The Kingdom of Back(58)

Hyacinth’s eyes burned into me. “Tell me, my Fr?ulein, how have you fared since the last time I saw you?”

“You told me that you were my guardian.” My voice came out hoarse and soft. “And then you lied to me. You have been visiting Woferl in secret. You gave my wish to my brother.”

He shook his head sympathetically at me. “My poor darling,” he said in a voice laced with honey. One of his hands came up toward me and pressed against my cheek. I jumped at the coldness of it. “Your brother was the one who betrayed you. Can’t you see that? He has taken from you what history would have praised you for. He will be remembered, while you will be forgotten. That is why you called out for me, is it not? Look at you, Maria Anna Mozart, here on your deathbed and struggling for your next breath. I have already seen it, you know. Your time has come. If you die tonight, history will know you only as your brother’s sister, a girl with a beautiful face and modest achievements. A commoner.”

I closed my eyes. I’d thought I was ready to see him, but his words stung me.

“Do you still love your brother, Nannerl?”

“Yes.”

Hyacinth gave me a reproachful look. “Do you truly still love him, Fr?ulein?” he asked again.

“I don’t know.” I frowned, confused by my answer.

The princeling drew close enough so that I could smell the staleness of his breath, the scent of an underwater cave, and he smiled. His breath was cold as snow against my skin. “You and I are one, Nannerl. I am your friend. Friends help each other, and dislike seeing each other in distress. I can help you become what you want to be, help you heal, or I can let you die tonight, mourned only by your father and mother and brother. But I can only be your guardian if you let me help you. Now, what is it you want?”

I thought again of my younger self on the night I’d first dreamed of the kingdom. I thought of the wish I had sent out into the world, with all the innocent hope of a girl afraid of being left behind by her father.

I had ached so badly to be remembered.

When I spoke now, it came out as a whisper, as harsh and cold as the winter wind. My wish had not changed. It had only grown thorns.

“I want what is mine,” I said. My talent. My work. The right to be remembered. The memory of me to exist.

Hyacinth smiled. “I have the flower, arrow, and sword. I can still hear the echo of your first wish. Your immortality.” He narrowed his lovely yellow eyes. “Do you want to finish your end of our bargain?”

I nodded. “Yes,” I said, and let the word hang on a hook between us. It was time to finish what I started.

Hyacinth tilted his head at me in approval. “Then do not tell your brother,” he answered. “Meet me at midnight in two weeks, here in this room, and we shall help each other, as friends do.”





THE PRINCESS IN THE TOWER



I began to grow stronger the following week.

My fever broke, my vision stopped fading in and out, and the rose spots on my chest lightened until they hardly looked different from my skin. A pink flush returned to my cheeks, and my hair no longer hung about my neck in limp strings. Mama wept for joy the first time she saw me pull myself up against my pillows and drink a light soup.

By the time a whole week had passed, I could sit up comfortably and even take the short walk to my window and look down at the streets of Lille. The doctor praised my good fortune. He told me that God had chosen to show me mercy, that He would not take away a girl so lovely as myself.

I smiled graciously at his words. I knew perfectly well who had healed me, and he did not deal in God’s pity.

Only Woferl saw the difference. I still practiced at the clavier with my old discipline, obediently following Papa’s instructions and criticisms, and I still chatted with Sebastian and told stories to Woferl in our spare time. But my eyes had changed, as surely and sharply as the love between us, as Hyacinth himself had shifted. When I hugged my brother good night, I did not do it with ease and warmth. When he would touch his fingers to mine, I wouldn’t squeeze his hand like before. When I watched him write his music, when I knew that a measure would be better with a set of arpeggios instead of a trill, I said nothing.

Sometimes I wondered if Woferl made mistakes on purpose, simply to test me. It didn’t matter. My focus was no longer on him.



* * *





Two weeks passed. Finally, it was midnight on the day I’d promised to meet Hyacinth, and I lay wide-awake in my bed. After my recovery, there was no need for me to stay in a room alone, and Woferl had returned to sleeping with me while Papa and Mama reclaimed their bedchamber. Our physical closeness didn’t change my demeanor. I remained distant, edging as far to one side of the bed as I could. Woferl followed my cue and stayed on his side.

That night, I listened to my brother’s shallow breathing in the darkness. He had grown more than I realized, but he was still a petite child who slept curled in a ball. I remembered him telling me once that he did it to protect his feet from ghouls under the bed, that somehow our blankets acted as a magic barrier against the supernatural. At the time, it made me smile in amusement. Now I pulled my feet closer to me and huddled tighter.

Just when I thought that Hyacinth might not visit me after all, that he had forgotten our midnight rendezvous, something scraped quietly against our door. A sudden compulsion came over me. I needed to slide out of bed and walk across the room toward the sound.