The Malediction: Hidden Huntress Part 41

And it was then the meaning of the berries struck me. The memory of Chris telling me the wooden charm he'd purchased would ward a person from magic, and my dismissal of the very idea. Of the strange wooden earrings that Lady Marie had worn, and the sprig of those very same berries pinned into her hair.

Rowan. The witch's bane. And its presence rendered our plans useless, and put a.n.u.shka back in control.

If she'd ever lost it.

Forty-Nine.

Tristan

"They refused me entry to the castle," Sabine snarled, her boots leaving tracks of mud across the floor. "Told me that Cecile would not be requiring my services tonight."

"Did they refuse any of the other crew?" I asked, scratching Souris behind one ear because watching Sabine pace was only adding to my nerves.

"No." She spat the word out.

"They're cutting her off from the herd," Chris muttered.

Sabine stopped moving. "That's morbid." I felt her gaze turn on me. "You're awfully calm, all things considered."

I shook my head, picking at a frayed st.i.tch on my boot. My anger was a slow burn, boiling hotter and hotter and threatening to erupt. Every minute seemed to pa.s.s interminably slow as I watched the sun track across the sky, and instinct told me to act, to go to the castle and find Marie and extract a.n.u.shka's ident.i.ty from her with whatever means necessary. Only the finest filament of control kept me in my seat reminding me that only strategy and wit would win us success.

"There's something I need to tell you both. You might want to sit."

Sabine stayed where she was, crossing her arms.

"Cecile's hypothesis about the alignment of the winter solstice and full moon has been proven correct," I said. "If we don't stop her, a.n.u.shka will kill Genevieve tonight and perform whatever spell she's been using to maintain her immortality. Even without the cost of Cecile's mother's life, given that we've lost the ability to track her, tonight is our only opportunity to catch her."

"And you've sent Cecile into the lion's den alone?" Sabine's cheeks flushed red with anger. Spinning on her heel, she started to the door. "I'm going to find a way into the castle. I'll swim across the cursed river if I have to."

"Sabine, come back here," I said, jamming the door shut.

She jerked on the handle. "Open it. Let me out."

I briefly considered lifting her up and depositing her in front of me until I was done talking, but I suspected manhandling the girl would not predispose her to listening. "Sabine, sit down and listen. Please."

She grudgingly returned and sat next to Chris, and I proceeded to explain all of what Cecile had seen and heard in Trollus. "Angouleme plans to take control of the city using my brother, and when he does, he'll arrange to have a.n.u.shka killed. The trolls will hail him as their savior, and all the world will suffer for it. And I do not think I'll be able to stop them."

"So you plan to kill her instead," Chris said, and it wasn't a question.

I nodded. "There is a chance we could catch her and use Aiden's plan to free Cecile from my father, and then hide her away from the world, but..." I hesitated. "My people are in danger from both within and without, and I have to do what I can to keep them safe."

"And when the rest of the trolls are free? What then?" Sabine's arms were wrapped around her body as though to ward off the chill.

"I will try to take the crown," I said. "And I will spend the rest of my life trying to keep them in check."

"And if you fail?"

I closed my eyes for a moment, my knowledge of life before the Fall marching unwanted across my vision. "I suggest you pray to your G.o.d that I don't."

"Is this what Cecile wants?" Chris lifted his head, gaze steely and unflinching.

"So she says." I leaned back in my chair and hooked an ankle across my knee.

Sabine and Chris exchanged weighted looks, and I stared at my boot to give them a moment.

"I understand if you want to try to put a knife in my back or an arrow through my heart. Who could blame you?" I inhaled and exhaled slowly. "Cecile's father intends to warn everyone in the Hollow at midnight tonight it could not be sooner, because we cannot be certain of the loyalties of everyone in your village." I looked up. "I'll not stop you if you want to leave and go to them now. I'll give you the gold you need to book pa.s.sage on a s.h.i.+p to the continent, although I cannot be certain how long Trianon will be a safe harbor, so you'd need to leave immediately."

Chris glanced at the water clock and his jaw tightened. Even if they left now, riding in the dark they wouldn't make it home much before when Louie would set out to spread the word. "You can take my horse and Cecile's," I said. "I do not think those in Trollus will act immediately, but the sluag may well venture out under the cover of darkness once they are able."

Rising to my feet, I went to my chest of gold and filled up a sack. "Here." I tried to hand it to Chris, but he shook his head. "Sabine?" I held it in her direction, hoping she would at least have a little sense.

"No." Picking up her cloak and gloves, she donned them. "I need to be with Cecile. I don't know what good I can do, but she needs at least one friend at her side. Help me get in the castle, or at least give me a weapon."

Silently, I extracted the knife hidden in my boot and handed it to her hilt first. She gripped it as though she were not entirely familiar with how to use it, but was more than willing to try. "Don't leave just yet." I turned my gaze to Chris. "What say you?"

"I've been around trolls most of my life," he said. "I know what you are capable of, and I won't lie and say the thought of your people free to do what they wish doesn't terrify the p.i.s.s out of me. But it sounds like it's going to happen whether I like it or not, and I'm d.a.m.n well going to do everything I can to make sure ours is the winning side." He squared his shoulders. "If I'm going to be ruled by a high-minded pretty-faced troll, it might as well be you."

"I'm glad to hear it," I said, trying not to smile. "Who knows what would happen to my ego if you decided to abandon me."

Chris rolled his eyes.

"Sabine," I said, hefting the sack of gold once more. "I'm of a mind to have a pretty girl on my arm at this party, and if she happened to have a knife or two hidden in her skirts, all the better." I tossed the sack her direction. "Spend what you need to play the part."

Climbing to my feet, I went to the window and peered up at the wintery sky, the cold an ominous prediction of what was to come. If all went to plan, more than just trolls would be released onto the world tonight. How long would I have until the Winter Queen's bargain with me came due?

"There is one more person I need to speak to before we set our plans in motion," I said. "I only hope that he's now of a mind to listen."

Fifty.

Cecile

They took me to the castle in a carriage, and if the guards thought it strange that a young opera singer be treated so, they were too well trained to ask questions. Or to answer them.

They took me in a small entrance at the rear of the castle and up to a set of rooms where a steaming bath and an elderly servant woman waited. The white silk costume resplendent with feathers that Sabine had made hung on a privacy screen, but of my friend, there was no sign. Everyone I encountered wore a sprig of rowan berries, and when I enquired of their meaning to the maid, she told me they were in honor of the solstice celebration and to remove them would be bad luck.

I surrendered myself to her ministrations, the whole time my mind a whirl of how I could possibly get around the rowan's effect on magic, which seemed much like the sluag's effect on the trolls. There had to be a way around it, or at the very least, a way to remove its protection from Marie once I found her. I needed to hold up my end of the plan, which is why I hadn't contacted Tristan. He was not in a good state of mind, and I was afraid if he learned our plans were in disarray, he'd come in and take the information from Marie by force. It might to come to that, but I had every intention of doing what I could to avoid it.

"You've led us on quite the runaround."

I lifted my head to watch Marie enter, noting the twisted branches woven like a crown into her hair. Not something that could easily be removed.

"Why are you doing this to me?" I demanded.

"We both know why, Cecile, so drop the pretense," Marie responded. "You caused us no small amount of grief with your disappearance, and we could not risk you deciding not to show for our little fete this evening."

I swallowed hard, my throat dry. "Where is my mother?"

"You'll see her soon enough. Do not cause any trouble, Cecile. If you do, she will punish you by harming those who matter to you most. The troll included."

"Are you threatening me?"

She shook her head. "I'm warning you."

"I want proof my mother is unharmed." Given it seemed impossible to use magic on Marie, my primary goal was my mother. And stay with her until Tristan found us.

"You will see her when a.n.u.shka wills it, not before."

She was here. "And here I believed you were the most powerful woman on the Isle," I said. "Apparently I was wrong."

Marie laughed, but the sound was all harsh edges. "When she sings, we all dance to her tune. She might be more devil than woman, but what is the saying? 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend?'" She walked further into the room, and my eyes fixed on a red-gold hair caught on one of her heels. Mine? My mother's? a.n.u.shka's?

"Besides, she punished me harshly the last time I crossed her, and I will not make the same mistake again."

"Please," I said, dropping to my knees in front of her as if to beg. "She's going to kill my mother. You need to help me." I pressed my hand against the stray hair, holding it against the ground.

"I wish I could, Cecile," she replied, stepping back and averting her eyes in discomfort. The hair remained under my hand. "But this is the only way to keep the Isle safe. She is the only one who can keep them contained."

My eyes went to the costume still draped on its hanger, and hers followed suit. "After all this, you honestly expect me to perform?" Closing my fingers around the hair, I sat back on my heels.

"If you want the troll to survive the night, you will do just that." Her face was grim. "Those are a.n.u.shka's terms: if you do as she asks, she will return the creature to his cage alive. If you interfere with her ritual, she will see him dead."

My stomach clenched, and I turned away from her, staring at the glow of the lamp until my eyes burned and watered. "You'd have me choose between the life of my lover and the life of my mother?" All of this was just words now. I needed her gone so I could attempt a spell.

"Genevieve's death is not negotiable. Whether you choose to cooperate tonight will not change that fact. All you can hope to gain is the life of your lover." Her voice twisted on the word as though it were some revolting and debauched thing.

"He knows this is a trap," I whispered. "He knows what she plans to do."

"That will not save him." Marie went to my costume, tracing a finger down the silken fabric. "I want you to know, Cecile, I don't relish this task. Harboring a.n.u.shka from the trolls is a burden those in my position have borne for five centuries. The duty of protecting the woman our husbands are oath-sworn to hunt down and kill. And she does not make it easy."

The Regent didn't know, and neither did Aiden. That explained much.

"It all makes for such strange irony that you who are destined to be part of what keeps the curse in place are responsible for unleas.h.i.+ng one of the worst of them upon the world."

"What has he done that is so horrible?" I demanded.

"It is what he can do that is terrifying," she snapped. "Which is why he must be contained or killed. Those are your choices."

I glared at her for a long moment, then let my shoulders slump in defeat. "I will do as she wishes. For his sake."

"You've made the right choice." She went to the door. "Finish getting ready. The guests have already begun to arrive."

I waited until she was gone before wiping the fake tears from my face. Then I peeled the hair off my sweaty palm and examined it. There was no way of knowing who it belonged to, but it was my last chance. Tristan was planning to arrive promptly, and he'd be expecting to hear from me. I wasn't ready to think about what might happen if I didn't deliver.

Fifty-One.

Tristan

"Eyes up," I muttered under my breath, trying to keep my apprehension regarding Cecile's silence out of my voice. "Remember, you're supposed to be here."

Sabine dutifully lifted her chin, but her death grip on my arm didn't lessen.

"You told me once that information was free for the taking to those who watched and listened," I added. "This is the same. Watch them, and do as they do. They may not know who you are, but that is not same as them knowing you're the daughter of an innkeeper from a town in the middle of nowhere."

"Right."

I nodded at a pair I recognized from one of the many parties I'd attended during my first week in Trianon, introducing Sabine as an old friend of the family, before moving on. I heard their whispered speculation about how I secured an invitation to such an exclusive event, but none of that concerned me. Cecile should have contacted me by now, if not with answers, then at least to let me know our plan had failed.

"Do you see Marie?"

Sabine shook her head. She'd a.s.sured me she'd recognize the Lady du Chastelier, and I'd set her to watching the woman to see whom she spoke with. In the worst case, I needed to have the woman within reach in case I needed to force answers out of her the hard way. "But that's the Regent over there," Sabine added.

I let my gaze pa.s.s over the direction she'd indicated, easily picking out the Regent by the circle of courtiers fawning about him. He had the look of his son, but with many more years, grey hairs, and paunch around the middle.