Spindle Fire (Spindle Fire #1)(37)

And then Violette interfered, like some puffed-up orange ostrich. It is never advisable to amend a curse. Magic does unnerving things when perverted by other magic, even—or perhaps especially—when great magic is impeded and altered by a lesser magic. The princess, Malfleur is certain, was saved by Violette, in that she fell sleep and didn’t die. But neither the curse nor its amendment should have resulted in a contagion of sleep.

She can picture what the panther has seen: fields of once-slumbering sheep, now ravaged by wolves. Wagon horses and their passengers toppled and snoring themselves to a frozen death at the side of a road.

“But if the borders are full of such easy prey,” she says now to her pet, “then how did you come upon that impressive scar?”

“This,” the wildcat says, arching her neck so that her bloodied cheek catches the just-cresting sun, “came from no animal. It was the . . . claws of the vines.”

“Claws of the . . . you mean thorns.” Her magic has its limits. She could give the beast the language of a human but couldn’t make it think like one.

“Purple flowers grow around the palace of Deluce. They smell like ladies’ mouths. Too sweet. They are spreading. Leaves like mouths hiding fangs. Like mouths . . .” Here the panther lets out a great yawn, the chains of her muzzle clanging, her own fangs glinting.

Malfleur is far too intelligent to believe in coincidences.

She squints across her kingdom, and the ripples of dark smoke against the bright sky become inked words on the fine vellum pages of a storybook. The caw of the hunting falcon becomes the call of a girl’s voice from another room. She’s in the small cottage where they used to summer, a century ago now. “Don’t start it without me!” her twin sister cries, even though they have read the book every night since she can remember. They are getting too old for stories. She flips to the back and sees that Belcoeur has placed violets—their mother’s favorite—in between the pages to press and dry. She fingers them, and they turn to dust in her palm.

Malfleur blinks, and the childhood memory too turns to ash, blown away on the wind.

It cannot be. Her sister cannot have returned after all these years.

But the lush purple flowers, the thorn-ridden vines, the stories of a sleep so deep it cannot be penetrated—these tell a different story, and Malfleur shudders.

She’d never wanted her sister to die. She’d wanted her to live and suffer, the way she had for so many years. But maybe she should have killed her when she could.

Malfleur knows that timing is everything. It cannot be coincidence that a way into—and out of—Sommeil has apparently surfaced, causing those vines to leak out, at the very same time that her curse on the Delucian princess took effect. The irony is like the sting of a hornet; it smarts and swells and worsens.

This is the danger of a faerie curse. Once loosed into the world, a curse will find its way into being . . . but how it does its work is a mystery, even to the curser. It knits events together invisibly.

The spinning wheel.

The symbol Malfleur had chosen to represent her twin’s betrayal, and upon which her curse was based. Could it be, all this time, that the spindle contained its own power? Had Belcoeur enchanted it and left behind that final symbol as a way back?

Well. If the Night Faerie is rising, the queen knows what she must do. She must march. Before the disease spreads any farther. Before her sister’s power can corrupt her own.

For, as far as Malfleur sees it, only one of them may exist in this world.

“My pet,” the queen says. “I have another job for you.”

But the creature does not reply. Beside her, the white panther has curled into herself, her breath coming in bursts of white steam against the black of the muzzle. She is asleep.





18


Isabelle


Coughing and sputtering, Isbe finally reaches an opening in the village walls that rises just inches over the freezing, wretched water, letting air whistle through and beneath it. She doesn’t know how long she’s been traveling, mostly on all fours, along the sewage route. The castle village is farther inland than she thought. It’s been more than a full day, and there’s a dull burn in her stomach and throat.

Holding her breath, she goes under.

She emerges on the other side of the wall and gags. Then she crawls along the inside of the wall, away from the stream, until she finds a frozen puddle. She pulls back her hand and then, with a trembling fist, slams hard into the puddle, cracking its surface. Beneath it is clean rainwater, which she hungrily splashes over her face, gulping handfuls of it down, until she can no longer take the added injury of cold on cold.

Her legs are so chilled she’s not sure if she can stand again, but she manages to wobble to her feet. Now that she’s moved several yards from the stream, she is able to take in other smells beyond its putrid odor. She detects the smoke of a blacksmith and fumbles toward it, leaving the safety of the wall. All she can think of right now is fire. Warmth. Day has fully broken, and she can hear the bustle of peasants pushing carts and herding animals. Someone is bound to spot her soon and realize she is out of place.

Several times she trips and falls—on a wooden crate, a low stone wall, other items she’s too distressed to recognize. She’s too numb to feel the pain of blooming bruises along her shins and arms. A rooster crows at her.

She bangs her fists along the outer walls of the blacksmith’s shop until she finds the door, a sour burning smell puffing out from its corners.