by Lisa DeSelm
“Run!” she bellows again, pointing intently to the shadows among the trees. Her mouth snaps shut like a sprung trap. She turns her back on us.
Laszlo limps bitterly toward her, looking like one of the maimed marionettes coming back for more. For a second, I think she’s going to wallop him with the lantern, but instead, the saboteur smashes it broadly against her own chest. The globe shatters across the stone floor and oil douses her body. The flame follows.
“No!” I scream in tandem with Laszlo.
Prima uproots me where I stand. She drags me behind her, toward a slew of broken windows. I cannot take my eyes from the saboteur.
My saboteur.
Like a wooden torch, her whole body is marvelously alight, glowing with leaping licks of flame. Tears stream down my cheeks. She lifts her arms, darting and whirling among the trees, touching every branch and marionette she can reach, with hands that singe and burn. Laszlo howls like a wolf in pain; his worst fears are come to life. When she reaches out to enfold him in her embrace, his wails cut through the crackling flames like ice.
The last thing I see as Prima hauls me through the smoking grove is my saboteur, destroying everything she touches, dancing beneath the blue moon like a scorching star fallen to earth.
CHAPTER 31
WITH EVERY FREE HAND OF WOLFSPIRE HALL RUSHING TO put out the fire and save whatever’s left of the Margrave and his collection, Prima and Vincenzo and I are hardly noticed as we dart through the back stairwells and halls. We don’t have a key this time, but I hope with Prima on our side we can barrel our way through any guarded doors.
Suddenly a very large redheaded man runs up the stairs toward us. He flattens himself against the wall, wheezing at the sight of us.
“Fonso?” I ask, squinting in the stair’s weak torchlight.
“Marco,” he pants, trying to catch his breath. “Piro?”
“Marco!” He looks so like his cousin, I want to hug him on the spot.
“I was just on my way to see if I could help, but you’ve made it without me, I see. Heard all the commotion of the guards.”
“Oh, thank you! Can you lead us out of here?”
Marco nods, his copper beard bobbing reassuringly. “Come!”
The four of us start to descend, but then a sudden thought trips me and nearly sends us all plunging down the spiral steps in a heap.
“Wait! What about the others?”
Prima looks to me. “Others?”
“Those in the Keep,” I say, thinking of the poor souls who still remain.
Marco turns around with a grin. “The only reason the tailor’s Golden Boy isn’t here right now is that he had a bit of an errand to run first. As far as the Keep goes, we already got things started.” He pulls the tailor’s seam ripper from his pocket. “Your friend Nan and I picked all the locks we could. She had a second copy of that skeleton key made, stashed for safekeeping. It’s just as well we got there when we did. By the time Bran was out, the other prisoners were already near to tearing the doors off their hinges.”
“Thank the stars. How did you get past the guards with the seam ripper in the first place?”
“Those blokes are a dirty lot. Your extra francs were enough to grease a few palms. A few less mouths to feed in the Keep is of no consequence to them.”
Energized by this news, I run faster, dragging the cleric behind me by one of his vestments while Prima brings up the rear as lookout. Outside, we all gulp huge mouthfuls of fresh air, eager to have done with the smoke and flames. I try desperately not to think about what’s been left behind, my saboteur lost to the flames.
Outside the gates, Nan sits atop the driver’s seat of a familiar wood-hauling wagon.
“You made it,” she says with whoop. “Looks like we’re just in time! Who’s your new friend? Another captive of the Margrave’s?”
“We’ve really no time for introductions, but you already know the cleric of Wolfspire Hall,” I begin.
“Regretfully true, lass. The puppetmaster and the Margravina, they saved me from the fire,” Vincenzo says humbly. “Our Margrave is a very disturbed young man. Dark magic … dark indeed,” he mutters to himself. “Never thought I’d live to see the day …”
“Margravina?” Nan asks, confused.
“Nan, this is Prima. She’s only just been … she’s only just,” I say hesitantly, trying to delicately explain her existence.
“Begun,” Prima speaks up. “I’ve only just begun.”
The bells in the high tower of Wolfspire Hall peal frantically, the same pattern rung the night the old Margrave died, the same ones that sang while my father slipped away. Those bells can only mean one thing … Laszlo is gone.
“They’re sounding the full alarm,” Marco says. “The fire must be sweeping through the whole castle.” He begins to run back toward the Commoner’s entrance.
“Come with us, Marco! There’s room in the back of the wagon!”
“No, not yet,” he calls. “The guards will all be fleeing their posts—and they’ll forget.”
“Forget about what?”
“The Keep! I need to make sure everyone got out! Otherwise, any poor sots left behind who can’t walk’ll roast alive. I’ll check, you go!” The big man bolts, determined to make sure every inhabitant of the Keep is set free.
“Prima, let’s go,” I start to say, turning to find her lifting the cleric like a sack of meal onto Burl’s back.
“Oh, I can’t possibly, my lady,” he says, fumbling apologetically and awkwardly trying to dismount. “You should be the one to ride. You are our Margravina now.”
“Margravina?” the newly made girl asks. “What is that? Everyone keeps saying it.”
“Yes, milady, if the duke, er, Margrave, had survived the fire, they wouldn’t be ringing the high bells as they are. Therefore, you are not just a new bride; you are the new ruler of Tavia. I myself conducted the ceremony. Your marriage to him was legal and binding. The puppetmaster witnessed it with her own eyes.”
“I did,” I say, in shock. “If Laszlo is truly gone, and they were married before he … then that would make Prima the new Margravina.”
Prima looks to me. I can’t speak for a minute. There are so many questions we’ll have to answer. How can we invent a story for her, a believable history, without betraying both of our origins? She doesn’t even know yet about the splinters that plague our kind. And a girl cannot be a Margravina from nowhere. She needs a family, a noble bloodline.
“What do I do?” she asks, her green eyes unsure.
I look to the smoking castle behind us and the village below. The blue moon has bled out all its power. It’s back to being that pale, milk-glass eye once more; pretty, but impotent.
“What if the fire spreads to the village—to the farms or the wood?” I ask in alarm.
“We got almost everyone out of the village already, Piro,” Nan says. “For days now the women and children have been quietly fleeing to the woods, hiding from the constant patrols of wooden soldiers. We can stay there until it’s safe to return. The others are waiting for us.”
I breathe a deep breath of relief. “Then let’s go. We’ll retreat from the fire. And hope that there’s something left for us all to return to.”
“I will see to it that your reign is uncontested, milady,” Vincenzo says, bowing as best he can from Burl’s back. “After the horrors I’ve seen today, it’s the least I can do. We’ve been too long under the rule of the old von Eidles, if I do say so myself. A new Margravina shall be a breath of fresh air indeed!”
“I need you,” Prima says to me, taking my hand, her eyes locked intently on mine. “You will help me?”
“We’ll help you,” I say, pulling her up to sit on the wagon seat beside Nan and me. “My friends and I.”
Burl takes off at a clip through the darkened streets. Just as Wolfspire Hall begins to shrink behind us, the deafening sound of an explosion engulfs the ringing bells and rocks the cobblestones beneath us. Clinging to each
other, we look back to see the glass-domed conservatory roof completely collapsing. The roof pops like a glass bubble, leaving nothing behind but air and smoke. The acrid smell of burning wood and charred brick rides the wind ahead of us. Nan tries to calm Burl, who is pulling hard at the reins, following his instincts to flee the noise. She stops the wagon, looking back at the carnage and then to me and Prima.
“Let’s keep going,” I command.
“Good, I was just going to suggest that,” she says.
But a few moments later, in front of the rathaus, I spy a light on in the clock tower and beg her to slow the horse. Though the glockenspiel has finished its refrain, the great clock above is keeping accurate time again.
“Wait for me,” I say, leaping from the wagon before the wheels even grind to a halt. “There’s something I need in the tower.”
CHAPTER 32
I FIND BRAN JUST WHERE I THOUGHT I MIGHT; HIGH UP ON the scaffolding, boxing up Emmitt’s tools and watching the smoke spew from Wolfspire Hall. As soon as he hears my footsteps, he quickly drops down the ladder, his eyes hungrily searching my face. I try to ignore the carousel behind him, and the memories that will forever haunt this clock tower.
“Are you all right, Piro?” I can tell he wants to pull me to him, but he hesitates, unsure if I’ll allow it. “Were you hurt? Did he do anything to hurt you?”
“No. I mean, yes, I’m all right. You?”
He’s filthy, and that peculiar smell that followed my father home from the Keep lingers on him. But he is Bran, and he is here, safe and real.
“I’m so sorry, Piro. My carelessness could have cost you everything!” he says, looking over his shoulder to the fire and smoke on the hill. “I could have lost you in there! I feel like a fool, taken away to the Keep and unable to help you. I had no idea, Piro—what it was like in there …” His voice breaks. “I would have come straight to get you myself, but Nan overruled me. She didn’t trust my strength after being in that horrible place. So I came here, to fit the last piece in, for Emmitt.”
I take a small step toward him, drawn as ever to his warmth, which even Wolfspire Keep could not extinguish.
“I’m glad. I think he would be proud to hear the old bells roar to life again. The Margrave, however, was not.”
Bran smiles a wry, sad smile.
“But then,” I continue, “you and I well know something the Margrave never learned; a maker will always prevail.”
“Always,” Bran agrees, reaching tentatively for my hand. I happily give it to him.
When Bran touches me, there is none of that probing measurement there once was with Laszlo. A sameness flows between us now, a current I could get lost in. In his eyes, I’m not a thing made of parts and pieces, an apparatus cobbled together to fit his purposes; I’m much more than that. I am loved. Perhaps that’s one of the ways we each find ourselves becoming more human, by that strange magic of being seen all at once for the whole marvelous and terrible creatures we are and not just the odd scraps of our faults and frailties.
The Maker’s Guild and the Tavians who fled to escape the spreading fire sleep in the thick of the wood that night, among the old giants. There are released prisoners from the Keep who are much rejoiced over, mingling with housewives and butchers and shopkeepers. Whatever food was liberated from Wolfspire’s cellars is gladly shared among them all. Fires dot the forest floor, keeping everyone warm against the cutting night air. Though most were afraid of the wood’s nooks and dark hollows, they find safety and shelter in its shadows now.
But sleep refuses me. I leave our dwindling fire, around which the others dream soundly—Nan and the Sorens and Fonso and Anke on one side, Tiffin and Mort on the other, with Bran keeping an eye on the cleric and Prima in the wagon. Quietly, I wrap my cloak around my shoulders and venture into the black curtain of trees.
The others took to Prima without too many questions; I even caught Tiffin staring at her like a royal dunce more than once. She moved among us serenely, not saying much, but her every movement was deliberate, every flash of feeling across her face aristocratic and bold.
When it came time to introduce her, I completely froze, only to be saved by Bran, who made her acquaintance on the drive to the wood. Like any good tailor, he spun a story for us all.
“Makers, meet Prima von Eidle, daughter of a distant noble of Elinbruk. Milady was wed to the Margrave just after midnight tonight, so she’s had a bit of a shock, you could say, what with being very suddenly a widow and finding herself our new Margravina to boot. Tiffin, get her a blanket. Mort, make room by the fire. Mother, would you heat her a bowl of stew? No doubt our lady is quite hungry after her trials.”
Vincenzo confirmed Bran’s story by spouting a long and very sensationalized tale of Prima’s bravery in the midst of the fantastical events that occurred in the conservatory. The little ones listened in awe from their sleeping pallets, but the elders were rightfully skeptical of the account of the duke’s marionettes come to life, especially as the cleric’s yarn grew ever more outlandish each time he brought his cup of ale to his lips. I didn’t mind. His tales would spread Prima’s story far and wide, saving us the trouble.
Restless, prowling among the trees away from the camp, I startle at every noise and blink at every moving shadow. The cover of night makes me imagine the saboteur might step from among their number at any moment. I almost sense her here.
It’s hard to comprehend that one of the greatest works of my life is reduced to ash drifting on the wind, her strange beauty settling like black snow on the stones of Wolfspire Hall. I couldn’t save her. But she saved me. She saved us all, really.
Leaning against a linden for support, I slide down to my haunches, my chest racked by sobs. The weight of all I’ve lost is crushing. After the saboteur, and now Prima … can I ever create again? Would it even be right? How can I continue as a puppetmaster, knowing what wreckage and ruin can stem from my hands? I shudder, remembering Laszlo dancing to his death in the saboteur’s arms.
In the process of wiping the wet from my eyes, I feel a hand on my shoulder. My lungs tighten. It can’t possibly be …
No, the hand is not gloved and wooden like I hoped, but gnarled and work-worn, its hold strong as roots of oak. The unflinching face of the old tree woman bends over me like a branch offering shade.
“It’s the maker’s pain, isn’t it? I feel the same torment each time one of my seedlings is chopped down, or a great giant is felled by lightning and the flames take hold.”
“How do you bear it?” I ask, my eyes welling up again.
The old woman smiles a twisted smile, the wrinkles in her face rippling like ridges in bark. “Because each end, each small death, gives life to the new. In every tree that falls, creatures will find shelter and birds will drop seeds to sprout from its rotting depths. A tree only grows by rising from the layers of many deaths that came before.”
She gently tugs my arm, pulling me to my feet. I am taller than she, but even so, I do not feel like I am looking down on her. Quite the opposite.
“So must you, Pirouette Leiter; find a way to grow, to squeeze life from the ashes left behind.” She grips my hand roughly, trying to imbue some life into me.
“But what if it happens again?” I ask her, clinging to her branch-like fingers. “What if more lives are ruined by one of my creatures? I feel as if I should never touch a chisel or blade again. If I never see another blue moon, it will be too soon.”
She shakes her head. “You should know by now that magic, just like the truth, can’t be hidden. The blue moon will always rise and men will always hunt for ways to make the things they most desire. But you will know the moon’s power and your own strength next time as a master, not just as an apprentice.”
“Next time?” I don’t think I’ll ever be ready to face another blue moon. But before I can say as much, the old tree woman releases me and turns away. Soon, she is nothing but a mist fading into the night. Though it won’t be night much longer. A rim of early
morning ruptures the sky above me.
I press my cheek to the tree’s knotted side and close my eyes.
“How?” I ask the linden. “How can I begin again after all this?”
The wind ruffles the tree’s remaining leaves above. It lifts the dried remnants of fall off the forest floor and whips them into the air, only to set them down again. But the tree does not answer.
It dawns on me slowly, like a leaf dropping from the canopy, that I cannot hear the linden’s voice. I press my hand to her side, shoving my ear up against the bark.
Silence.
I feel my way to the next linden, and the next. To the oak, and the halsa nearby. All quiet. The only sounds that reach me are the wind and her sighs. I slam my hands angrily against the tree trunks, one after another. I’ve been shut out, locked away from a world that used to belong to me. The trees’ voices are lost to me, too.
“Lost,” I whimper, a great silence rising up around me like a barricade.
When did it happen? How had I not noticed?
And then I realize: Prima. When I awakened Prima. I couldn’t hear the saboteur’s voice either, when she held me fast. The demanding blue moon had taken its tithe already; it could be nothing else.
In the next heartbeat, I wonder, What of my curse? Was it taken too?
“Piro.” Bran’s familiar voice pulls me back from the deep silence. “What are you doing out this far?”
I whirl around to search the dark for his face.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m doing any more.”
He finds me, lacing his fingers with my own. “It’s so dark out here, so far from the fire. Even with the moonlight.” He shivers, looking around. “This is what I was talking about. These woods make me uneasy. I know it’s different for you, but aren’t you ever afraid out here?” he asks, looking up at the towering trees.
Am I afraid?
There’s only one way to test it.
“No,” I say shakily, taking a deep breath. “I am not afraid.” Then I hold my breath a long moment, waiting.