by Marie Lu
Even from here I could tell that he looked different. He had grown even taller, white bleeding into his skin like winter stripping the color from a tree, and his glowing blue eyes fixed on me with such intensity that I drew back from the window to catch my breath. When I shifted, my foot brushed past a cluster of edelweiss growing at the base of one step.
I looked back up the stairs. The flowers had appeared everywhere, surrounded by sprouts of grass. I swallowed hard. “Woferl,” I whispered, knowing that he could not hear me.
Something called my name from outside the window. “Fräulein. Fräulein.”
It was Hyacinth and his sweet, wild, savage voice. The kiss on my lips turned cold again. I trembled and did not reply, although a part of me yearned hungrily for his presence.
“My darling Fräulein,” he said. “It is time. We have done what we needed. Now, you must use the treasures you have fetched for me.”
My breaths had turned very rapid, and when I looked back out through the window, I could see his arm extended out in my direction. He was too far away for me to see his features, but I knew he was smiling.
“You never told me you were talking to Woferl,” I finally said.
He shook his head. “I do not speak alone to your brother,” he replied.
A lie, I thought. I could hear it in the air. “What are you telling him? What do you want with him?”
Hyacinth tilted his head at me. “What’s this? Are you questioning me?” He laughed a little and opened his arms. “I am your guardian, as I always have been. Come now. Our next task approaches. I must take the next step in helping you achieve your immortality.”
I watched him, wary, unsure of everything. Perhaps Woferl is the one teasing me, lying to me about Hyacinth. “What is the next task?” I decided to ask.
Hyacinth nodded toward the giant creature swimming through the river, its fins black and gleaming. “The river that surrounds my castle has been poisoned by a monster that now patrols its depths. The golden arrow you retrieved for me is the only weapon capable of penetrating its scales.”
The crossbow I had taken from within the rock pillars was already in my hands. The events of the night came back to me in a rush.
“How do you know this?” I whispered, clutching the crossbow’s handle until my knuckles turned white.
“Because,” Hyacinth replied, fear in his voice, “it has struck me before.”
And when I looked back at the arrow notched in the weapon I noticed the blood on its tip, black and dried.
Down in the river below, the monster spun and its fins flipped, roiling the water. My brother called for me from somewhere far away.
I hoisted the crossbow, resting it against the window ledge, and pointed it toward the moving creature. My hands wouldn’t stop trembling. I had never so much as crushed a bug in my life, and now my fingers froze, refusing to fulfill Hyacinth’s request.
“If you wait too long, you will miss your chance,” Hyacinth said, his voice traveling on the wind.
The scarlet sky made it difficult for me to see where the monster was swimming. I bit my lip and waited. A strange force was holding me back, the deep part of my thoughts that knew something I did not, and as I waited there, I felt my mind cloud. The sky was too scarlet, or Hyacinth was smiling too broadly. I could not remember what my first wish was that had drawn the princeling to me.
“Wait,” I heard myself say in a small voice. “Give me time. I need to think.”
There was a silence. Then, Hyacinth tilted his head at me. “What do you need to think about? I have our sword, with which we can cut through the thorns on the other side of the river. You have the crossbow, so that the river can become passable.”
What was the night flower’s thorns for? Why did the crossbow and the sword exist? Who had the ogre been? What was Hyacinth telling Woferl? The questions mounted in my mind, one by one, until I could hear nothing but their roar. I thought of the black thorns that wrapped around the kingdom’s crumbling castle on the hill, the young queen that never returned.
“Are you still waiting, my Fräulein?” Hyacinth said. His voice was still gentle, still amused, but now I could hear an undercurrent of impatience there. “What is it that has you frozen?”
“I . . .” My throat suddenly felt very dry. I thought of Woferl’s fever, every worry I’d had of the link between us and Hyacinth. “Do you know why my brother has been ill?” I asked.
A pause. A sharp, off-pitch note disrupted the music in the air. When Hyacinth spoke again, he sounded offended. “You think I am responsible for harming your brother?”
The accusation in his voice was so piercing that I instantly regretted my question. Of course Hyacinth would never do such a thing. “I’m sorry,” I stammered, more confused than ever. “I just don’t understand. Woferl has been sick lately, often when I speak of the kingdom or come to you to finish my tasks. Sometimes he looks dazed, or appears to whisper your name in his sleep.”
This time, Hyacinth was silent. His face stayed turned up to me. The music that hummed around me turned sharp, unsettling.
“What a shame,” came his reply at last. Now his voice sounded cold, even sad. “I am here to help you, to answer your secret wish, and you will not help me? Not after all you’ve already done? After all I’ve done for you? And for what—because of these small coincidences? A dream that your brother had? Because you think I am doing something to hurt him?” He let out a laugh. “Surely I have served you well up until now. You do not trust me, Fräulein. And you still, even now, continue to think only of Woferl. But what of yourself? What of your immortality? What has he ever done for you?”
My hands began to shake violently. “I—” I did not know what to say in return. A great fear had risen in my chest.
Hyacinth seemed to look straight at me. “Are you unhappy with me, Fräulein?” he said.
I stayed silent, the ghost of his kiss freezing my lips closed. Hyacinth, Hyacinth! came the whisper from his faeries. I had not noticed their blue light filling the dark corridor behind me, their teeth sharp against my ankles. The memory came back to me of my mother and I in the marketplace, when she’d pointed toward the flowers and I’d brushed my hands against their clustered blooms.
Hyacinths are the harbinger of spring and life, she had said, but they are also poisonous.
I trembled at the words.
“I have lost my patience. Come and help me cross this moat,” he repeated. The sky looked very dark now, scarlet as the wine I had held in my painting.
I opened my mouth to agree to help him, but nothing came out. The words lodged in my throat, held back by the eternal sense that something seemed very wrong. “Please,” I finally whispered. “If you just let me think for a moment. If you will just answer my questions . . .”
My words trailed off. I waited, frightened, for Hyacinth’s reply, knowing that I must certainly have angered him. But no reply came. Finally, I inched myself closer to the window and peered out toward the river below. My heart sank.
He was gone.
It took me another moment to realize that the crossbow had vanished too. My shoulders sagged. My hand came up to rest against my chest, and there, I felt the sharp hollow of his absence.
Why did I hesitate? I had been so faithful up until now, and he had indeed been faithful in return. Hadn’t he? Why would he lie about visiting Woferl in his dreams? I bit my lip, regretting what I’d done, loathing myself.
In all this time, Hyacinth had been the one who’d appeared to me in my most troubled moments. Had he just lost his faith in me? The tasks I’d done—all for nothing? He had promised to answer my wish. What would happen now? How could I ever hope to be remembered for anything without him?
A surge of panic hit me. If he had been good to me in his content moments, what could he do now that I had upset him?
I dragged myself back to m
y feet and continued up the stairs, careful not to fall in the dim light. I had to find my brother. The tower seemed more frightening now that I had trouble seeing my way, and the strange shadows that twisted and molded on the stairs made me quicken my steps. The music in the air sounded wrong. I did not dare look out the window again. I was too afraid to see the dark hooded figures floating near the bottom of the keep, or worse, Hyacinth on the inside bank of the moat, running toward the tower to find me.
“Woferl!” I called out again. At the bottom of the stairs would be our parents, I told myself, and the madame and monsieur. If they were near, then the kingdom would disappear again and leave me in peace. “Woferl!”
What if Hyacinth had taken Woferl? And suddenly the terror of it flooded me, the thought that I might reach the top of the stairs and find no boy at all, no sign that Woferl had ever been there.
Finally, I heard tiny footsteps echoing against the wall, hurrying toward me from farther up the stairs. My heart jerked in relief.
“Nannerl!”
Then I saw him, his hair tussled and his shoes stained with dirt, hurrying down the stairs as fast as his small legs would allow. He kept one hand pressed against the side of the wall. I waited until he reached me, then grabbed his hand tightly and began to head down the stairs.
“How dare you run away in front of Papa and Mama,” I said breathlessly. My fear had overwhelmed me, and it emerged as anger. “How dare you pull away from me like that, right before our guests.”
“I wanted to see the top of the tower,” Woferl repeated, bewildered at my temper. He glanced over his shoulder, back up to where the stairs vanished into darkness. “I heard her, Nannerl. Someone locked away at the top of the castle. Hyacinth said it is the princess! I wanted to show you.”
Hyacinth said. The young princess, trapped in the castle’s highest tower. I opened my mouth to speak and nothing came out, only the silence that now roared in my hollow chest. So, Woferl did speak alone with the princeling. Hyacinth was whispering to him.
What was Hyacinth doing? Why wasn’t he telling me the truth? What was he saying to my brother in his dreams, when I was not there to hear it?
I grabbed Woferl’s arm. “Tell me what Hyacinth has been saying to you,” I demanded.
He tugged against my grip. “He asked me if I like being in the kingdom.”
There was more than that, I could sense it, but my brother either didn’t want to tell me or didn’t seem aware of it. “Woferl, stop,” I insisted. “We’re not going up there.”
“But Hyacinth wants us to go.”
“You shouldn’t listen to everything he says.” My words were hushed, as if fearful that the princeling would hear them.
At that, Woferl gave me an incredulous look. “But I trust him, Nannerl. Why don’t you?”
He was so genuine in his words that it sent a chill down my spine. How frequently had Hyacinth been visiting him? I thought of the spark of envy I’d felt at Woferl’s bedside, followed by my deep guilt. Now the two emotions tugged again in my chest, coupled with fear. I swallowed, looking up again at the dark steps rising above us, dreading the sight of a slender silhouette.
“I’m trying to keep you safe,” I told my brother.
“Of course it’s safe,” he argued.
“Let’s go,” I said firmly.
“But I heard her up there!”
“No, you didn’t,” I said, when I found my voice again, only the voice I found was a hoarse scrape of my own.
“Yes, I did!” Woferl protested. His hand began to squirm out of mine again, but I grimly held on.
“You didn’t see anything, and you didn’t hear anything.” My voice grew louder, more frightened. Hyacinth’s words rang in my mind. “I will not have any more of your mischief today. You insulted me in front of our parents.”
Woferl scowled. “I heard her, Nannerl, I promise I did. She was behind a heavy door that I could not open.”
I ignored him. The music surrounding us grew louder, more discordant. I am trying to protect you, Woferl, I thought frantically, although I still could not be sure what I was protecting him from. All I knew was that I had to get him back down to the safety of the real world. We had to leave this castle on the hill.
“Why won’t you believe me?” Woferl started to pull his hand out of mine once more.
This time I yanked on his arm more harshly than I wanted to. He stumbled on the steps and fell, hitting one of his knees hard against the stone. He started to cry.
I stopped and pulled him to his feet, too afraid to console him. “You heard nothing, do you hear me?” I cried out. “You’re just a child. The Kingdom of Back isn’t real. None of this is! Now stop, before you cause trouble again.”
Tears streamed down Woferl’s cheeks. “But you said we would always go together into the kingdom!” he said. “You said our stories were for us! Our secrets!”
“They are just stories for children! And perhaps you’re still a child who loves his childish secrets, but I am no longer one! Now, you will grow out of this silly phase and forget about all this nonsense—or do you want everyone to think of you as a little boy forever?”
Nonsense. It was my father’s word. My brother looked as if I’d slapped him. You are a child, I’d told him, and I am not. The sky outside had slowly begun to lighten again, losing its red cast, and now I could see my brother’s eyes clearly. They were wet, but behind that was anger. I glanced down at his knee. The fall had scraped a patch open on his leggings.
“Keep your own secrets,” he said. He rubbed his eyes. “I will never tell you anything, ever again. If you go back to the kingdom, go alone and never return.”
With that, he yanked his hand out of mine and hurried down the stairs without me. I opened my mouth to call out to him, to apologize for my outburst, but it was too late.
Woferl’s cruelty descended as swiftly and fiercely as his affection. Later that night, I discovered that the pages in my music notebook had been rummaged through. When I flipped through it to the second to last page, where I’d written my first measures of music, my first secret, I found that the page had been ripped entirely in half.
I ran my finger along the frayed edges, then clutched the notebook to my chest and wept.
A DREAM NOT LIVED
Starting the very next morning, woferl no longer allowed me to watch him as he composed. He did this by letting Papa become his sole companion by the clavier, and Papa would tell me not to stand idle when I could be helping our mother with something. Woferl did not confide his stories in me at night. When we prepared to sleep, he would simply turn his back to me and pretend not to hear my words. He no longer replied when I mentioned the Kingdom of Back.
Perhaps he had taken my outburst to heart, and did not believe anymore.
I took my compositions and folded them into my heart, writing now in complete solitude. Finding the moments to do so became more difficult without Woferl’s help, the way he would quietly leave the ink and quill for me at the clavier. I had to be more careful with the precious few moments when I was alone. I would write a few hurried lines before hiding it all away with my other secret papers, sandwiched between the bottom layers of clothing in my belongings. But when I composed a piece that excited me, I had no one to share it with.
My secrets were mine alone now. And I could blame no one but myself.
I kept expecting to see Hyacinth with each passing day—standing in the corner of our inn, smiling at me from our audience, hiding in the shadows of the streets. Fear crept into the crevices of my sleep. I wondered what he would do now that I had broken my promise. Seek revenge, perhaps. Rob me of my ability to compose, or steal my sight so that I could no longer play the clavier. Perhaps he would take it out on my brother instead. Bleed the pink out of Woferl’s cheeks until he faded away one day with the morning light.
Or perhaps Hyacinth had turned
his back on me entirely and chosen to fulfill my brother’s wishes instead. This thought, that my guardian might have abandoned me in favor of Woferl, haunted me the most.
“You should not be so upset with him, Nannerl,” my mother said to me one day. We were on our way to London now, having arrived on British soil just a day earlier.
I froze at her words. “Why?” I asked cautiously, unsure if she was referring to Hyacinth or Woferl.
“He is your brother, my darling, and he loves you very much.” Mama took my hand. “Try to be patient with him. He is still very young, and his mischief overwhelms him at times. When you marry and have a son of your own, you will understand.”
I thought back to the château, the castle on the hill. After a moment, I said, “I am not upset with him, Mama. He is upset with me.”
London did not have much sun or sky when we arrived. An oppressive fog settled over the city, dampening everything, and people on the streets huddled into their coats when they went by, uninterested in us. Only Woferl seemed unbothered by the weather. He would grin his broad grin at those we met, sing for them, and tell them little jokes that would make them laugh. He made sure to time his antics for whenever I was ready to speak. The attention would stay on him, as it always did—except now, even my brother ignored me. I’d sit in silence, feeling like I was slowly disappearing into a world that no one could see.
* * *
After a week in England, we settled into a small inn near the edge of Bloomsbury, just shy of central London. It was here that I met the boy Johann again.
I saw him one morning when I was outside the entrance of our inn, waiting to see my father come back after his visit to the king and queen. Woferl did not want to wait with me, of course, so he had disappeared somewhere with Mama and Sebastian. I shivered in the cold air. There was the stale scent of fog, and the aroma of beer and salt and vinegar that wafted out from the taverns.
He passed our inn with the bottom of his face wrapped in a scarf. His shoulders were hunched up from the cold, and his hands were stuffed firmly into the pockets of his coat. I only caught a glimpse of his raised eyebrows, and his warm dark eyes.
