“This way. Run faster, child,” the wind urged again and again.
I tried, but I could no longer feel my legs. My eyes fought to shut, and I knew that only the wind, the rote of the motion, and my momentum was keeping me moving through the passageways. “What will happen if they catch me, Nirsha? Haven’t they already killed me?”
“If they catch you, they will reap your power. They will become infinitely more powerful by taking the power of Nirsha stored within you.”
“They already caught me.”
“Only your finger, and it was not enough. My power is difficult to reap, the most difficult. When they could not reap you, they struck you with Weire’s power, passing you through to me. But they are greedy, and they wish to reap you before you pass. Do not slow. Keep going.”
It was almost impossible to keep my pace, the turns harder to make, my legs wobbling under me.
“We’re almost to safety, but they gain on us.”
The only answer I could give was a moan of exhaustion.
“One more turn.”
My feet scraped over the smooth marble as I skidded around the corner at full speed. The wind at my back subsided as I nearly tumbled into a large chamber.
It was nothing to the chamber I had just escaped, but a much smaller one holding a similar shape. Items littered the ground, hundreds I recognized. They were mine, my family’s possessions. I had not even realized so much had gone missing. Stacks of my father’s account books piled over wide worktables, some opened. One of Fauve’s paintings, a family portrait that had hung in our great room, propped against one wall. Even one of my gowns hung on a life-sized female figurine, a dress that had been with the maids for mending. Next to it other detritus from my life was scattered; a lost hair pin with a gem butterfly sat on top of the pile, a present from my uncle.
With my shaking fingers, I grabbed a mended glove from the pile, whacking the drips of color off before pulling it up my arm with my teeth.
The breeze tickled past me. “Dive into the painting,” it whispered.
I spun in the direction the wind gusted, finding one of the strangest sights I’d ever seen. The giant portrait of my family rippled like a disturbed pond, colors spreading out from the center.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
“They are almost here, child, dive into the painting.”
I approached the moving surface slowly. As I approached, the now-familiar buzzing started, emitting from the painting itself. “No, I can’t touch it, that’s how they caught me. I was trapped by only my finger.”
“Do not fight the passage. This is how they trapped you. The magicians guard the entrances, but if you move quickly enough, you can pass through to our realm. Dive through at speed.”
“No, you don’t understand.” I raised what was left of my arm, now barely a stump past my shoulder. “It was—I was stuck in place. They caught me by only one finger. I was trapped. You already told me that if they catch me again, they will reap my power.”
“You must move fast enough. You must risk it.” The voice in the wind was almost nothing now, the faintest echo. “It is the only way you’ll survive.”
“I can’t. They trapped me so easily. I refuse to give them my power; I would rather fade to nothingness than let them gain anything from me.”
Strands tickled across my face, and then slowly fell as the wind around me died.
“Nirsha?” I called out. The sound echoed through the chamber. Nirsha, Nirsha, Nirsha. However, the wind did not return.
“Damn it all,” I whispered as I stood before the still-moving surface of the painting.
I reached toward the surface as the buzzing grew louder and louder. “Damn it—damn it,” I whispered.
Slowly, the rippling subsided.
The monks came only minutes later. Three entered the space, their black eyes reflecting both the firelight of the sconces and the scattered remains of my life. They spread out, and then weaved together before spreading out again, coming closer.
I rushed around the painting and to the wall it was propped against. There was little space between the two, but at the painting’s base there were a few feet between the frame and the wall. Carefully, I fell to my knees, and using my one hand, crawled under the frame.
Thankfully, and horribly, the fit was only possible because my shoulder had vanished. I curled into a ball, careful to keep my exposed skin away from the wall and frame.
My energy had vanished, so much so that my eyes refused to stay open. And with a slow drifting I was powerless to fight, my consciousness once more drifted away.
Sometime later, my eyes opened to a long stretch of wood and marble, barely lit with a flickering light. I blinked slowly, trying to remember something—anything.
It took a moment of staring down at my one ashen arm, but then I remembered. “My name is Lady Annabelle Klein,” I whispered into my strange surroundings.
18
The Curse
Dylan
“Scoot over, I don’t want to cuddle with you,” Joseph snarled as he huddled next to me on the rooftop.
I glared over at him beside me. “It’s cold.”
“Then you should be glad you’re wearing my shirt, shouldn’t you? And not a shirt that barely covers your wrists, like you left me with.”
It was probably the tenth time he’d griped about the stupid shirt since I’d met him last evening. He’d even demanded I give it to him, but I’d ended that argument with the fact that if we moved around too much up here, the owners of the house we perched on might catch the movement from their windows.
I’d found Joseph skulking in the shadows a few streets away from the Congregational Library’s gate, scoping the surroundings with furious concentration. He’d told me in an irate whisper that Lady Annabelle had gone in and not returned. He had been talking to the monk, telling him a long, detailed, and true account of seeing the iconoclast at the docks, when the monk had abruptly halted his story.
“You will leave now,” the monk had said to him. Joseph had thought of no explanation to give that would not reveal his involvement, so he’d left with the intention of finding another route in. It had taken us half the night, but we’d found a house whose roof reached out to almost touch the top of the smooth stone wall that circled the library. It had taken another hour to discover a way to climb onto the roof without alerting its wealthy occupants.
Our luck had run out when we’d reached the roof’s top, though. Morning light filled the first signs of Ester’s hour, and within the congregational wall, there was not so much as a shrub for cover. The moment we dropped into their wall, we would be in plain view for any sentry. We saw no one, but the citrus scent of the monks lingered so heavily in the air that they could not be far away.
“The light is bright enough now,” I said over to my brother. Taking the small slip of paper from my pocket, I held it out to him.
He did not look over. “I do not think we should get help from some noble.”
“They stripped him of his nobility. He supposedly doesn’t act like one either.”
Joseph shook his head. “This is a family matter.”
“Only because you plan to use her power to steal money,” I said.
He didn’t grace my accusation with so much as a glance. It wasn’t much of an accusation as he had been clear on this fact. After a few seconds of silence, he said, “I plan for us to help her and for her to help us in return.” He stared out into the brightening field around the library for another few seconds before adding, “It’s what she wants in return, so you can take your altruistic high horse and shove it up your ass.”
“I’ll leave horse shoving to you,” I grumbled. Even though we were barely more than an annos apart, I never truly understood my brother. If our looks did not so clearly proclaim our kinship, I would believe that he was not truly my kin.
“She’s there,” Joseph said, pointing out into the field.
It was only because I was glaring a
t him that I missed her. The contrast between her colorless form and the black sphere behind her was startling and unmistakable. She staggered down the road toward the closed gate. Her looks had somehow altered. Even from this distance her body looked strangely misshapen.
“She’s faded more.” Joseph’s voice was quiet as he squinted toward her.
“We should go get her.”
“No, when she realizes that she can’t escape from the gate, she’ll look for other ways out—”
“I’m going to get her.” I scooted down the slope of the clay roof tiles.
Joseph grabbed my arm and leaned in. “No, you won’t! You’ll wait until she’s directly under us so that we can get her out without the Congregation descending upon us.”
I glowered all the harder. “Obviously she didn’t find a solution in there as you said she would.” I held out the note toward him.
He glared at me and then at the note. “I have been required for social engagements since Lord and Lady Klein’s death,” he read in a low mumble.
“What does that mean?” I whispered.
“Do I look like I speak noble to you? Ask your lady.”
“Fine.” I stuffed the paper into my pocket.
“When she’s close enough, I’ll jump down and throw her up to you—”
“I can jump down.”
“Shut it!” His blue eyes flashed from the intensity of his glare. “I’m stronger than you and a better jumper. You crawl to the edge, get a good stance, and be ready to catch her.”
“Fine,” I repeated.
His serious gaze lingered for one more second before he turned to where Lady Annabelle stumbled across the grass. As she came closer, I saw that she’d changed her clothing somewhat. A corset wrapped around the outside of her tattered gown, its lacings in the front rather than the back. It fit oddly, and not simply because it was backward. I could not quite understand what was wrong with the sight until she was nearly a dozen feet away. Half the corset was hollow. The left-side strap of her gown simply fell into the bodice.
Lady Annabelle was missing almost the entirety of her left side.
“Damn it,” Joseph swore.
The sight was so grotesque I didn’t know how to understand it. It was as if my mind rebelled at the image, raging against me that such a horror could not exist.
The moment she stumbled within five feet of us, Joseph leapt forward and dropped.
Lady Annabelle startled, seeming to wake as Joseph crossed the distance to her. “Joseph?” she asked.
“We’re here to get you out. I’m going to lift you up, if that’s all right,” he said.
“Thank you, I’d be grateful for a rescue from this horrible place,” she said with a nod.
I slipped down to the edge of the roof tiles, getting the best purchase their uneven surface would allow. “I’m ready,” I whispered as I held out my arms.
Annabelle glanced up. “Hello, Dylan,” she said, tipping her chin.
Her waist must have been solid, because Joseph managed to lift her and, with a great thrust, propel her up to me.
I grabbed her one hand with my two, pulling her up quickly beside me. She found her balance on the tiles. “Thank you. Can I have my hand back so you can help your brother?”
I hadn’t realized I’d still been gripping her hand. As I released her, I asked, “You all right?”
“I’ll be fine,” she said. It was perhaps the biggest lie I’d ever heard. This close, I could see that her body was truly half gone.
“Dylan,” Joseph snapped.
Finding my balance again, I leaned down. Joseph crouched. In one powerful leap, he grabbed my hand.
My muscles strained as I held him by one of his hands. With his other, he swung up, grabbed the lip of the wall, and pulled his body over.
As we all gained our footing on the roof, I turned to Annabelle. “I’ve seen your friend, Fauve Matisse.”
“You have?” she whispered, a smile spreading across her tired features with the question.
“We need to go now,” Joseph demanded.
I nodded, but stepped toward the lady. “He’s at Hope Manor. He gave me a note.”
“A note?”
“Hey!” someone yelled. A window smacked open from the other side of the roof, and a maid stuck her head out. “Thieves!” she screamed as she pointed out the window.
“Go!” Joseph yelled. He grabbed Lady Annabelle by the waist, to which she gave a yelp of indignation, and he sprinted heavily over the roof.
I followed closely in his footsteps, running full out for the edge.
We did not break stride at the end but leapt off. I landed beside him, and we both fell into a fast sprint through the street.
In Joseph’s arms, Lady Annabelle yelled, “Put me down!” Thankfully for all our sakes, he didn’t listen. As I was faster and he carried the lady, I sped up my pace to take the lead before him.
Ester’s hour broke with colorful rays speared into the sky.
The illumination was not our friend, however, as continued shouts of, “Thief!” followed our path. Someone was giving chase.
I lunged into an alley, hoping to connect with a main road, but found myself in a maze of wealthy houses.
“Where are we going?” Joseph shouted.
“I smell the Hutchings this way.” I aimed for a still-dark alley.
The separation between the slums and the townhouses in some parts of the city were only by a horse road, and we were in one of these intersections. As soon as we came out of the wide alley, we dove back into the familiarity of the dirty, cramped paths that separated neighborhoods in the slums.
After five minutes, I slowed.
“I am not a sack of potatoes!” Lady Annabelle scolded from directly behind me.
“No, you’re not. A sack of potatoes has some use—and doesn’t kick!”
“Then let me go!” she shouted.
When I turned, Annabelle was still under Joseph’s arm, much like a sack of potatoes. She wiggled and kicked. Her knee ripped through the tatters of her gown and struck true on his back. White globs rained down, dripping over his pants and forming small puddles at his feet. “Thank you for stealing my shirt, Dylan. I’ll need mine returned as soon as we reach home.”
“Let me down, or I’ll touch your pants,” Annabelle said as she glared up at him.
I couldn’t help it; I laughed a little.
Joseph leaned down. “I don’t need to be carrying you anymore, so I’ll let you down. A thank you would be appreciated for waiting all night to help you.”
“As soon as you let me down,” she said.
He did, setting her on the packed dirt of the alleyway.
She adjusted her corset slightly, though there was no hiding the severity of her invisibility. She was nearly half gone now. “I thank you both, most ardently, for your assistance.” She closed her eyes. “If I could help you with your press, I hope you know that it would have been my honor to do so.” She stepped away.
“Then help us with our press.”
“I will if I can. But there is a greater evil at work here, and I must deliver the message to my cousin before I disappear. I fear that soon, he and many others will face the same fate as my parents. The magicians are killing lords and ladies to steal their power—this is how they remain powerful, I think. Somehow, when they did it to my parents, this happened to me. They’d known it had been a risk.”
“How do you know this?” Joseph stepped forward, his face a mask of fury, though I didn’t think the emotion was meant for Annabelle.
“I heard it myself. If I cannot convey the message through to my cousin, please, use the press to tell everyone. I’m sure Fauve will help you. He is not rich, but he is generous.”
I stepped forward. “We’ll go with you. I can help you deliver the message.”
Joseph grabbed my arm. “You can’t go with her. The monks already suspect you. If you go with her before the time of your shift and act strangely, it will only bring
them down on her faster.”
“I can be careful,” I snarled at him.
His fingers dug into my arm, and he yanked me closer. “You’ll be of more use with me, trying to learn information from Sophie, and going to your shift as usual.”
Annabelle looked to Joseph, and some understanding passed between them. “There will be more iconoclasts—they risk the child of a lord color-molting every time they reap a lord and lady’s power. Find them first, find them before the magicians do. If the magicians find them, they will become infinitely more powerful. Perhaps those iconoclasts can help you where I cannot.”
“I think you’ll be the one to help me,” he said in return.
“That is my hope as well.” From her tone, it was obvious she believed it no more than a hope. “How do I find my way out of here?”
As I had been recognizing the streets for a while now, I gave her the simplest instructions I could. When she began to back away, I called, “Wait!” Digging into my pocket, I pulled out the scrap of paper. “Fauve Matisse passed me a note in secret—I can’t decipher its meaning.”
She took it, holding the note close to her face. After her eyes tracked across the page, they squeezed closed.
“What does it mean?” I asked.
“A required social engagement is what Fauve and my father called meetings with monks. It means he is being watched constantly by the Congregation.” She inhaled deeply, seeming to steady herself. “It means I cannot contact him, as it would put him at too much risk.” She gave me a small smile. “I am thankful that in a world turned so cruel, your kindness to me is the last thing I’ll remember.”
“Sophie knows what you have to do, and we’re going to convince her to tell us,” Joseph growled. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself.”
“I’m not feeling sorry for myself, you giant ass!”
“He is a giant ass. But he’s also right. We’ll learn the answers, and I’ll see you at the manor. Find me. We’re going to help you.”
She shook her head as sadness filled her eyes. “You don’t understand. I already know what I’m supposed to do—I just don’t think I’m going to do it.”
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