Hidden Huntress

by Danielle L. Jensen

“We want him punished,” Tips said, slamming the bottom of his crutch against the marble floor. The rest of the half-bloods in the room crowed their agreement until my father made some motion to silence them.

  “Should I throw him back in prison and leave him there to rot?” my father asked. “Or is that not extreme enough? Should I take off his head and put an end to his traitorous ways once and for all?”

  “A sweet revenge for many,” Tips said. “But some of us are less rash. He’s no good to us dead or in prison.”

  “How is he good to you at all?” A question to which my father dearly wanted an answer.

  I heard Tips swallow hard and I held my breath. This was the moment of reckoning.

  “Prince Tristan undid in a night’s work what it took us three months to complete,” Tips said. “If you really want to see Trollus free from its dependence on magic, then you’ll best punish him by making him use his research and plans to fulfill your vision. That is what we want as reparations for the hurt we have suffered. Order Prince Tristan to build the stone tree for us. And make him promise to do it right.”

  Stunned silence filled the throne room. No one had expected Tips to demand that. Not the aristocracy or the bourgeoisie, and certainly, certainly, not the half-bloods. My heart thundered in my chest, and sweat coated my palms. Please let it work.

  My father began to laugh. At first, only a soft chuckle, but the sound gathered and grew until it filled the long hall. “What a pragmatic request, miner,” he finally said, his voice still shaking with mirth. “I cannot say I expected it.”

  He nudged me with one foot and the weight of the magic holding me lifted. “Get up.”

  I climbed warily to my feet, not taking my eyes off him for a second. His expression terrified me. He knew I had tricked him, knew that I was plotting against him. But he looked pleased.

  Which didn’t make any sense. He had no clear way out of the trap I’d set for him. He knew Tips was working with me, but he didn’t dare out the half-blood for his lies. He knew that commanding me to build the tree was what I wanted, but that if he didn’t, he’d be all but confessing to the thousands of angry half-bloods outside the palace that he’d duped them. The half-bloods he wrongly believed I’d already recruited back to my leadership, when in actuality, they probably all hated me more than they ever hated him.

  He’d figure my trick out eventually, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that right here, right now, he believed the majority of the city followed my orders.

  Say something. My skin alternated hot and cold. Everyone in the room faded away; the sound of the mob barely a whisper in my ear. All that mattered was my father.

  “You will do what the half-blood asks,” he said, his voice loud enough for everyone to hear. A slight smile crept into his eyes. “As… punishment, for your actions.”

  Relief filled me, and it was a struggle to keep from showing it. I think I did not quite manage it, because the smile moved to his mouth. I stayed quiet long enough to make our act look real, then nodded. “As you command, so shall it be, Your Majesty.”

  “We want his promise!”

  I started at Tips’s voice. This wasn’t part of our plan. I turned just in time to see magic that was not my own crush the half-blood against the marble floor.

  “Do not make demands of your betters,” my father snapped, his vehemence surprising me. Tips had been making demands this entire time, and my father had not seemed to care. What about me making a promise was different? It was a question that required more thought, but I didn’t have time for it now. After everything that had happened today, the half-bloods were going to need more than a little reassurance that I was to be trusted, and I had every intention of giving it to them.

  I cleared my throat. “I, Prince Tristan de Montigny, do so swear that I will build a stone tree for you, which, when it is complete, will protect Trollus from the weight of Forsaken Mountain without the use of magic.”

  My father snapped around to face me, his eyes bright with astonishment and anger. “You’re a fool to bind yourself so.” He muttered the words under his breath, and only I was close enough to hear them.

  “That remains to be seen,” I said softly, refusing to let myself wonder if he was right.

  “Let it be known that His Highness has given his binding word!” he roared. Twisting on his heel, he strode up to the throne and settled down on it hard enough that the massive chair inched backwards. “Get back to your trades,” he snarled at the crowd. “And you.” His eyes settled on Tips. “Get back to the mines. It would be a shame after all of this if you were to miss your quota.”

  A not too subtle reminder that he was still King of Trollus, and that we all still lived and died by his word.

  * * *

  I had no escort back to my rooms, although I was as much in danger as I had ever been. It would take time for Tips to disperse the truth behind what had happened this morning, and despite knowing I worked for their freedom, many would resent being used once again. Even now, after this victory against my father, I still had so few allies. Only Tips, his crew, and Élise. Marc was still an unknown, holed up in his home and refusing any visitors, and the twins were limited by their banishment to the mines. I needed to find a way to help my friends, but as yet, I didn’t know how.

  The smell of food tickled my nose as I stepped into my rooms, a laden and steaming tray revealing itself as I expanded my pool of light. A note written on my aunt’s stationery sat on the corner of the tray.

  * * *

  Because you are still dear to me.

  S.

  * * *

  P.S. I had Élise bring this for you, and as such, I cannot vouch for what it might contain.

  * * *

  My pulse accelerated. Sitting down at my desk, I scanned the contents of the tray, searching for a hidden message from Élise. Nothing. No note, no symbols, no clever arrangement of food. “Bloody stones,” I muttered, and started eating, because if nothing else, I was starving. Shoving half a roll into my mouth, I started on the bowl of soup, spooning the thick liquid into my mouth as fast as I could swallow it. Tipping the bowl with magic, I started to scoop up the last mouthful when my eyes caught sight of one word scored into the bottom of the dish.

  Élise’s mission had been to discover who or what had provoked my father into such a fury that my mother had nearly torn the palace down and cost me my life. And she’d done it.

  Anaïs.

  Twenty-Three

  Cécile

  “Under no circumstances is she to leave the house today, do you understand? She has no rehearsals or performances or appointments, so don’t believe any lies she might spin.”

  “Yes, Madame.”

  My mother repeated her instructions to the cook and maid, albeit with different phrasing. But the message was the same: short of the house burning down – and perhaps not even then – I was not to cross the threshold. Scowling, I rolled onto my back and stared up at the canopy of my bed.

  It wasn’t as though I couldn’t sneak out. It would be easy enough to compel both women not to interfere, but both of them would lose their jobs if my mother discovered they’d let me go without a fight. Better to use a non-magical route. I was an experienced tree climber, and the sturdy trellis running down the house would not trouble me in the least.

  But not getting caught was quite another matter. I’d ignored my mother’s orders and today’s internment was my punishment. But if I did it again, I knew she would and could do much worse to me. Chain my feet together, or hire guards to stand outside my door, or drug me to sleep every night. Her creativity knew no bounds.

  The maid had been in a quarter-hour past to bring me a tray of breakfast, and sunlight beamed in between the drapes she had tossed open. The food was slowly growing cold, but the smell of it made my stomach roil, and the thought of eating was more than I could bear. My head throbbed unbearably and my whole body ached from riding around in the freezing cold. I felt like I was falling sick, but
I knew better. Even without the message left on my mirror, I would have felt the urgency. Something had happened. Something had changed. The troll king was no longer content to wait. If he ever had been.

  Tick, tock, Princess.

  Rolling over, I buried my face in the pillow. When I’d first seen the red writing, I’d thought it was blood. It had turned out to be only my own lip stain. But while the medium of the message was more innocuous than I’d originally thought, its meaning was no less nefarious. Not only was I running out of time, the placement of the message and the casual use of my own cosmetics slapped me in the face with the knowledge that the King could reach me anytime and anywhere. I might be free of Trollus, but I was not free from danger. I wondered if anywhere was safe.

  My thoughts swiftly returned to the results of my spell the prior night. And the spell itself. It had been so easy – no worrying about whether the nature and balance of the ingredients was correct, or if I was using the elements best suited to the task. No fear the power that manifested would be insufficient.

  And it had felt good.

  I shivered, worming my way deeper under the covers. Certainly, it had been hard to kill the chicken, but more than that, I remembered the euphoric influx of power. Power that had lingered in me long enough to shout my mother into submission when I’d returned home, hours after casting the spell. It had been a revolting act. But it had also been intoxicating. Addicting. Digging my bitten fingernails ineffectually into my palms, I mumbled, “Don’t think about it.”

  Better to think of the results.

  All but two of the burn marks on the map we’d proven to be deceased women. The one mark within Trianon we couldn’t find had been located in the Regent’s castle, and I knew for certain that Marie had been there last night, and I was certain Anushka had been in her company. My own blasted mother had performed for her. Chris would argue that it was still no proof. That we needed to investigate the mark outside the city. Yet even before I’d heard his argument, I was already dismissing it. It would only be another grave out in the middle of a field or a forest.

  She could have left Trianon, Chris’s phantom voice echoed in my head. If she knows you’re after her, perhaps she has fled. I brushed the voice of my friend aside – my gut told me that Anushka would not flee from me.

  But what about the trolls?

  “Bloody stones, shut up!” I swore.

  “Mademoiselle?”

  Tipping my head, I peered out of the depths of my covers with one eye. The maid stood in the doorway, one eyebrow arched. “Not you,” I said. “The… the neighbors are being loud.”

  “It is quite late in the morning,” she said pointedly, her gaze flicking to my untouched tray.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, eyeing its contents again. My stomach did flip-flops. “I’m feeling under the weather. I don’t think I can eat a thing.”

  A soft little sniff told me exactly what she thought of my malaise. “Will you be wanting lunch?”

  “I’ll let you know,” I said, still eyeing the wasted food. “For now, I’ll rest.”

  I waited for her to leave, then I dragged a chair under the door’s handle so she wouldn’t be able to sneak up on me again. Retrieving a pencil and a piece of stationery from my desk, I went back to my bed and got under the covers again. From under my pillow, I extracted the blood-smeared map with its hastily scrawled list of names and dates, and I carefully began to copy them out in order.

  They spanned the past five centuries; the oldest tomb had been so weatherworn that we’d barely been able to make out the names and dates. Chewing on my fingernail, I carefully calculated the age of each woman at her death. No pattern. I calculated the years between their births. No pattern. I began calculating the years between their deaths. Eleven years. Nineteen years. Thirty-eight years. I flung my pencil down with annoyance, not bothering with the rest.

  The dead women were connected to how Anushka was managing immortality, I was sure of it. But how? Killing them would certainly give her a glut of power, but it wouldn’t last more than a few days, and nothing I’d read suggested that such behavior would prolong life. If that were the case, other witches would have discovered it and capitalized upon it. She had to be doing something with the power, but no matter how far I stretched my mind, I couldn’t think what. A witch couldn’t heal herself, and what was immortality if not a cure for old age? It didn’t make sense. She had to be doing it another way.

  I picked up the grimoire Chris had stolen and began going through the pages. Flip, flip, flip. The pages rasped against my blanket as I turned them, and then I stopped.

  The grimoire was full of spells combining regular magic and blood magic to manage certain afflictions of the body, but only now was I noticing a theme among many of them. Potions to keep hair dark, creams to wipe away wrinkles, and tonics to keep skin firm. While the spells would do nothing for the subject’s longevity, a combination of them would certainly replicate the appearance of immortality – the individual using them might well drop dead of old age, while appearing to all who looked on as though they were in the bloom of youth.

  I rested my chin on my wrists. Catherine had been Lady Marie’s maid. I suspected Marie was helping Anushka, so wasn’t it possible she had enlisted Catherine, and maybe others before her, to help maintain her immortality? If one could use magic to combat the exterior signs of age, couldn’t one do the same for the interior degeneration? It would be complicated, and the spells would need continual renewal, but it might be possible. The only certain thing was that she’d need the help of other witches to do it.

  My heart started to beat a little faster. Maybe that had been the reason for Catherine’s fall from grace – that she’d refused to help Anushka with her foul magic any longer.

  I wondered how much Catherine knew. Whether Marie and Anushka had entrusted her with their secrets, or whether they’d only used her for her skills. Catherine had said Marie dismissed her for meddling in business she shouldn’t have, which could well be Anushka’s relationship with the trolls.

  Snapping the book shut, I rolled onto my back. One question remained, itching and nagging at me, demanding to be scratched. If Anushka knew who I was, who I was working with, and that I was on her trail, why hadn’t she tried to kill me yet?

  The canopy of my bed seemed to swim above me, and I shut my eyes, trying desperately to think objectively about why she was keeping me alive. Was she toying with me, like a cat does with a mouse? Was she garnering some perverse sort of amusement watching me chase after her like an ignorant fool, waiting for the entertainment to play out before she ended my life? It seemed a reckless way to behave, but maybe after five hundred years of life one developed a different perspective on risk? Or was there something about me she thought was of use?

  The door handle rattled. “Cécile? It’s Sabine.”

  Tumbling out of bed, I hurried to the door and pulled the chair out from under the handle. “What are you doing here?”

  “Helping you.” Backing me into the room, she shut the door and put the chair back under the handle. “I crossed paths with your maid on her way to the market, and she told me Genevieve has clamped down on your ‘midnight gallivanting’ and ‘scandalous behavior,’ whatever that means.” Kicking off her boots, she climbed onto my bed. “So I’m here to help you with whatever you need.”

  I perched on the covers next to her, not sure what to make of what she’d said. “Sabine…”

  “I know,” she said. “What’s changed?” Her fingers plucked at my bedspread, her expression contemplative. “I suppose I thought time would change things back to the way they used to be. To the way you used to be. That you’d forget about them, and… Tristan. That the trolls would cease to exist if we stopped paying them any attention. Or at the very least, that we could go back to a life where they didn’t affect us.” She winced. “Now that I’m saying it, it seems so childish.”

  I pulled the covers over my feet. “Maybe. But sometimes when you want something
badly enough, it doesn’t matter if it’s realistic. Or right.” She’d never been to Trollus – until I’d told Sabine the truth, the trolls were nothing more than children’s stories to her, so I could imagine how she would think shutting the book and putting it away would mean they’d cease to exist.

  She nodded. “The thing was, once you told me about them, I started to see signs of them, or at least their influence, everywhere. I began to remember things that happened in the past that I found strange in the moment, but then forgot about. The way Chris’s father would buy all the excess from the farms around the Hollow to sell in the Courville markets, but never seem to know what was going on in the city. The way merchants would stop in at my parents’ inn for lunch on their way to Trianon, but then pass back through in less time than it would take to make the whole journey, wagons empty.”

  She blew a breath of air through her teeth. “And since we’ve been in Trianon, it’s even more noticeable. I’ve watched merchants from the continent unload their ships’ holds into wagons, bypass the Trianon markets, and head south, but there is no market between here and Courville for a hundred bolts of silk, and if their destination was Courville, why wouldn’t they sail there directly? Obviously because it’s intended for Trollus.”

  I gaped at her in astonishment. Not because what she was saying didn’t make sense, but that she’d noticed all these comings and goings and I hadn’t. I knew I wasn’t the most observant, and that I’d a tendency to walk around with my head in the clouds, but it was alarming that I’d miss something so obvious.

  “All these merchants know about the trolls,” Sabine continued. “But more importantly, no one interferes with them. No one asks questions. Which means others either know about them too, or they’ve been paid off. Hundreds of people must be aware the trolls exist, but they remain a secret from most everyone on the Isle. The only way that’s possible is that they are more in control than anyone realizes.”