Hidden Huntress

  “You’re right,” I said, because though I may not have considered the practical aspects of trolls’ control over the Isle, I knew no one was beyond the King’s reach. “Sabine, do you know what a regent is?”

  She shrugged. “Like a king?”

  “It’s the title given to the individual who is temporarily head of a kingdom in place of the monarch.”

  “But the Isle doesn’t have a monarch.”

  I lifted one eyebrow, and watched understanding settle on her face. “I think the first regent was put in his position by the trolls after they were cursed, but only because they thought it would be temporary until Anushka was tracked down and killed.”

  A crease formed between Sabine’s eyebrows. “But then… wouldn’t it be in the best interest of the Regent not to find her? To keep the trolls contained, and thus keep control of the Isle?”

  I nodded. “That’s exactly what I think the Regency has been doing throughout history. On the surface, they’ve made it look like they are helping search by legalizing the witch-hunts, but in reality, they’ve been harboring the one witch who mattered most. I don’t have any proof, but I think that might have something to do with Catherine’s fall from grace – that she got too close to the truth.”

  “Catherine?”

  “La Voisin,” I clarified, so used to her knowing everything that I’d forgotten she didn’t know the outcome of my meeting with the witch she’d discovered.

  Sabine’s frown stayed in place as I explained Catherine’s connection to the Regency and the reasons for my speculations, growing deeper when I told her about the spell I’d done with Chris the prior night. “So even though she might not understand how important Anushka is, Catherine might still know her identity?”

  “Not that she’s likely to tell me anything,” I said with a grimace. “She’s terrified of the Regency.”

  “Too bad none of your books has a spell for plucking knowledge from someone’s head,” she said, giving Anushka’s grimoire a poke.

  An idea burst in my mind like a firecracker. “Sabine,” I said. “You’re a genius.”

  * * *

  The cook had given me a strange look when I’d appeared downstairs in my dressing gown, but she hadn’t interfered when I’d gone into the pantry to retrieve a sprig of rosemary. Back in my bedroom with the drapes drawn and my door jammed, I’d carefully torn the page containing the spell for the skin cream out of the grimoire. After I’d copied the contents of the page out on a piece of stationery under Sabine’s watchful eye, I carefully rolled up the original, wrapped a strand of the hair Chris had stolen and the sprig of rosemary around it, and held the package over my washbasin full of water.

  I understood better now than I had before why the spell worked as it did: the piece of paper with the spell on it focused on the memory I wished to extract, and the hair acted as a link to Catherine, while the rosemary improved and strengthened the clarity. Water was the element of choice because memory and thought were fluid and transitory, ever changing.

  “You’ve done this before?” Sabine asked.

  “A variation of it,” I replied, examining my work. “Magic doesn’t work on trolls, but it does work on half-bloods.” The spell had been intended to find lost items, but I’d adapted it before when I’d used it on Élise in order to extract the memory of when she’d last seen the clove oil I’d needed for the injury I’d sustained during the earthshake. Catherine had told me that the incantation used was merely a way to focus on the desired outcome, so I was sure it was possible to change the spell again to suit my purposes.

  “But if magic doesn’t work on them, why does a curse?”

  I bit my lip. Her question was one I’d pondered at length before. “I don’t know. But hush now, I need quiet for this.”

  Staring at the rolled-up paper, I focused my thoughts. I wanted the strongest memory associated with the spell, but more than that, I wanted to know whom it had been for.

  “When did you cast this spell?” I whispered, then dropped the package into the water. “And for whom did you cast it?”

  Touching the surface of the water, I felt power surge through me while the roaring sound of a river flowed out of the basin. The paper spun round and round, then as though it had suddenly tripled in weight, it plunged to the bottom.

  Sabine gasped, and I almost did, too. That hadn’t happened before.

  My pulse fluttered in my neck, and it was a struggle to maintain my concentration as the water turned dark and murky. There was movement, but I felt as though I were spying on a scene taking place in the darkest of nights. Whispers of sound teased my ears, but I couldn’t decipher what they were. Leaning closer to the water, I peered into the basin, trying to pick out something familiar.

  “What’s going to happen?” Sabine asked.

  “Watch.”

  Crimson splattered up from the depths, and we both jerked back. The surface of the water caught and held the red liquid like a pane of glass, but I knew what it was. Blood, but from who or what, I could not say.

  “Eternal youth, eternal youth, eternal youth.” The words started quiet as a thought, but then grew louder and louder until I was sure everyone in the house could hear the voice. Catherine’s voice.

  Then abruptly as it had begun, the voice went silent. The bowl of water turned pristine white.

  But the memory wasn’t over.

  Slowly, the whiteness faded like clouds clearing on a summer sky, and an image appeared. A woman – Catherine – was walking through the corridors of the castle, the skirt she was kicking out in front of her infinitely finer than what she wore now. I could hear her heels against the stone, the swish of the fabric of her dress, although the quality of the sound was strange. She paused in front of a door, looked both ways, then entered into the room.

  “I have it.” Catherine spoke, the words echoing as though she stood at the end of a long corridor.

  “It took you long enough.” The voice of the woman who spoke was distorted, and Catherine was staring at her feet, so I couldn’t see who it was.

  “This is the last batch.” Catherine’s voice shook. “I can’t keep doing this – what if I get caught?”

  “Be more afraid of what will happen to you if you stop!” There was a flurry of motion, and the other woman snatched up the jar Catherine was holding and spun away. She finally looked up, but the other woman was wearing a hooded cloak.

  “Turn around,” I breathed at the image. “Who are you?”

  “It’s getting harder and harder to hide the bodies,” Catherine pleaded. “This is dark magic, mistress. There is always a cost.”

  “I don’t care.” The woman whirled around, revealing the cruel beaked mask she wore. It concealed all her features, making it impossible to tell what she looked like or even how old she was. “There is no cost too great. Not for this. I must endure.”

  The image vanished, and the basin was once again filled with ordinary water and the sodden bundle of paper, hair, and herb, the magic fading away. Sabine met my eyes. “Do you think that was her?”

  I nodded slowly. “The way she said the last bit, I must endure, there was something about her phrasing. Not that her beauty or youth must endure, but that she herself must.”

  “It could mean nothing. She could just be a woman desperate to maintain her youth.”

  “Or it could mean everything.” Pushing the basin back, I got to my feet. “I need to see Catherine and convince her to tell me what she knows.”

  “She’s no more likely to tell you anything now than she was before, Cécile.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” I said. “The desire for revenge is a powerful motivator, and I think I can appeal to that.”

  “All right, but there’s still one problem.”

  “I know,” I said. “I need to find a way to get past my mother.”

  Twenty-Four

  Tristan

  I frowned at the column of rock rising up before me, then scribbled a series of calculati
ons, pen held with an invisible hand of magic. It had taken me a bit of practice to learn to write this way, but necessity had demanded it. Even if I could manage to grip a pen with my numb fingers, my shaking would have rendered whatever I tried to write illegible. I glanced down at my hands, knowing without removing my gloves that my fingers looked grey and lifeless, the skin surrounding the spikes through my wrists black with iron rot. I was ill and exhausted, my constant use of magic draining me and leaving my body susceptible to the toxic metal.

  In the heat of the moment in the throne room, I’d made my promise to Tips without considering the ramifications. And now I was suffering the consequences. To build the tree, I needed to be alive; but the darkening bonding marks on my hand spoke of the deterioration of Cécile’s strength, which, along with the spread of the iron rot in my wrists, was evidence that my days were numbered. Which drove me to work harder.

  I couldn’t stop, not to eat or to sleep; and the continual drain on my power allowed the rot to worsen. Which made me work harder still. I was caught in a spiral, and unless something changed, the result was inevitable.

  I might have fought the compulsion to build continually a little harder, but there was one other problem: I liked the work.

  Liked wasn’t even a strong enough word – I loved it. Loved transforming the vision in my mind into something tangible. Loved that I was creating something permanent. Loved that this was a problem I was solving, unlike the others on my very long list.

  I still had no notion of what Lessa had said to my father to set him off so badly. She was effectively my father’s spy in Angoulême’s home, so it might well have been some information she had discovered. Possibly something to do with my brother, the idea of which made me very nervous.

  Or it could have been something Lessa had done to anger our father herself, though I couldn’t imagine why she would do that. They were allies in this, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t dispose of her if necessary. I’d avoided her like the snake she was, but I’d seen her enough in the distance to know she was alive and unharmed. Part of me wished she were dead.

  “Your Highness?”

  I turned to see the crew of half-bloods I was working with standing next to the massive block of stone they’d carefully cut and prepared. “Ready?”

  They nodded, their eyes wide with excitement. I wondered how many more blocks I’d have to lift before the euphoria of watching the tree come to life diminished. For them and me both.

  Widening my stance for balance, I coiled magic around the stone and lifted it up into the air, the heels of my boots grinding into the cobblestones. Magic magnified my strength a thousandfold and more, but it still came from me. I’d knocked myself over before trying to lift something while I wasn’t balanced; and the last thing I wanted to do was fall on my ass in front of everyone. Taking a step back, I brightened the light so I could see and gently set the stone on top of the column. One of the crew scrambled up the scaffolding, recklessly hanging off the structure to make certain the stone was square and level.

  “It’s perfect, Your Highness,” she called down to me, and the others cheered.

  “Good,” I called back wearily. “I’ll see you in a few days.”

  Fetching my hat and coat, I started walking toward my next scheduled stop, eyeing each construction site as I went. In two weeks, we’d more than quadrupled the progress they’d made over three months, but the amount of work left was daunting. The half-bloods had little time to spare to the effort, as most of their hours were spent working for the Guilds; but many of them were willing to forgo sleep in order to get another block of stone cut, another few yards of height on their columns.

  They were warming to me, as well. I wasn’t sure if it was the progress we were making together, or if Tips had worked some sort of magic, but I hadn’t had to deal with one of them trying to kill me during the last twenty-four hours. Or maybe they were just waiting for me to finish the work before doing the deed.

  “I’m telling you, fool, it shifted during the night. Look! Look!” Pierre’s shrill voice pierced my ears, and I picked up my pace to see what had upset the man so much that he’d ventured from his home.

  “There!” he shouted when he caught sight of me. “Someone who understands. Your Highness, please talk some sense into these imbeciles.”

  The three Builders’ Guild members he had just insulted looked too weary to care. I recognized all of them, though I didn’t know their names. One looked normal enough, but the strained wheeze of her breath suggested her affliction was internal. The other two were more obviously marked, one with an extra set of arms and the other with smooth skin where his eyes should be.

  “There was a tremor in the night,” Pierre said, shaking his fist in the air. “A small one, but enough that the rocks may have shifted. Yet all they do is walk to and fro, filling the tree with power. They aren’t checking for changes. They don’t understand it. They’ll kill us all.” His eyes were wild, watching the blackness of the cavern above us as though he expected a rock to drop and hit him directly.

  “Pierre, calm down,” I said. “I can’t get involved – my father specifically commanded me to leave the Guild to its business.” I flicked my attention to the three trolls. “He’s right, though, you know. You cannot treat this structure as static. It wasn’t built that way.”

  “It seems fine,” the wheezy one replied, gesturing skyward. “It looks fine.”

  “Looks?” I repeated, looking pointedly up at the blackness. “You can’t manage the tree by looking at it. You have to do it by feel.” I muttered a few choice curses and then tossed my coat and hat on the back of Pierre’s wheeled chair. “Warn me if anyone comes.”

  Reluctantly, I peeled off my gloves. Setting them aside, I put my hands into the nearest column of magic, feeling the warm vestiges of my own power flow over my fingers. I closed my eyes, letting my magic drift over the ceiling above, each rock a familiar old friend. There were a few small changes, but nothing of great concern. I started to pull away from the tree when the blind guild member approached. “Will you tell me how you do it, Your Highness?”

  “By feel,” I said, glad that it had been him who had approached because he couldn’t see the damaged state of my wrists and hands. “You must memorize how each and every rock is placed so that you will know instinctively if something has shifted. Then you must judge how the weight and balance has changed and modify the canopy to compensate.”

  The man smiled, resting a hand against the column. He was quiet for a moment, then he said, “Northwest sixty-three and sixty-five are lower, but barely.”

  “Yes,” I said, frowning at him. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

  “I did.” He turned his head toward where Pierre was arguing with the other two guild members. “But it was an excuse to speak with you.”

  Curiosity flared in side of me. “About?”

  “I knew what the half-bloods were constructing would never work,” he said softly. “I could hear where they were building, and it didn’t feel right. And I wasn’t the only one. Others noticed it too.” He wrung his hands together. “We knew he’d tricked them, but we’d be fools to say anything against your father.”

  I hesitated. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because we want you to know that it isn’t only the half-bloods who will rise up against your father to put you on the throne.” He turned his face back to me, and even though he had no eyes, I could have sworn he was seeing me.

  “The guilds are full of your supporters – full-bloods who believe you are the key to our survival. That you will be the one who sets us free.”

  A thousand thoughts chased each other through my mind, but I couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

  Pierre’s whistle stole away the moment. “Visitors,” he hissed, jerking his chin in the direction of the bobbing light coming swiftly down the street.

  I rose, backing away from the tree and letting my light dim in the foolish hope that w
hoever approached wouldn’t recognize me.

  A boy near to my age skidded to a stop in front of us, his uniform marked with the Builders’ Guild emblem of a hammer and chisel. “News from the palace!” His eyes widened when he saw me. “Begging your pardon, Your Highness.” He started to bow, then stopped, his eyes flicking between his elder fellows for guidance.

  “Don’t hold back on my account,” I said, leaning against the wall. “Tell us the news.”

  “It’s about your brother,” he said. “Prince Roland.”

  “I know who my brother is.” My voice was light, but if I’d had hackles, they would have risen. “What about him?”

  “The King has announced his betrothal.”

  I grimaced. He wouldn’t be bound to anyone until he was at least sixteen, but I still pitied whatever girl had been chosen. The idea of anyone being emotionally tied to my insane, sadistic little brother made me sick. “To whom?”

  The boy licked his lips, looking anywhere but at me. My unease grew – something wasn’t right. What was my father up to? “Spit it out,” I snapped, ignoring how he jumped, eyes bright with fear.

  “It’s just that I don’t think you’re going to like it very much, given that you… and her…”

  The lights of those around me began to spin. No, no, no! “Tell me who!”

  The boy swallowed hard. “To Lady Anaïs, Your Highness. Prince Roland has been betrothed to the heiress of the Duchy of Angoulême.”

  Twenty-Five

  Cécile

  “Please let me go out,” I begged, flinging myself onto the sofa where my mother sat reading.

  She turned a page and didn’t look up. “No. I don’t trust you not to go running toward trouble.”

  “You’re driving me mad,” I muttered. And she really was. It had been over a week since I’d stolen Catherine’s memory, but I’d been able to do nothing about it thanks to my mother. The only time I was allowed out of the house was for performances or masque rehearsals – none of which Marie had attended – and she never let me out of her sight for more than a moment. Compelling her with magic might well get me free of her for a few moments, but the effects were fleeting and I knew no way of permanently altering her thoughts. Nor was the idea of doing so particularly conscionable.