Midnight in Everwood(68)
‘Might we form allies with them?’ Marietta had asked at once, dismayed when Dellara shook her head, wisps of cirri strewn across her irises.
‘It is one thing to despise King Gelum; it is another thing entirely to rise up against him. He might be loathed but he is also feared, and fear is a powerful motivator. It is why the thought of the rebellion chills me; its failure is written in the stars. After the king decimated the royal court preceding him, their gruesome murder has stuck around in everyone’s memories, a bloody thorn you can’t quite pluck out.’
Then there had been the Ice Ball, when the entirety of the throne room had been coated in a sheen of ice and skating took the place of dancing. Great sculptures of King Gelum, commissioned by himself, had been hewn from frozen blocks. Immense fir trees limned the edges as if the forest had strolled into the throne room for the night. Some guests had resembled woodland sprites, clad in peppermint-green gowns with jewelled antlers crowning their locks. Other guests had taken on the persona of frost fairies, draped in glistening whites, sheer silvers and glacier blues. They’d partaken in crushed ice in little igloo-bowls but Marietta hadn’t had a bite, wary of disguised enchantments. She needed to keep her wits. That had been the night she had skidded under the king’s unoccupied throne, pleading at how unaccustomed she was to the ice after two faceless guards had immediately wrenched her back out. Yet the bruises she’d endured had been worth it; she’d glimpsed the outline of a round hatch beneath the throne. Enough to verify Dellara’s mysterious sources. That had also been the ball when Marietta had caught herself hoping that Captain Legat would see her in her shimmering white gown. She had been disappointed; he had not attended the Ice Ball either.
It had been during the aftermath of that ball, soaking Marietta’s bruised knee, that the three women had decided who would be the ones to descend into the secret chamber: Marietta, as the entire scheme had been her prerogative from its conception; and Dellara, as she would entrust not another soul to reclaim her wand. ‘I cannot expect you to fathom what it is to me, only that as I fled that dark void of a world, I reached out and tore a piece of it free. A piece that clawed back at me, ensnaring a scrap of my spirit within it. Yet we had nothing but each other and, as like calls to like, I came to rely upon it. Feeding it with my magic, my energy, until it recognised and served only me.’
‘Then I shall unleash the distraction for you to locate it,’ Pirlipata had said.
Marietta had rested her head back against the pool edge, soaking in the twinkling starlight above. ‘What do you suppose the chamber holds?’
‘I don’t have a flurry of an idea. Though King Gelum is an avid collector, fond of amassing both people and trinkets from other lands, other worlds. I’m sure he retains them all down there,’ Dellara said, rinsing her hair.
Pirlipata spread thick, toffee-scented foam onto her arms. ‘I am not surprised that a king who is neglecting his own kingdom and allowing it to fall prey to the mineral sickness fails to understand the subtleties of other cultures and only wishes to possess what he could never understand. I do hope we shall be able to best him.’
Marietta lay back in the bubbles, pointing and flexing her toes by rote. ‘Of course we shall. We possess more brains and bravery between the three of us than the king does in a single hand.’
And then there had been Marietta’s favourite of the balls.
The one in which frost peckers had wandered amidst a gingerbread town; a perfect replica of Everwood in miniature. The one where truffles and pralines gently floated down the core of the palace like snow, snatched out of the air to be bitten into, chocolate on the tongues of all revellers, turning kisses ever sweeter and darker. The one where Marietta had worn her most beguiling dress yet: a simple white satin bodice that spooled out into a gown fit for a fairy-tale princess, sparkling like a fresh snowflake. When she pirouetted, her dress lit up with an incandescent glow. The one where she’d turned to find the captain looking at her. And he had kept staring at her. And she’d noticed.
The Gingerbread Ball.
Laced with magic, it dripped with wonder and intrigue. Gauze curtains fluttered down, dividing the throne room into smaller, more intimate gossamer-caves. Ones that a server or dancer might waltz through at any moment, rendering each snatched moment between lovers fraught with the delicious anticipation of being caught. Tiny lights studded the floor, as if one was dancing on starlight, and the stream ran in a melted chocolate current. Guests were served empty glasses and cups of crunchy shards of praline, biscotti and plump frostberries to drizzle with the molten core of the palace. Small working gingerbread trains ran alongside it on peppermint tracks, darting faster when someone chased one, craving a nibble, and little islands of marzipan fir trees floated down its current.
Pirlipata, clad in a golden dress embroidered with waltzing gingerbread women, filled a glass with melted chocolate for the king, her conversation with him laced with strategy; attempting to procure a hint on what shape his mysterious mechanism might hold. It led nowhere. Eventually she retired her efforts and danced with Dellara instead.
Marietta approached the captain, her thoughts a-whirling, her gown attracting a nearby whorl of buttercream butterflies with its twinkling lights. She wished to ask where he had been, why he had failed to attend the previous balls. If he was still prepared to supply their disguises. To confide in him how thoughts of his rebellion and possible capture taunted her at night. Sent her nails carving half-moons into her palms with worry. Yet it was none of those notions that tumbled from her lips. It wasn’t even a question. ‘I have noticed you cannot keep your eyes from me, captain.’