Shadowsong (Wintersong #2)(70)

“No, no, of course not,” he said quickly. He took another sip of his coffee. “Ah, perhaps I will add some cream.” The Count rose from his seat and walked to the sideboard.

I narrowed my eyes. “Is there a reason you don’t want me to write to her?”

The creamer clattered as the Count spilled some, scattering white droplets everywhere. “Blast!”

I got to my feet. “Are you all right, Your Illustriousness?” His anxiousness was suspect, and I followed the trail like a bloodhound on the scent. Despite my exhaustion, I had slept little and ill, thoughts churning through my mind like cream into butter. Ever since I had come to Snovin, it had been one revelation after another, one heartbreak after another, and it wasn’t until the distractions had fallen away that I had begun to ask questions.

If I were the bridge between worlds . . . then what was Josef?

“Yes, yes, I’m fine,” he said, waving me off. “Let me call for Nina to clean up this mess.”

I remembered the upside-down world I’d seen in the waters of Lorelei Lake. On our frenzied flight from Vienna, the Procházkas had reassured us that their friends and associates would care for K?the and Fran?ois, but I had not pressed them on the details. In fact, I had asked remarkably few questions since arriving at Snovin, and had received remarkably fewer answers. Their interest in me was clear—I was the Goblin Queen—but their concern for my brother and indifference to my sister and friend were not.

Why Josef and not K?the and Fran?ois? Was it simply a stroke of misfortune that my brother happened to be with me the night the Procházkas drugged us and stole us away? Their kindnesses toward us were not insincere, but there was a disingenuousness about their compassion for our welfare at the expense of my sister’s and our friend’s security. Where were they? Why did I sense that the Count and Countess were doing everything in their power to discourage me from reaching out?

“No need to call for Nina,” I said, walking to the Count’s side and mopping up the cream with a napkin. “Or K?the, I suppose.”

He frowned. “Beg pardon?”

I set down the napkin and looked the Count square in the face. It was the first time we had looked directly at each other since Josef and I had come to Snovin, and I saw in the depths of those twinkling eyes a measure of fear and trepidation. He had the startled, panicked look of a rabbit just moments before the hawk. But who was the hawk? Me, or his wife?

“Your Illustriousness,” I said softly. “Tell me what is going on. With me. With the Hunt. With my brother and sister.”

He swallowed. Those rabbit eyes darted back and forth, searching for a way out, an escape. I thought of the chuckling stranger I had met in the labyrinth of his house in Vienna, the plump-cheeked man in a death’s-head mask. Even then I hadn’t been afraid of him; he was too cheerful, too good-humored, too frivolous to be much of a threat. He was a summer storm, all bluster and wind, but his wife was the lightning strike, beautiful but deadly. It was she I feared.

“I . . . can’t,” he said at last.

“Can’t? Or won’t?”

The Count shook his head. “Both.”

“Why?”

His gaze flicked to the hallway, toward the rooms upstairs. It appeared the Countess was the hawk after all. “Because,” he whispered, “it is not my place.”

Irritation rose like a gorge in my throat. “Snovin is yours. Lorelei Lake is yours. This uncanny legacy is as much yours as it is your wife’s. Be brave and claim what is yours.”

He shook his head again. “You don’t understand,” he said in a strangled voice. “I dare not cross her.”

I thought of the sweet gestures between the Procházkas, the affectionate teasing and comfortable ease with which they carried around the other. The pride with which the Count beheld his wife, the girlish blushes she suffered prettily beneath his charm. His fear seemed odd and misplaced.

Then I remembered his reluctance to speak of the shadow paths in mirrors. How he had gifted me with his compass against the Countess’s wishes. I suddenly realized that he had not only given me his only talisman of safety from the Wild Hunt, but a measure of independence from his wife. With the compass, I need not worry about the unholy host without the Countess’s protection.

There is an ancient protection in my bloodline because of what my foremother did when she walked away.

“Your Illustriousness,” I said slowly. “Just what did the first Goblin Queen do to ensure her escape from the old laws?”

Nothing is free and clear. Not with the old laws.

“It is not my story to tell,” the Count whispered.

“Then why won’t your wife tell me?”

It was a long time before he replied. “Haven’t you heard?” he said with a bitter laugh. “That the tales from House Procházka are more incendiary than most?”


*

The Count refused to tell me more.

As frustrated as I was with his inability to divulge anything, I was infinitely more angry at myself. I felt like a dupe, the butt of a jest, hoodwinked by this coward of a man and his fraud of a wife. I threw down the remnants of my breakfast, not caring that it was rude or thoughtless, and stormed out of the morning room.

For a moment, I contemplated returning to Lorelei Lake, to dive into those blue-green waters and swim to my sister on the other side of that mirrored world. If my letters did not reach her, then let my body do so. Let me travel the shadow paths and escape this prison of good intentions and unholy expectations. So what if I were the last Goblin Queen? What if my decision to leave the Underground had all been for naught? I was right back where I was before I became Der Erlk?nig’s bride: trapped, stifled, smothered.