They hurried down the street, like a stately queen kindly supporting a crippled old man, though Lin knew it was the other way around. “We had better keep up,” she said, taking Rufus’s hand.

  Nit was left alone under the cogwheel that looked so much like Mrs. Zarka’s monocle. His eyes watered in the Thornvapor, and he whispered to himself, “A Twistrose.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  They entered the House through one of the back entrances and passed through what seemed like an endless succession of dark offices and waiting rooms. The candles were all blown out and the lamps extinguished, and the Petlings that watched them from gold-framed portraits were painted in shadow.

  “Where is everybody?” Rufus said.

  “They are all gathered in the Square,” Teodor replied.

  “Even the House assistants? I thought for certain they would be busy trying to come up with a solution.”

  “I have not informed them of our predicament. And what solution could there be, except the one that walks by my side?” He regarded Clariselyn, who had withdrawn into her own thoughts and did not seem to be listening. “How did she break her snow globe? Did you find her in the Winterfyrst Well?”

  They told Teodor what had happened outside the Palisade, and about the Technocraft mirror in the cage, and Figenskar and the Margrave and their evil Operation Corvelie.

  “We don’t know how Clariselyn and Ursa Minor got Isvan through the Palisade, but maybe the caravan sled had something to do with it.” Rufus peeked out into the House courtyard. “I wonder where it is. It said it would meet us here if it could.”

  Teodor stopped abruptly. “Right now we have more important things to worry about,” he huffed. “Take Clariselyn into my chambers. I will return shortly.” And he doubled back and disappeared down a different corridor.

  In the hallway outside Teodor’s chambers, they found Ursa Minor, standing guard. He had a nasty gash across his chest, and one of his ears had been mangled.

  “Minor!” Lin hugged him, taking care not to come near his injuries. “I’m so glad you made it!”

  The great bear’s eyes shone. “It was easier when the caravan sled arrived, but we would have fought our way through anyway, wouldn’t we, my lady? Didn’t you say so? That we fought like Frostriders?”

  Clariselyn didn’t acknowledge him, and Minor shook his head sadly. “Maybe she should sit and rest?”

  They helped Clariselyn into the chief chronicler’s office, a large study populated by books and quills and maps weighed down by magnifying stones. Wax candles waited cold in great chandeliers, and the ashes in the fireplace were dead.

  But from the innermost chamber spilled a white glow, from snowflakes that danced under the ceiling with a light of their own, always tumbling, never settling, like in the glacial cathedral.

  The room was furnished only by a narrow bunk and a small nightstand. But the bed had been encased in twisting layers of ice, and on top of this silver nest lay Isvan. His face was covered in a thin glaze that reflected the snowshine, and his arms were crossed on his chest, stitched with frost.

  Clariselyn stood at his feet. “Leave us.”

  “Here’s your snow globe.” Rufus held it gently against the Winterfyrst’s belly, and to their relief she took it. “Minor is right. You should sit and rest,” he said. “The crack will only get worse if you . . .”

  Clariselyn sighed, and the very sound of it coated the walls in a fresh layer of rime. Lin and Rufus found it best to retreat into the study.

  The candles in the chandeliers blazed up, and the fire sprang to life. Teodor came in, carrying a steaming cup that clattered and spilled with every hurried step. He walked right past Lin and Rufus, into the makeshift tomb. The door was frozen stuck, and so the old fox could not shut Lin and Rufus out. But he spoke softly, and Lin couldn’t decipher his words, not until desperation leaked into his voice.

  “But you know what will follow if the Wandergate does not open! The falling Palisade and the failing pact. The slow winding down. The creeping sluggishness. Until every speck of magic is spent and gone and Sylver is no more!”

  “My strength is broken,” Clariselyn replied. “I cannot perform the simplest of tricks, let alone make the Wandersnow. And even if by some wondrous stroke of Luck I do succeed, my soul would shatter in the process, and the Winterfyrsts would be no more. In ninety-four years, when the Wanderer next appears, the world would still end.”

  A heavy silence filled the room, broken only by crackles from the hearth. Lin held her breath. Finally Teodor spoke. “Ever bound, ever sworn. But only you can make this decision.”

  The old fox came out of the bedchamber, still carrying the cup which now contained frozen tea. He shuffled over to the nearest desk, unwrapped his rune quill, and sat down to carve a melt rune into the milky lump of ice. Rufus leaned over the table. His entire fur stood on end. “You’re not even going to try and heal Isvan?”

  Teodor didn’t look up. “No healing rune can bring someone back from the dead.”

  “Then what did you mean ‘Sylver is no more’ and ‘The world would still end’?”

  “Ah,” Teodor said, cocking his head as he drew the three tongues of flame. “I suppose I might as well tell you why the Wandergate must open. It makes no difference anymore.” He began to fill the leaping tongues with letters. “That storm of wild joy from the Wandersnow is the stuff—the material—our world is made from. Over the years, the thoughts and dreams and games of all the children of Earth continue to shape the Realms. But without the raw material of the W
andersnow joy, Sylver and all the rest of this world will slowly but surely die. Ponderous magic like the Palisade of Thorns will be the first to crumble.”

  Rufus slammed his fists into the desk. The teacup rattled. “Why the rats have you not told us this before?”

  Teodor finally raised his muzzle, and his golden eyes were murky. “Would you have done things differently if you knew, Rufocanus? Would you have tried harder to save Isvan or Clariselyn? Or would you have faltered, lamed by the possible consequences of your actions? No. It was better that you did your best, unfettered by fear.” He put down the diamond talon quill. “A pity you failed.”

  “That,” Rufus said, and he was shaking now, “is not fair. Lin and I have done everything you asked of us. We found Isvan. We even found Clariselyn. We uncovered a traitor in our midst, and we stopped an invasion of trolls into the heart of Sylver. And you’re saying we’re failures? That we’ve done nothing good?”

  “Don’t be silly. I expect the good. If you were not half acceptable half of the time, do you think I would have chosen you?”

  “Chosen me?” Rufus stomped his foot. “Chosen me for what? Your chopping block?”

  “No, you twice-chewed idiot. My apprentice in the Brotherhood of Frost and Flame.”

  For a long moment, Rufus stared at Teodor. “Me. Your apprentice. To be a Flamewatcher.”

  Teodor sighed, wrapping his rune pen in its leather. “Perhaps you have figured out by now that you are a Wilder as well as a Petling. Therefore, you ought to have the potential of both, bravery and true instincts as well as diligence and finger skills. Doctor Kott has pestered me about your talents from the day you arrived, and now you have gone and charmed a caravan sled into supporting you. I find myself outnumbered.”

  “Oh.” For once Rufus couldn’t seem to come up with a clever retort.

  “And tonight, you have even proved you are ready to give your life for others. Though how you would ever muster the patience and skill to draw a rune, the Flame only knows.”

  “No need to worry about that!” Lin brought out Rufus’s map and unrolled it beside the teacup. “Rufus drew all of this, including the legends.”

  The old fox frowned at the “Comprehensive Chart of Sylveros and All Its Lands.” “It’s not half bad.” He pushed the teacup to the side. “But it does not matter now. The Wandergate will not open. Sylver’s guard runes are all destroyed. There’s an army of Nightmares in the Whitepass, and the Palisade will wither this night. Rufus won’t have time for the simplest of carving lessons before our world falls to pieces.” He lowered his voice. “Unless you two have some Twistrose miracle up your sleeve.”

  The great bells in the belfry tolled, twelve heavy strikes that boomed through the House, set the inkwells on the desk to tinkling, and curled around Lin’s spine.

  Midnight.

  Outside on the Great Square, a groan rose from the crowd. Lin peered out behind the curtains. She couldn’t see much, but she heard angry shouts and breaking glass. In the sky, the Sylver Fang obscured nearly half of the Wanderer. In nine more minutes, it would be gone. She drew a deep breath and turned back to the others. She had no idea what she was going to say or do.

  Do not fail.

  The door to the chamber flew up, and a small Petling came stumbling through, coughing hard.

  “Nit!” Lin cried. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, I . . .” A racking bout of cough shook the mouse, making him double over. “Sorry. I . . . The Thornvapor . . .”

  Lin sat him down on a chair and patted his back.

  “You have been to the vault?” Clariselyn had emerged from the chamber of ice, and her voice wavered.

  Nit smiled radiantly at Lin. “Yes . . . I wanted to be worthy of your help . . . I wanted to be worthy of the Twistrose!” His smile slipped and he coughed some more. “I heard what you said about Isvan’s globe, and I wanted to bring the shards out. The Thornvapor let up a little, so I went down there. Mrs. Zarka is . . .” He shook his head. “I couldn’t help her. I couldn’t get the hatches open either, and there was a switch that seemed to be jammed, and the Machine woke up, and . . .” He lifted his arms in a feeble gesture that might mean “huge.” “And afterward, I found this.”

  He straightened out to reveal a small ball of glass in his hands. “I’m afraid it didn’t come out right.”

  Isvan’s snow globe lay whole and perfect in Nit’s hand. But instead of silver milk and golden white, it was filled with something dark. Something that sloshed and lapped when the mouse’s hand trembled, not brown like Thorndrip, but deep crimson of color.

  “It’s blood!” Lin said.

  Nit yelped and shoved the globe into her hands so quickly it was more a toss.

  Lin caught it. It felt cool and heavy against her skin. The blood left muddy, weeping marks on the inside of the glass. Was that . . . Did she just feel something move in there?

  She felt their eyes on her, Teodor’s golden and Clariselyn’s sapphire and Rufus’s black.

  Start with what you know.

  She knew the Observatory gifts gave her power to ignite magic. And she knew the gifts worked. Strength and Comfort, Courage and Luck, and Hope. All the things that Isvan had needed so badly for his journey, and even more for those long, lonely hours in the windowsill of the Hall of Winter. She only had to give it to him.

  Lin closed her eyes.

  Suddenly a rush of electricity made her back arch. Her ears throbbed and her palms glowed as the Observatory magic rushed out of her in one wild torrent. Isvan’s globe grew hotter and hotter, until it burned her fingers.

  Finally someone pried it out of her hands. Lin took a long, gasping breath, the first since she caught the snow globe. A lovely calm flooded her limbs.

  Rufus caught her as she sank to the floor, and his gray face was the first thing she saw when she blinked away the tears. The second was Clariselyn, staring into the globe of blood. The third made Lin lift her chin.

  On the threshold to the chamber a boy stood shivering. His hair was tangled with rime and broken icicles, and Lin recognized the small tug at the corner of his lips that told of a whistlewind coming. But his eyes were no longer sapphires. They were brown, like peppernuts. Like Lin’s.

  He opened his mouth.

  “Mother. I’m cold.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Clariselyn placed the globe of blood gently in Isvan’s hands. With a sigh, she fell down on her knees before him, wrapping him in her arms. Isvan smiled, and for the first time he resembled the boy in the photo in the Hall of Winter. But as they hugged, Isvan’s skin grew pale and paler, and then blue.

  “I’m cold,” he said again. His teeth were rattling. Clariselyn released him. She rose, nodding slowly to herself, and took a step back.

  “I heard your dream, Mother. I tried to find you.”

  “I know. All will be well.”

  “No, it won’t.” Isvan frowned at his mother. She handled her snow globe carefully, stiffly, like a wounded limb. “You’re hurt.”

  Clariselyn smiled the sort of brittle smile parents put on, thinking their children won’t see through it. “We don’t have to worry about that. Let’s get you warm instead. Perhaps Teodor can bring you some tea.”

  Across the room, Teodor flinched into action, shuffling toward Isvan with the clattering cup in its saucer. But Isvan paid him no attention. He raised his red globe. Inside it the blood swirled momentarily, covering all the glass with crimson, and Lin could hear the sound of it. Not music. Not words. A heart.

  A flexing heart that made Lin’s own skip a beat. And the crack in Clariselyn’s globe paled and closed, until it showed as the thinnest of scars. The Winterfyrst music rang pure once more.

  Clariselyn gasped, reaching out to steady herself, and Teodor was there to catch her. “You’re healed!” the old fox said. “He healed you! But how? Could it . .
.”

  His golden eyes darted around the room and found the timid Rodent hovering by the door. “Nit,” he said. “Am I right that Mrs. Zarka put the shards of Isvan’s snow globe into the Machine without cleaning them first?”

  Nit’s tall forehead wrinkled. “Yes, Mr. Teodor. I believe she did. They were a little smudged, but she felt time was of the essence . . .”

  Teodor threw his head back and barked a laugh. “What a fool I have been! I thought Lin must be the clumsiest Twistrose in history with all the cuts she managed to inflict upon herself.” He stroked his cheek fur, still chuckling. “We should be grateful that you at last received a wound I was not around to patch up.”

  “I don’t understand,” Lin said.

  “The shards were smudged because you cut your finger on them.” He pointed a bent claw toward Isvan’s new globe. “Lindelin Rosenquist, that soul is made from your blood. A machine could never create life. But the blood of a child . . .”

  “. . . can make a lord,” Lin finished breathlessly.

  Gold doesn’t always mean gold.

  At last, the prophecy of “The Margrave’s Song” had drifted into place, but they had all gotten it wrong.

  The Blood Lord had awakened. But he wasn’t the Margrave. He was the Child of Ice.

  Isvan’s gaze shifted from Teodor to Lin and back. He looked ready to flee.

  “Don’t be scared,” Teodor said quickly, realizing his mistake. “Your mother is right, all will be well. We will help you. And please forgive me, dear boy. I should have known you shut me out because you were afraid. I swear it was a misunderstanding. I never asked Mrs. Zarka to make that abominable Brain Tapper.”

  The rune in the frozen lump of tea flared up. “You look terribly cold,” the old fox said. “Won’t you have some tea?”

  Isvan let a soft breath out through his lips, but it no longer sounded like the wind. With shivering hands, he accepted the now steaming cup and drank a long sip. “Thank you.”