Stepsister

by Jennifer Donnelly

  “I don’t know,” Isabelle replied. She thought hard, then said, “Since a heart is where goodness comes from, maybe I could do some good deeds.”

  Tavi burst out laughing. “Do good deeds? You?”

  Isabelle glowered, offended. “Yes, me. What’s so funny about that?”

  “You’ve never done any!”

  “Yes, I have!” Isabelle insisted. “I gave Tantine a ride to the LeBenêts’ the other day. That’s a start.”

  “Oh, Izzy,” Tavi said softly. She reached across the table for her hand and squeezed it. “It’s too late for good deeds. People shout at us. They throw rocks at our windows. Mean is all we have left. And all we can do is get better at it. Good deeds won’t change anything.”

  Isabelle squeezed back. “Maybe they’ll change me, Tav.”

  Tavi rose to wash the dishes then, and Isabelle, seeing how dark it was getting, said she’d help her right after she locked up the animals.

  “Take the sword with you,” Tavi cautioned. “Just in case.”

  Isabelle did. As she lifted it off its hook, she wondered again how the fairy queen’s gift would help her attain her heart’s desire. She was glad to have had it, for it had helped save her life today, but pretty girls twirled parasols and fluttered fans. They didn’t swing swords.

  And yet, when Isabelle got outside and felt how the sword’s hilt fit so perfectly in her hand, how the blade was so finely weighted, she couldn’t help but take a swipe at a rosebush, then smile as several pink flowers fell to the ground. She decapitated two lilies as she walked, then whacked a blowsy blue hydrangea off its stalk.

  “The marquis told me to practice,” she said aloud, almost guiltily, as if some unseen person had accused her of enjoying herself.

  Dangerous characters were afoot. She was making sure she could defend herself, that’s all.

  It was magical, the sword. Incredible. Breathtaking. She couldn’t deny it.

  But it wasn’t her heart.

  And it never would be.

  She wouldn’t let it.

  As Isabelle fenced in the darkness, Chance, comfortably installed in the Château Rigolade, peered down at the flask of silvery liquid he’d concocted.

  All around him, his retinue busied themselves. Only the magician was nowhere to be seen.

  His attention focused on the flask, Chance was barely aware of the people around him. The silver liquid was simmering on a burner in the center of a diabolically complex distilling system. Its color was shimmering and rich, but Chance was not satisfied.

  His scientist had set up the apparatus on the enormous table in the center of the château’s dining room just after they’d arrived. It was surrounded by brass scales, presses and expellers, a mortar and pestle, and apothecary jars containing all manner of ingredients.

  Chance reached for one of the jars now. He removed its stopper, extracted a piece of yellowed lace, and dropped it into the flask. A spoonful of dried violets was added next, followed by a cobweb, a scrap of sheet music, a crumbled madeleine, and numbers pried off a clock face.

  The liquid bubbled and swirled after each addition, but Chance was still not happy. He combed through the jars, searching for one last ingredient. With a triumphant Aha! he found it—a pair of shimmering moth wings. As he dropped them into the flask, the liquid transformed into a beautiful faded mauve.

  “Perfect!” he declared. With a pair of tongs, he carefully lifted the flask off the flames and set it on a marble slab to cool.

  “I need a name for this ink,” he said to the scientist, who was working across from him. “A name for the feeling you get when you see someone again. After many years. Someone lost to you. Or so you thought. And you remember them a certain way. In your mind, they never age. But then suddenly, there they are. Older. Changed by time. Different, but exactly the same.”

  The scientist looked up from his work. He peered at Chance over the top of his glasses.

  “This person meant something to you?” he asked.

  “Could have. Might have. Almost did. Would have,” Chance said. “If the timing had been right. If you’d been wiser. Bolder. Better.”

  The scientist, spare and rigorous, not a man given to flights of fancy, put a hand over his heart. He closed his eyes. A wistful smile played across his lips.

  “Wonderfulness,” he said. “That’s the name.”

  Chance smiled. He wrote Wonderfulness on a paper label, stuck it on the bottle, and carried it to the far end of the table. The map of Isabelle de la Paumé’s life lay rolled up there. One never knew when a reunion might be called for. It was important to be prepared for any contingency.

  Other inks he’d created were scattered around the map. There was Defiance, a swirling red-orange ink made from ground lion’s teeth mixed with bull’s blood. Inspiration was pale gold, made from black tea mixed with cocoa, a pinch of dirt from a poet’s grave, and four drops of a lunatic’s tears left to ferment in the light of a full moon. And Stealth, the color of midnight, was composed of owl’s breath, hawk feathers, and the powdered finger bones of a pickpocket.

  Are the pigments bold enough, the formulas strong enough, to draw new paths? he wondered as he set the bottle of Wonderfulness down. He’d tried to make ink before, many times, but had never been able to devise tints powerful enough to undo the crone’s work.

  Dread jabbered at the edges of his mind now. He poured himself a generous glass of cognac from a crystal decanter to silence it. After draining it in one gulp, he sat down in front of the map. As he unrolled it, smoothing it flat, he couldn’t help but marvel at the beauty of the Fates’ work. Their parchment was the finest he’d ever seen, their inks exquisite, the quality of their drawing unparalleled.

  Isabelle’s full name was at the top of the map, hand-lettered in Greek, the Fates’ native tongue. Covering the rest of the parchment was the richly colored landscape of her life. Chance saw her birthplace, other towns she’d lived in, Saint-Michel. He saw the peaks and valleys, the sunny plains and the dark woods through which she had crossed. He saw her path, a thick black line, and the dotted, dashed, and hatched lines of lives that intersected hers.

  But it was what Chance could not see that so unnerved him.

  “Are they ready?” he called out impatiently.

  The scientist, polishing a pair of wire-framed eyeglasses with a soft cloth, nodded. He brought them to Chance.

  “They’re powerful?” asked Chance, taking them.

  “Very. I ground the lenses myself. The left gives you hindsight; the right, foresight.”

  Chance held them up to the light. “Pink?” he said as he looked through the lenses. It was not his favorite color.

  “Rose,” William corrected. “It’s hard to look at mortal life any other way. View it through clear lenses and it breaks your heart.”

  Chance put the eyeglasses on, hooking the curved ends behind his ears. As he gazed at the map through them, he caught his breath. The entire parchment looked like the pages of the clever little books paper cutters made for children in which everything popped up.

  No one, certainly no mortal and not even Chance himself, possessed the Fates’ sharpness of vision. They drew with such painstaking detail that most of their art was impossible to see with the naked eye. Chance had stolen many maps from the three sisters, but never before had he been able to view their work so clearly.

  All along Isabelle’s path, the moments of her life stood out in vibrant three-dimensional scenes. He saw her as a child, fencing with a boy. He saw her standing in front of a mirror in a fancy dress with tears in her eyes. And he saw her at the village market, just a few days ago, arguing with the baker’s wife.

  “You’re a genius,” he whispered.

  The scientist smiled, pleased.

  But Chance did not return the smile. His pleasure in the power of his new eyeglasses to show Isabelle’s past so clearly was tempered by the knowledge that they would also reveal the details of her future. He already knew what lay at the end of
her path, for he’d seen it when he was in the Fates’ palazzo, but he didn’t know exactly when it would occur.

  He might have weeks to prevent it, even months. Then again, he might have only days.

  His eyes darted to the bottom of the map, seeking the answer to his question. The legend was there. It explained that an inch equaled a year and gave Isabelle’s birth date.

  The Fates’ seal was there, too. The crone put one on every mortal’s map when she completed it by dripping melted red wax onto the bottom of the parchment and pressing her skull ring into it. The resulting impression was a death date, for the closer a mortal came to the end of her path, the darker the skull turned, deepening from bloodred to black.

  The skull on Isabelle’s map was a somber burgundy, streaked with gray.

  “She has only weeks left. Weeks,” Chance said. He pressed a shaky hand to his head. “How the devil am I going to undo this?” he muttered.

  He snatched his quill off the table, dipped it in Defiance, and started to draw Isabelle a new path, one that led away from her terrible fate. The ink shimmered brightly on the parchment.

  “Ha! Defiance, indeed!” he crowed, encouraged.

  But an instant later, the ink started to fade and then disappeared completely; the parchment had sucked it in like desert sands absorbing rain.

  Chance took another tack. He dipped the quill into Defiance again and tried to cross out what lay at the end of Isabelle’s path, but no matter how much ink he scribbled, stippled, hatched, and dripped onto the parchment, Isabelle’s fate still showed through, like a corpse bobbing to the surface of a lake.

  Swearing, Chance threw the quill down. He took his glasses off and put them on the table. This was a disaster. His inks weren’t strong enough to draw so much as a detour, never mind counter the violent reds and slashing blacks that had been put there not by the Fates but by one whose power to change paths was growing stronger by the day.

  The scientist looked up from his work. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  Chance was about to reply when a loud, insistent pounding at the door stopped him. It echoed through the château, shaking the furniture and rattling the windows.

  The cook, who had just walked into the dining room from the kitchens, set down the silver tray of pretty cakes he was carrying. He hurried out of the dining room, through the château’s grand foyer, to a window at the side of the door. “Destiny calls,” he shouted back to the others, glancing out of it.

  The sword-swallower held up his hands. “Everyone stop talking!” he whisper-shouted. “Maybe she’ll go away!”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. She knows we’re here,” said the diva. “The whole village does. We don’t exactly blend in.”

  The knock came again. Chance groaned with frustration. A visit from the crone was the last thing he needed.

  “Open the door,” he finally said. “Let her in. But keep an eye on the map, all of you.”

  “My dear marquis,” said Fate as she walked into the hall, a raven on her shoulder. “What a handsome home. And what …” She paused, walked over to the table, and examined the distilling apparatus. “… interesting furnishings. Making gin, perhaps? Perfume?” She tapped a finger to her chin. “Or, possibly, ink?”

  Chance gave her a curt bow. “My dear madame,” he said. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”

  “Why, neighborliness, of course,” Fate replied. “We are dwelling in the same village, are we not? We must keep relations cordial.”

  She slowly strolled around the enormous hall, taking it in. As she did, the members of Chance’s entourage stopped what they were doing and eyed her, intrigued.

  “This is a magnificent château,” she said enviously. “I wish my accommodations were half as nice.”

  “Are you not staying at the village inn?” Chance asked.

  “I was, but now I’m staying with …” She smiled, inclining her head. “Some long-lost relatives.”

  As she continued her stroll, her eyes fell on Isabelle’s map.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Chance said. “You won’t make it to the door.”

  Fate clucked her tongue. “I hope you haven’t made a mess of my work,” she said, running her gnarled fingers over Isabelle’s path.

  As her hand neared the end of the path, it stopped short, as if it had hit an obstacle. Fate’s mouth twitched. Her gaze sharpened. And then, as if remembering that eyes were upon her, she quickly rearranged her expression back to one of bemused coolness.

  Did I imagine it? Chance wondered. The cook was standing on the other side of Fate. He gave Chance a quick, barely perceptible nod. He saw it, too, Chance thought. What does it mean?

  “Why do you even bother?” Fate asked airily, turning to Chance. “You’ve brewed up a new batch of inks, but I doubt they’re any match for mine. What I draw cannot be changed. Not by you.”

  “But they can change it,” Chance said. “With a bit of luck, mortals can do incredible things.”

  Fate gave him a patronizing smile. “And some do. But one needs determination to change one’s fate. Courage. Strength. Things most mortals grievously lack. One needs to be exceptional, and the girl Isabelle, most assuredly, is not.”

  “She has courage and strength. A tremendous will, too,” Chance countered. “She just needs to find them again.”

  Fate’s smile turned brittle. “As usual, you are meddling where you should not. Let the girl enjoy what little time she has left. You will break her heart by encouraging her to want things she has no business wanting. Girls die of broken hearts.”

  Chance snorted. “Here are the things girls die of: hunger, disease, accidents, childbirth, and violence. It takes more than heartache to kill a girl. Girls are tough as rocks.”

  Fate paused, as a cat does before sinking its teeth into a mouse, then said, “But Volkmar is tougher.”

  Guilt bled into Chance’s eyes. He turned away, trying to hide it, but Fate had glimpsed it and she circled him for the kill.

  “Volkmar certainly changed his fate, didn’t he?” she said. “But he is an exceptional mortal. Exceptionally ruthless. Exceptionally cruel.” She nodded at the map. “It’s his work, that ugly scrawl at the end of Isabelle’s path, as you well know.”

  The scientist squinted in confusion. “I don’t understand … Volkmar redrew the girl’s map?”

  “Not with quills and inks as I do, but with the sheer force of his will,” Fate replied. “He is so bold, so strong, that he is able to change his fate. And by so doing, he changes the fates of thousands more.”

  “So his actions have compelled your inks to redraw his map,” the scientist reasoned. “And the maps of those whose lives he touches.”

  “Precisely,” said Fate. “Volkmar wishes to rule the world and begins his cruel campaign in France. One by one, villages and towns will fall to him as he tightens his noose around Paris. Saint-Michel will fall, too, and with such savagery that the young king will have no choice but to surrender. Volkmar will slaughter Isabelle in cold blood. Her sister. Her mother. Their neighbors. Every last person in this poor, forsaken place.”

  A gasp rose from several people in the room. The diva uttered a cry.

  Fate turned to her, affecting an innocent expression. “Did you not know? Did he not tell you?”

  The diva, tears welling, shook her head.

  “That is enough, crone,” Chance growled.

  But Fate, her gaze still on the diva, ignored him. “Why, my dear, don’t you see?”

  “I said stop.”

  But Fate did not. Eyes shining with spite, she walked to the diva and took her hands. “That is why your marquis is so desperate to change Isabelle’s fate. Because he himself brought it about!”

  It was utterly silent in the grand hall.

  Chance stood still, fists clenched, heart seared by shame and regret. No one else moved, either. No one spoke.

  Until Fate, circling back to him, said, “I have come, however unwillingly. I accept yo
ur stakes. We will play our old game. You know the rules … neither can force the girl’s choice. Or buy it. She may take what is offered or not.”

  Chance nodded stiffly. As Fate looked at him, something like sadness darkened her eyes.

  “If you loved these mortals, you would leave them—”

  “To your tender mercies?” he spat.

  “—alone.”

  “It’s because I love them that I won’t. They deserve a chance. Some of them never get one. This girl will.”

  “But will she take it?” Fate asked.

  “Thank you for your visit, but I must get back to work,” Chance said brusquely.

  Fate laughed, shaking her head. “She won’t. Humans are what they are—dreamers, madmen, but most of all, fools.”

  She let herself out of the Château Rigolade and disappeared into the night, but her laughter, harsh and mocking, lingered in Chance’s ears. He slammed the door shut after her and leaned his forehead against it. After a moment, he faced his friends and attempted to explain.

  “There was a party …”

  The cook shook his head. “There always is.”

  “… in a castle in the Black Forest. There was a sumptuous dinner. I drank a good deal of champagne. After dinner, there was a card game. The stakes were high.”

  “How high?” the cook asked.

  Chance grimaced. “One million gold ducats.”

  The cook swore. “You never learn, do you?”

  “I didn’t know then who he was … what he was. I didn’t know what he was planning. I never dreamt—” He closed his eyes against the crushing pain he felt. “Once he had the money, he used it to dark advantage. He built up his army, marched on France. Everything he’s done is my fault. I created him.”

  Chance lowered his head into his hands. The diva hurried to his side; she squeezed his arm.

  “Volkmar created himself,” she said. “He had a choice. He could’ve used his fortune for good, not ill.”

  Chance groaned in despair. He felt so weary. His bones ached. His heart hurt. Everything seemed pointless. All his energy seemed to have drained out of him. “The crone is right,” he said, sagging into a chair. “Mortals are fools. I should walk away. Leave them to their own devices. I mean to help, but too often I wreck things. And people.”