Blood Rose Rebellion

by Rosalyn Eves

  I took a breath. I could not unsend my letters to James. I was not even certain I could undo Pál’s spell, since, as Gábor charged, my control was unpredictable. “But I must do something. The Circle is as dangerous and destructive as anything in the Binding. I cannot let people like my uncle and Herr Steinberg use the power of that spell to abuse and control others.”

  Gábor went very still.

  “Will you try to stop us?” I knew that Gábor resisted the idea of a violent uprising.

  “No,” he said. “The Circle must be stopped. I had hoped we might do it by other means; I saw today that they do not speak a peaceful language. Here, as in Austria, the will of the Circle and the will of the Hapsburgs are one and the same. To fight one, we must fight both.”

  Tears stood in his eyes. I could not tell if they were tears of rage or of grief.

  “I still do not agree with breaking the Binding.”

  I wrapped my arms around my torso, chilled. After all this, he still meant to argue?

  Gábor reached out to brush my cheek. “But if you think it right, then you must do it. I will pray you are right and I am wrong.”

  He dropped his hand and turned away. I watched him until he reached the far end of the street and disappeared around the corner, heading back toward Tabán. I pressed my fingers to my cheek. Gábor’s touch felt like hope—and forgiveness.

  Ginny was waiting for me inside the back entrance, a basket of mending by her feet. She looked up from her sewing as I shoved the door open. “Your grandmama wishes to speak with you in the parlor. Miss Anna—what were you thinking? To leave like that, and your room all a mess.”

  My stomach dropped. I hadn’t thought of anything but Gábor.

  Grandmama too was waiting. She held no book, no embroidery. She sat in one of the burgundy high-backed chairs, her spine ramrod straight, her hands folded over the top of her cane.

  “Have I failed so with you, szívem, that you would lie to me? That you would not trust me?”

  My heart twisted, but I lifted my chin. “I had to do it, Grandmama. I’m sorry I worried you, but Gábor—Mr. Kovács’s family was in danger. I had to see if I could help.”

  The stiff line of her mouth softened a fraction. “Are they all right?”

  “No. The Circle—” I broke off, remembering. “They’ve stripped the Romanies of their magic. And their voice.”

  “Rettenetes.” Terrible. Grandmama’s horror was genuine. “And Mr. Kovács?”

  “They didn’t catch him, so he wasn’t part of the spell. He’s gone to help his family.” I crossed the carpet to Grandmama, sinking down beside her and taking her hand in mine. “Grandmama, the Circle—they’re all wrong. We must stop them. You must let me help Lady Berri.”

  Grandmama lifted my hand, studying the gargoyle ring. “Anna, it’s not safe. I understand what you wish—why you wish it—but your mama would never forgive me if something happened to you.”

  I was not so sanguine about Mama’s reaction, but I would not hurt Grandmama by saying so. “Papa would wish it.”

  “Your papa is a good man, but about some things he is quite foolish. Young, untrained girls have no business messing around in spells like this. Even with the aid of an equally foolish member of the Circle.”

  “Please. Let me go.”

  “I cannot risk you. I’m sorry, Anna.” Glancing at the mutinous line of my mouth, Grandmama added, “And do not think you can climb out the window again. I’ve had the house warded. You’ll not be able to leave without sounding an alarm.”

  “You might trust me,” I said.

  One delicately shaped eyebrow lifted, and I flushed. “As you have trusted me?” Grandmama said. “I shall let Lady Berri know you’ve other plans for tomorrow evening.”

  I did not see the message Grandmama sent Lady Berri, but I saw Lady Berri’s answer. I returned from a morning visit with Noémi to Karolina’s to find a note with Lady Berri’s crest, a sleek black panther, on the salver in the parlor. I flipped it open and scanned the short missive: I am sorry your grandmother forbids your assistance, but I will not encourage filial disobedience. I hope I may still call on you. Your friend, Lady Margaret Berri.

  Grandmama bade me read it out loud, and I did so, puzzling at it. Filial disobedience? But Papa had been the one to encourage me to help Lady Berri in the first place. Then I realized Lady Berri had no intention of heeding Grandmama’s request; she meant for me to obey Papa. I did not know what she planned, but I would watch, and wait.

  I cornered Mátyás and Gábor in the hallway outside Grandmama’s salon, as afternoon ebbed away into evening. They wore dark dolmans over plain clothes; a small, silver falcon pin winked on Mátyás’s collar. Though they had said nothing of their destination, I knew. They were going to meet William and Petőfi and the others.

  “Tell William not to do anything rash,” I said. “Lady Berri may not come for me tonight. Grandmama has forbidden it. Don’t let him start a fight he cannot finish.”

  “May as well tell the sun not to rise,” Mátyás said, smiling and kissing his cross for luck. Was this a lark to him? I swallowed against something sharp.

  “We’ll tell him,” Gábor promised.

  Grandmama invited me to join her in a game of piquet after supper, but I had no heart for it. Instead, I retired to my room, sending Ginny away when she came to help me disrobe. I picked up a book of Browning’s poetry, but my mind skittered across the words and I set it down again.

  I was peering out my window at the courtyard below when a faint susurration sounded behind me. I whirled to find a faintly glowing seam in the air. Lady Berri’s voice echoed through the gap. “Come, child, we haven’t all night.”

  In a moment—before I could think, before I could risk breaking the spell with my sparking anxiety—I was through, the hair on my arms standing upright from my passing. I emerged on the stones on an unfamiliar street. Lady Berri waited in a dark barouche drawn by four black horses, its hood folded back. The night air bit my cheeks and I shivered, wishing I had thought to bring a cloak.

  “The Circle was watching your home,” she said, waving the driver on before I had even settled in my seat. “I had to bring you out another way. But we must hurry—the portal may have drawn their attention.”

  “Then why not simply open a portal to Attila’s Hill?” I asked.

  “It’s not so simple to cast a spell across that distance, and I’d prefer to conserve my energies for necessary spells. We shall have to do something about your ring, but I prefer to wait until just before you enter the Binding. Otherwise, we risk drawing the Circle’s attention too soon. As it is, we shall have to hope they did not notice the portal. Or pray that we can outrun them.”

  Neither of us spoke as the carriage drew swiftly out of the inner city, past the sleeping white-pillared National Museum. I listened to the huff of the horses’ breath and the whump-whump of the carriage wheels. But as we neared the outskirts of Pest, Lady Berri sat upright, her eyes sweeping the darkness around us.

  “We’re being followed.”

  I craned my neck, peering into the darkness. I saw nothing but an empty expanse of street. I closed my eyes, listening. Still nothing. Wait. Then I heard it, a faint echo of our own carriage, the muffled thud of horses’ hooves beyond our four. They must be Hiding, which meant they must also be Luminate.

  Panic pressed against my throat, stopping my breath.

  Herr Steinberg.

  “Can you stop them?”

  “Not here. Wait.”

  I studied the narrow and crowded row houses pressing up to the street around us and wondered why this environment was so wrong for spell-casting. The row houses gave way to factories, and the factories to empty fields and scattered cottages. In a matter of minutes, we were beyond the city.

  As we crossed a stretch of road bare of houses on either side, Lady Berri spoke again. “Now.”

  She stood in the carriage and turned, flinging her hands out toward the darkness, and shouted,
“Terra plica!”

  The road beneath us rippled once, as if testing its strength, and then the whole landscape heaved upward. Someone cried out behind us, a note of fear hanging in the dark air.

  The sky fell toward us. The fields shook.

  Behind us, the road folded over on itself, like a bit of kneaded dough.

  The cry cut off.

  The horses whinnied in terror, but before they could bolt, the road finished its contortions. One final shudder, and it settled down, flat and rutted in the moonlight. I peered behind us at the silent stretch of road.

  Whoever had followed us was gone, swallowed by a suddenly animate piece of earth.

  I turned wide eyes on Lady Berri. I knew she was Lucifera, like Freddy, but I had never seen anyone fold earth as though it were only a bit of flour and water.

  “Is he dead?” My heart galloped through my chest.

  Lady Berri settled back in her seat, straightening her skirt as if earth-folding were an everyday occurrence. “Most likely. I’ve never had occasion to use that particular spell before. But needs must when the devil drives.”

  A chill settled around me, more biting than the cool night air. Are we safe? I wanted to ask, but nothing seemed safe anymore. Not this errand. Not the suddenly strange lady beside me. It had been easy to trust a grandmotherly woman who wanted the same things my father wanted. But Lady Berri was not that woman.

  I wondered if she ever had been.

  “Let me see your ring,” she said.

  I held out my hand. Lady Berri summoned a small Lumen lamp and examined the grotesquely grinning creature around my finger.

  “I don’t like this spell,” she said, frowning. “This is not Herr Steinberg’s work. His spells are crude things, easily enough undone. But this…Someone powerful cast this.”

  Uncle Pál, I guessed. “Can you undo it?”

  Her frown deepened. She muttered a phrase, and pricks of light danced over the ring. She dropped my hand as if burned. “No.” She blinked rapidly and licked her lips.

  I stared at her. I had never seen Lady Berri even mildly discomposed. The worry in her face sent fear spiraling up my throat. “We don’t have to do this,” I said. William was waiting on my signal. We could plan again.

  She shook her head, her eyes bulging slightly. “We’re too far gone to turn back. A drive they might forgive, but not a death. We’ll have to risk it.”

  “But I cannot break the Binding as long as I wear the ring. It burns me if I try.”

  “Are you certain it prevents you? Or does it simply pain you to try?”

  “It—” I stopped. I had not actually tried breaking a spell beyond the point of pain. “I don’t know.”

  “You must try. The pain of the ring will be nothing to what happens if we do not succeed tonight.”

  I swallowed sourness at the back of my throat and sat forward in my seat, wrapping my arms tightly about me. Despite Herr Steinberg’s horrible threats, I had never imagined I could actually die.

  But at that moment, death seemed a terribly real possibility. Perhaps the Circle had already sent others after us, when their scout vanished. If they hadn’t, they would. Soon.

  Once we arrived at Attila’s Hill, it took some time for Lady Berri to stage her spell. The earlier spell had worn her, and she kept pausing to breathe deeply. My own breaths were fast, shallow, frightened. Hurry, I thought. At last, Lady Berri set two fingers against my forehead and against my collarbone. Heat flared beneath her touch, sending a faint buzzing through my skull. “For protection,” she said. She pressed a bone knife into my hands. “Remember, you may need to feed the spell some of your blood. It was forged in blood—it must be broken with it.”

  I reminded myself why I was here: for magic, for James, for Papa. For Gábor and the Romanies and justice. For Hungary.

  Because a man had been swallowed by a fold of earth and now I had no choice.

  I took a deep breath and stepped forward.

  Heat prickled around me. A thin film of resistance.

  The ring burned hot against my finger, a bright point of pain. It blazed higher, searing through my body, across my scalp. My breath caught at the sting. “I can’t.”

  “You can,” Lady Berri said.

  Even my blood was burning. I took a deep breath, bracing myself for immobility, as Herr Steinberg had promised. Would the Circle find us here, frozen? Or would Lady Berri bring my body back to Grandmama?

  No. I would not be so weak. Anger brought my shadow self surging upward, and I released her. I would do this. I would not let the spell or pain block me.

  The pain was sun-bright now, a whiteness at the edge of my vision. I cried out, and my shadow self flooded my entire body, riding the agony to my fingertips, and beyond.

  I dropped to my knees. The air around me seemed to catch, and then split wide.

  A thunderclap of pain so intense I thought I had died.

  Then I was falling.

  Air screamed past me, dousing the fire in my blood. I waited for the threatened Immobility spell to catch me, my muscles already tensed against the sudden cessation.

  Nothing happened, save the wind in my eyes and my stomach somersaulting inside me. Had I broken the spell on the ring? A brief memory surfaced: my uncle’s eyes when he looked at Herr Steinberg. Had Pál even cast the Immobility spell?

  I had just begun to wonder if I would ever stop falling when I landed.

  A dense carpet of flowers spread across a familiar hillside. Only this time, the carpet was not violets, but Queen Anne’s lace, the filigree clusters of tiny white flowers bobbing on the wind. I plucked a stem and wrinkled my nose at the rank, parsnip-like smell. Not Queen Anne’s lace. Hemlock.

  I curled my fingers around the handle of the bone knife and stood. I shook my hand, and Herr Steinberg’s ring tumbled to the ground with a faint thud. I smiled grimly at the discarded gargoyle. I had work to do.

  Find the heart of the spell, Hunger had said. I looked around. There was nothing in the peaceful vista around me that suggested sacrifice, that demanded my blood or my broken heart. A gentle breeze tugged at me, urging me toward the forest of shimmering leaves. Hunger had told me not to wander in strange woods alone, but he was not here. And I must go somewhere.

  A shadow fell across my face. I tipped my head back to see a falcon slicing through the air, half again the size of my beloved peregrines, golden striations across the back and tail. I brushed my fingers against Karolina’s necklace. A turul bird? A good omen, in any case.

  I followed the bird along a faint trail through the flowers to the edge of the wood, then stopped. Shadows shifted between the close-packed trees, and I shuddered, thinking of the fene on Whitsun night. If I died here, in the center of a spell, would anyone know? Lady Berri might suspect when I did not return, but my body would be lost to the Binding spell.

  Courage, I thought.

  Inhaling deeply, I plunged into the shadows.

  The road I followed was deeply scored and narrow, overgrown by weeds and choked with dead leaves. I imagined once it was a busy trade route, now abandoned. By whom and for what reason, I could not fathom. Unease nagged at me.

  The woods were quiet.

  Too quiet.

  I heard no trills of familiar (or even unfamiliar) songbirds. No rustle of small animals in the underbrush. No distant cawing of crows. The falcon had disappeared above the trees. And though the silver leaves twitched and stirred, I heard no rushing wind through the branches. The only sound in all the shifting wood was the crunching of my feet against dry leaves. I told myself it was just the interior of a spell, but that was small comfort. In the millennium since the Binding was created, anything might have evolved within it.

  A flashing movement tugged at the corner of my eye. I glanced over my shoulder, squinting into the darkness between the pale trunks. Nothing. But I caught a flash again from the other side, and my heart began to thump too strong and too loud against my breastbone.

  I stepped forward in t
ime to the pounding of my heart.

  Thump, thump, thump.

  Then I heard something. A faint, high keening to my left. A woman’s voice, caught in a perfect pitch of agony. The sound was picked up on my right, louder and closer.

  My heart sped up. So did my feet.

  Another flash of movement in the woods. This time I glimpsed a figure, moon white against the darkness, pale hair tangled around a ruined face. Rusalka? Or vadleány, a wicked forest sprite from Grandmama’s stories? Perhaps something nameless but equally horrifying. The creature kept pace with me, following but not yet approaching.

  A thrill of fear shot through me.

  A second figure joined the first, and then a third, even closer, on my right side. With cries that sent needles of pain into every pore of my skin, they converged on the road.

  I picked up my skirts and ran.

  My corset dug bone fingers into my ribs. Each breath sawed through my lungs.

  The creatures with their curious loping gait were gaining on me.

  I ran faster.

  My shoe caught on one of the deep scars in the road and flung me forward, hands and face scraping against the hard dirt. My knife skittered across the road and was lost in the shadows beyond it.

  At once the first of the creatures was upon me, her weight like a gravestone on my back. She wrapped her fingers in my hair and yanked, the sharp pain pulling tears into my eyes. A second creature crouched in the road before me. She smelled of wood rot and places damp with mold. Boszorkány. Wood witch.

  She jabbed a long, waxy finger at my right eye, and I flinched. She flicked my closed eyelid with her finger and laughed.

  “Poke her eyes out,” she said.

  The first shifted on my back. I could scarce breathe under her weight, but when she released my hair and slipped her tomb-cold fingers around my neck, my heart nearly stopped. I struggled to throw her off me, but her body was a dead weight, her hands like stone.