The Snow Queen's shadow

CHAPTER 6

Snow paused when she reached Fisherman’s Canal, the narrow waterway that ran along the base of the white cliffs. The foulness of fish and old bait permeated the air. Half-finished sailing ships huddled like rotting corpses in the shipyard to her right. To her left, buildings crowded the rocky land closest to the cliff. Most were stilted on columns of wood or stone, protecting them from waves and high tides. Taverns and inns competed with warehouses and shops. All were built with steep, reinforced roofs to protect them from falling snow and ice in winter.

A single rockslide would crush half the harbor. Snow squinted, searching for the spells that protected the buildings below. Her vision was sharper than before. With only the moon and stars, she could still discern details that only a few days ago would have eluded her in full sunlight: a nest tucked into a crag of rock, a slender sapling clinging desperately to the cliffside close to the top. The magic shone as if aflame: strong charms, but someday their power would decay. All magic failed eventually.

Even in winter, hours before dawn, the harbor was a place of chaos. One overweight captain in a garish green jacket shouted orders to the men unloading his ship. Farther along, a younger man in the uniform of the Harbormaster’s Office guided a fishing vessel into the docks. Beggars crawled like lice along the edge of the canal, competing with the gulls to collect fish guts to sell for bait. The cries of the gulls sounded like the mocking laughter of children.

“Look at them,” Snow said. “Cawing and racing about as though their lives were in any way meaningful.”

Jakob didn’t answer. He walked beside her like a pet, his hand clamped in her own. He hadn’t tried to run away, not since she threatened to fling him into the ocean. The crying was another matter. Her magic had silenced his whimpering, but couldn’t penetrate his mind. He had cried throughout the carriage ride to the harbor. Dried tears and snot covered his face.

She scooped Jakob into one arm, carrying him in a way that might from a distance be mistaken as caring. His body was taut, and he wouldn’t look her in the eyes.

“You could burn it all, and who would notice?” Snow asked. “Ten years from now, their names would be forgotten. Twenty years, and the fire would be but a story told by old men. Even you, little prince. Your death will be nothing but a note in a forgotten history of the royal family.”

Jakob whimpered.

“I was to be queen,” she continued, looking out over the water. “My mother wouldn’t live forever. All I had to do was survive, and one day I would have earned my reward. When I met Roland, I dreamed I would make him king, that we would rule Allesandria together. But the world cares nothing for dreams.”

As she walked, she marveled at her strength. The mirror’s magic had infused her blood. She hardly noticed Jakob’s weight. She could toss him into the sea or dash him against the rocks without straining, and spellcasting came as easily as breathing. She briefly considered ripping the cliffside apart, merely because she could. Perhaps this was Beatrice’s final gift, giving Snow the power to take back what was hers.

“All my life, my mother’s magic dwarfed mine. It was only anger and desperation that allowed me to defeat her, and even in defeat she destroyed me. I should have been queen, but her poison had already spread through Allesandria, corrupting those in power. They were afraid to confront my mother, but once she was dead, they turned their loathing and their fear upon me.”

She adjusted the strap of her sack. The rope dug into her shoulder, but the pain didn’t bother her. “The world is broken, Prince Jakob. A place of chaos and madness that can never truly be controlled. Your parents believe they will one day rule Lorindar, but they cannot control her people any more than a beggar can command those gulls.”

She smiled and stretched a hand toward the birds. With barely a thought, one of the gulls cried out and fell, bouncing off the roof of a warehouse with a wet thump.

She slowed, glancing at the road behind her. It would be a shame to abandon her library at the palace, but Lorindar was a small, insignificant nation. And what need did she have for old books and scrolls? Though there was something… a spell she had been working on? Something to do with Beatrice’s body. Her experiments to save Beatrice had been a failure. The potions and charms she had created over the years were of no use anymore.

The memory slipped away, retreating down into the darkness.

The presence of magic pulled her attention back to the docks. As a child, she had always been able to sense her mother’s spells. Now the magic hummed through her body, a silent tune that rose and fell with her surroundings. This latest chorus of spellcasting originated from the four people hurrying up the road toward her. The Harbormaster himself led the group, if Snow’s eyes didn’t lie.

“Master Francis.” Snow should have foreseen this. The Harbormaster was responsible for all incoming and outgoing ships, which meant checking those vessels for illegal enchantments. A simple illusion had allowed her to stride out of the palace and steal a carriage, but Francis would be able to see through such tricks. She slid the sack from her shoulder, dropping it to the road. A single fragment of glass, no larger than the cap of an acorn, spilled out. “Is there a problem?”

“Princess Whiteshore sent word to watch for you and the boy.” Francis’ men spread out behind him. “Set Prince Jakob down and surrender.”

“What gives you the right to command me?” Snow stepped forward, crushing the glass beneath her heel. She lifted her boot from the pieces and blew softly.

She could feel Francis’ magic circling her, trying to contain her without hurting the prince. She shredded his spell as easily as cobwebs.

Frost spread over the glass shards on the road. Tiny frozen spikes grew from each splinter, spreading into paper-thin panes of ice.

From behind the Harbormaster, a grunting bull of a man lunged forward to grab Snow. Francis shouted an order, but it was too late. The man’s fingers dug into her forearm, trying futilely to pry her grip from the prince. Snow put her other hand over his and squeezed until she felt the bones snap.

Snow pointed to the broken shards. Wings of ice twitched, then fluttered to life. Insects of snow and glass, no larger than wasps, swarmed toward the Harbormaster.

He cast another spell, knocking two of the wasps back. One of his men destroyed a third, but there were too many. Soon the rest were crawling over their bodies, jabbing stingers of mirrored glass into their skin.

Snow glanced around. She had created close to twenty of the wasps, more than she needed to deal with the Harbormaster and his men. There was no point in letting the others go to waste. She called the rest, allowing them to settle into her hair, a living crown of ice and glass. “Come, Jakob. Let’s find ourselves a ship. I’ve so much to do.”

Danielle maintained her composure until she reached the room she shared with Armand. She shut and locked the door behind her, then pulled her sword from its sheath. She collapsed against the door, pressing her forehead to the flat of the blade. The glass sword was liquid smooth, save for a handspan near the hilt where it had once broken. Snow’s magic had fixed the sword, but that part of the blade was frosted.

Jakob was gone. Armand, too, for all intents, unless Isaac or Gerta could free him of Snow’s spell. Snow, Beatrice… it was too much.

Snow had taken her son.

No matter how hard she tried to focus, thoughts of Jakob returned. His confusion yesterday as Danielle pulled him from his father. His laughter the week before at the performance of a tumbler who juggled as many as seven eggs at a time, only to break them all in the end. His small hands digging into her nightgown in the mornings, demanding she wake up.

She forced herself to rise. Clutching the sword in both hands, she made her way to the edge of the bed, thinking back to the first time she had felt Jakob moving within her womb. Danielle had been a prisoner of her stepsisters at the time, trapped deep in the Duchess’ domain below Fairytown. She remembered the cold touch of fairy hands, the tightening of her skin as magic aged her flesh and the unborn child within.

The Duchess was no fairy noble. Centuries ago, she had been a lowly servant, a spy who betrayed the king and queen of Fairytown. On the way to her execution, she had tricked her freedom from the king, bargaining for the right to see one final sunrise. When he agreed, the Duchess fled to the chasm at the center of Fairytown, hiding deep underground where sunlight never penetrated. There she had built her own small kingdom, forever protected from fairy interference by her bargain. Until she looked upon another sunrise, the rulers of Fairytown wouldn’t touch her.

“When you wish to contact me, simply call three times.” Danielle could remember every detail of the Duchess’ face as she spoke those words. What had the fairy known, to create such certainty that Danielle would one day come begging for aid? Had she foreseen this day, or had her words been mere boast?

Danielle wrapped one hand around the hilt, the other around the blade. The sword had never once cut her skin. Her mother’s magic saw to that. A part of her wished it would, if only so the physical pain would distract her from the emptiness inside.

Danielle licked her lips. She had learned enough from Snow to know it wasn’t the name alone that worked fairy magic, but the intention. The need of the caller.

Thinking of Jakob, she whispered “Duchess” three times.

The carpet sagged at a spot between the bed and the door, as though the tile floor beneath had been cut away. Individual fibers unraveled, sinking into a hole illuminated by sickly blue light.

Danielle stood, watching the hole expand until it was the size of a serving platter. The surface shimmered like water, blue lights dancing along the ripples.

“Princess Whiteshore. How lovely to hear your voice once again.” The Duchess’ face was little more than a shadow on the water, but Danielle’s mind painted the details. Short silken hair the color of bleached cotton. Slender ears, the pointed tips rising just past the top of the head. Overlarge eyes and narrow lips that seemed ever quirked in a predator’s smile. “I wasn’t expecting your call. Particularly so soon after you sent your ambassador to demand my arrest.”

Danielle wasn’t at all surprised to learn the Duchess had ears in the fairy courts. The spying and intrigue of Fairytown made human politics look like the simple squabbling of children.

Danielle did her best to remain calm. The Duchess had tricked a fairy king. She would do the same to Danielle in a heartbeat. “That was months ago, and I made no demands. I merely asked Fairytown to investigate your role in the death of my stepsister Charlotte.”

“I was saddened to hear of her passing. The girl should have stayed in my care. She was unprepared for the harsh realities of the world. But she wished to leave, and as a kindness, I chose to grant her freedom. Had I known-”

“And the gown you provided her?” Danielle asked. “Enchanted to carry a fire sprite. I watched as it burned her to death.”

“The fire sprite was to provide warmth only,” the Duchess said. “As you know, my domain is a cold place, without the luxuries enjoyed by those on the surface. I’ve no idea why the sprite turned upon her. Your stepsister was not the most pleasant woman. Perhaps she said something-”

“I’ve no time for pretty lies.” Danielle moved to stand at the edge of the pit. “You sheltered my stepsisters when they kidnapped my husband. You conspired with the Lady of the Red Hood against my friend, murdering Charlotte in the process. Had I any proof you did these things knowingly, I would find a way to see you punished.”

“But you have no such proof.” The Duchess’ tone never lost its smothering politeness.

“No.” Danielle fought the urge to drive her sword into that shadowed face. “I wish to speak to you about another matter. My son Jakob has been taken from me.”

“If you intend to accuse me, you’re wasting your time, Your Highness. Believe it or not, my people aren’t responsible for every child you humans misplace.”

“I know who took him. I want you to help me find him.”

The Duchess was slow to respond, as if savoring Danielle’s words. “You must be devastated. Please accept my sympathy to you and your family.”

“You told me once that I would need your help. Can you find my son?”

The Duchess’ smile grew. “You would bargain for my aid?”

Danielle could hear Talia’s warning as clearly as if she were in the room. Never bargain with fairies. Not if you wish to keep your future, your joy, your very soul. But what if the bargain was the only way to regain those things? “Yes.”

The ripples cleared, bringing the Duchess’ pale face into focus. She wore a circlet of platinum, inlaid with flakes of jade. A high, silver collar followed the contours of her cheekbones. “I may be able to help you track him. Your son is marked, both by the human magic in his father’s bloodline, and by fairy magic.”

“Thanks to your darklings.”

“You still don’t know what he is, do you?” The Duchess laughed. “Danielle, do you think it normal that the animals obey your every wish? That your mother lived on after her death, that she watches you to this day, imprisoned in that magic blade you carry?”

“She loved me.”

“And your father did not? I don’t see you carrying his soul around in a sword.” The Duchess leaned closer. “My darklings did nothing but awaken the fairy magic already within your son’s blood. Judging by your mother’s trick with the hazel tree, I’d guess dryad magic, perhaps three or four generations removed. Your son is a rare creature indeed. One with the ability to manipulate both human and fairy magic. The only question was who would be first to sense that potential and try to steal it.”

“Impossible.” The anger in her voice startled her, but she didn’t try to suppress it. The idea that her mother, that she herself carried fairy blood… “Jakob is human. Snow examined him many times after we escaped your cave, and she never found anything unnatural.”

“What could be more natural than fairy magic?”

Danielle shook her head. “I would have known.”

“Is our kind so horrible? Rest your mind, Princess. You and your son are human in every way that matters. But, like your friend Talia, you’re also something more.”

“You knew.”

The Duchess spread her hands. “I suspected. Human blood dilutes our own. Even a fairy of the pure caste might not recognize one of our descendants after a few generations.”

“Why did you never-?” Danielle backed away. There were many reasons to keep such secrets. A better question was why the Duchess was telling her now. Was it simply a way to keep Danielle off-balance? “What do you want?”

“I can help you find Jakob. In exchange for that help, you will send him to me in Fairytown for six months of each year. I give you my word to raise him like my own son. He will be protected from all harm. Given everything you’ve said, he’ll be safer here than in your own palace.”

“You can’t be serious,” Danielle breathed.

“Isn’t this better than losing him altogether?” The Duchess softened her words, never losing her smile. “I can teach him to understand his fairy blood, to use his magic to protect himself.”

For Jakob’s sake, Danielle refrained from telling the Duchess what she could do with her bargain. “Choose another price.”

“Why ask me, Princess? Why not your friend Snow White?” Amusement danced in her eyes. “Could it be she has finally overreached herself, that she’s fallen prey to her own power?”

The Duchess knew Snow was behind Jakob’s kidnapping. It shouldn’t have surprised her. Febblekeck was the obvious candidate for the spy, but by now word had likely spread.

“As I understand the story,” the Duchess said, “Snow’s mother ordered her killed. She intended to dine upon her own daughter’s heart. Gruesome, but not unknown.”

Danielle kept silent, unsure where the Duchess was leading.

“Ancient wizards believed you could consume another’s magic in such ways. I hope whoever stole Jakob away doesn’t believe as Snow’s mother did. I hate to imagine him suffering such a fate because his own mother was too weak to protect him.”

“I won’t save him from one evil only to give him to another.”

“Very well.” The Duchess’ image began to fade. “When you change your mind, you know how to reach me.”

Danielle’s blade rang against the floor where the Duchess’ face had mocked her only a moment before. Her strike cut the carpet and gouged the tile below. She relaxed her grip, allowing the sword to fall to the floor.

The Duchess was fey; she would keep her word, protecting Jakob and raising him as her own son. Raising him to be fairy. Shaping him into God only knew what. Given the Duchess’ own magic, how difficult would it be to turn Jakob against his own kind?

She stepped to the window. Tiny flecks of silver and iron were worked into each pane of glass. Fairy glass, said to protect against magic, though only the weakest of charms would be repelled by such. The Duchess had answered Danielle’s summons easily enough.

A quiet squeak made her jump. A lone mouse stood in front of her wardrobe, balanced on his hind legs. The animals had always known her mood, coming to comfort her in the darkest times of her childhood. Danielle thought them friends sent by her mother’s spirit.

She dropped to one knee as the mouse darted closer. Drawn by friendship, or by some instinctive fairy allure? “The Duchess is right about one thing,” she whispered. “Every moment I waste, Snow takes my son farther from here.”

The mouse jumped back and waited, whiskers quivering. Its pose reminded her of a soldier awaiting orders.

“Thank you, but I’m afraid you can’t help me in this.” She grabbed her sword and headed for the chapel. Nobody stopped her as she crossed the courtyard. Perhaps something of her mood showed upon her face, because while several people started toward her, each one swiftly turned away.

She yanked open the chapel doors, taking in the scene in a single glance. Armand lay asleep on the altar. Gerta and Father Isaac had stopped talking in mid-sentence with Danielle’s arrival. “How is he?”

“Unchanged,” said Talia. She appeared disheveled, her hair a mess, her clothes rumpled and sweaty. A glance at the bench beside her explained why. A red cape, lined with wolfskin, sat in a pile on the bench. The cape had once belonged to the assassin known as the Lady of the Red Hood. Talia must have tried using the cape’s magic to track Snow and Jakob.

“Did you find anything?” Danielle asked.

Talia glanced at the cape. “Snow’s scent vanished from the workshop. I picked her up again near the main gate, but lost her outside the palace. I think she took a carriage, but I couldn’t say where she went.”

“Damn.”

Talia was studying Danielle’s face. “What’s happened?”

“Nothing.” This wasn’t the time to talk about the Duchess’ revelations. Danielle marched past, toward the altar. Gerta took a step back. Was Danielle’s frustration so apparent? “What have you found?”

“Very little.” Gerta was clearly exhausted, her eyes red and shadowed. She had nearly frozen to death below the palace, and hadn’t gotten a decent night’s sleep since… ever, really. “Neither exorcism nor summoning rituals have helped. Everything is coming from within the prince. As far as we can tell, the demon isn’t controlling him. It’s simply changing the way he sees the world. It’s fascinating, really.”

Father Isaac cleared his throat, and Gerta blushed. Her enthusiasm reminded Danielle of Snow. Her eyes shone with the same excitement when she talked about magic. “We have to remove the splinter from his body.”

“It moves each time we try to examine it,” said Father Isaac. He had unbuttoned the prince’s shirt, and pulled it open to show new bruises along the right side of Armand’s chest. “I’ve kept him asleep, but the splinter acts like a living thing. I’m afraid if we try to cut it from him, we’d only send it deeper into his body.”

“Where is it now?”

Gerta pointed to Armand’s lowest rib on the right side. In a soft voice, she said, “Had it remained in his arm, we might have been able to amputate.”

Danielle forced those images away. “Snow could destroy her mirrors at will, reducing them to powder. Can you crush this splinter?”

“Even if we did, the pieces might still carry the curse,” said Father Isaac.

Gerta chewed her lower lip as she studied the bruises on Armand’s side. “If we bled him as soon as the glass was crushed, we might be able to remove most of it. Like sucking poison from a wound.”

“Or we could spread the poison throughout his body,” Isaac countered.

Danielle turned away. “A single sliver took my husband from me. My father was a glassmaker, but never have I seen a mirror as large as Snow’s. What we’ve seen in the palace is only the start. We have to know if this infection can be cured.”

“There are others we could attempt to free,” Isaac said. “I could have one of the prisoners brought from the dungeon-”

“They’re not prisoners, they’re people. Friends. You mean to tell me their lives are less important than Armand’s? That their families will grieve less over their loss?”

“He means you don’t risk the Prince of Lorindar to unproven magic,” said Talia.

“I could trap it,” Gerta said suddenly. She brushed her fingers over Armand’s chest. “Crushing the splinter isn’t enough. I need to isolate it from the prince… bring me a pearl.”

“Why a pearl?” Danielle repeated.

“Pearls are formed to protect the oyster from irritation,” Gerta said. “If I can do the same to this splinter-”

“Sympathetic magic.” Father Isaac moved toward the prince. “Yes. We can use the pearl as a focus to encase the glass.”

“Assuming we can trust her,” Talia said sharply. “We don’t know what she is, and now you mean to let her work her magic on the prince?”

Gerta jerked back, her brow furrowed with unguarded hurt. “Have I lied to you, Talia? Tried to trick you in any way?” She turned to Danielle. “I don’t know how Snow created me, or why, but she’s my sister. She wouldn’t want this. Let me help you.”

Not for the first time, Danielle wished Beatrice were here. The queen had always been able to see through deception. She would have known whether Gerta could be trusted, whether they should allow her to help Armand. “How long would it take?”

“Armand is asleep. We’ve isolated the splinter. I could begin now.” Gerta shrugged. “Bring someone new, and it will take longer.”

“Snow’s magic has already robbed Lorindar of its prince. And every hour gives Snow more time to escape with my son.” She whispered a quick prayer to her mother, and to Beatrice. “Father Isaac will help you.”

Isaac stepped sideways, away from the altar. “Perhaps we should consult King Theodore first, just to be certain-”

“No,” whispered Danielle. “He’s already lost his wife. Would you burden him with this choice?” Or with the consequences, should things go badly? From Isaac’s expression, he heard her unspoken words. “Do what you can for Armand.”