Midnight in Everwood(82)

Legat pulled Marietta out of their path. Claren gripped his sword hilt, his uncertainty growing.

Below, the faceless guards let loose a war cry. The first ranks of palace staff met the guards in a collision that resonated across the ice.

‘You must leave, now,’ Legat told Marietta. ‘Claren, see her safely back to her suite.’ He bent to kiss her cheek. ‘I presume you have a plan,’ he whispered into her ear. ‘Do not delay, make your escape at once.’

‘But will you—’

Legat’s eyes were molten fire, burning a path straight to her heart. ‘Do not concern yourself with me; this is what I have been awaiting. Leave while you can and do not look back. And Marietta? It is in the stars that we shall meet again.’

Marietta watched the captain depart with a heavy, aching heart.

Claren escorted Marietta to her suite door. A single faceless guard remained on watch.

‘Do take care, Claren,’ she said, surprising them both and squeezing his hand. ‘Only you can know what is in your heart. Choose wisely.’

‘Marietta?’ Pirlipata asked softly as the door opened.

Marietta entered to the two women stood before her. ‘It has begun. The red rebellion,’ she said.

Dellara wore all black. Form-fitting black pin-striped trousers, black bustier and a black military-style jacket. At her side, Pirlipata blazed like a glorious sunset in her crimson armour, broadsword in hand. They were a pair of avenging angels, made carnate.

‘Get changed and take what you want, provided you can carry it,’ Dellara said. ‘We must leave at once.’

Marietta located the ballet dress she had worn on first discovering Everwood. It seemed simpler now, more modest than the extravagant pieces of art she’d become accustomed to. Stranger still, it smelt musty. A reminder of the time she’d spent away from her world. The notion of returning felt odd. Before she could ponder the reason, Dellara appeared at her side, wrinkling her nose at her dress and insisting she wear a vanilla and marzipan-scented petticoat, lustrous with magic, beneath it. Marietta added a velvet cloak for warmth, in deep claret in celebration of the red rebellion. She added a little pointed scarlet hat, reminiscent of a bonnet de la Liberté, for luck. Finally, she laced up her ivory satin pointe shoes, battered from the stories they’d danced through.

‘Will those suffice for the Endless Forest?’ Pirlipata asked.

‘Not for long but I wish to leave Everwood as I entered it,’ Marietta said.

‘Then it is time to make your wish come true.’ Dellara held up the golden key.

‘One moment.’ Pirlipata ripped her golden clothes out of her armoire and knocked on the door. The faceless guard opened it. Before he could react, she tossed the clothes out into the hollow centre of the palace. They floated down in a glittering rain of riches.

‘A rightful ending,’ Dellara said, watching with Marietta.

‘No, a fresh life.’ Pirlipata gestured at the hands that reached out to grab the sparkling dresses. ‘Each gown shall feed a family for a moontide.’

‘Inside.’ The faceless guard made to grab Pirlipata. Marietta’s heart stuttered. But Pirlipata spun around deftly and unsheathed her broadsword, cleaving him in two. Dellara, hand on wand, halted. Pirlipata’s sword had revealed the guard’s core of wood and machinery, gleaming metalwork where organs should have rested.

‘They were never human,’ Marietta said. ‘No wonder they possessed such brutish strength.’ It brought to mind Drosselmeier’s mechanical set of soldiers he had gifted Frederick.

‘And unwavering loyalty to King Gelum,’ Pirlipata added grimly.

The three women looked down at the wild, bloodthirsty fray. Marietta felt lost; she had neither the necessary magic nor training with which to survive a battle. All those times her father had instructed she study this strategic campaign or that warfare of old, she had never once imagined the resulting carnage that would have ensued. Seeing, hearing and smelling it was a vastly different affair and she wondered how anyone could ever find intelligence in the machinations of bloodshed.

With a crash that echoed to the heavens, the throne room doors slammed open. A wave of Everwoodians clad in scarlet poured in. Robess led the charge, her sword held high. ‘To the rebellion!’

Marietta searched for Legat amid the throne room, painted in violence. It was to no avail.

‘Come, Marietta,’ Pirlipata said. ‘It is time.’

Marietta gave her a terse nod. She took a deep breath in an attempt to steady her nerves. This was what she had sought since the king had entrapped her, to claw her way free from him. From this world that Drosselmeier had trapped her within. She yearned to set sight on Frederick and her ballet studio. Besides which, there were things that needed to be said. Other freedoms to chart.

‘No longer shall we be caged in ice, beholden to a king’s wrath,’ Pirlipata said. ‘Cut us free, Dellara.’

Dellara reached a hand to Pirlipata who held it, extending her other hand to Marietta. Three women interlinked as one chain.

‘This key shall take us wherever we so desire. We must all keep our thoughts on Everwood for the magic to transport us directly into the town,’ Dellara warned them, holding the key before her. It was slim and golden with mice tails curling together to form an ornate handle. Dellara pushed it forward into an invisible seam in the air and twisted.