“But you always tell us that one person can make a difference,” the diva countered. “Isabelle might be such a person. If Volkmar can change his fate, and the fates of thousands more, why can’t this girl do the same?”
Chance gave a joyless laugh. “Isabelle can barely walk.”
The diva sat down heavily. Everyone looked leaden and defeated. No one spoke.
Until the magician strode in from the night through a pair of glass doors that opened onto the terrace. She was wearing riding boots, britches, and a close-cut jacket, all in black. Her lips were rouged. Her color was high. She was holding a dark flower in one hand.
“It took me a while, but I found the night orchid you wanted. For Courage.”
Chance shook his head. “I won’t be needing it anymore. My inks don’t work.”
The magician looked from Chance to the others. “What happened? Did somebody die? Why are you all sitting around like mushrooms?” She made a face. “It stinks in here. Like surrender. Failure. And rot.” Her eyes narrowed. “It’s the crone. She’s been here, hasn’t she? Who let her in?”
The cook sheepishly raised his hand.
“Never, ever do it again,” the magician scolded, opening the rest of the terrace doors. “She’s like sulfurous gas from a fumarole. Bad air from an old mine. She poisoned you. Made you think you have to accept things rather than fight to change them.”
She pushed the cakes off the silver tray, opened the neck of Chance’s shirt, and fanned him with it. Then she strode over to the cook and slapped his cheeks.
“Snap out of it!” she ordered. “If the inks don’t work, then we’ll find something that does.”
A breeze blew through the open doors, freshening the room. Chance blinked, then looked around as if he were waking from a deep sleep. A little spirit trickled back into him.
“There was something on the map. Something—” he started to say.
The cook snapped his fingers. “Something that bothered the crone. I caught that, too. If it’s not good for her, it’s very good for us.”
Chance was back at the table in a flash with the cook right behind him. He put his glasses back on, then trailed his finger over Isabelle’s path, searching for whatever it was that had rattled Fate.
He moved past the day Isabelle cut her toes off, past Ella leaving, to where Volkmar’s brutal line started, and beyond, to where it finished, and then he went back and retraced the line, but he didn’t see anything he hadn’t seen before. Even with the glasses, he couldn’t see as clearly as the Fates.
And then he did see something.
It was faintly etched. But it was there. A detour. Newly made. “Yes!” he shouted, clapping his hands together.
“What is it? Speak, man!” the cook said.
Chance ripped his spectacles off and handed them to him. The cook put them on, squinted at the map, then grinned. “Ha!” he cried. “No wonder the crone’s face looked like a bucket of spoiled milk! That path—”
“Isn’t Fate’s work, or Volkmar’s … it’s hers. Isabelle’s. Her actions redrew her path,” Chance finished, his eyes dancing. “I was right. She can change. She will change. We’re going to win this game. We’re going to beat the Fates.”
“Easy. It’s only a start. Let’s not get cocky,” the cook cautioned.
“It’s more than a start,” Chance insisted. “Did you see where it led?”
The cook peered at the map again. “It looks like a tree … an old linden …” He took the glasses off. “Bloody hell,” he said, turning back to Chance. “Do you know who that is?”
“Tanaquill,” Chance said.
“The fairy queen?” the magician asked, joining the two men. “Chance, she’s—”
“Very, very powerful,” Chance cut in.
“Actually, I was thinking murderous,” said the magician.
“Did Isabelle summon her?” the cook wondered aloud. “For what purpose?”
“I doubt it was to invite her to tea,” said the magician, with a shiver.
“I can’t quite make that out. The glasses aren’t powerful enough, but I think Isabelle asked her for help,” said Chance. He ran his hands through his braids, then pointed at the cook. “I’ll need a gift. I can’t go empty-handed. Are there any rabbits in the larder?”
“I used the last ones for the stew we had tonight. I have pheasants, though,” he replied, heading for the kitchen.
“I’ll take them,” said Chance.
“You’re going to look for Tanaquill now?” the magician asked. “It’s nearly midnight!”
“I don’t have a choice,” Chance said. “Fate saw that detour, too. She’s hunting for the fairy queen as we speak, I’m sure of it. I’ve got to find her first.” He sped off after his cook.
The scientist, his face etched with worry, picked up the rose-tinted glasses and polished them. “She’ll eat him alive,” he said.
The magician stared after Chance, a worried look on her face. “You’re right,” she said. She patted her hip, making sure her dagger was there, then added, “I’m going with him.”
The fairy queen was standing in a clearing in the Wildwood, an enormous yellow-eyed owl perched on her forearm.
It was well after midnight, but the darkness only set off her vivid presence. Her russet hair was braided and coiled. A circlet of antlers adorned her head. She wore a dress that shimmered like a minnow, and over it a cape of gray feathers held together at the neck by a pair of large iridescent beetles, their powerful pincers clasped.
Chance had found her by following her magic. It left traces, silver drops that gleamed on the forest floor, then slowly faded. As he and the magician watched, hidden in a copse of birch trees, Tanaquill stroked the owl and whispered to him, heedless of the sharp, curved beak that could crack bone and rip out hearts, of the curved talons that could flay hide.
“Ready?” Chance whispered. The magician nodded, and they both stepped out into the clearing.
“Hail mighty Tanaquill!” Chance called out. “My search is at last rewarded. It’s an honor to be in your presence.”
Tanaquill laughed. It was the sound of the autumn wind swirling dead leaves around. “You’ve been in my presence for a good half hour, cowering behind the birch trees. I smelled you. And your pheasants.”
Chance approached her, with the magician close behind him. “Please accept them, Your Grace, as a small token of my esteem,” he said with a bow, holding the birds out.
With a sneer, Tanaquill refused them. “Leave them for the vultures,” she said. “They like dead things. I prefer my tribute living. The heart beating, the blood surging.”
She put a hand on Chance’s chest. Leaning in close to his neck, she breathed in his scent, licked her lips. Chance was enthralled by her beguiling green eyes, like a mouse transfixed by a snake. He’d let her come too close.
The magician saved him. She pulled him away, then stood in front of him, her hand on the hilt of her dagger. Tanaquill snarled like a fox who’d lost a nice fat squirrel.
“Why are you here? What do you want of me?” she asked.
“Your help. I want to save a girl. Her name is Isabelle. You know her. I have her map. Drawn by the Fates. It shows that you spoke with her.”
“And just how did you come to possess the map?” Tanaquill asked. “The Fates guard their work closely.”
Chance explained. As he finished, Tanaquill made a noise of disgust. “I want nothing to do with your foolish games,” she said, walking away. “I do not serve you or Fate. I serve only the heart.”
Chance took a desperate step after her. He couldn’t let her slip away. He was certain something important had passed between her and Isabelle. Something he could use to help the girl.
“Volkmar comes closer to Saint-Michel with each passing day,” he said.
“What of it?” said Tanaquill with a backhanded wave.
“He has rewritten Isabelle’s fate. In blood. But she can change it. If she can change herself.”
> Tanaquill’s laughter rang out through the Wildwood. “That selfish, bitter girl? You think she can best a warlord?”
“It is not only the village, and the mortals who live in it, that will fall. Volkmar plunders and burns everything in his path. The Wildwood and all that dwell in it … they will not survive him, either.”
Tanaquill stopped. She turned around. Sorrow and anger warred in the depths of her fierce eyes. Chance saw her distress. And pushed his advantage.
“Please, I beg you. What did Isabelle say to you?”
“She asked for my help,” Tanaquill said at length. “She wishes to be pretty.” The fairy queen spat the word.
“And did you grant her wish?”
“I told her I would help her,” Tanaquill replied in such a way that Chance had the distinct feeling she was evading his question.
The fairy queen continued. “I also told her that she would have to earn my help by finding the lost pieces of her heart.”
“Those pieces … what are they?” asked Chance.
“Why should I tell you? So you can find them and drop them into her lap?”
“So I can give her a chance. That’s all I ask. A chance at redemption.”
Tanaquill smirked. “Redemption? Would that be for the girl? Or for you?”
Her words cut Chance. He flinched, but his gaze did not falter. His smile was no longer golden but naked and vulnerable. “Both, if I’m lucky,” he said.
Tanaquill’s eyes held his. Her gaze was piercing. Then she said, “Nero, a horse. Felix, a boy. Ella, a stepsister.”
As soon as the words had left the fairy queen’s lips, Chance shot the magician a look. She nodded, then melted away into the woods.
“Thank you, Your Grace,” Chance said fervently. He took her cool, pale hand in his, lifted it to his lips, and kissed it.
Tanaquill growled, but there was little threat in it. “What happens next is up to the girl. Not you. Not Fate,” she warned as Chance released her.
As if on cue, Fate walked into the clearing. “Ah, Tanaquill! Well met by moonlight!” she said. She gave Chance a smug smile. “Taking the night air, Marquis? A bit stuffy in the château?”
Chance’s stomach sank to his boots. How much of our conversation has she overheard? he wondered anxiously.
Fate had a basket on her arm and a raven on her shoulder. “Are you hunting mushrooms, too?” she asked the fairy queen.
“I know why you’ve come,” the fairy queen said, ignoring her question. “But I’m afraid your adversary here”—she nodded at Chance—“has beaten you to the draw.”
Fate’s smile soured. Chance let out a shallow breath of relief. Perhaps she had not overheard them.
“Leave the girl alone, Tanaquill,” Fate said. “This is not your fight, and she is not worth your efforts. Stick to the woods. Go hunting.”
The fairy queen whirled on her, snarling with fury. Fate stumbled back. Her raven squawked.
“Do not patronize me, crone. I have been summoned by a human heart and am not so easily put back in my box,” Tanaquill warned. “You could no more contain me than you could contain a hurricane. I am older than you. Older than Chance. Older than time itself.”
She waved her hand. There was a high-pitched shriek, a blur in the air. The raven never saw the yellow-eyed hunter coming. The owl tore the bird off Fate’s shoulder and drove it to the ground. Then it lifted its wings over its prey and screeched at Fate, daring her to take it.
Fate did not. She stood still; her body was tense. Her eyes—back on Tanaquill—were calculating, like those of a lioness who wishes to attack a rival but is not certain of a win.
Tanaquill saw her wish. “I would not if I were you. Have you forgotten what I am? I am the heart’s first beat and its last. I am the newborn lamb and the wolf that rips out its throat. I am the bloodsong, crone.” She tossed a glance at the struggling raven and smiled. “So much for your box.”
And then she was gone, vanished into the darkness, and her owl with her. And where the raven had been a girl sat, her chest hitching, her trembling fingers hovering over the gouges on her neck.
“Up, Losca,” Fate ordered. “Go back to my room. Wait for me there.”
Losca stood. She stumbled out of the clearing on unsteady legs.
“That owl could’ve killed the poor girl. Why don’t you pack up, before someone else gets hurt?” Chance said gloatingly. “I’ve as good as won this wager.”
Fate regarded him coolly. “Go back to your château, Marquis. Get some rest. You’ll need it. I believe you have a horse to find. A boy. And a stepsister, no?” she said, walking away.
Chance swore, furious. The crone had overheard his conversation with Tanaquill.
Fate stopped at the edge of the clearing, turned back to him, and, with a poisonous smile, added, “Unless I find them first.”
Tavi stood by the kitchen door, cradling a bowl of fresh-picked plums, her white apron and the skirts of her blue dress fluttering in the morning breeze. She cast a skeptical eye over the contents of the large basket Isabelle had placed in the back of their wooden cart.
“But what if the orphans don’t want eggs?” she asked.
“Of course they will,” Isabelle said, adjusting a buckle on Martin’s harness. “Orphans don’t have much. They’ll be happy to get them.”
Tavi raised an eyebrow. “Do you even know where the orphanage is?”
Isabelle shot Tavi a look. She didn’t reply.
“Do you have your sword with you?”
“I don’t need it,” Isabelle said.
The truth was that she didn’t have it. She’d woken up this morning, two days since she’d used the sword to fight off the deserter, and had discovered that it had turned back into a bone, as if it had sensed that the danger has passed. She’d put it back in her pocket with Tanaquill’s other gifts.
“And exactly why are you giving away our much-needed eggs?” Tavi pressed.
“Because it’s a nice thing to do. A good deed.”
“Still trying to find the pieces of your heart?”
“Yes,” Isabelle said as she climbed into the cart and settled herself on the seat.
“Have you figured out what they are?”
Isabelle nodded. She’d been thinking about it nonstop. “Goodness, kindness, and charitableness,” she replied confidently. “I’m working on the charitableness piece today.”
Tanaquill said that Ella hadn’t had to search for the pieces of her heart. Because she never lost them, Isabelle thought, as she lay in bed last night. Ella was always good, kind, and charitable. Maybe Tanaquill wants me to be those things, too.
“Izzy, I was serious when I said not to ride anymore. Have you been?”
Isabelle, who was leaning forward gathering Martin’s reins, sat up and looked at her sister. “You still think this is all because I hit my head?”
“I think this is all very strange,” Tavi said, carrying her plums into the kitchen.
Isabelle watched her go. “I haven’t lost my mind. Things will get easier, you’ll see,” she said quietly. “Things are always easier for pretty girls. People hold doors for you. Children pick flowers for you. Butchers hand you a free slice of salami, just for the pleasure of watching you eat it.”
And then she snapped Martin’s reins and set off.
Isabelle found the orphanage, tucked down a narrow road behind the church, without any trouble.
It was run by nuns and housed in their convent. An iron fence enclosed the building and its grounds, but the gate wasn’t locked. Isabelle pushed it open and walked inside, carrying her egg basket.
Children dressed in rough gray clothing were playing games in a grassy courtyard. A sweet-faced boy approached her. A few of his friends followed him.
“Here, little boy,” Isabelle said. “I brought some eggs for you.”
The boy took a few hesitant steps toward her. “My name’s Henri,” he said, giving her a close look. “And yours is Isabelle.”
&n
bsp; “How did you guess?” Isabelle asked, kneeling down and smiling.
“I didn’t. Sister Bernadette pointed at you when she took us to the market. She said we mustn’t ever be like you. You’re one of the queen’s ugly stepsisters. You’re awful and mean.”
Isabelle’s smile curdled. Two of the little girls who’d trailed the boy stepped forward. They started to sing.
Stepsister, stepsister!
Ugly as an old blister!
Make her drink some turpentine!
Then hang her with a melon vine!
Before Isabelle even knew what was happening, the children had all joined hands and were dancing around her like imps, singing:
Stepsister, stepsister,
Mother says the devil kissed her!
Make her swallow five peach pits,
Then cut her up in little bits!
They let go of one another’s hands when they finished their song and backed away giggling.
Isabelle decided to leave before they were inspired to sing another verse. “Here, take them,” she said, thrusting the basket out to Henri. “They’re nice fresh eggs.”
“I don’t want them. Not from you,” said Henri.
Isabelle felt a current of anger move through her, but she clamped down on it.
“I’m going to leave the basket here,” she said. “Maybe one of you can take it inside.”
Henri gave her a sullen shrug. He looked at the basket of eggs, then turned to his friend. “Do it, Sébastien,” he said.
“You do it, Henri,” said Sébastien. Henri turned to a little girl. “Émilie, you do it.”
Isabelle gave up. They could argue about who was going to carry the basket inside without her.
But that’s not what the children were arguing about.
Isabelle had only taken a few steps when she felt a pain, sudden and shocking, right between her shoulder blades. The force of the blow sent her stumbling forward. She caught herself and spun around.
Stepsister Page 11
