It took Mina a moment to grasp that he was talking to her this time. “Sixteen.”
“That’s old to still have a nurse, wouldn’t you say?”
She glanced at Hana, who seemed to have no reaction to the question. “Yes,” Mina said. “I’ve thought so for a while.”
Gregory nodded. “I agree. And we want to travel as lightly as possible.”
Hana still didn’t react, even though Mina was sure she was about to be dismissed. Maybe Hana didn’t care. Maybe she’d be thankful to get away from them both.
Gregory stood in front of Hana, placing a hand on top of her head. “Say good-bye to your nurse, then, Mina.” Before Mina could even ask what he was doing, Hana’s body had hardened to wood and clattered to the ground as a pile of twigs and branches.
Of course, Mina thought. The only maid willing to serve a magician’s lonely wife and daughter was one Gregory had created. She should have known.
Gregory walked back into the house, leaving Mina alone with the remnants of her nurse. She stared at the pile wide-eyed, and she shivered despite the sunlight. One moment Hana had been here, real and human, and now she was nothing but kindling for a fire. Mina kept waiting for tears to come—she may not have been fond of Hana, but she had never wished her dead. But no tears came, and her lack of emotional display made her feel …
Heartless.
But that’s what I am, she thought. That’s what I’ll always be.
Mina stepped over the pile and followed her father inside.
4
LYNET
Crouching in the snow, Lynet peered into the small, dingy window of the surgeon’s basement workroom. Over the past several weeks, she’d fallen into the habit of following the new surgeon instead of attending her lessons, but she thought it was a worthwhile trade. After all, could her lessons have taught her that the surgeon’s name was Nadia, or that she was only seventeen?
Lynet watched Nadia now as she read and made sketches in her journal, pausing only to push back the strands of black hair that kept falling over her eyes. She rested her chin on one hand, her fingers turning the pages with something like reverence. Sometimes the hint of a smile crossed her face as she scribbled down a note. Lynet loved these moments of calm most of all, when the focused, serious surgeon relaxed just enough for Lynet to see the person underneath. It was during these times that Lynet wished she could watch Nadia from inside the room rather than from outside the window, that she could speak to her and know her thoughts as well as her actions.
But it was too late for that now; Lynet had spoiled it all by following her for so long. How could Lynet ever speak to her and pretend not to know who she was or how she spent her days? Why would Nadia ever agree to speak to her when she knew how Lynet had haunted her like a ghost?
A sudden flurry of movement startled Lynet as two men came bursting into the room, one of them supporting the other, holding him up because his foot was mauled and bloody. Lynet’s stomach lurched. She recognized the wounded man as a kitchen servant, and she started to turn away from the gruesome sight, but then—then Nadia reacted, and Lynet couldn’t look away at all.
Nadia rolled up the sleeves of her tunic, revealing lean but strong forearms, and knelt to examine the foot. She moved quickly but precisely around the room, fetching a wooden block and—to Lynet’s horror—a saw.
Lynet knew what would happen next as Nadia propped the servant’s wounded foot on the block. The blood, the white of bone, the look of anguish on the poor man’s face as he bit down on a rag to keep from screaming—Lynet tried to block them from her vision. But she couldn’t stop watching Nadia during the entire procedure, her stern look of concentration the one source of stability during such a terrible scene.
Just once, when the amputation was complete and Nadia was bandaging the stump, did Lynet see the surgeon betray any sign of agitation. Nadia let out a single, relieved exhale, her eyes closing briefly, but only when her head was bent, her face hidden from the servants—but not from Lynet.
Lynet decided that was as much as she could handle for the morning, and she climbed up the castle walls to her bedroom window, thinking herself a coward. Here she was, unable to speak to a girl when that girl regularly faced horrors without even flinching. She decided she would at least look in on that kitchen servant later and make sure he didn’t lose his position because of his injury.
She climbed in through the window, swinging both legs over the ledge, and nearly let out a yelp when she saw her father sitting in her chair, waiting for her.
“Lynet, we’ve talked about this,” he said.
No matter how stern or forbidding her father tried to appear, he always seemed sad rather than angry—perhaps it was the way his voice sounded like a sigh, or the dark circles under his deep-set eyes, or the way his hair and beard always seemed a little grayer every time she saw him, as though he were slowly being drained of all color. Lynet would have preferred that he scold her so she could feel indignant in response, but she didn’t know how to respond to that disappointed note in his voice other than to apologize.
“I’m sorry, Papa, I was just…”
“Just skipping your morning lessons? Just climbing in through your window despite your father’s many warnings?”
“I’m sorry,” she said again, more softly this time.
He looked like he wanted to say something else, but then he shook his head and stood, holding his hand out to her. “We’ll talk about this later. Today of all days, we should be at peace with each other.”
Lynet frowned. “What’s today?”
He dropped his hand and raised his eyebrows in surprise. “It’s two weeks before your birthday. It’s time for our yearly visit. Have you forgotten?”
“Oh, that’s … that’s right,” Lynet said. She had been so distracted following Nadia that she had forgotten this day was approaching—or maybe she hadn’t wanted to remember. Tiny prickles went up and down her arms, but she forced a smile and said, “Are we going now?”
He nodded, and Lynet followed him out of the room. Lynet let her father lead, walking slightly behind him so that he wouldn’t notice the deep breaths she took to calm her nerves. Normally she would have prepared herself, but this year she had forgotten, and so the dread came to her all at once, in a flood of nausea.
They passed other members of the court as they made their way down to the courtyard and around to the garden, all of them bowing their heads in solemn greeting. Lynet could see on their faces the moment they remembered what day it was and where the king and the princess were going—a slight intake of breath, a smile quickly turned to a somber frown. Today was a day of mourning.
It was appropriate, then, that they had to walk past the Shadow Garden. Lynet ordinarily liked the garden, especially seeing it from above, where the bare branches of the trees stood out against the snow like trails of ink spilled over paper. Today, though, she could only think of Queen Sybil and the story behind all those dead trees.
Centuries ago, before Whitespring had earned its name, the Shadow Garden had been called the Queen’s Garden, because it had belonged to Queen Sybil. But when the queen’s only son was thrown from his horse to his death, the queen hanged herself from one of the trees in her garden. At the instant of her death, the winds changed, and snow started to fall over the northern half of the kingdom, though it was spring. The castle froze, the passing of time blurring into one long winter, and the Queen’s Garden remained in its new, grim state: a grove of dead trees, a garden of shadows. The Queen’s Garden became the Shadow Garden, the castle was renamed Whitespring, and the everlasting winter became known over the years as “Sybil’s curse.”
Past the garden, at the base of the North Tower around the back of the castle, was a small door slightly below ground level, a short flight of steps cutting through the snow. When they reached that door, Nicholas froze, eyes fixed on the handle. Lynet gently put her hand on his arm. “We don’t have to go this year, if you don’t want to,” she said, tr
ying not to sound too eager.
He rested his hand on hers for a moment, perhaps drawing strength from it. “No,” he said, “I wouldn’t deprive you of this. It’s the only time we have with her.” And without any more hesitation, he opened the door to the royal crypt, where Lynet’s mother waited.
Nicholas lit the lamp that hung by the door and held it up, offering his other hand to Lynet. The stairs down to the crypt were uneven and winding, and Lynet often had trouble with them, especially when she was little, so she gratefully took her father’s hand and let him lead her down.
Her father pressed her hand gently as they submerged into the stale air of the crypt, and she managed a weak smile in return. These visits meant so much to him; she didn’t want him to know that she always dreaded this day. They always honored her mother’s death shortly before Lynet’s birthday. When Lynet was younger, she hadn’t thought much of it, but now she understood that this was her father’s way of separating her mother’s death from her birth. He wanted to spare her the guilt of being the cause of that death. She was thankful for that, she supposed.
Lynet kept her eyes down as they passed through shadowed walls. She didn’t want to see the massive stone columns, because then she remembered that those pillars alone kept the crypt from collapsing under the pressure of the earth above. She didn’t want to glance up at the walls, because all along them were long, narrow alcoves, each housing a casket. The bodies of all her ancestors were here, and one day she would join them.
She had to look up, though, when they reached the Cavern of Bones.
Past the dead trees of the Shadow Garden was a statue of Queen Sybil standing over the lake. Her stone hands covered her face as she wept eternally, her grief strong enough to banish spring from the North. Here in the crypt, in the Cavern of Bones, was a statue of a different sort.
Lynet forced herself to look at Sybil’s bones, laid out on her bier. All around her were the remains of other skeletons, martyrs who had died on their knees when they came to pray to Sybil, asking her to end the curse that bore her name. Since then, the custom when passing through the Cavern was to stop and kneel and offer a prayer to Sybil in the hopes that one day her curse would end.
Nicholas knelt down, and Lynet followed, shutting her eyes to block out the sight of death. She prayed, as she had been taught, for the end of the curse, for the survival of the North, for respite from the cold.
When they finished their prayers and finally reached the alcove that held her mother’s casket, Lynet was so tense that she almost let out a moan of fear. Her father still held her hand tightly, and she was suddenly convinced that he would lead her straight into the casket to take her mother’s place.
“Papa, I—”
He shook his head. “You don’t need to say anything, my Lynetbird.” He released her hand only to put his arm around her and hold her close. “Look,” he said. “Look at her.” They were only words, but Lynet felt as though he were holding her eyelids open, forcing her to stare at that smooth wooden box.
“Every year,” Nicholas said, “when we come to see her, I always feel the pain of her loss all over again. I think of her laid out in that casket, her eyes forever closed, her soft hands crossed over her chest. I can imagine her so vividly as the woman she once was.”
Lynet could imagine her too: a corpse laid out, eyes closed, hands crossed—but the corpse had her own face. Thanks to the strong resemblance she shared with her mother, Lynet knew that if she opened that casket now, she would see something like herself—her own body, her own face—after nearly sixteen years of decay. Perhaps life was the only thing that set Lynet apart from her mother, the boundary between them as indistinct as a single breath. The faint sound of Lynet’s breathing, the rise and fall of her chest—without them, Lynet might have been indistinguishable from the woman in that box. She kept her eyes wide open, afraid that if she closed them, she would see the inside of the casket behind her eyelids.
Her father turned to her, studying her face. “You become more like her every year.”
“I’m not her,” Lynet said, barely above a whisper.
Her father smiled fondly, mistaking her terror for fear of inadequacy. “You will be. A few more years, and you’ll embody everything that she was.”
All Lynet wanted was to run outside and climb the highest tree, as far away as possible from this place, and then she would be more certain than ever that she was alive—that she was herself. But her father’s arm kept her weighed down beside him, and when they were finished paying their respects, Nicholas led her out of the crypt. Lynet followed in a daze, blinking away the sight of the casket.
Nicholas hugged her close and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “I’m so thankful for you, Lynetbird. On this day, especially, I see how fortunate I am.”
Guilt and pride mixed in equal measure in her chest—pride because she had made her father happy for one brief moment, and guilt because she knew she would disappoint him again. She could never be her mother, even if she’d wanted to be.
Only when they had emerged back into the fresh air did Lynet start to come out of her stupor and feel her blood flowing again. She could see the outlines of the dead trees in the garden and hear the distant lapping of the lake, all of these sights and sounds more vivid and sharp after the suffocating gloom of the crypt.
Her father’s voice seemed louder too as he said, “I have to meet with my council now, Lynet. Will you be all right on your own? Or perhaps you’d like to come with me? It would be good for you to see a council meeting.”
Mina had told her about those council meetings—a group of old men and women gossiping or else arguing over how much money to spend, while the king waited for them to make up their minds, and how they usually decided to do nothing at all. “No, thank you,” she said, “I’d like to go for a walk. Although … I wouldn’t mind going on your next hunting trip.”
He smiled at her in amusement. “Enjoy your walk, then. But don’t be late for your lessons,” he said, before heading back toward the courtyard.
When he was gone, Lynet practically threw herself at the nearest wall and started to climb. She didn’t even have anywhere to go, but she needed to climb up, away from the crypt, away from the bones and the stench of death. She found a jutting piece of stone as a foothold and found a ledge to bring herself up on top of the low, arched roof. She climbed up over the arch and then started down, toward the central courtyard. She almost slipped as she made her way across, and she relished the way her pulse sped in response—it was proof that she was alive, and that she was not the dead queen in her coffin. How could anyone mistake her for the late queen when she was scaling the walls of a castle? Would someone so delicate be able to climb these heights? Would someone so delicate risk her safety in such a way?
Lynet was overlooking the courtyard now, but she still felt like she was running away from something, and that if she stopped, it would catch her. It was a restless feeling, an itch that made her feel like her skin didn’t fit over her bones correctly. She thought she might leap out of herself and become someone new, and then she’d be at peace.
Leap. The thought appealed to her, made her heart race faster. The juniper tree was about five feet away from the edge of the roof, its branches inviting her. I can make that jump, she told herself. It was a farther distance than she had ever jumped before, and there was a voice in her head telling her that she was doing something pointlessly dangerous, but every muscle in her body ached to take that leap, to release whatever strange energy was building up inside of her. Her muscles tensed in preparation, and she relished the feeling of fear and elation that flooded her.
Lynet targeted the nearest juniper branch, its leaves covered in snow. She crouched lower, took a breath, and jumped.
One of her hands found the branch—and lost it again, her skin scraping painfully against the sharp bark as she tumbled down. She barely had time to absorb what had happened before her back hit the ground, her fall thankfully blunted by se
veral inches of snow.
I knew I couldn’t make that jump.
She lay there for a moment, eyes closed, and even though she had missed the tree, she did still feel a kind of peace come over her. That feeling of something moving under her skin was gone, replaced by a stinging pain in her left palm. She took deep breaths as her pulse began to slow.
And then she heard an amused voice from above: “What’s this? A bird fallen from her perch?”
“I’m not a bird,” Lynet shot back immediately. She opened her eyes and then inhaled sharply as she looked up at a face that had become familiar to her.
The girl from the courtyard. The surgeon she had been following. Nadia.
Lynet seemed to be familiar to her, too, because Nadia was staring at her, wide-eyed, from above. “No, not a bird, a princess,” she said. “I apologize, my lady. I didn’t recognize you at first.”
Lynet rushed to her feet and tried to brush the snow off her skirt, hoping also to brush off the indignity of having been found falling from a tree. But the juniper branch had scraped a layer of skin off her left palm—the source of the pain she’d felt earlier—and she winced when her hand met the rough fabric.
“Did you hurt yourself, my lady?” Nadia said, reaching for Lynet’s hand. As she examined Lynet’s palm, Lynet took the opportunity to observe Nadia up close. After weeks of peering through windows and running after her over rooftops, Lynet’s mind was reeling with new details. Nadia’s hair wasn’t black, as Lynet had previously believed, but a deep, dark brown. Her heavy eyelids were lined with long eyelashes. And her eyes—her eyes were staring back at Lynet.
“It’s fine,” Lynet said, snatching her hand back. “Just a scrape.”
“I can put something on it to help it heal, if you come with me. I’m the new court surgeon.”
I know, she nearly said. “If you insist. But just … just call me Lynet, as if I weren’t a princess.” She couldn’t bear such formalities from her, not when Lynet felt so familiar with her already.
Girls Made of Snow and Glass Page 4
