Midnight in Everwood(42)

‘One cannot help but ponder why you are now pretending to be chivalrous.’ Marietta fixed him with an imperious stare. ‘If you truly wished to warn me then why not help me now? Find a way in which I can escape.’

His face gave nothing away. ‘I am afraid I cannot.’

‘Then I have nothing more to say to you.’ With that, Marietta attempted to march ahead of him. The pain overwhelmed her. The staircase twisted around her and darkness cloaked her in its velvet embrace.

Now and then, awareness pricked the darkness like a wink of starlight. She was weightless, soaring up through the centre of the palace on wings. For a moment, she believed she had died until she felt the sway beneath her and realised she was being carried by the captain. She opened her eyes to protest as she felt a hand smooth her hair away but a tide of weakness swept over her and she faded once more.





Chapter Twenty-One


When Marietta next opened her eyes, she was recuperating on a chaise back in her suite. Dellara and Pirlipata were tending to her feet, wrapping them in snow-white bandages. Her pointe shoes had been cast off, reduced to scarlet rags. Her head whirled as she attempted to sit up.

‘Do not move,’ Pirlipata said kindly. ‘You’ve suffered a great shock and must rest.’

Dellara evaluated her. ‘Still under the impression you’re dwelling in some wondrous story?’

Marietta groaned and sat up. ‘Why did you not say something?’

‘I instructed you to leave the moment I first laid eyes on you,’ Dellara said.

‘Perhaps you ought to have been more specific,’ Marietta said. ‘I had no way of knowing this lay in store.’

‘We are not allowed to warn newcomers,’ Pirlipata said. ‘It is forbidden, punishable under the king’s treason laws.’

Marietta surveyed her bandaged feet. ‘Thank you,’ she said quietly. No one was to blame for her current predicament, save herself. She had disregarded multiple warnings for petty vanity’s sake and a craving for defiance and admiration as if she had been a girl once more, hoping for Madame Belinskaya to cast her in the principal role of Coppélia.

‘Surely this is not the prison in which the king intended to incarcerate me?’ she asked.

‘You’re not in the prison; those are carved out beneath the palace. You’re one of King Gelum’s pets now, no freer than the prisoners, but I’d rather lounge in this gilded cage than let sugar-rot lay siege to my bones in that dark pit,’ Dellara said, reclining on a nearby cushion.

‘I should have refused his offer to host me,’ Marietta said bitterly. ‘A gilded cage is still a cage.’

Pirlipata sat beside her. ‘If you had refused, he would only have ordered his guards to seize you. Do not torture yourself with what-ifs.’

‘I still do not understand why. For what purpose?’

Dellara leant forwards with a wicked smile. ‘From what I witnessed in the throne room, you’re to be his entertainment.’

Marietta’s breath grew ragged with fear. She had escaped Drosselmeier’s wicked grasping ways only to stumble into another terror.

‘Dellara, must you frighten her so? The woman is pale as snow and ice cold.’

‘My apologies,’ Dellara said drily. ‘I had meant your dancing. Rest your worries, the king couldn’t bed us even if he wished to; the man is impotent.’

Marietta felt her cheeks bloom even as relief flooded her.

Dellara arched an eyebrow at her furious blush. ‘Oh darling, if you keep that up, you won’t survive long in this world. Though it has to be said some of the courtiers do enjoy laying siege to innocence.’

Marietta struggled to stand up. ‘I cannot stay here, I cannot be his prisoner. I must find a way back to my own world.’ Panic squeezed her chest tighter than a corset. ‘How did the king force me to dance? I had not thought he held magic, too.’

Pirlipata held her back with a look of deep sadness.

Dellara stood up. ‘Not all enchantments are delightful. Some are steeped in dark magic. Like this palace – there’s no way out. It may as well be a fortress, with enchantment stacked upon enchantment forbidding your escape. King Gelum holds not a speck of his own magic but the palace is bidden to act on his every whim and desire. The sooner you accept your new life, the easier you will find it.’ She picked up a blanket and spread it over Marietta. ‘Now sleep. You must heal.’

Marietta heard hushed voices as she regained consciousness, and was unsure how long she had drifted in and out of sleep.

‘You ought to try at the very least,’ Dellara was urging Pirlipata. ‘You cannot afford to lose hope; if your hopes are vanquished then he has defeated you.’ She fell silent upon noticing Marietta’s re-entry to the world of the living.

Marietta was wary at once. Their looks mirrored each other’s suspicion. Pirlipata’s was infused with sadness, Dellara’s with fire. ‘There is no need to confide in me,’ Marietta said, finding a glass of water sat beside her and drinking deeply.

‘We are due a visit from our dressmaker. On occasion, if she happens to be in a more pliable mood, she will deign to deliver a note for us,’ Dellara said at last, speaking fast and hushed as a winter’s gale. As if by forcing the words out quicker they would not be overheard by prying ears. ‘I’ve been attempting to convince Pirlipata to send word to her family to inform them of her captivity.’