For her sake and for mine, I hoped that she was right. Some tiny part of me twinged, though. If I indeed had that much power, should I have given it away? Should I have asked what she intended to do with it? I didn’t trust Margot or anyone here. Would she ultimately hold up her end of the bargain?
It was done, though. No use crying over spilled blood. I leaned forward as I watched her. Her green eyes glowed with anticipation.
“I know you don’t believe, child. Contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t matter. Magic is not a matter of belief. It’s of sheer will and science—and I have enough for both of us.”
“What is the blood for?” I demanded, too late. I should have asked first. I’d told myself that I didn’t care what it was for. That all that mattered was Bale. But as she swilled the blood around in the chalice, I had a wild thought that she was going to drink it. Or somehow make a weapon out of it. The idea sounded like something Chord would have believed back at Whittaker, but after the things I’d seen in the last few days, the impossible was outweighing the possible more times than not.
“Telling you why was not part of our bargain. But I don’t see the harm in your knowing.”
Another wave of her hand and some kind of medieval-looking ring of knives appeared in the center of the room, hovering in midair in front of me.
“What is that?”
“The last time we were at the Duchess’s palace, we found out she had a piece of the mirror. It was only a matter of time before we tracked down the architect who designed her safe, and he was kind enough to make a replica of the lock for us. The knives are part of the lock.
“This device is identical to the one that guards the safe,” she continued. “Only royal blood will open the safe. We can’t replicate whatever trap lies behind the safe wall. But this will get us past the first obstacle.”
She took the chalice and carefully placed a drop of my blood on one of the knives. Nothing happened at first. Then the knives slowly turned their points in Margot’s direction.
Margot whispered some words I could not hear, and the knives fell to the ground.
“So I’m guessing that was not supposed to happen? It didn’t work?” I asked.
Queen Margot held up a crystal from around her neck. It glowed a scarlet red.
“This reacts in the presence of magic. It proves that you have magic in you. It should have worked. I don’t understand. You have your blood to take, entrance you must make.” This time she spoke louder, but nothing else happened. “I was sure it would be in your blood. I was sure it would be enough …” She drifted off, confused.
The knives rattled on the floor again. Their blades pointed toward me.
“Leave!” Queen Margot ordered.
As I rushed out of the room, I heard a crash of crystal landing on the floor.
22
A snow tornado was forming outside the window of my room. I had tried the front door of the Claret and found it spelled shut. I had to find another way.
“I can’t stay here. I need to leave,” I said to Jagger. “Will you help me? Or do I have to do it by myself?”
“I can’t help you.”
“Of course, you can’t. Robber Rules, right? Then you might want to get the hell out of my way. It’s not going to be pretty.”
He stood in my way. He knew I wouldn’t send a tornado through him.
“What happened, Snow?”
“Margot tried my blood in that lock of hers, and when it didn’t work she threw a temper tantrum with knives, Jagger,” I said, pacing away from him. “I may have snow, but I am not impervious to sharp, pointy things,” I finished.
He studied me a beat, considering.
“It doesn’t matter if you go. You made a deal. Margot has your blood. She can do a locator spell. There isn’t anywhere that you go that she can’t find you. And if Queen Margot doesn’t give you up, there is a roomful of Robbers out there wondering what you’re worth. There’s an Enforcer scouring all of Algid in the hopes of finding you for the King. Do you know how much the King’s offering to pay for your head?” Jagger said bluntly.
I was in danger again. These girls were not my friends, and neither was Jagger. Convincing anyone to help me get home, to find the mirror and to get my life back, was a long shot.
I suddenly felt tired. Like every muscle in my body that had been holding me up was sagging. For the first time ever in my life, I longed for my cage at Whittaker. For my quiet. For my Bale.
“I thought I was doing you a favor in bringing you here,” Jagger continued.
“Because you thought I’d repay you with my blood.”
He shrugged nonchalantly. “Even so, I promise I will protect you.”
“You’re the reason why things are happening to me.” He wasn’t completely. My father had started this. It just felt better to blame Jagger, because he was there.
“I won’t apologize for giving you a way out of Whittaker. For giving you a way to save Bale.”
“Let me guess. Robber Rules.”
“I know you have no reason to believe me. But I don’t want anything bad to happen to you. I want to honor my promise.”
“I don’t know that. I can’t trust you to save the one person in the world that I do trust. I don’t know who you are. You hide your real faces from one another. How is that living? I don’t want to hide my scars, I wish I didn’t have magic, and I’d rather dance with my feet on the ground! I don’t want to live in a dream—I just want to live. Like a normal person. And I want to feel things for real.”
“Well, you’re not going to like what I have to say next,” Jagger added quietly.
I wasn’t sure if he had really heard me. But his eyes softened with what looked like hurt, as if my each and every word were a body blow.
“There’s more?” I asked, incredulous.
“I know a way to make sure that Margot and the other Robbers will have to keep you safe, too.”
“What could that possibly be?”
“Become one of us. We’re down a Robber.”
“But that’s …” Insane? Ridiculous?
Before I could say anything more, my field of vision went black, and then all I could see was the inside of a house.
It was small, and the walls were white. The furniture was sparse but didn’t look like anything in Algid or Whittaker. I didn’t understand the dream—especially because I felt completely awake. But the house looked familiar.
I’d seen it before. Bale had showed me pictures. This was his house. The one that he burned down.
Dr. Harris had talked about how the mind creates a safe place where you can go when things were too hard in the real world. Bale had taken himself to his childhood home, the one he’d burned down. And he was setting it on fire again and again.
Little boy Bale pacing the house. Little boy Bale outside watching it burn.
But why was I seeing Bale’s safe place? Then I saw a flash of somewhere else. Another place I’d never been. A triangular room that seemed to have a steeple.
“Snow.” Bale said my name.
Wherever he was, he was thinking about me.
“Snow …,” another voice called.
Jagger’s voice took me out of it and back to the shadow of the Claret. I needed another minute and another second more. I needed a few more seconds with Bale. A few more seconds to pinpoint exactly where he was.
“Snow,” Jagger said again, his arms on mine, shaking me gently.
It took me a second to focus on him.
“What just happened?” he asked, studying me closely.
“Just seeing through my missing boyfriend’s eyes. Or at least I think that’s what was happening.”
“Where was he?” Jagger asked.
“A dark room. I think he was in pain. There was a triangular room like this.”
I drew the image into the frosty air, excited that my control over my powers was progressing. Worst-case scenario, it was a cool party trick.
“The King’s dungeo
ns,” Jagger said almost proudly, taking this as proof that he was right about where Bale was. The fact that he didn’t care what shape Bale was in made my fingers twitch, with snow.
Stuffing down the urge to freeze his mouth shut, I asked, “Do you really not care about anyone?”
“Everyone cares for someone,” he said, sounding sincere for a moment. “If you’re lucky, more than one someone,” he added, as if remembering that sincerity was not what he wanted me to see.
I sighed heavily. I was tired of his charm. I was tired of the Claret’s shabby beauty.
“You’re probably marked,” he said as if he could sense that I had reached another in a series of breaking points. “That’s why you and Bale are connected. Why you can see him.”
“Is this part of the prophecy?” I asked.
“No, it’s part of Algid. When you love someone—really love someone—and you have magic, it’s possible to imprint each other. But it’s just a legend. Then again, you were just a legend until I met you.”
Imprint? I’d seen a movie once where a teen werewolf had fallen in love with a girl and he imprinted on her, linking them forever. Were Bale and I imprinted?
I ignored what I thought was a compliment and tried to unravel the point. “Like in fairy tales? Like when princes wake up princesses with kisses from magically induced comas—like that?”
Jagger looked at me as if the idea was completely foreign to him. He was not familiar with Sleeping Beauty, apparently.
“Of course, it might not be the mark at all. Maybe you’re more like your father than you want to admit.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“King Lazar claims to be able to use his snow to get inside the good people of Algid’s heads. Or at least that’s the rumor. I think it’s just bull-thorn, personally. Just another way of making the people fear him…”
“If I had mind control powers, you would not be talking anymore,” I said evenly.
He considered this with a smile and went back to his first theory.
“Usually, the imprint is accompanied by some kind of physical marking.”
I drew the mark I’d seen on Bale’s arm in the air. The image hung there for what seemed like an eternity.
“Like I said, I’ve never seen an imprint before, but I think that the legend says it’s specific to the giver. Every one is supposed to be different.”
“Like a snowflake,” I finished, sarcasm dripping from the word.
He shook his head. “I was going to say like every love is different. But your metaphor works, too.”
“The symbol—it looks like something on the Tree, Jagger.”
“Your mom and the other witches made the Tree to get you and her out of Algid. It’s probably your rune.”
“Rune?”
“I hate to say that I have never been much for symbols—Fathom’s the one you should talk to—but the witches carve them into things for all sorts of reasons, mainly protection.”
“And I carve them into people?”
“You are special, Snow. You’re the product of a King and a witch … Like the prophecy says, you might just be the most powerful thing ever. Why wouldn’t you love more powerfully, too?”
Jagger’s words hung between us like my drawing had. I fought the urge to look away from his unrelenting stare.
“So either I am tied to Bale in my mind, or I have freaky mind-control powers over everything…”
“I kind of hope it’s neither,” he said.
“Huh?”
“I hope that you aren’t channeling your boyfriend. That you aren’t capable of freaky mind-control things, as you call it.”
“You would prefer that I have lost my sanity and I am just having waking dreams of my kidnapped boyfriend? Why?”
“Two reasons: One, I don’t love the idea of your being psychically hitched to Fire Boy.”
“What’s it to you who I’m psychically hitched to?” I interrupted.
“Which brings me to reason number two: I don’t love the idea of your getting into my head and figuring out what I was really thinking.”
“Why don’t you just tell me what you’re thinking?”
“Where’s the fun in that?” he answered.
“When I first kissed Bale and he melted down, I was so drugged up. I thought … I thought the kiss … I thought I had actually made him crazy …,” I blurted without looking at Jagger.
He reached up and took my chin and made me face him.
“You are a force, Snow. But I would never believe that.”
He released me.
I looked away again, more grateful than I wanted to be. And more affected by his touch than I liked. Especially with Bale’s consciousness so close to my own.
Perhaps I had for once penetrated through the layers of Jagger’s charm, and then he said something that stunned me.
“The connection would go both ways, Snow. Bale can see you, too. If he’s in the King’s dungeons, maybe this will give him hope. Keep him going until…”
“Until we get him out? I’m in. Whatever you want, I’ll do it. You want me to be a Robber? I’m a Robber.”
Margot appeared suddenly beside Jagger.
“I couldn’t have said it better myself,” she said with a smile.
I didn’t know how much she had heard. But I still needed to negotiate terms.
“You’re spying on me now?” I demanded, squaring my shoulders for once. My ire was up. Outside the window, I could hear my little snow tornado knocking down a few of those trees.
“I have done my duty for the Claret,” I said. “You promised me that you would help me get Bale back and that I could go home if I gave you my blood, and I have.”
“Snow, you were to give me blood imparted with magic. Your blood has secrets that elude me. So, no, you have not held up your end of the bargain entirely. I will not help you until I hold the Duchess’s mirror in my hand. We thought we could transport your blood and take it with us, but for the spell to work, you might have to be present. The blood might have to come directly from your body. Or at least that’s what Fathom hopes. Of course, first we need to know that your blood works.”
“Fathom’s the resident blood expert?” I asked.
She nodded. She wanted me to stick my hand into the trap for real this time. No chalice.
She rolled on, as if I had already agreed.
“And so it seems, Jagger is right. We must turn you into one of us or you will never get past the Duchess. Contrary to what my children think, you could drink every drop in every bottle and steal a thousand mirrors and still not be a good Robber. It will take hard work. But you are the Snow Princess. I have no doubt you will be up to the challenge.”
“There’s something else that I want,” I said, an idea forming.
“Robber Rules: you must learn that there are no gifts, my dear.”
I knew that before I got here, I thought. I thought of the mittens my mother had given me the day before I left for Algid. They now represented a lifetime of guilt and secrets on her part.
“I just want to know one thing. I have spent most of my life not knowing anything. I don’t want to be in the dark anymore.”
“What are you asking, exactly?” she said.
“I want to know how it works. How I work. Teach me. Teach me how to wield my magic,” I said, standing in front of Margot.
Margot leaned against the doorframe and said, “I wish I could. But I can’t. I don’t know how.”
“Then I want something else. I want anyone other than Jagger to teach me. Keep him the hell away from me.”
Jagger looked at me, surprised. Margot just laughed and said a single word: “No.”
23
A few minutes later I sealed my deal with the Robber Queen. We went back to the vial room, and this time I stuck my hand inside the lock. It drew my blood, and the knives clattered to the ground.
“Of course, there is a rumor that the lock changes on a daily basis.”
“And the lock maker couldn’t confirm this?” I asked, suspicion rising.
“Unfortunately, the lock maker died before he could share that information.”
She disappeared with a satisfied smile. I walked back to my room, wondering if I had made the right choice.
I had agreed to become a Robber. It was the only way I could protect myself. And the first step to becoming a Robber was finding out exactly what that meant and what I would have to do. It was time to make peace with the Robber girls.
I found Fathom in a cold, fluorescent-lit room that reminded me of the medical or scientific labs I had seen on TV.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Fathom dared.
“What is this place?” I asked, taking it all in.
Something growled from the corner of the room. I swiveled around to see a Snow Wolf trapped inside a glass box. The ani-mal was strangely alluring. I had only seen Snow Wolves when they were chasing after me and there wasn’t enough time then to get a good look. I couldn’t help myself. I walked over to the box.
When I got closer, the Snow Wolf lunged at the glass and disintegrated into a gazillion flurries, which fell onto the floor of the cage. After a second, the flurries came back together again, re-forming the Snow Wolf. It lunged at me again, repeating the process.
“I’ve never seen it do that before,” Fathom said, wrinkling her nose. She looked from the glass case to me and back again, trying to figure out the connection.
“Why do you have a Snow Wolf?” I demanded.
“It’s a hobby. Nothing in the Claret is free. Margot allows me my hobby in exchange for my services.”
“What services?”
Fathom flicked a switch, which turned on a light at the far end of the room. There were bodies of women laid out on wooden slabs.
“Did you ever wonder how we get the faces?” Fathom asked.
Stunned, I looked from her to one of the corpses. It had the same face as Fathom.