Splinters of Scarlet

by Emily Bain Murphy

  She looks back at him, thinking for a long moment.

  “No,” she says steadily. “I’d prefer he stay.”

  “Very well.”

  Philip strides past me to close the doors to the ballroom. He makes sure the latch holds tight. I shrink back as far as I possibly can. If he catches me, after what happened in his bedroom . . . I shudder.

  Now I am trapped here. And for the first time, I realize how many of the miners appear to be armed.

  One by one, they rise and place blue velvet cases on the table in front of Philip. He walks along, his shoes clicking on the wooden floor, and snaps up the lids for inspection. The first holds hollowed-out pinks with glittering edges as sharp as knives. Gold-tinted teals. Apricot crystals that look as though they’re caramelizing. I fight off a wave of nausea at the sight. Perhaps each magic makes its own beautiful color. Perhaps that’s how you know what sort of power is waiting inside it.

  “Helene, I think tonight’s events will warm the king’s view toward Eve’s performance considerably,” Philip says. He gestures to the table. “Tonight we will present the royals with this tiara for Princess Alexandra. A necklace for Queen Louise. A timepiece for Crown Prince Frederick. A scepter for the king, and a ring for George, in Greece, with coronets and badges to come for the young Princess Thyra and Prince Valdemar.”

  “I didn’t realize we were bribing the royal family into forcing the ballet’s hand,” Helene says. Her voice is like a tightly coiled wire. “I don’t think that will make things especially easier for Eve.”

  “Oh, of course it won’t be anything as explicit as that,” Philip assures her. “But I think they’ll be willing to exert their influence wherever they can on our behalf, after tonight. Because we’re about to increase the impact of that influence considerably.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean, Philip,” Helene says. She stands, the train of her violet skirt rustling. She seems as poised as ever, but I see the way her fingers are tightening on the chair.

  “I don’t want to catch you off-guard tonight and have your surprise on full display to the king. But . . .” Philip says. He extends a brooch to her like a peace offering. It’s a dark blood red, with a pin that’s as silver-sharp as my needles. “You should know that these are not just any jewels.”

  Helene hesitates. She takes the brooch from him. Examines it between her long, delicate fingers.

  My heart flutters like a torn kite caught between sky and branches.

  She really doesn’t know.

  “These jewels are quite like ballet, actually,” Philip says. “Both are things of beauty that hide an incredible strength. Please,” he urges. “Put it on.” She carefully pierces the pin through the satin of her dress, not taking her eyes from him the entire time.

  Philip smiles at her. He gestures to the largest piece on the table: the map made out of jewels showing Denmark.

  “This performance tonight is about much more than the future of ballet, of course. It’s about the very future of Denmark. It’s about magic,” he says. “At our fingertips.”

  He snaps his fingers.

  Instantly, a flame appears between them.

  Helene gasps and takes an instinctive step forward.

  He rubs the flame out.

  “Think of this, Helene,” he says, watching her reaction. “Queen Louise is playing a strategy game with the marriages of her children, placing them across the nations to help Denmark.” He trails a hand across the map made of gemstones. “Denmark is not a Great Power, but we are in bed, quite literally, with all the other Great Powers. And now—with these jewels—we will no longer be a weak, symbolic spouse, bankrupt and frail.”

  Helene is still looking at the place where the flame appeared between Philip’s fingers. “Are you saying that there is magic in those jewels?” she whispers.

  Philip nods, a smile cracking across his face. “What we have is not the ugly, brute strength wielded on the battlefield, but a beautiful, quiet strength to be wielded behind the closed doors of those gilded rooms. Sometimes a small show of power displayed at just the right time—a little magic, to enhance either a favor or a threat—can swing a negotiation in the direction we want.” I think of the way I poured magic into Eve’s tutu that day at Thorsen’s, using every little advantage that might sway the decision in her favor. I close my eyes.

  Philip continues. “Perhaps even the whispers of the magic that the Danes now seem to possess will be enough to deter larger aggressors. Or perhaps we will someday harvest enough magic like this that our soldiers and armies will be invincible. But for now, we will arm our royals with jewels in their strategic places, and a quiet strength at that level might do more than heavy guns or machinery or boots on the battlefield. It could be that small difference or advantage that changes the future of entire countries—that can spare or wipe out generations.”

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me about this?” Helene says in a low voice. “Why now?”

  “There was some uncertainty as to how you’d react,” Philip admits. “Now seemed like a good time to ensure that your reaction would be contained. You have a lot to gain this evening. I’ve done all the work, giving the king jewels to secure access and trust. Tonight he’ll find out how much they are actually worth. You can understand why this all must remain highly secret.”

  She stays silent.

  “Denmark has been humiliated step by step over the past fifty years. Our land has been chipped away from us, bit by bit. Think of what influence this could have, Helene. This royal family is a tree with branches spreading strategically into a dynasty across Europe and Russia, with magic wielded around their necks as glittering gems. Suddenly, Denmark is not a weak, dying nation. It instantly becomes one of the most powerful nations in the world.”

  I hold my breath.

  Helene is thinking, the pulse jetting beneath her ear. Her voice is quiet and betrays the slightest tremor. “Philip, where did these jewels come from?”

  “From the mines, Helene,” he says easily. “Some stones come into existence with magic inside them. The same way it is with people. Where else could they come from?”

  She studies him and doesn’t answer, surrounded in a room of all men, who are covered head to toe with jewels.

  I think of Helene pouring the sugar into the glass jar, showing Eve how to form a complex structure from the tiniest seed.

  “Is this going to be a problem, Helene?” Philip asks. The miners all stare her down. “You employ servants utilizing magic around you every day. It would seem you are already at peace with the use of magic for your own personal benefit.”

  “You’ll forgive me if I need a moment to consider what all of this means,” Helene says, her poise returning. She still looks suspicious, as if she’s trying to figure out something that she’s missing. “I’m just not certain why Aleks never told me about this before.”

  As the clock strikes four, the six miners and Dr. Holm look to Philip for direction. Half are reaching into their pockets for some sort of magic to hold in their hands. Only this time, I don’t see dazzling beauty or riches when I look at their jewels. I see danger and power, threats and blood.

  The king is due to appear at any moment.

  Helene has to know the entire truth before that happens. I am just a servant. No one is going to listen to me. But they might listen to her, if she can be reached. If she chooses to do the right thing.

  Courage, I think, steeling myself. Courage like Ingrid had, to stand up to these men.

  Her name is in my heart as I step from the shadows, the light cutting my face like a piece of glass.

  “Helene,” I say, relishing the startled gasps I cause when I step out from the ferns. I hold my vial of blood aloft to catch the light—a fire of my own, sparking between my fingers.

  “Everyone here is lying.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Philip

  That seamstress girl. The one who stitched me back together, and then I caught her s
nooping in my room.

  She’s going to ruin everything.

  “What is she talking about, Philip?” Helene asks.

  “Those jewels aren’t from the mines,” the seamstress continues steadily. She takes another step forward and holds out a glass vial of blood as though it’s a torch. Her eyes blaze. “They’ve killed people and mined their blood for Firn. Those stones are magic because they came from people with magic.”

  Helene’s eyes are growing wide with disbelief as she turns to face me.

  “Philip,” she says, and swallows. “Tell me that isn’t true.”

  It takes me back to that night in the morgue, with my handkerchief pressed to my nose.

  “Tønnes . . . is it wrong?” I’d asked. My eyes flick to him now, then to the door.

  This can still be salvaged. If I can get Helene to see reason.

  Magic.

  We all use magic in one way or another.

  Everyone is complicit. Some of us just bear a little more guilt than others.

  “Listen to me, Helene,” I say calmly, as if I’m speaking to a frightened animal. “This discovery we made saved the mines. They weren’t going to last much longer with just limestone—and no one would have wanted those jewels if they knew where they really came from. We only took Firn from people who were already long dead.”

  At the beginning, anyway.

  Everything started off so small, so simply.

  It was the perfect storm when Tønnes brought me to the morgue that night. He often apprenticed there after hours, to learn anatomy and help him study to be a doctor—a secret arrangement not strictly legal. But that night, a tree fell onto a man with Firn in his veins. Firn advanced enough to have crystallized. No one knew he had magic, or else the man would have gone straight to the cremator instead. What remained, when Tønnes washed the blood away, were tiny crystals. Magic—crystallized magic—glittering like the shrapnel of gemstones.

  And Tønnes came to me, his old friend. Because what better way to hide the discovery of magic crystallized into gemstones than in a mine?

  I had hesitated, with that handkerchief in front of my nose. The same way she’s hesitating now.

  “It’s their own Firn that kills them,” I continue. “It’s no good to them once they’re dead. But we are alive. And this plan of ours could help keep many other people alive. Many others,” I say, my confidence growing. “Perhaps we could also study the Firn in the meantime. Perhaps we could even find a way to help them.”

  That’s what Tønnes said to me, that night at the morgue. It was enough to convince me then. Of course, that’s not how things turned out.

  My eyes twitch nervously toward the clock.

  I need to get this under control, and now.

  “He’s still lying!” the seamstress cries. “Dr. Holm published false research that said the Firn was ice. He didn’t want to help us. He wanted to make sure we never found out the truth.”

  Damn, I think, tightening my fist. I exchange a meaningful look with the miner closest to the seamstress. He takes a step toward her.

  “Think, Helene,” the seamstress pleads. “Think when you came across Philip and Ivy. You never saw another attacker because there never was one. Philip killed her for her magic and she fought back.”

  “Did Aleks know about this?” Helene’s voice shakes. She looks me straight in the eyes. “Tell me that he didn’t know this.”

  He didn’t. But I think he must have suspected something wasn’t right.

  That’s why he left the mines solely to her.

  I can see it in her eyes, that she is coming to the same conclusion.

  “He asked me not to sell his shares to you,” she says slowly. “Ever.”

  I hid it all from Aleks. The war hero. He would never have approved. And he was too distracted with Helene to notice.

  Because Tønnes kept bringing the bodies to the mines, even after he wasn’t working at the morgue anymore. Somewhere along the way his reasoning went from “They were already dead” to “They were almost dead” to “They were probably going to die anyway.”

  And for a while, that was enough.

  I swallow.

  By the time I realized that he was actually killing them for their Firn—seeking them out to harvest their Firn into jewels—I was in too deep. And so were the mines.

  Helene is stalling for time now, but she’s afraid. She’s outnumbered, even with that seamstress and guard here. I see her shaking under her careful poise, see it in the quivering ends of her hair. I remember watching her on the stage, with Aleks next to me. She defeated him.

  She will not defeat me.

  Snow is falling heavily outside. I glance at the clock. A quarter of an hour past when the king was due to arrive. Where is he?

  “Every single jewel we’ve sold has blood on it,” Helene says, gasping. “Does each one represent a life? There are thousands of sales in the Vestergaard records.” She chokes on her own voice. “Hundreds of lives in this room alone.” The jewels in the map glitter ominously. Helene’s eyes and voice harden as she makes her choice. “I will not be part of it.”

  “This is for Denmark,” I hiss. “People give up their lives for the good of the country all the time. That’s what war is; that’s what a draft is. My father was willing to do it, and Aleks, and I was too. Magical people are a resource this country—this house—runs on. You cannot pretend you are not doing the same thing. You use them for the power they bring you, even if it kills them. Magic is the very future of Denmark.”

  Helene tenses at the booming crack of a knock on the front door.

  The time for reasoning and negotiation is up. “I have guards too, Helene,” I say urgently under my breath. “Hidden within the king’s own regiment. If you choose to breathe a word of this, I’ll kill Eve in front of all of you tonight and make it look like an accident. I swear it to you on Aleks’s grave.”

  Her eyes are lit with fire. “He’s rolling over in it in disgrace,” she spits.

  “Your integrity, or Eve’s life. You decide which is worth more to you,” I say, and at my nod, the miners reach for the stones that hold the sort of magic that can cause harm. All it will take is for us to hold the light of a flame in front of the jewels for just a moment, long enough for them to warm. It wasn’t such a stretch to compare the Firn to ice, after all. The heat seems to melt the magic, making it flow right into the body. Sometimes, I think, remembering the scars on my body, they have to get hot enough to burn.

  I whirl to face Peder and say: “You’re outnumbered. Don’t be a fool. Keep the seamstress contained, or I’ll kill Helene and then you.”

  I accompany Helene to answer the knock, and we stand together, my arm firmly on her elbow.

  The front door swings open.

  “Hello?” she says, fixing a smile on her face.

  There’s a single courier standing outside. Behind him, the drive is blinding white, with snowdrifts already settling halfway up the carriage wheels.

  “His Majesty King Christian IX sends his regrets,” the courier says. “The weather is too ominous for the journey and he wishes to postpone.”

  “Does he?” I ask. A bruise is starting to bloom on Helene’s arm beneath my grip. “Good. We want him safely at Amalienborg and out of harm’s way.”

  “Please—” Helene says, but I jerk her arm and firmly shut the door in the messenger’s face. Snow and chunks of ice have tumbled into the foyer and are melting at our feet.

  She stares at me, her face so close to mine. The crystals in the chandeliers sway gently above our heads. The scent of orchids spills over the foyer vase.

  “Madam?” Nina says. She stands at the entrance to the servants’ corridor, her voice tentative with concern.

  “Go back to the kitchen, Nina,” Helene says calmly. “I need you to look after Eve. Don’t let her out of your sight.”

  “Helene,” I say. “We thought there was a chance things might go this way.”

  Tønnes steps forward f
rom the shadows.

  Beyond him, my mining men—the ones who have been by my side for the past ten years, helping to weave this web—all stand.

  I dead-bolt the front door behind me.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Marit

  Helene and I are trapped.

  She moves quickly toward the servants’ corridor, but Dr. Holm blocks her. I look around wildly, frantic. The miners’ faces swim in front of me, carrying the shades of every possible reaction. Guilt, shame, anger, arrogance, murderous rage.

  Fear.

  All I can think is that I have to reach Eve before they do.

  They each take a step toward me, their rings glittering with magic, forcing me into the foyer, so that they can form a perimeter around Helene and me. They tighten like a drawstring around us, blocking the exits.

  “Philip,” Helene says. She shakes with quiet rage. “Tell me. Did you kill Aleks over this?”

  “No,” Philip says, and he actually looks taken aback. “I loved my brother. I would never have hurt him.”

  But there is something that I catch out of the corner of my eye. A look, like a glint of sunlight on a wave, there and then gone. The smallest smile on Dr. Tønnes Holm’s face.

  Philip sees it too.

  “You expect me to believe that you were hiding all this and you let him live?” Helene’s laugh is bitter as she turns to Dr. Holm. “You said the autopsy revealed a problem with his heart. I trusted you.”

  “Tønnes didn’t hurt him either,” Philip says. “Aleks’s death was natural.” But for the first time, I see a crack in his composure. Of doubt.

  Next to me, I can feel Helene’s guard slowly reaching for his pistol in infinitesimal movements. Please let this be over soon, I pray. I’m careful to avert my eyes, not wanting to give him away. With the armed guard on our side, we have the slimmest chance of escaping. Of surviving long enough to get help.

  But Dr. Holm suddenly turns on his heel.

  “Wrong choice, Peder,” he says, and, as easily as gliding through churned butter, runs him through with his sword.