Midnight in Everwood(59)

‘You don’t,’ Dellara said slowly. ‘But I can taste your dreams. And the acrid tang of fear that bites the night when you suffer a nightmare.’

Marietta was well acquainted with those nightmares. It had been an indeterminable amount of time and yet Drosselmeier continued to haunt her, stalking through her imagination by night, that dark time when fears seem to creep closer under the silvered moon. Sometimes the boundaries of her consciousness grew thin and she thought she caught a glimpse of Drosselmeier within the palace. Yet time and magic were two grand forces at play and she was trapped between them, left distrusting what was real and what was fantasy. ‘There are aspects I would prefer not to return to,’ she said, setting the cheese down. ‘Though that does not mean I would rather stay away. There are people I miss, a dream I cannot let fade from my sights. Things I am now prepared to confront.’ Her awareness of her own body had been heightened through all she had endured. She knew now how it could fight and resist and wield power. Upon encountering Drosselmeier once more, she would not embody the subservient Edwardian lady he had so expertly manipulated. She would claw her way free of him.

‘Good for you.’ Dellara toasted her as if her apple cake were a saucer of Taittinger. ‘You’ll be far happier if you fight your demons.’

‘Is that what happened to you?’ Marietta asked, somewhat wary.

‘Better. I slaughtered mine.’ Dellara’s answering grin sent shards of ice down Marietta’s neck. ‘And when I stood there, coated in their viscera and bone-flecks, I answered to no one.’

‘King Gelum called you a fairy,’ Marietta whispered.

‘King Gelum is an incompetent fool. Fairy is what the Everwoodians call anyone who’s shed their mortality, who’s eschewed the boundaries of what it means to be human. Demon might be more accurate.’ The shadows lurking round her irises crept a little closer, eager to have their stories told. But Dellara didn’t divulge any more, not on how she came to acquire her wand nor on the magic that whispered against her skin. Marietta did not press her. Dellara was unfurling her secrets, bit by bit, her trust frost-brittle, and Marietta had no inclination to poke and prod and shatter it. Neither did she wish to say something that might cause offence, despite the fire and brimstone her imagination conjured at Dellara’s confidence. After all, she was in another world and etymology differed here. She had witnessed Dellara offer herself as a sacrifice on her behalf and that was not an action her understanding of a demon would do.

‘We ought to discuss how we shall leave this suite.’ Pirlipata glanced at the door and the invisible guards beyond, measuring their lives with their keys.

‘We shall cause a distraction,’ Marietta said. She’d given this segment of the plan a great deal of thought. Though tackling two armed faceless guards by herself would have been an issue, now the women had banded together, she was assured they could overcome their iron-strong force. ‘We shall draw them into the room, where a trap will lie in wait. Between us, we will disarm and silence them.’

Dellara examined her nails. Upon awakening from her fever she had been mortified at the state in which Marietta and Pirlipata had dared to allow her to convalesce in. Now she lounged in hand-painted silk pyjamas, doused in scent and decorated in all the shades of an aurora rippling through a wintry night. ‘Not a problem.’

‘Then, we have it? Our plan is complete?’ Pirlipata looked between them.

‘Other than procuring the disguises, yes, I believe we are ready.’ Marietta bit into a pastry in private celebration. Its buttery crispness yielded to her, a river of salted caramel sauce melting over her tongue.

‘Not quite,’ Dellara said. ‘I’m going to need my wand retrieved.’

Worry crept up Marietta’s spine. ‘You had led me to believe the king had hidden it in a secured location.’

‘He has. Only I happen to know precisely where it is. In this palace, few things transpire without my knowledge.’ Dellara stood up and began pacing to the frozen sugar wall and back. ‘It’s under the king’s throne. There’s a secret chamber buried beneath it. A single mechanism was crafted to open it and King Gelum retains it on his person at all times. No one else has ever descended to its depths.’

Pirlipata and Marietta watched her pace, a contained storm. ‘It frightens me too much to inquire how you know that,’ Pirlipata said at last.

‘Are you certain you need it?’ Marietta asked. ‘Retrieving it would require elaborate measures I am not certain we are capable of, not to mention delay our departure departure.’

Dellara spun to face her. ‘I refuse to leave this palace without it. I’m tired of living without my magic, of bearing a half-existence, condemned to fall prey to paltry fevers and the slow knit of my flesh back together.’

‘I understand,’ Marietta said quietly, feeling that she did.

‘You do not and you could not, but I wouldn’t expect that of you.’ Dellara’s temper simmered down. ‘While we are there, we shall liberate Pirlipata’s armour.’ She gestured at Marietta’s pointe shoes, resting in the corner. ‘The King abuses what makes you special, turns it against you. For Pirlipata and I, he simply stripped us of our talents.’

‘Then we shall fight to return them to you both,’ Marietta said and Pirlipata’s smile glowed.