by Lisa DeSelm
Bran grins and then looks thoughtful. “Still needs something,” he mutters. “Like what?”
He pulls a few clock gears from his pocket, their edges filed to crisp planes, and tucks the brass circles into the marionette’s vest—a vest of his own making.
“What are those for?”
“An addition to the costume. A gift.”
“A gift?” I ask, confused.
“Every soldier should be armed.”
“For all we know, this particular saboteur is being assembled to decorate Laszlo von Eidle’s bed chamber, like some rusty suit of armor from the old wars. I don’t envy any soldier that post. But you won’t miss them?”
“No, I have others. And no time to build anything with them.”
“Have you talked to your parents yet?”
Bran shakes his head.
“There’s no perfect time to bring up a difficult subject,” I say sagely, buffing the saboteur’s high boots with a soft cloth.
“Yeah,” he says with a sigh. “You don’t have to tell a clockmaker. Perfect times do not exist.” His handsome face looks sad in the lantern glow.
“No,” I agree. “There is only now. Only now and what is yet to come.”
He hesitates. “Speaking of difficult subjects, Piro.” He clears his throat nervously. “I’ve tried to give you some distance, tried to understand. But I can’t work it out—what happened when we were, you know … in the woods.” His cheeks turn pink.
My whole body freezes. I was hoping to avoid this conversation at all costs, hoping against hope Bran would just forget. But how could he? How could anyone forget seeing a thorn of immense proportions burst through someone’s nose?
“In the woods?” I repeat, my voice high and tight.
I can’t do this. Not now.
“When I kissed you, the next thing I knew, something had hurt you … a splinter dropped out of the sky, or a branch struck you. And you wouldn’t even let me see, or let me help. Don’t you know I’ll help you, anytime I can? I can’t bear to see you hurt.”
“I know,” I say tersely.
“And speaking of my parents again, they’ve been asking. Is Gep’s mother coming? Does she know?”
“Hmm,” I murmur, frantically thinking of how to redirect the conversation. I resume boot buffing at a rapid pace.
Bran comes closer, placing a firm hand over mine, to stop the manic polishing.
“Piro, please. I know something is wrong, but I don’t know what. It’s killing me. Help me understand.”
Spruce and ash! The sensation of impending splinters prickles my palms as I search for a lie to hide behind. I know I can’t avoid his questions much longer, or his eyes. There’s no place to hide. Horrified at the leap I am about to make, I decide to take Bran at his word, to truly trust him.
“Have you ever heard,” I stammer, my eyes blurring with sudden tears, “the story of Old Josipa?”
He nods. “It was before my time here, but I’ve heard it.”
I press my hands against my father’s worktable, so that the rough surface might hold me up.
“Remember how she used the old magic? Spells long forbidden in our territories?” I mumble.
He nods again, keeping his face steady.
“I am … I mean, I was …”
“Old Josipa was your grandmother?”
“No, you don’t—”
“You’re a healer, like the old woman?”
“No!”
“A conjurer?”
“No!”
“A witch?”
“Stars, no, Bran!” I snarl, feeling more like a trapped beast than a girl. “Keep your voice down!”
“What is it, Piro? Where did that splinter come from?” he whispers.
I pause, taking a long, shuddering breath to gird myself for what comes next. The rejection. The fear.
“I wasn’t raised by my grandmother. I don’t even have a grandmother. Or a mother, or a father, at least, not in the way you do.”
He looks confused, but stays silent, watchful. I glance around at the windows to confirm they are shut.
“I come from … there.”
“You come from the countryside?”
“From the wood.”
“The wood,” he says breathlessly.
“My father, the puppetmaster, made me,” I say slowly, letting that sink in. “And then there was a spell,” I say, with barely a hair’s breadth of sound. “A spell spoken under the blue moon.”
He stares dumbly, trying to grasp my words. Bran steadies himself against my father’s stool. At least he isn’t running—fleeing straight to the steward to tell, like anyone else might. A small tendril of hope uncurls in my chest.
“Your father made you,” he repeats slowly. “And the splinters?” he asks, looking up. “Like in The Louse and Flea? I’ve seen the scars on your hands, your arms.”
“Some are from my woodworking.” Out of habit, I swipe at my face, and my fingertips graze the wound on my nose. “Some are not. If I speak words that are untrue … like I spoke to you about my grandmother, who doesn’t exist, then …” I shrug.
“If you lie, the magic doesn’t let you forget it?” He doesn’t force me to complete my thought, he does it for me, though I can tell he’s rattled by what he’s heard.
“Yes,” I whisper, my shame on full display.
“I see,” he replies, though I can see he doesn’t, not completely.
“I’m sorry I lied to you!” Tears leak from my eyes.
Bran looks utterly bewildered, but bravely hides it. Shaking his head in disbelief, he closes the gap between us and crushes me in a hug.
“There’s nothing to be sorry for. I’ll admit, it hardly seems possible. Then again, Gep is a great puppetmaster. The greatest. I … I don’t know how it all happened … but I do know that I meant what I said to you that day in the wood. There’s no one like you for me. And whether you came from this place or the mountains or the bleedin’ moon, it doesn’t matter to me,” he says staunchly. “I love you, Piro.”
Gently, he places a hand on either side of my face, his eyes now a study in curiosity. I can hardly stand to have him look at me so closely while the skin on my nose is still raw. He’s seeing me as I really am and it’s terrifying.
“No one else can know,” I whisper fiercely, digging my fingers into the meat of his arms. “No one, Bran. You understand? Old Josipa …” My voice breaks, my mind picturing her old body curling up like a withered leaf among the flames.
“I know. I know.” He wipes my tears with a handkerchief he pulls from his vest. “It is enough for me,” he says somberly, “to know the truth. And I will protect you in every way I can. I’ll tell my parents your grandmother is too ill to come, or better yet, that she died! She’s been dead for many years, in fact! I’ll make it so that you’ll never have to lie about that again.”
“Don’t lie to protect me,” I plead, prompting him to wrap his arms around me even tighter. “Just, please, be careful. We both must be so careful.”
In the end, the lies of those who love me only seem to do more harm than good. I know from experience that I can survive the pain of my splinters, but if my secret escapes beyond the small circle of me, Papa, and now Bran, I may not survive the truth.
CHAPTER 11
I WATCH AS THE COLOR OF THE MARGRAVE’S FACE GROWS TO match his coat of arms. Livid and sputtering, he can only manage garbled exclamations of fury.
“Brimstone and sulfur! What in the devil’s rotten hoof is that … thing?”
The younger von Eidle is who I keep my eyes on as I stand again in Wolfspire’s great, gilded stateroom. I hold tightly to the arm of the saboteur hanging at my side, suspended on the special rack from Tiffin.
Laszlo leapt to his feet and stared open-mouthed in amazement when I wheeled it in. I feel a thrill of pride at this, followed by a chill that unspools down my spine.
“It’s—not what he asked for!” growls the Margrave.
“I m
ade it to your exact specifications, Duke von Eidle,” I state boldly, though my mouth is dry as wool.
“But it’s a … that thing is …!” The elder fumes.
“She’s just as you requested,” I interject. “‘Larger than life, with the utmost care given to the nimbleness of arm and leg. Everything a saboteur should be: dressed in black, fully masked, sleek and light.’”
“It’s atrocious!” the Margrave spits with disgust. “My son wanted a saboteur, a soldier-spy in the form of a marionette, not some feminine, foppish plaything!”
“You never specified that the marionette should be in the likeness of a man, my lord. You only asked for a saboteur,” I say flatly, inwardly taking immense delight in his outrage. “And that’s what I have created for you.”
This saboteur is anything but a plaything. I designed a figure built for stealth and secrets, whose angle of limbs betray the ability to move with clandestine speed and silence. Inconsequently, my saboteur also happens to be a she. It’s undeniable in the soft curves of her face and lips, the round cheekbones beneath her mask, the unmistakable hint of breasts rising beneath a fitted black uniform that Bran and the tailor labored over for me.
“It’s ridiculous! A detestable, unnatural creature! Take it away at once and throw this imposter into—”
“No, Father!” Laszlo exclaims firmly, coming down off the dais to stand before the saboteur. “It’s perfect,” he says in awe, reaching a hand to cup her cheek. “She—she is perfect. A marvel.”
His thumb brushes almost tenderly across the pale, lacquered cheekbone and the black mask that wraps around her from the nose up. I painted a few strands of short hair—bright cerulean—escaping in curls from where the mask ties at the back of her neck.
“I could never have imagined it, but she’s just what I need, Father,” the royal son of Tavia purrs with a knowing look in his eyes.
A nauseous surge of panic rises in my throat at the hungry look he casts on the saboteur. I fight the urge to rip his hands away from where he has already laid claim to her, fingers curling possessively around her well-built shoulders. I feel the bite of his grip as surely as if he had just seized my own. This is not what was supposed to happen.
“You must take care … very delicate joints.” I grasp an iron bar of the saboteur’s rack and pull it slowly toward me, hoping to compel him to release her.
But Laszlo just laughs, as if I’ve made a joke instead of a plea. His hands run down her arms, pausing at her waist before firmly sliding down each leg, inspecting each as if he were scrutinizing horseflesh.
“Very fine craftsmanship indeed. But there’s nothing delicate about her, is there, apprentice?” he says with a furtive grin that stabs once more at my gut. “She’s a warhorse, I can tell. And custom-made for the work.”
My heart sinks. What dark, blood-stained arena does he envision her in? Every question I’ve tried to suppress about the Margrave and his son resurfaces.
Before I can wrest her from his clutches, Laszlo motions to a few guards to follow him. In seconds, they’ve disappeared behind a door that shuts with a heavy clank, my last glimpse of the saboteur is of her rocking from side to side as the guards wheel her into darkness, with Laszlo leading the way.
I’ve lost her. Just like that, the saboteur is gone.
I am left to stand before the affronted Margrave, feeling very alone. His anger only serves to make him look unwell, worse than I remember, quite crimson and purple like a blood blister about to burst. I’m on the verge of feeling pity—something about his stooped shoulders reminds me of Papa—when he glowers at me afresh from his ridiculous chair. Remembering I’m naught but stray vermin he’d delight in crushing beneath his gleaming boot heel, my pity disappears.
I don’t understand why, in all of Tavia, it’s the makers who are looked down upon by the noble class. What has Erling von Eidle ever made with his own two hands? I am sure he couldn’t create a sock puppet if he took a stocking from his own stumpy foot right this moment and tried. I cannot abide his silence; it is too full, too billowed with loathing. I must break it.
“My lord?”
“What?” he snaps.
“My payment?”
Disgusted, he waves a limp hand at Baldrik, who has been behind me this whole time, ever the unwanted shadow.
“The steward will see to it.”
I turn to leave, knowing I am dismissed. They have taken from me what they need.
“Girl,” he says louder, sounding gravelly and hoarse. “How is the puppetmaster faring these days? Is Gephardt Leiter back at his chisel?”
The mention of my father’s name from his detestable lips is nearly enough to make me stumble and trip on the long coattails of the steward. The refusal to use my name or proper title sends me spinning back around, irritated. I clench my work-bruised fingers into fists.
“Hopefully soon, my lord.”
He offers a small, satisfied smile in return.
“His gift truly is a rare one, the puppetmaster. I’ve never seen its like, not until one of my own line, Emmitt Schulze, the clockmaker, came of age. You know him, I presume?”
“Of course,” I say, taken aback to hear him speak of Emmitt, to me of all people. “Everyone knows the clockmaker.”
He leans back, looking proud. “Yes, he is very popular among the people, which I do hope—”
A deep guttural sound rises from the Margrave’s gullet and sets him hacking, his cheeks burning scarlet as he spits into a golden pot at his feet. I watch to see if anyone will try to help, but his attendants just look on nervously, weighing whether to step in or let him continue in misery. When the horrible sound of his spitting settles and he accepts an offered sip of tea—or something stronger, I really couldn’t say—he snorts loudly and continues, pressing a handkerchief to his face.
“I do hope he finishes the glockenspiel in time for my fall proclamation. Much depends on it. You and all those makers will be especially pleased to hear of my succession plan. Thanks to my two fine sons, Tavia’s margraviate will continue to thrive long after I’m gone.”
Which, from the sound of it, will be soon. I barely dare to wonder whether he means to name Emmitt as his heir over the younger von Eidle—or somehow in tandem with Laszlo? Could Emmitt’s fortunes really be about to change, and all of ours along with it?
Another spitting spell attacks the Margrave, and once again the pressure of the steward’s hand on my shoulder spins me around. I am shoved up the long aisle of the stateroom. I have delivered the saboteur and can return to my father with a little money and some news to share.
After my audience with the von Eidles, I carry myself home, my purse filled with the promised francs and my mind with the news that the Margrave may indeed be choosing to let Emmitt lead in his stead. I take some comfort in knowing I have restocked our coffers from my work on the saboteur, if only for a little while.
I return to find my father worsening by the minute.
“Cosima? Cosima? Where are you?” A deep rattle seizes my father’s chest at the end of his frantic, wheezing pleas for his wife, the bride who passed away before I ever came to be. A woman small and dark-haired like me, with a great mind for figures, who kept all his books and accounts straight and secure.
I forced myself to send Gita home now that my great work with the saboteur is complete, and have been sitting for hours in a chair at my father’s bedside, knees drawn up to my chest. As if I could somehow shield myself from what he has become. From what is happening to us.
I tried to spoon-feed him, but no amount of broth seems to settle him or restore his peace. Teas, herbal remedies, poultices for his fever—we’ve tried the tried and true, but nothing is proving effective against the heat that burns in his limbs and pours like tears from his temples.
I look at his large, capable hands, whose nimble fingers absentmindedly knead at his sheets, worrying the seams. I can’t help but think of what death means. In the wood, death isn’t an ending, not really. It’s me
rely a season. If one tree falls, its husk becomes shelter. Its bark becomes food. Its ribs become a ladder for new seeds to climb to reach the sun.
I have faced death before. With the bite of the axe, my first life was cut off from one season and thrust into another. Without ever knowing to hope for it, I was reborn. Will it be so for Gephardt Leiter? Or will he just vanish from the world, a rare breed of creature made extinct at his last breath?
He hasn’t seen me, hasn’t known me, in days. I feel something inside myself start to slip away with him and begin to fade. Who am I, without this man who loved and made me?
The moon is waning tonight, the rounded toe of a pearled slipper peeping beneath dark and clouded skirts. Its light is faint, and yet my father has demanded in these last days that the window shutters be kept open, always open, to let the moonlight in.
I know why he hungers after the moon, though the Sorens do not. The moon, in its constant state of waxing or waning, comforts him. He still remembers the magic. He understands its possibilities.
I must have nodded off in my chair, my forehead pressed to my knees, because I am startled awake by his voice. I brush my bangs away from where they stick to my eyes.
“Pirouette,” he whispers. “Poppet.”
My heart lurches to hear my name on his lips. I look to his eyes, which still burn at the edges but are fixed solidly on my own. He sees me. The old maple’s branches scratch against the wall, joining me in mourning. “Listen,” it says. “Listen.”
“Papa?”
He taps his fingers on the coverlet, indicating that I should come closer so he will not strain his voice. I slip to his side, and without thinking, curl up next to him, tucked into his chest with his beard brushing my forehead, my hand over his heart. When I was smaller and a night terror plagued me, I would sneak into his room and settle like this, comforted by the solid rhythm of his dependable heartbeat beneath my cheek.
“Time is fading for me, Piro.”
I nod against his chest, which sounds hollow; the heartbeat is still hammering, but faintly.
“There is something you must know, something more to our blue moon story.”