Stepsister

by Jennifer Donnelly

  “But my restraints …” Ella lifted her hands. She tried to say more but dissolved into sobs again.

  Isabelle took her face in her hands. “Listen to me, Ella,” she said sternly. “You need to trust me. You have no reason to, I know, but I’ll get you out of here. I promise. I—”

  “Where is that blasted boy? No matter, I’ll fetch it myself …” a voice bellowed.

  It was coming from right outside the tent. And belonged to Volkmar.

  Simple is the opposite of hard, Isabelle thought. Easy is also the opposite of hard. But simple is not the same as easy. Not at all. I bet Tavi has a theorem for that.

  Isabelle was babbling to herself. Silently. To calm her crashing heart. To force her lungs to pull air in. To distract herself from the fact that Volkmar von Bruch’s big black boots were only inches from her face.

  What she had to do was simple—get Ella and herself out of here—but it was far from easy. And Volkmar coming into the tent had just made it ten times harder.

  The instant she’d heard his voice, she’d put the gag back on Ella. Then she’d dived under the cot and pulled her skirts in after herself. She’d frozen, barely breathing, as he’d opened the tent flap and walked in.

  “Ah, Your Highness. Comfortable, are we? No? Well, you won’t have to endure it for much longer. Tomorrow the grand duke and I attack your husband’s encampment and barter your life for his surrender. Of course, I have no intention of upholding my end of the deal. But don’t worry. Neither of you will suffer. The men on my firing squad have excellent aim.”

  A very valuable bargaining chip, the grand duke had said. That chip was Ella.

  Isabelle’s hands knotted into fists. She could smell Volkmar—alcohol, sweat, and the greasy mutton he’d just eaten.

  “Now, where is that brandy?” Isabelle heard him say. Then, “Ah! There it is!”

  Volkmar left the tent. In a flash, Isabelle was out from under the cot and on her feet. She unknotted Ella’s gag again, then found a dagger on the table and used it to slice through the ropes binding her wrists and ankles. Ella stood unsteadily.

  “Walk!” Isabelle whispered. “Get the feeling back in your feet! Hurry!”

  While Ella took a few steps, Isabelle snatched the map off the table and rolled it up. As she did, a document that had been lying underneath it caught her eye. It was another map—one that showed the locations of Volkmar’s troops. Isabelle’s pulse raced as she saw it. This would turn the tables on Volkmar and that viper of a grand duke.

  She rolled the second map around the first one, then silently beckoned to Ella. The two girls slipped out of the tent the way Isabelle had come in. Once outside, Isabelle held a finger to her lips and listened. The camp was quiet. The gathering for Volkmar and the grand duke had broken up. Most of the soldiers were in their tents—most, but not all. Some still moved between the rows. Isabelle could hear them talking.

  When she was certain no one was nearby, she took Ella’s hand and started off. Staying low, they hurried, ducking behind the tents, careful to avoid any twigs, eyes peeled for movement. They had to double back and find a new route when a tent flap opened and a soldier put his boots outside, and again when they nearly ran out in front of a group of men smoking under a tree.

  Scared, disoriented in the deepening darkness, Isabelle nonetheless managed to work her way toward the outskirts of the camp. Just as they reached the edge of it, though, an alarm was raised. Terse voices quickly spread the message that the queen had escaped and must be found. Crouched behind the same tree that had hidden Isabelle when she first discovered the camp, they watched as soldiers hurried out of their tents, clutching swords or rifles. Then Isabelle grabbed Ella’s hand and blindly ran to the riverbank. Half skidding, half stumbling, they made their way down it.

  When they reached the water, Isabelle hiked her skirts with one hand, held the maps up high above the water with the other, and waded in. Ella, who was wearing delicate silk shoes, took them off, gathered her skirts, and followed. The river rocks were treacherous. After taking only a few steps, she slipped on one and fell. As she went down, she lost her grip on her dainty shoes and the fast-flowing water carried them away. Drenched, weighed down by her wet clothing, she struggled to her feet, lurched after her shoes, and fell again.

  “Leave them!” Isabelle hissed.

  Ella’s falls had made loud splashes. Had anyone in the camp heard them? Isabelle anxiously wondered. She stuffed the maps down the front of her dress to keep them dry, nervously glancing back at the bank. Then she walked to Ella and held out her hand. Ella took it. Isabelle pulled her up, and together the girls carefully picked their way over the stones.

  They were halfway across the river when a harsh voice rang out.

  “Stay right there! Hands in the air! Don’t move or I’ll shoot!”

  Isabelle couldn’t see the man shouting the orders. She couldn’t see anything. Soldiers were shining lanterns in her direction, blinding her. She tried to shade her eyes with her raised hands. She could hear dogs barking and snarling. Rifles being shouldered, triggers cocked. Her stomach tightened with fear.

  And then a voice said, “Ah, there you are, Your Highness. I was wondering where you’d gotten to. And who have we here?”

  “Lower the lanterns, you fools!” the grand duke ordered.

  His soldiers did so. Isabelle lifted her hands above her eyes.

  “It’s the queen’s stepsister. The girl who cut off her toes.” That was the grand duke. “I recognize her.”

  “I recognize her, too,” said Volkmar. “We met in Malleval.” His eyes glittered darkly. “Now we can finish what we started there.” He made his way down the riverbank.

  He can’t kill us both, not at the same time, Isabelle thought. And it’s dark. The soldiers aiming at us might miss.

  “Run, Ella, run!” she whispered. “Nero’s on the path to the Wildwood. You can make it.”

  Ella began to weep. “I won’t leave you,” she said.

  “No need for tears, Your Highness,” Volkmar taunted. “I’m not going to kill you. Not yet. Just your ugly stepsister. You should thank me for that.”

  He pulled his sword from its scabbard. The sight of it shocked Isabelle into remembering that she had a sword, too. And a shield. Instinctively, she reached toward her pocket, where she kept the fairy queen’s gifts.

  “Keep your hands up!” a soldier shouted. “Or I’ll shoot you dead!”

  Volkmar reached the bottom of the bank and stepped into the river. Isabelle’s insides turned to water. Fear threatened to overwhelm her, but before it could, she felt a sharp pain on her thigh. She looked down. Her pocket was bulging. Curved black thorns were sticking through the fabric of her dress.

  The seedpod! she thought, hope leaping inside her. Tanaquill’s last gift!

  But Volkmar saw it, too. “What do you have there?” he barked.

  The seedpod grew bigger. It pushed through the fabric, shredding it. The bone and walnut shell fell into the river. “No!” Isabelle cried. Desperation gripped her. All she had left was the seedpod. Maybe it would turn into a weapon, too. If only she could get it.

  But as she watched, the pod burst open. The seeds, which were red and shiny and as big as marbles, all fell into the water and sank. Then the husk fell in and was swiftly carried away. Her last hope disappeared with it.

  Volkmar was close now. Isabelle knew that he would kill her here and let the river take her body. Then he would use Ella to carry out his ruthless plan. Their lives were lost. Saint-Michel was lost. Everything was lost.

  He raised his sword, ready to swing it. Ella screamed. Isabelle braced for her death.

  But the blow never came. Because an instant later, Volkmar’s sword went flying through the air.

  And then Volkmar did.

  “Isabelle, what’s happening?” Ella asked, her voice shaking with fear.

  “I—I don’t know, Ella,” Isabelle said, reaching for her hand again.

  A vine, as thick
as a man’s thigh, had risen up out of the water, thrashing violently. It had caught the blade of Volkmar’s sword and launched it into the treetops; then it had slammed Volkmar against the riverbank. Thorns, some a foot long, sprouted from the vine. They’d carved red stripes in his chest.

  “Blackbriar,” Isabelle whispered. Just like the vines that grew on the trunk of the linden tree, the vines from which Tanaquill had plucked the seedpod.

  As Isabelle watched, another vine rose out of the water, and then another and another, dizzyingly quick. Until there were dozens of them. Reaching, spiraling, they cracked like whips, catching rifles, launching snarling dogs, knocking soldier after soldier to the ground, forcing the grand duke back. As they writhed, their thorns caught, tangling them.

  Some of the vines had shot up in front of the girls, other were rising behind them.

  “We’re going to be trapped!” Isabelle shouted. “Come on, Ella, run!”

  She pulled her stepsister after her. Ella stumbled over the slick rocks, tripping, stubbing her toes, falling to her knees. Each time she fell, Isabelle hauled her up again until finally they made it to the other side.

  As they staggered out of the water, panting, Isabelle looked back. The blackbriar vines had twisted together to form an impenetrable wall, twenty feet high. She heard commands being shouted behind it, guns firing, dogs barking, but nothing could get through. She and Ella were safe. For the moment.

  “We have to go,” Isabelle said, still gripping Ella’s hand.

  “What is that thing, Isabelle?” Ella asked, staring at the blackbriar wall.

  “Tanaquill’s magic.”

  Ella turned to her, smiling. “You found the fairy queen?” she asked excitedly.

  “She found me. I’ll tell you all about it later. We can’t stay here.”

  “Isabelle, how did you find me?” Ella asked as they hurried through the brush. “What were you doing in Volkmar’s camp?”

  Isabelle didn’t know where to start. “I was running away. On Nero,” she began.

  “Nero? But Maman sold him.”

  “I got him back. But Madame LeBenêt—our neighbor, remember her? The house burned down—”

  “What?”

  “We were living in her hayloft, and she wanted me to marry Hugo—”

  “Hugo?”

  “So that Tantine would give him an inheritance. But I don’t love Hugo. And he certainly doesn’t love me.”

  Ella stopped dead. She made Isabelle stop, too. “How did this all happen?” she asked, upset.

  “There’s no time, Ella,” Isabelle protested, glancing back the way they’d come. “I’ll tell you later. I’ll …”

  Her words trailed away. She’d been so focused on getting Ella out of the camp, she’d had no time to think of anything else. Now the enormity of the danger they were facing hit her. The grand duke was a traitor, in league with Volkmar, and Volkmar’s troops were hidden in the Devil’s Hollow, and Ella knew everything. Volkmar and the grand duke would try to stop her at all costs. She and Ella might not make it to safety. They might not make it out of the Wildwood, or even up the path.This might be her only chance to tell Ella what she needed to tell her.

  So she did. She told her everything that had occurred since the day Ella had left with the prince. About Tanaquill. The fire. The marquis. The LeBenêts. Tantine’s ultimatum. And lastly, Felix and his note, and how Maman had destroyed it and caused them both so much pain.

  “Things would have been so different, Ella. If we’d run away like we’d planned. If Maman hadn’t found his note and destroyed it. I would have been different. Better. Kinder.”

  “Isabelle …”

  “No, let me finish. I need to. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for being cruel. For hurting you. You were beautiful. I was not. You had everything, and I’d lost everything. And it made me so jealous.” Shame burned under her skin. She felt helpless and exposed saying these things, like a small desert creature, tumbled from its den and left to die in the sun. “You wouldn’t know what that’s like.”

  “I might know more than you think,” Ella said softly.

  “Can you ever forgive me?”

  Ella smiled, but it wasn’t the sweet smile Isabelle was used to. It was bitter and sad. “Isabelle, you don’t know what you’re asking.”

  Isabelle nodded. She lowered her head. The fragile hope she’d felt when she’d told Ella that she was sorry had just been shattered. She had found her stepsister, found another piece of herself that had been cut away, but it didn’t matter. There would be no forgiveness, not for her. The wounds she’d inflicted were too deep. Tears spilled down her cheeks. She had not known that remorse could feel so much like grief.

  “Isabelle, don’t cry. Please, please don’t cry. I—”

  Ella’s words were cut off by the sound of barking.

  Isabelle’s head snapped up. “We need to get going,” she said, wiping her eyes. “We need to find a safe place for you.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll think of something. The important thing is that we get you there without getting shot. All right?”

  Ella nodded. “All right,” she said.

  Isabelle gave Ella her hand. Ella took it and held it tightly. The two girls started running again.

  For their lives.

  Isabelle threw a pebble at the window.

  It hit a pane of glass and fell back to the street.

  She was standing in front of an old stone building at the edge of Saint-Michel. Looking nervously up and down the dark street, she picked the pebble up and threw it again. And once more. And finally, the window opened.

  Felix leaned out in a linen shirt that was open at the neck, holding a candle and blinking into the darkness.

  “Felix, it’s you!” Isabelle said breathlessly. He’d told her he lived over the carpenter’s workshop, but she wasn’t sure she’d had the right window.

  “What are you doing here, Isabelle?” he asked, bleary-eyed with sleep.

  “Can we come in? We’re in trouble. We need to hide.”

  “We?”

  “Felix, please!”

  Felix pulled his head inside. A moment later, he was at the workshop’s gate with his candle. Isabelle met him there. She pointed across the street. Ella was standing in the wide, arched gateway of a stonemason’s yard, holding Nero’s reins. She hurried toward them.

  “That’s Ella,” Felix said to Isabelle. “As in your stepsister. As in the queen of France.”

  “Yes.”

  “I forgot my trousers. The queen of France is standing at my door, and I’m in my nightshirt.” He looked down at himself. “With my knees showing.”

  “I like your knees,” Isabelle said.

  Felix blushed.

  “I do, too,” Ella said.

  “Your Royal Highness,” he said.

  “Ella will do.”

  “Your Royal Ella-ness,” he amended. “I’d bow, but … uh, this nightshirt’s a little on the short side.”

  Ella laughed.

  Felix ushered them into the work yard. Then quickly took Nero around the side of the shop to the stables at the back. After giving him a drink and putting him in an empty stall, he returned to the work yard and locked the gate. Moving quickly and quietly, he led the two girls through the workshop and up a narrow flight of stairs to his room. After he’d put his candle down on the small wooden table in the center of it, he snatched his britches from the footboard of his bed and awkwardly stepped into them.

  “Sit down,” he said, motioning to the pair of rickety chairs on either side of the table. Ella did so, gratefully, but Isabelle couldn’t. She was too agitated; she paced instead.

  “You’re bleeding,” Felix said, pointing at Ella’s bare foot.

  A cut snaked across the top of it. He got her a rag and some water to wash it, then handed her a pair of battered boots.

  “My old ones,” he said. “They’re too big for you, but they’re better than nothing.” He turned to
Isabelle. “So what did you do?”

  “What makes you think I did something?”

  “Because you always got into trouble and Ella never did,” Felix said, taking an oil lamp down from a shelf.

  As Ella, exhausted, closed her eyes for a few minutes, and Felix removed the glass chimney from the lamp, Isabelle told him what had happened. Anger hardened his expression as he listened.

  “After we escaped from Volkmar, we made it up the path and rode through the Wildwood,” she said, finishing her tale. “I didn’t know where else to go. I can’t go back to the LeBenêts’. Cafard’s men may be waiting there for me. I’m sorry, Felix. I didn’t mean to drag you into this.”

  “Don’t be,” Felix said. “I’m glad to help you and Ella. I just don’t know how.” As he spoke, he tipped his candle to the lamp’s wick.

  “I don’t know what to do, either,” Isabelle said, sitting down across from Ella. She moved things aside—chisels, knives, wooden teeth—leaned her elbows on the table, and rested her forehead in her hands.

  “We’ve got to get the maps I stole, and Ella, to the king’s encampment,” she said. “We have to prevent Volkmar from attacking Saint-Michel. But how? Soldiers will be out looking for us.”

  “Volkmar’s men?” Felix asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Isabelle said. “He won’t risk showing himself. Not yet. Not until he wipes out Cafard’s troops. It’s the grand duke we have to worry about. No one knows that he and Cafard are in league with Volkmar. No one but Ella and me. He may have ridden out of the Devil’s Hollow back to Cafard’s camp to send out search parties. If he finds Ella, she’s done for.”

  Felix trimmed the lamp’s wick, now burning brightly, then replaced the chimney. As the light illuminated the large attic room, Ella gave a little cry. Not one of fright or horror, but wonder.

  “What is it?” Isabelle asked, lifting her head.

  And then she saw them.

  Standing on the narrow shelves that lined the walls, on the mantel, on a dresser, in rows under the narrow bed, and jumbled into several crates and a large harvest basket, were carved wooden soldiers.