Lost Crow Conspiracy (Blood Rose Rebellion, Book 2)

by Rosalyn Eves

  “No?” Vasilisa eyed me thoughtfully. Then she whipped her hand forward.

  A bolt of lightning seemed to shear me in half, knocking me to the ground. Pain sparked through every part of my body, including the back of my eyes, blinding me. I lashed out with the desperation of a wounded thing. A tiny pop! sounded, and when I could pry my eyes open without gagging at the pain, the room was still whole.

  Well, mostly. The mirror on the wall had shattered, shards of glass raining down on the floor. The empty eye of the mirror frame mocked my consternation.

  I scrambled to my feet. “What did you do?” My body ached in places I had not known it was possible to ache. “You might have killed me!”

  “But I didn’t. Again.”

  “No.” I stepped back and folded my arms across my chest. “Not until you explain to me what in hell you are trying to do.”

  “I’m teaching you to be chimera.” Her grin flickered, her teeth dagger points in the gold light filtering through gauzy curtains. “We can resume this lesson in hell, if you like.”

  “What if I don’t wish to use my gift?”

  “That is not a choice you have. You will break spells, whether you wish to or not. The choice you have is only if you will control your gift or be controlled by it.”

  She was right, though that was small comfort when the very thought of breaking spells sent my pulse hurtling through my body. “Why did you attack me?”

  “You’re chimera. You have two souls: you break spells by pulling the magic into both souls at once, and the souls pull the spell apart. But to call the spell to you, your souls must be united in will. Powerful anger can sometimes do this. Or fear.” She bared her teeth at me. “Or pain.”

  I flinched. “So how do I control it, aside from bringing someone with me to throw rocks at me every time I need to be violently angry?”

  She waved her hand at me. “You do not accept your chimera self, and so it is hard for you to bring your souls together.”

  “I know what I am.”

  “Knowing is not the same as accepting. You do not like what you are.”

  I did not answer. I had made peace with my shadow self before I broke the Binding, but I had not fully unleashed her since. Vasilisa crowed at me. “See? I am entirely right.” The green light, which had blinked out, kindled again in her palm. “Now. Break the spell.”

  I closed my eyes and reached out with that extra sense, looking for the buzz of the spell. I imagined myself as a cage, opening to let my shadow self out, to let my anger and pride and black-curdled grief fly free. I arched my back, imagining I had sprouted wings like my chimera self. For the first time in months, I was weightless, my souls buoyant and light.

  A spout of fire smacked me in the face, dragging me back to earth. Heat blazed across my forehead, swam down my cheeks. I choked on the acrid scent of burnt hair and flesh and screamed.

  I’d nearly forgotten Vasilisa. I batted at the flames with my hands, the heat of them searing my palms and fingers. How dare she?

  With the small part of me not occupied with putting out the fire on my face, I found Vasilisa’s spell and cracked it open.

  But I didn’t stop there. I followed the lines of magic back to their source in Vasilisa’s heart. I gathered the loose threads of power and shaped them into a blade and then shoved them home with all the force I could muster.

  Vasilisa gasped and crumpled. The fire in my face blinked out, the mild spring breeze blowing in from the open window cooling my cheeks with its kiss.

  My fingers crawled along my hairline, over my eyebrows. Nothing was crimped or singed or blistered. It had all been an illusion.

  With the memory of heat only in my palms, I knelt down beside Vasilisa.

  As the horror of burning receded from me, a new kind of horror filled me. What had I done? I had been angry. I had acted without thinking. Worse, for a moment I had enjoyed it.

  Had I killed her?

  I set shaking fingers to her neck. Nothing.

  A shuddering breath lifted her rib cage. Vasilisa groaned and sat up. I rocked back on my heels, bracing myself for her rage or recrimination.

  Instead, she laughed. “Well done, my chimera. We may make a weapon of you yet.”

  The tension fled my body, leaving me weak with relief. “I thought I’d killed you.”

  “You? You’ve not enough strength or will for that. You surprised me, is all.” She lifted one hand to me, and I hauled her upright. “But one thing you did well. When you break a spell, the magic goes free. You did not let the magic escape: you shaped it.”

  “But why didn’t that shaping get broken by my two souls?”

  “Instinct,” Vasilisa said. “Your kind can cast spells. But to cast is different than to break: to cast a spell, you must separate your two souls, and use only one soul to hold the magic and shape it. With practice, you can do this. But you must know yourself well, to know what is soul and what is not.”

  Was it possible Vasilisa was right? At once I was back in the Binding, sending an ecstatic profusion of lights into the air, the only time in my life I had been able to cast a spell. What would I sacrifice to feel that untrammeled joy again?

  “But I used no rituals.”

  She shrugged. “You do not need them, if the will is focused enough. Most humans cannot do this, so there are rituals. But you were very angry.”

  I sighed, imagining Catherine’s reaction to the suggestion that rage gave me strength.

  “Again,” Vasilisa said, brushing her hands together.

  I hesitated, my resolve wavering. A yearning to feel the pleasure of spell-casting warred with common sense. I had not killed Vasilisa, but it was her strength and not my intent that had saved her. In that fractional moment I had wanted to hurt her. To kill her, even. Until I could master that impulse, I could not trust myself with spells. “I think you should go.”

  *

  Vasilisa had not been gone more than a few minutes—just long enough for a maid to sweep up the broken glass from the mirror—when the butler was back.

  “Another caller, miss.” Disapproval drew grim lines about his mouth. “A tradesperson, I think. Calls herself Borbála Dobos.”

  I had been on the verge of telling the butler to send the caller away, but at the name, I changed my mind. “Will you send her up?”

  Borbála tucked herself into one of the Biedermeier chairs, crossing her suited legs and setting a top hat on the floor beside the chair. “Thank you for seeing me.”

  “It’s my pleasure. But I’m afraid you can’t stay long. My sister will be home soon.”

  “Ah.” Borbála’s thin mouth turned down. “Your sister does not approve of the working class? A familiar hazard in my line of work, I’m afraid. And my penchant for men’s clothes does not help.”

  “My sister is wary of anyone she thinks might give me ideas,” I said.

  Borbála laughed. “I should think you were capable of that without help.”

  I grinned at her.

  Taking that as an opening, Borbála flipped open her ever-present notebook. “I heard that you were attacked by a praetherian in the park this Sunday past. Is that true?”

  While this was true, it was not a story I wanted the press to run with. I did not think the actions of one rogue praetherian reflected the praetheria as a whole. “It was a misunderstanding.”

  She lifted one eyebrow and scrawled something. “A misunderstanding that required you to be rescued?”

  “Why does it matter? I’m safe, and the misunderstanding was resolved.”

  “It matters because an entire Congress of nations has gathered to decide how the praetheria are to be treated, and we know next to nothing about them—their habits, their goals, their own laws and customs. It’s the job of journalists to know these things, to keep governments in check when they may be on the verge of a catastrophic mistake.”

  “They’re not dangerous,” I said, ignoring the small prick of conscience at the mild lie. �
�At least, most of them are not.”

  “I’m inclined to agree with you. But I don’t think we can do justly by the praetheria or by ourselves until we understand whom we are dealing with. I am still hoping to speak with your gold-eyed friend from the lecture.”

  “Hunger?”

  “That’s the one.” The scrawling pen stopped, and she looked at me, her dark eyes piercing. “Curious how the praetheria seem to trust you. It begs a question: how has a well-bred young lady earned their trust?”

  That line of questioning might lead to other, more dangerous questions. I settled for another partial truth and a diversion. “Perhaps because they saw me during the fighting in Buda-Pest. Are you familiar with the poet Petőfi Sándor?”

  She brushed aside the diversion. “I doubt that is it. They say Zrínyi Pál, the Hungarian with the Russian delegation, is your uncle. They say also that he’s the most likely suspect for the broken Binding spell. Perhaps they respect you for that connection?”

  I let out a tiny puff of relief. If she thought the question of the Binding settled, she would not interrogate me on it. “That seems likely. Can you tell me something? If the Binding was so important, why has nothing happened to my uncle? Why is he still at liberty in Vienna?”

  “The tsar has cast his protection over your uncle, and no one is willing to risk offending the tsar. Yet. Your uncle plays a dangerous game in coming here—if he should lose that shield, I would not for the world wish to be in his shoes. Without the tsar’s protection, Viennese society will eviscerate him.”

  I shivered, pressing my hands into my skirt.

  “I beg your pardon,” Borbála said. “That cannot be pleasant to hear. I meant to tell you I heard your speech at the Congress the other day. I thought you spoke well.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “But it doesn’t matter. No one else seemed to heed me.”

  “Speaking your truth always matters. Don’t be afraid to be different—sometimes those very differences are what lend your voice strength.”

  *

  Catherine was not impressed at arriving home to find the broken mirror. It had been one of her bridal gifts. When I pointed out that the maid had already been in to clean up the broken shards, her brows knit together.

  “I am not worried about that,” she said. “I am more concerned about the impulse behind its breaking. Was this your work?”

  “I’m sorry. It was accidental.”

  “How?”

  “I was practicing magic….” I saw at once that this was the wrong thing to say.

  Catherine shook her head. “You have no powers: you are Barren, remember? And Mama forbade you—”

  “Mama is not here!” I said, anger coiling in my gut. “And she was wrong. I am not Barren. If I were, I could not break spells. And that, dear Catherine, you know I do rather well.”

  Catherine flushed red. “It’s not kind of you to remind me. But that was only a fluke. If you truly had power, I’d have seen other evidences of it.”

  “I am chimera, Catherine.” Rage made me incautious: I only wanted to shock her. “I have two souls. And I can break spells greater than even you can cast.”

  I stopped, clapping a hand to my mouth before I could tell Catherine any more damning facts. I had nearly told her about the Binding. I had already told her too much.

  Her eyes were wide. “Chimera?” One hand fluttered down to her stomach. “Are you dangerous?”

  At once the anger whooshed out of me. “Not dangerous. Not on purpose, in any case.” I brushed past my open-mouthed sister and fled to my room.

  In all the years we had lived together, I had seen many things in Catherine’s eyes: anger, disappointment, irritation, hurt, and betrayal. But never fear.

  But just then my sister’s face had mirrored the expression she had worn when the praetherian had been shot at the ball: the look of someone confronting an unimagined monster.

  I hurled myself onto my bed and wrapped my arms tight around my torso. Was I a monster?

  Being chimera did not automatically make one monstrous, no more than being born praetherian. One’s birth was not a geas—it was not a curse that predetermined one’s fate or one’s choices. Actions, not soul (or souls) or physical makeup, made one a monster.

  But.

  My ankle throbbed with remembered pain, and I saw again the creature in Prater Park, sucking me slowly into the ground. Vasilisa’s still face after I attacked her flashed through my mind. Beings who were not innately evil could still be destructive, myself no less than the wood creature.

  Catherine’s broken debut spell, Gábor’s niece, the spell Pál had cast against the Romanies, all the lives lost in the wake of the broken Binding (Grandmama, Mátyás, Herr Steinberg, others I could not name)—all my responsibility for a gift both terrible and great. I still didn’t know how to process everything, how to separate the good I had done from the hurt I had caused.

  Vasilisa had shown me I needed greater control over my ability, even if I chose not to use it. But what price would I be asked to pay?

  The footman pushed open the door of a salon wallpapered with pale green and white stripes, deeper green furniture sprinkled across the room. As he announced my name, my heart lifted—I had missed my unguarded conversations with Noémi, and Catherine’s agreeing to set me down at the Eszterházy palace while she completed some errands was an unlooked-for gift.

  I stepped onto the threshold—and stopped.

  Noémi wasn’t alone.

  But she wasn’t sitting with her intimidating aunt, the princess Maria Theresia Eszterházy, who had been one of the formidable patronesses of Almack’s in London thirty years earlier, or with her cousin Miklós’s English wife, Lady Sarah, or even one of the small grandchildren.

  No, the eyes fixed on Noémi gleamed gold in the morning light, and the low laugh that rang out reverberated in my bones. A maid sat sewing in a corner, but I scarcely marked her.

  “Noémi,” I said.

  Noémi jerked upright as if shot. Hunger merely uncoiled himself from the settee and smiled at me. “Good to see you too, Anna Arden.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Must I have some ulterior motive to want to spend time with a beautiful, amiable woman?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “That’s unfair, Anna,” Noémi said. “I asked him to call on me.”

  My body flushed, then went cold. “Please tell me you didn’t ask any favors of him.”

  Noémi wouldn’t look at me. I glared at Hunger, who returned his most limpid look.

  Hunger plucked up his top hat. “I’ve overstayed my welcome. I wish you good day, Miss Noémi. Anna.”

  He lingered on my name, as if he enjoyed the feel of it in his mouth. Blood burned up my cheeks, and I cursed him in my head. “Good day.”

  Noémi rose with him, pressing one of his hands in both of hers. “Thank you. For coming today. For listening to me.”

  “The pleasure,” he said, “was all mine.”

  I took the place Hunger had vacated on the green settee. Noémi sat somewhat stiffly beside me.

  “What did you ask of him?”

  She shrugged. “We talked, merely. He asked about my brother.”

  What had Hunger told her about me? About Mátyás? “And?”

  “And—Anna, I love you like a sister, but I don’t see that my conversation with Hunger is any of your concern. After all, you are the one who champions the praetheria. You should be pleased that I have befriended one.”

  “Befriend him if you will—but don’t trust him. Anyway, let’s not argue. It’s been so long since I’ve had you to myself.”

  “Yes.” Noémi fell silent, staring at a white rose drooping from a vase on a lace tablecloth. Belatedly I noticed the purple smudges under her eyes.

  “Are you all right?” I asked. “Have you been dreaming again?”

  “Always,” she said. “Sometimes it seems to make no difference whether I’m dreaming or awake. The dr
eams curl up like smoke in front of my eyes, clearer than anything I see in my waking world. Mostly I dream of war: praetheria and Hungarians and Austrians all tangled together in a mass of bodies.”

  My skin prickled. “Do you think the dreams are visions?”

  “I don’t know. Do you dream of war?”

  I squirmed. My dreams were an embarrassing mixture of humiliating moments—appearing before the Congress in only my undergarments—and, most recently, passionately kissing Gábor in a field of primroses, before being caught by the archduchess. “No.”

  “I saw Mátyás again,” she said. “He carried a bow and a knife, and he was hunting something—rabbits, maybe—on the puszta. A pair of crows circled overhead. He stopped to talk to someone I could not see. He was angry.” Noémi traced the lace pattern with her finger and looked at me, her spectacles gleaming. “I think the dream means something. I think he’s alive. We should go look for him.”

  “You won’t find him on the puszta,” I said. “He’s gone.”

  “But you can’t know that. And you can’t know that my dreams are just dreams unless we try.” Noémi crossed her arms over her chest. “I’d not thought you lacking in courage.”

  “Oh,” I said, laughing a little helplessly. “I’m all for wild quests. But there must be some purpose to them.”

  “So you won’t help me? Or my brother?” Noémi stood up.

  “I want to believe you,” I said.

  Noémi paused at the edge of the table, one fist holding up her skirts. “You want too many things, Anna. Your problem is that you don’t do enough of them.”

  *

  The day of the archduchess’s tea dawned dull and dark, the sky heavy with sluggish clouds. But by midmorning a stiff breeze had pushed the clouds from the sky: the work, I guessed, of a master Elementalist. Even the weather dared not defy Archduchess Sophie.

  Catherine’s coachman delivered my sister and me to the party, held on the sprawling grounds of Schönbrunn. After leaving us at the front doors of the palace, the coachman drove around to the carriage house to wait for the end of tea. A footman in the gold-and-black livery of the Hapsburgs escorted us through the glistening halls of the palace and into the gardens beyond, where tea was set up on an emerald lawn facing the labyrinth hedges. The archduchess swept around the lawn, greeting incoming guests. She looked like a flower herself: a dark-haired iris in a slim green sheath.