by Anna Bright
As we spun and stomped and the line of dancers chased its tail, I kept my eyes open, taking in the whole room. The party swirled with a few hundred people in a fantastic array of fashions—jackets and tunics and trousers, boots and slippers. And gowns, in every color, every fabric. Drop waists and empire waists, ballerina skirts and mermaid hems. Some new, some worn, some fine, some cobbled together from scraps.
I’d put on a cornflower-blue gown of my own and dressed Cobie in navy silk dug from the back of Margarethe’s closet. Pretty clothes, but unremarkable.
I’d intended us to be forgettable. Fritz’s face—his perfect, nondescript features—had given me the idea.
We danced and we watched. The Waldleute were here. They had to be.
My eyes roved the room, waiting for a sign. And suddenly, I spotted Lang, dancing with Margarethe.
He was wearing a mask, so it wasn’t his face I recognized first. Not the depth of his eyes or the dark of his lashes or the curve of his brows and his nose. It was his hands.
As he reached for Margarethe, I recognized at once the length of Lang’s fingers against hers, the shape of the perpetual charcoal smear around his middle finger and across the back of his hand. He’d been drawing again.
An odd ache spread through my stomach. And when the dance ended and Margarethe moved away, I surged forward, pushed past the girl who would have taken her place.
Lang shoved his mask up over his forehead. “Again?” he demanded.
“Keep dancing,” I hissed. I seized the hand some other girl had been about to take and circled him, rejoining the line.
“I told you not to come.”
“And I ignored you.” I spoke close to his ear. “I’m here to get some answers and to enjoy myself, and you’re not going to spoil it.”
“I’m enjoying myself, for once—” Lang grumbled, pulling his mask back into place. But Margarethe was gone, and his eyes weren’t seeking her out at the edge of the crowd.
I shook my head, taking his hand as we promenaded together. “No, you weren’t.”
“You’re right.” Lang’s fingers slid between mine, pressing the band Torden had given me against my fingers. “I wasn’t.”
I felt a flood of guilt, a wicked rush of power.
Lang was a good dancer; he sauntered, loose and bold, every step, every shift of his shoulders and torso in time with the music. He exuded confidence, and it attracted more appreciative glances than mine alone.
Wanting burned in me.
Eyes locked on one another, we circled once more. The music was loud, but not as loud as my heartbeat in my ears.
Lang bent his head, and his nose grazed mine, and the rest of the party suddenly seemed very far away.
I took a breath, drew back slightly. “Lang, I need to tell you something.”
Beneath the music and between our passes with other partners, I told him how I’d overheard the conversation between Hansel and Gretel. “And I realized tonight that one of them was Fritz,” I added, breathless. “And Lang, this is Burg Rheinfels. They talked about meeting here.”
“We could find them,” Lang murmured. “We might actually find them.” He gripped my waist and circled me again.
Potomac. My father. They were close enough to touch.
“And then,” I said, “we can go home.”
I found another partner after that dance, and Margarethe returned to Lang. We all watched the room from our places, seeking out secretive behavior, Cobie and I avoiding the freinnen.
I had lost track of the hours when Cobie appeared at my side later, her eyes wide and panicked. “Selah, the freinnen are leaving.”
“What do you mean?” I shook my head, trying to clear it of music and sparkle, trying to focus.
“We need to go,” she said, urgent. “If they beat us back to Katz Castle—”
“No!” I gasped. “They can’t!”
Cobie disappeared and reappeared in half a moment, Lang at her side. He seized my hand. “Come back with me, both of you. I’ll make up an excuse, say that we’ve been together.”
My stomach jolted at Lang’s touch; I ignored it. “Lang, you can’t make this go away. Margarethe knows you’ve been here.”
Lang cursed under his breath. “Hurry.” He pulled me through the crowd, pushed me toward the door, his calluses rough against my palms and my bare shoulders. “Hurry, hurry, and don’t get caught.”
We tore down through the woods and up the river, abandoning the rowboat Cobie had borrowed somewhere on the banks and swimming up the tributary beneath the castle. Cobie pulled herself onto the dock, the muscles in her arms straining, her navy dress black with water. I hauled myself up after her, slipping over the fabric of my gown.
We hurried down the corridor, hurried toward the chair propping the door open, hurried inside, ready to sneak into bed and put an end to this evening.
But the freinnen were already waiting.
Fritz was with them.
22
My heart plummeted, sick and heavy, into my stomach.
Cobie’s face paled.
“I knew it,” Margarethe said, low and deadly. She nodded at Cobie, whose navy gown was dripping. “I saw my dress across the room. Ruined now, of course.”
I didn’t know how they’d beaten us back. My mind raced.
Fritz stood beside Margarethe, his eyes on me baffled and hurt.
“You must think we’re fools.” Leirauh watched us from her bed, arms wrapped around her knees, white silk splayed about her.
I fought the guilt I felt beneath Fritz’s gaze. “It’s a dress, Margarethe. I’ll make amends. But while we’re settling accounts, I’ll make sure to add every night you thought you were drugging us to your bill. Besides”—I gestured expansively at the mountains of magazines, the dress forms, the fashion plates, the wardrobes—“it’s not as though you have nothing else to wear.”
“The gown is not the point.” Margarethe crossed her fine-boned arms. Her voice was as sharp as a seam ripper. “Though, for the record, we keep the magazines because Papa doesn’t think they count as books. He doesn’t fear what our delicate feminine minds will do with fashion, as he doesn’t consider it art.”
“The more fool he. He has no idea what your delicate feminine minds are capable of,” I snapped. I paused, studying their faces—Leirauh, Margarethe, Fritz. All alike but one. “I would ask if the risk of defying him was worth it, but I’ve been to your parties.”
“The parties are not the point.” Fritz shook his head, frustrated. “You can’t even see how much you don’t understand.”
“I understand that being trapped in this room would drive anyone to distraction.” Cobie’s teeth were chattering. “That anyone would go to secret parties if their only respite was a sewing room.” She turned toward the wall and began to strip out of her gown.
“This isn’t about release,” Fritz burst out, turning on me. “I told you when you arrived that I had too much on my mind to tangle with women. I should’ve trusted my first impulse.” The words were cruel, but his expression was pained.
I held up my palms. “I would’ve been happy to mind my own business. But I think my curiosity about being drugged was understandable!”
Cobie stood, clad now in black pajamas. “I suggest you start explaining before we go to our crew and instigate an early departure.”
“No, please!” Leirauh blurted, sitting up. “Don’t.”
Cobie and I exchanged a glance. “Why not?” I asked.
“Because.” Leirauh’s expression tightened, her eyes sad and worried. “They’ve done this for me.”
I was already wearing a dripping gown, already standing in a chilly stone room. Who would have thought I could have gotten any colder?
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Tell her nothing, Leirauh,” Margarethe bit out. Ursula stepped to her side. “She is not to be trusted.”
“You did,” I said to Fritz. “You were beginning to trust me.”
“A
nd much good it did me,” he said soberly.
“I meant it when I said we understood each other, Fritz. I understand your desire to protect your family and your home, and if I can, I want to help.” I sank in front of Leirauh, my dress puddling around me on the flagstones. “Tell me what’s going on,” I said, glancing between her and Fritz.
“And if we don’t?” Margarethe fired back. Fritz crossed his arms.
Cobie’s dark hair was soaked, water running in rivulets down her back. She sat beside Leirauh on her bed. “And if you don’t,” she said quietly, “we’ll leave it alone.”
Fritz raised his eyebrows.
“This is clearly important,” I said to him. “Your sisters hurt us, but we can let it go. You took a risk to help me. So trust us or don’t, but we won’t endanger your plan. Although,” I added, “you should know we’re here to help.”
The fürst’s light brown hair was tousled with sweat, his perfect, nondescript features a painter’s nightmare and a con artist’s dream. I couldn’t read the expression on his face until he opened his mouth and spoke.
“I’ve told you, Selah, that Leirauh has different parents from the rest of us,” Fritz said. I nodded.
Leirauh cleared her throat. “What he didn’t tell you was that the hertsoh wanted to marry my mother before he married theirs.”
I blinked at her. “Did he know your mother first?”
Leirauh shrugged. “The hertsoh met Mama the way he met their mother. The way anyone knows an actress. From gossip and from his box seats at theaters abroad. But when they finally, really met, my mother wasn’t interested. So he married the woman who became theirs.”
Cobie cracked her knuckles. “And now . . . ?”
“And now,” Fritz finished tightly, “Leirauh looks like her mother, and my father believes he has a second chance.”
I swallowed. “What do you mean?”
I was sure I didn’t want to hear the answer.
“He’s declared he’ll marry Leirauh when she’s come of age,” Margarethe said falteringly. She pressed her hands together, and the bones in her fingers stood out, pale and worried. Ursula and Ingrid stepped close to her, their desire to comfort their sister intuitive. “He announced three months ago, on her seventeenth birthday, that their wedding would be a year and a day from then.”
Staring up at Leirauh from the foot of her bed, I thought I might be sick. “You’re the duke’s bride?” I finally managed to say. “You’ve been sewing wedding gowns and sitting with him at dinner and just—enduring this?”
It turned my stomach. Suddenly, Leirauh’s deliberate plainness made sense. She made no effort with her appearance until she was set free by night, until her beauty was no longer a dangerous gift she was forced to hide.
It was disgusting.
“That’s when Fritz had the idea to host the balls.” Leirauh’s blue eyes were bottomless. “We’d played at Burg Rheinfels when we were children. And Fritz thought if someone else fell in love with me and married me, that he could get me safely away.”
“Have you?” I asked. “Met anyone, I mean?”
Leirauh shook her head, smile wan. “Not yet. I’ve met lots of nice people, just—no one I’d want to marry yet.” She shrugged. “It’s marriage, isn’t it? I—I want to get out, but I want to be careful, too.”
I only wished I didn’t understand so well what she meant.
Leirauh’s story reminded me of Anya’s. For that matter, it wasn’t unlike mine.
I knew it by heart, and I hated every line of it.
“Why didn’t you just run away?” Cobie finally asked, shaking her head. “Anywhere would be better than here. Anything would be better than marrying a pervert who can’t decide whether he’s your father or your fiancé.”
“Run away where?” Margarethe demanded. “With what money? Under whose protection?” Her voice was acid. “This is the tsarytsya’s territory. It isn’t safe outside the towns. It isn’t legal.”
“Is that why you’ve been cozying up to Lang?” I asked. “Hoping he’ll get Leirauh out?”
Cobie held up a finger. “No. No more wayward princesses. Soon they’ll be showing up at the gangplank like stray pups.”
Margarethe gave a Cheshire cat smile. “Perhaps. Or perhaps I just think he’s handsome.”
I gritted my teeth and turned back to Fritz. “But you’ve been meeting with the Waldleute. Why didn’t you appeal to them?” He colored and dropped his gaze.
Margarethe laughed. “So you’ve figured it all out, have you?” I shrugged, not wanting to give myself away just yet. “You’ve heard some awfully generous rumors about them, if you think they’ll just rush to our aid.”
I drew back. “Are they—dangerous?”
“No,” Margarethe said. “But they’re not a charity. They have an aim, and that is to resist the tsarytsya and the Imperiya. Gretel and her Waldleute can’t concern themselves with private worries like ours.”
“Then why come to the balls in the first place?” I asked. “Why would they even agree to meet you?”
Fritz shrugged. “To recruit new members. To show their people a good time. Who can say? Gretel’s not the most forthcoming of contacts. When she accepted the invitation, I didn’t press her as to why.”
Leirauh said nothing. As if words were useless, because nothing could be done.
I shook my head, frustrated. “But you’re the freinnen,” I protested. I threw a hand at Fritz. “And you’re the reichsfürst!”
“And I am doing my best!” Fritz fired back. His voice and his eyes were strained. “I’m failing to protect my family and failing to repair a crumbling castle and failing to forestall the ruin of a dukedom my family has only held for forty years, and should never have had to begin with!” Fritz shook his head, smiling grimly. “Selah, haven’t you realized yet how little power I actually possess?”
The defeat in his tone was painful. “So bargain with her.”
“We don’t have money.” Fritz seemed to slump. “Not the kind of money that would change Gretel’s mind. And we own very little outright.”
“Access, then,” Cobie urged. “Surely. To secrets, to power, the kind of thing she wants.”
“What kind of access do you think we have?” Fritz returned. “Our court is a ruin. The Shvartsval’d lies on the edge of the Imperiya. The tsarytsya clings to it by her fingernails. And now, if you were seen or followed—who knows if the Waldleute will even meet with us again.”
“She doesn’t care about you—owing her a favor?” I suggested.
“We don’t have anything she wants,” Leirauh said softly. “Fritz and Margarethe have already tried.”
My stomach clenched. They had tried. Their expressions were the evidence of how hard they’d fought for one another, of how hard Fritz had fought to redeem the court and country whose ruin weighed so heavily on his mind.
Leirauh wasn’t a child—I was only a year or so older. But the hertsoh was raising her among his children. With the intent of making her his bride. It was repulsive.
The very idea of their marriage filled me with cold fury.
Anya’s adoptive father had been ready to pawn her off on the first likely ally for the sake of protecting Norge. I’d been furious at Konge Alfödr for not seeing what she and Skop meant to one another. For treating her like a resource instead of a person.
He looked positively reasonable in comparison to Duke Maximilian.
The night I’d been expelled from Potomac, my fear had poured through me like water. And my anger had run hot that night in Valaskjálf, toward Norge’s king, burning fiery enough to make me speak up for Anya, as no one had defended me in my own home. But here, in the bowels of the Neukatzenelnbogen, my fury froze cold as ice.
This time, I wasn’t going to speak up in Leirauh’s defense.
This time, I was going to act. I was going to end this, once and for all, and go home to my father.
“I have an idea,” I said slowly. “Give me some time to think.
Let me go back with you tomorrow.”
Fritz crossed his arms. “Why should we?”
“Because I can fix this.” Desperation rang through my every word. “I may have complicated your plans, but I can fix this. I told you—I came here to help.”
“And why should we trust you?” Fritz asked.
“Because she’s known the truth for days,” Leirauh said carefully, “and she hasn’t said a word to your father.”
I met Margarethe’s gaze. She lifted her chin, pugnacious, and crossed her thin arms.
“No, that isn’t why,” Margarethe said finally. “We can trust her because she’s tired of the same verdammt story—the one where a man in power makes a decision and a girl’s fate is sealed.”
Cobie looked up at Margarethe and smiled her feral smile.
Margarethe grinned back at us.
“Because she’s fighting the same battle you are, Leirauh,” she went on, “and she thinks she can help you win.”
23
The sisters didn’t offer us tea the following evening. And Cobie and I didn’t have to pretend to go to sleep.
We dressed with the freinnen after dinner, but this evening, there was no giddy scramble through the wardrobes. Tonight, we all wore Cobie’s signature color.
The twelve of us—Leirauh and the hertsoh’s nine daughters, Cobie, and me—wore gowns in a multiplicity of shapes, cuts, and lengths. But every last one of them was black.
Leirauh’s was stunning, off-the-shoulder, worked with silver beads that shone like stars. Cobie’s gown was simple, its jet silk loose around her lean frame, with thin shoulder straps.
The gown Margarethe lent me from Greta’s closet would not have suited Potomac. With its long sleeves and full skirts, I would have sweltered in our summer humidity. It would not have suited me in Potomac, either—at least, not as the girl I was. Its skirts were heavy with feathers, its waist and bodice paneled in black leather. Black pearls buttoned up the back, and the shoulders were ornamented with epaulettes made of obsidian beads. My rosary fit into a small pocket in the skirt.
