Love Fortunes and Other Disasters

by Kimberly Karalius

  Each time they saw a fork in the path, Ms. Ward generously pressed her stamp against the ink pad and left an OVERDUE mark on the path they didn’t take.

  “Do you think Zita’s really at the center?” Sebastian asked.

  “She better be.” Fallon twined her fingers in his. She hadn’t slept much, either, the past few days. No one had. Adrenaline kept her moving as she followed the group. After a few minutes, she heard wings flapping. “Birds?” she whispered.

  “I checked every entrance on my mom’s map. There shouldn’t be another way in,” Mirthe said.

  Something whizzed past her ear. Nico cried out. Under the green stained glass, Nico clutched his arm; blood dripped between his fingers.

  Fallon pushed her way through the group. She saw that something had sliced right through Nico’s windbreaker and cut his skin. “Did you brush against anything?” she asked, thinking of the rusted mirrors all around them. Or perhaps a shard from the stained-glass lights fell.

  “I haven’t touched anything,” he said, gritting his teeth.

  Ms. Ward came to the rescue again with a first aid kit. She bandaged his arm tight.

  The sound of wings came again. This time, Fallon looked up and saw a stone-gray cupid in flight. Its chubby fingers pulled back on a stone arrow. “Look out!” she shouted.

  Everyone ducked. The arrow cracked the mirrored wall into thousands of tiny pieces.

  “What is that?” Camille said, covering her head with her hands.

  Two more cupids hovered over the path, notching arrows.

  “This has to be a charm,” Mirthe shouted, searching her bag. “Statues can’t fly.”

  But it wasn’t an illusion either—Nico’s arm was proof of that. Fallon had never heard of a charm capable of levitating an item. Even if she had, she doubted that those same charms could orchestrate an ambush. Another arrow smashed the mirror behind Fallon. Sebastian grabbed her hand and tugged her down the path as Bram and Ms. Ward brought up the rear.

  “Doesn’t look like Zita’s happy to see us,” Hijiri said, taking out her mirror and glitter. A flash of light stunned the two paint-splattered cupids on her tail.

  Bram skidded as he came to a stop. His trench coat flared as he pulled out a handgun. He pulled the trigger, shattering one cupid’s head and another’s bow arm. “What?” he said, cocking an eyebrow. “I didn’t come entirely unprepared either.”

  Ms. Ward crossed her arms. “So the rumors are true. You bachelors did install a shooting range in the villas.”

  Bram shot the wing off of the last cupid. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said with a grin.

  Mirthe found a small spray bottle in her bag. “If there’s any more of them, they won’t find us so easily now.”

  Femke smiled at her sister. “A fog charm. Good thinking.”

  As soon as Mirthe pressed down on the nozzle, a fine mist, smelling of vinegar and mountain air, filled the labyrinth. Fog steamed up the mirrors. Fallon could just make out Camille’s back ahead of her in the heavy fog. She listened for more wings as they continued on, but the sound faded.

  Somewhere, hidden pipes dripped. The creaking of metal made Fallon’s heart jump. Ms. Ward had stamped two more dead ends before the light grew stronger.

  Two storks guarded the entrance to the heart of the labyrinth. The storks had ruby eyes and wire limbs fused to the walls; their beaks crisscrossed like swords. Fallon expected them to attack, just as the cupids had, but they remained dull and lifeless as she walked between them. Her eyes stung from the massive light fixture suspended overhead, illuminating the square-shaped space full of peculiarities.

  A miniature replica of Grimbaud sat underneath the light; every detail had been sculpted and arranged to perfection. The belfry was there, along with Verbeke Square, Grimbaud High, and the footbridges. The canals even had running water. Figurines no bigger than ants occupied the expanse of the town. Each figurine had a spider’s silk string running from the top of its head to a giant loom suspended over the model.

  When her gaze left the mini-town, she began to notice how lived-in the space was. There were rugs on the stone floor, a cot in the back with rumbled sheets. An aged crimson range hood framed a stove covered with potions and junk. Stone cupids of all shapes and colors lined the tops of the walls, salvaged from Grimbaud’s ancient buildings; they didn’t move, but they were poised to pull the first arrows from their quivers.

  A woman sat at a writing desk, her pen moving achingly slow upon crisp white paper. “You deserve a round of applause for finding me,” she said without stopping her pen. Her voice was high-pitched and scratchy.

  Camille stepped forward, wiping the dust from her blazer. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Zita. Maybe you recognize me. I’m Camille Simmons, your prized employee.”

  Zita angled her chair to see them better. Fallon thought she looked more fragile than in her photograph, with twiglike fingers and her tattered gray dress bunching at her narrow hips. The silver heart necklace hung about her neck. Her hair was thick and loose, her face youthful without a wrinkle.

  Camille gasped. “Zita?”

  “Love keeps the heart young,” Zita said. “So they say.”

  Camille ate up her words, nodding vigorously. Maybe she thought that she’d turn out the same way if she took over Zita’s job.

  Femke and Mirthe stepped forward together. “Thanks for the greeting. Your cupids almost killed us,” Mirthe said.

  “Oh, did they? I usually keep a few animated. I don’t appreciate rat infestations.” Zita dotted an “i” with a flourish. “I’m not surprised you’re here. You think you’ve been careful, but I see everything. I’ve known about your meetings in the science room. The charm-gathering. The growing rebellion. The break-in was fairly clever, though. Maybe I should take up weather charm-making as a hobby next. I’ve just about exhausted the other fields.”

  Nothing about this place was right. Fallon had imagined confronting Zita in a stately office, not underneath the earth where her charms pulsed with unknowable power.

  “So, who do we have here tonight?” Zita said, ignoring Camille. “Ah. Bram. Mr. Hard-boiled Hal. Your show isn’t quite to my liking. If you dare raise your gun again, you’ll find an arrow in your throat.”

  Bram bit back a snarl and placed the gun on the floor. He eyed the cupids.

  Zita made a cooing sound, like a doting grandmother. “And is that Emma Ward over there? I’m sure my villas have been a comfortable alternative to your traveling days. Think of all the men who’ve left you behind. What a pity.”

  Ms. Ward pressed her hand against her mouth.

  Mirthe shook with rage. “You seem to know an awful lot about Ms. Ward’s life.”

  Zita leaned back in her chair and touched the spider’s silk strings from the model, eliciting a series of notes that fell over them in waves of heartbreak and desire. “Just what are you accusing me of? I merely report what Love designed. My system is perfect. Every year, you find out exactly what’s going to happen in your love life. My fortunes prevent you from making foolish choices. With me in charge, people no longer need to break their hearts.”

  “That’s a lie,” Hijiri said with vehemence.

  Zita’s chair landed back on all four legs with a loud thump. She put her pen to the paper again and chuckled. “Grimbaud belongs to me. Anyone who steps foot in this town is mine.” She gestured at the model. “Have you ever felt the pleasure of distorting a phrase so completely that it becomes a riddle? Your love lives are my riddles to make. I twist them when I want. Take Nico. I like his fortune. Of course I do. Wrote it myself.”

  Nico gripped his injured arm.

  “All this time, you thought that Martin would never know your feelings for him. It’s a shame how much time you’ve wasted.”

  Camille’s expression dropped. “Nico and Martin? You must be joking.”

  Zita let out a bark of a laugh as she continued writing. “Better watch yourself, Nico. Now that Camille
knows, you may find yourself at the bottom of the canals.”

  “‘The one who matters,’” Nico whispered, his eyes wide.

  Camille dug her nails into Martin’s arm and dragged him closer; she shot Nico a deadly glare. Dozens of charms seemed to cross her mind, none of them pretty.

  “If you know so much about us, you should also know why we’re here. We demand you stop printing love fortunes,” Mirthe said. “The benefits of letting us see our futures don’t outweigh the bad. What about the spinsters and bachelors? They may think they’re protecting their hearts by hiding in your villas, but their hearts are breaking every day.”

  “And you’ve all but admitted that you’re the cause of it,” Hijiri added. “These are not Love’s fortunes.”

  “Set us free,” Mirthe said, louder.

  Fallon found her voice. “Sebastian’s here. You must know him. He’s Dorian’s grandson.”

  Zita flashed a deadly smile. “Very good, Dupree. Thank you for reminding me that there is a Barringer present in my dwelling. Only … you seem to have lost him. He’s not standing beside you.”

  Fallon reached for Sebastian’s hand, finding nothing but thin air beside her. She turned around and gasped.

  Sebastian was on the ground and back against the stone wall, breathing heavily and clutching his chest.

  Fallon’s heart froze over. She ran toward him and dropped to her knees, cradling his head in her hands. His skin felt heated and clammy. “What’s wrong? Sebastian, tell me.”

  “Don’t know,” he whispered. “Something’s … something’s burning in my chest.”

  Fallon removed his hand and pressed her palm over his heart. She drew back, startled by the heat. “Do something!” she yelled, turning her frantic gaze to Zita. “You know his fortune. You have to help him.”

  Zita’s cool smile betrayed nothing. Her pen spilled red ink.

  “Please,” Fallon said.

  “His fortune is coming true, my dear. I couldn’t have spent my energy on a better cause.”

  Fallon tried to ignore the panic crawling up her throat. She helped Sebastian unbutton his shirt, biting back a sob when she saw that his fingertips were blue. “Keep breathing,” she told him.

  When she peeled back his shirt, she didn’t expect to see red. Words were written over his heart, red as blood and perfectly formed in thick cursive. The words kept appearing, letter by swirling letter. “‘You will die if you fall in love’,” she read. “‘Your sweetheart…’” The rest of the words had yet to appear.

  Sebastian struggled to focus on her. His eyelashes kept fluttering.

  “Some people die of heartbreak. Others die from too much love. Fallon Dupree, you shouldn’t have made him love you so much,” Zita said, her voice turning hard and strange. “Sweet nothings mean everything. His confession was his death.”

  “No,” she cried, even as she remembered his words back at the labyrinth entrance. “That can’t be true.”

  Sebastian cupped her face. His lips were as blue as canal water, his brows threaded in determination. “Don’t you dare blame yourself,” he murmured, “I love you. I’d have said it a million times.”

  Zita wrote the rest of the fortune on the paper, fast as a breath, as the fortune stained Sebastian’s skin.

  He made a strangled sound and hit the hard floor, pale and unmoving.

  Fallon’s heart slammed itself against her rib cage. Again and again and again. Her body was a dark sea, her heart slipping under. Where was the ground beneath her feet? Tears rolled down her cheeks. She choked out his name, running her fingers through his hair.

  Zita put down her pen and stood triumphantly. “He wasn’t worth loving, but I have to thank you for your role in this. You can have the best of everything in the Spinster Villas. I owe you that much. Your romantic fate was collateral damage.”

  Fallon lifted her head, too tired to speak. Her fingers found the anti-rose-colored glasses in her bag. She slipped them on and saw Zita change. Purplish dead skin covered her arms. Her teeth were tiny and sharp, the silver heart at her throat rusted with age. For the first time since coming to Grimbaud, Fallon couldn’t smell roses.

  “Breaching Love’s plans was not easy,” Zita said. “I’ve been working on Sebastian’s fortune for many years, spending much of my power to craft it. I was worried that it might not come together.” She fingered the heart necklace. “Tonight, I’m finally ending the Barringer line. It’s exactly the ending I made for him.”

  Hijiri sat by Fallon’s side, her face red from crying too. But she plucked the anti-rose-colored glasses from Fallon’s face and used them to examine Sebastian. “I needed a clear head, free of love to see this,” Hijiri said quietly, for Fallon’s ears only. “He’s not dead. There’s still time to save him.”

  “How can you tell?” Fallon croaked.

  “It’s a love charm. Deadly, but still a charm. There’s a way to overpower it.” Hijiri smiled. “This is not your fate.”

  Zita’s words clicked into place. Fallon was collateral damage because she had never once been destined for spinsterhood. Zita assigned that future to her when she tried taking Sebastian’s life. This was not fate, Hijiri said. This was murder.

  Fallon’s heart came roaring back to life.

  “She can’t have him,” Fallon said. She stared past Zita to the model town of Grimbaud. The loom was a torture trap they were all hooked up to. Under no circumstances would she allow Sebastian to stay tied to Zita’s power. Stumbling to her feet, she shot the twins a determined look and hoped they got the message. She needed help. “Now!”

  Mirthe and Femke reached into their bags, activating another weather charm. This time, a tornado spilled out into the center of the labyrinth, small but wild enough to send everyone ducking for cover. Shards of broken mirror glittered in the air. The wind howled and beat against the stone walls. Hijiri covered Sebastian’s body with hers while Nico shouted a warning as more cupids flexed their wings, awakening to a human infestation. Camille shrieked and clung to Zita, who stood her ground with a look of mild annoyance.

  Fallon kept her head down as she raced toward the model. An arrow tore the fabric behind her back. Debris stung her eyes. Her hair whipped wildly around her, getting stuck in her teeth as she focused on dodging the flying cupids. One cupid aimed for her head, but was swiftly knocked into a wall by the wind.

  She reached the table bearing the model and quickly searched for Verbeke Square. Only a few figurines were in the square, and she recognized Yasmine’s tiny blue head and Helena’s parasol. She couldn’t find any trace of the rebels’ strings below the square. She let out a frustrated growl and barely felt the pebble that cut into her cheek as it sailed past.

  Shouts and gunshots surrounded her. Grief gnawed at her, a temptation to just crawl under the table and push everything out. But Sebastian’s face hovered behind her eyelids. He would have insisted that princesses never gave up. Neither did clever maids.

  chapter 24

  THIS IS WHERE IT STARTS

  “Confidence, confidence, unveil me,” she said against the raging winds.

  Just like before, warmth shot energy down to her fingers and toes. An invisible veil lifted away from her face, taking with it her fears and sadness. The effect was only temporary, so she sucked in her breath and examined the model anew.

  The model was so eerily accurate that Zita’s underground labyrinth had to be present. Fallon avoided another arrow and bent down to examine the miniature shops and streets. There was an indent in the corner of the square. Fallon used her fingernails to loosen it, lifting off the square and revealing the underground labyrinth. Tiny cupids sat undisturbed upon the stone walls, unlike the real ones fighting in the storm. She saw her own figurine bent over a miniature of the model; it made her dizzy. Everyone’s silken strings had been coiled underneath the lid, but now that she had taken if off, the strings sprang back into the air like the others, attached to the loom.

  Fallon bit back a sob when she saw Hij
iri’s figurine covering Sebastian’s. She gently nudged her off and held Sebastian in her hands. His figurine was pallid, mimicking the real boy. Fallon grabbed hold of the string. As soon as she did, a torrent of feelings burst through her head like fireworks. The string burned her palm, but she held on, tugging as hard as she could. A shriek came from her own throat as the pain blinded her. Everything Sebastian had ever loved pushed itself into her head and heart as it rushed inside her to make a home.

  Using both hands, Fallon wrenched the string from the loom with a sickening snap.

  She fell back, hitting the ground hard. She turned her head and saw Sebastian’s body jerk, as if the string had been tied around his heart.

  “Enough,” Zita said. The tornado dulled to a mere whimper. She knocked a fluttering cupid out of the way and snarled when she saw the broken string on the floor. She grabbed Fallon by the hair and yanked her to her feet. “Camille!”

  Camille smoothed down her hair and brightened. Grime covered her smart clothes. “Yes, Zita?”

  “I promised that you would become a star in my company,” Zita said, with sweetness too thick to be true. “Your talent with charms has far exceeded my expectations.”

  “You’ve noticed?” Camille said breathlessly.

  “I wonder if you can create a potion for me. One that could quietly allow its drinker to expire.” Zita’s firm gaze pinned everyone in the room. “Imagine what the papers will say. Grimbaud’s unlucky teenagers, aided by a hapless bachelor and spinster, decided to declare their heartbreak by dying together in the sewers. You forget that love doesn’t always mean happy endings. The greatest love comes with tragedy.”

  Fallon wanted to drag her nails across Zita’s face, anything to stop the woman’s threats, but the grip on her hair was too tight. Her head throbbed, her hands blistering from the string.

  “That stove works? My boyfriend will help me make the potion you want, Zita. He’s very attentive,” Camille said. She reached into her shirt and pulled out a vial of pink liquid no bigger than her pinkie finger. She dabbed a few drops on her wrists; the heavy stench and tense presence of a charm filled the air.