A Breath of Frost (35 page)

Triumph surged through Emma. “Can you show me?”

Theodora looked out the window longingly. Emma followed her gaze. “If you tell me where they are, I can get them for you,” she suggested. “You don’t have to leave the window.”

Theodora nodded, then frowned sternly. “Don’t break them.”

“I won’t.”

Theodora looked right through her for a moment. “It’s under the bed,” she whispered loudly.

Her pulse pounding in her ears, Emma knelt by the bed. She lifted the blankets and peered underneath. Hundreds of acorns were hidden in piles underneath and, if the lumps were anything to go by, between the feather mattresses. There was a small trunk set precisely in the center. It bristled with dust, puffing up in little clouds as she dragged it out. Theodora didn’t leave her couch.

The trunk was brown leather with brass hinges. It didn’t look special in any way. There were no magical markings to hint at its contents. She opened it, half-afraid of what she was going to find inside. The clink of glass against glass had Theodora turning her head sharply. Emma smiled weakly in apology.

There were bottles of varying sizes and shapes, just like the ones that crowded the shelves in Aunt Bethany’s stillroom and the school apothecary. They were mostly clear glass, though a few were warped and green and clearly much older. Some were filled with nothing but acorns or seeds. One held rosebuds, another salt and red thread, another yet was a mixture of earth, pearls, and a bent iron nail suspended in rusty liquid. Three held water, and one was clearly just a discarded perfume bottle. Emma had no way of knowing what spells were trapped inside and which should be released.

Or if any of them was the bottle that had made her mother mad.

“Did you trap your magic in one of these?” Emma asked.

Theodora’s only answer was to hum to herself.

“This is important,” Emma said, sharper than she’d intended. “I need to know how you defied the Order. Why you bound us and yourself. And I need to know why I keep finding the Greymalkin victims.”

Theodora put her hands over her ears and shook her head, humming louder. Most of the words were garbled, only a few were clear: gold, door, oak.

Emma rubbed her face, the weight of the antlers making the back of her neck ache. The bottles were useless without an explanation. And clearly, none was forthcoming. The whole trip was useless. Her mother didn’t know her. Her mother didn’t know anyone or anything anymore. She was a broken doll and Emma didn’t know how to fix her.

Cormac strode over the faded rugs toward her. “Your mother’s bottle wouldn’t be in there,” he said. “If that’s what you’re searching for.”

“How do you know?”

“You’d be able to see her familiar inside. Not to mention the Order has been through this house already. They’d have found that trunk ages ago.”

Emma let the lid slam shut. “Blast.” She pushed to her feet. “
Maman
, can you tell me who Ewan is?”

Theodora’s head whipped around so fast, Emma actually took a step back. “Ewan? Where is he?”

“I don’t know,” she answered. “I thought you might.”

Theodora’s lower lip trembled. “I miss him.”

“Is he the reason you did what you did?” Theodora only
shrugged bad-temperedly. “He saved you in the forest, didn’t he?” Emma continued. “And you fell in love with him. But you married my father instead.”

“I had to.”

“Why? Why,
Maman
? How did Ewan die?”

Theodora shook her head violently from side to side, covering her ears with her hands like a child. Emma’s shoulder slumped as she bit back angry tears. Cormac went to the tea tray and brought Emma’s mother a plate. He waited until she’d noticed it before smiling his charming smile. “Lady Theodora, would you like some cake?”

Her hands lowered away from her ears. Cormac offered her the generous slice of gingerbread with a bow, as if earls’ sons were accustomed to fetching and carrying every day. And Emma would have bet Keepers definitely didn’t usually fetch and carry for mad witches who defied the Order. She wanted to kiss him all over again.

Theodora reached for the cake, now giggling happily. “
Gold is good but silver’s better
,” she sang. Cormac’s chain of charms fell out of his shirt, poking through the buttons. The iron-spoke of the Order clinked against the plate.

Theodora screeched.

Cormac drew back but she’d already knocked the plate from her hand. It shattered on the floor. Theodora pointed at his pendant, still screaming and baring her teeth savagely. Cormac hurried to slip it back under his cravat. Theodora went silent but she followed him with a hateful gaze. It all happened so fast, Emma had barely moved from the side of the bed.

Mrs. Peabody burst into the room, taking a small bottle and a spoon from her apron. “What’s all the fuss, poppet?” she asked briskly as she poured laudanum into the spoon. Emma used the side of her foot to slide the trunk back under the bed, just in case. “Carrying on in front of your nice guests here. Not polite, is it?”

Theodora spat on the floor. Mrs. Peabody sighed. “Time for your medicine.” She slid the spoon into Theodora’s mouth before she could move, holding her mouth and nose firmly clamped until she swallowed. Mrs. Peabody patted her hand. “There, poppet. All better.”

“
Gold is good, silver’s better
.” She drifted off, her head falling forward as the laudanum took effect. “
The lion stalks the maiden fair when the bear leaves his lair
.” She smiled. “
But where the hunter goes, only the serpent knows
.”

“What does that mean?” Emma asked, wide-eyed.

“Lord, I don’t know. She’s been singing it for years now, ever since she fell ill.” Mrs. Peabody blew hair off her face. “I was the head housemaid when your mother was little. She and her sisters were such pretty little things. And your mother had wit and courage such as you’ve never seen.” She shook her head sadly.

“Will she be all right?” Emma asked.

“Sleep will do her good, it always does. I expect the excitement of visitors was too much for her. Your father hasn’t been here in years.” She pursed her lips, clearly stopping herself from offering her opinion. “Still, he did her a kindness keeping her here. Could have had her in Bedlam Hospital, couldn’t he? But
only the woods from her childhood calms her.” She paused. “It was good of you to visit again,” she said to Emma.

“I should have come more often,” she admitted, feeling like a horrible daughter.

“She wouldn’t have remembered,” Mrs. Peabody said. “The first time your aunt came Lady Hightower threw porridge at her. Didn’t stop until Lady Chadwick started painting those trees on the wall, and then she was full of orders and advice. They seemed to help a little. So does the laudanum.”

“I’ll visit again,” Emma promised even though all she wanted was to be out of the house and into the sunshine. The clouds raced away from the sun and fell apart like cobwebs.

“Don’t fret, child. Your mother, as I knew her before, wouldn’t have wanted you to see her like this in any case. I’ll have your carriage brought back around, shall I?” Mrs. Peabody left the room.

Emma watched her mother’s eyes move frantically beneath her lids. “That rhyme she was singing, about bears and lions. Do you think they’re familiars?”

“They could be,” Cormac replied.

“So it was a spell?” she asked.

“Perhaps.”

She paced the room. “We’re not any closer to an answer, are we?”

“I’m afraid not.”

She stopped in front of the crudely painted red bird. “This was her familiar,” she said softly. “I found it in the
Witch’s Debrett’s
.” She ran her fingertips over the bumpy paint. “She
misses it, even if she doesn’t know why.” She traced the swoop of the bird’s wing. “It’s a strange room, isn’t it? With all these trees. And this one—ow!”

She drew her hand back. The red paint had chipped off, revealing a rusty nail still stuck in the plaster and she’d scraped herself. There was a tiny fleck of red on her finger, and she wasn’t sure if it was paint or blood. She felt her eyes roll back in her head.

Definitely blood.

1796

Theodora went back into the forest
.

She didn’t wear her red cloak
.

She walked down the path, peering hopefully into the leaves. She didn’t know what she’d even say to Ewan if she saw him, only that she couldn’t stop thinking about him. She spent an embarrassing amount of time at the window staring at the last spot she’d seen him. She saw rabbits, a fox, and once, a white stag. But no Ewan
.

So she decided to seek him out, despite what her parents would say, or her sisters, or society in general. She didn’t care that he was a woodcutter’s son. She only cared that he had saved her life, that he was strong and handsome and solitary. She’d even asked her father if he knew any local families with a son named Ewan. Bethany looked at her curiously but she just laughed and said she heard the village girls talking. She understood now why Cora would ask Bethany to paint her husband’s portrait. She almost suspected a love charm
but she’d checked herself thoroughly for magical residue and could find none
.

And she couldn’t find Ewan either. There were no more strawberries, no shadow of a man under the trees
.

So she’d brave the woods to see him again
.

She’d do it armed this time, at least. There was a dagger on her belt and she found a thick branch to serve as a staff. The bluebells had wilted away and there was nothing but green light and green shadows all around her. She was excited and nervous and apprehensive of running into the poachers again. She sent her familiar on ahead and kept to the road
.

“Princess.”

She knew that voice. It was the summer solstice, dark rich earth, cool forest shadow
.

Ewan
.

She stopped, her heart beating loudly in her chest. She turned slowly, hoping she didn’t look as eager as she felt. She had no idea, after all, if he’d care to see her again. He wore the same brown leather coat, stitched at the seams with thick laces. His breeches had been mended under the knee, where the poacher’s knife had caught him. His eyes were pale and green, even from a distance. She could almost believe that he wasn’t real, that she’d dreamed him up
.

“It’s Theodora, actually.”

“Princess suits you better.”

She tilted her head. “I’m not sure that’s a compliment.”

He flashed his rare smile. “You think too much.”

And then his fingers were tangled in hers and they were moving through the woods, Theodora’s cardinal-familiar was a streak of red
between the leaves. Somewhere along the way she lost her staff and tucked her hem up into the belt she’d stolen from her father, which she’d hung with pouches of things she thought she might need in the woods. She’d brought a hunk of bread and cheese, salt and rowan berries, an empty spell bottle, and amber beads. She didn’t need any of them, just Ewan
.

He brought her to a small grove on the other side of the wilted bluebell wood. “Step where I step,” he murmured and she watched his feet carefully, matching his stride. There was no snapping of twigs or crunching of acorns, just two shadows moving between the trees, stopping in a patch of sunlight. He was still holding her hand when he showed her the deer, lying together in the grass, ears twitching. They lifted their heads at once, white tails flicking. Theodora froze, holding her breath. The deer were beautiful, with rough fur and wide dark eyes. The sun caught the pollen drifting over them
.

They met every day that summer, sneaking off into sunlit meadows and exploring. The endless round of balls and parties, the new gowns and the politics of the Order ceased to matter. They just kept her from where she wanted to be. She ignored her parents and her sisters, and was downright rude to Alphonse when he called
.

One afternoon in the garden, a white stag leaped the hedge and chased him right off the estate. Theodora knew she should be more careful and circumspect but she was filled up with joy and longing, and there was no space left in her for anything else. She was a tapestry already embroidered, a story already told
.

She grew tan and lithe from running in the woods. He washed his hair in the river every morning before he found her. And he always found her
.

It was madness to feel so much so soon. It tingled through her and made her head swim like champagne
.

He took her to his house once, when fat rain pattered through the branches and the wind nibbled at them. It was a small hut made of wattle and daub, tucked between two oak trees. The branches were woven together to create the support for the roof. A circle of stones held the remains of a cooking fire near the front door, which was hand-carved willow wood. A small clay gargoyle perched protectively in a tree
.

“Is this where you live?” she asked curiously
.

“It’s not much,” he said softly, sounding as uncertain as she’d ever heard him. “It’s not good enough for you.”