Page 17

Midnight

I wait until the Chateau is well and truly asleep before sneaking out of the palace.

It’s surprisingly easy—the Dauphine’s apartments have a balcony overlooking the lake, close enough to the grounds that with a bit of maneuvering and a considerable amount of luck, I’m able to lower myself from it and fall soundlessly to the earth.

My landing is cushioned by damp leaves, the ivy clinging along the Chateau walls brushing against my back.

I’ve taken off the owl-face pendant—right now I need my own body, my own muscle memory.

Once again, I find myself grateful for my childhood at the Théatre.

Being nimble—and eagerly reckless—meant I had little to constrain me from performing dangerous leaps and tricks onstage, and when I was not performing, I was clambering the backstage scaffolding with Damien.

Now, that surefootedness is serving me well as I move quietly through the clutches of night.

Adrenaline hums through me, a pleasant prickling in my veins.

The gravel walkway splashes mutedly beneath my feet, the air still stained with the scents of the earlier thunderstorm—brisk rain and sodden leaves, rotting things soaked to the bone.

The Chateau looms over me, water resting on its stone walls like sweat on a soldier’s skin, and around me the gardens have filled with fog.

I’m cautious as I make my way through the maze of iron thorns, ducking down when I spot the silhouettes of patrolling guards. Once they are out of sight, I make my slow way around the lake.

I find the swans slumbering near an old dock.

Well, “dock” is a generous word—it’s more a slab of moldering wood jutting crookedly over the water, pierced by bulrushes and strangled by duckweed.

I cross it carefully, the wood bobbing beneath my feet and sending hypnotic ripples slipping across the water.

A few of the swans raise their heads at my approach, eyeing me in confusion before moving slowly away.

“Good evening, swans,” I say, putting my hands on my hips. “Which one of you is Marie d’Odette?”

For a moment, there is no response, only the murmur of cold wind over colder waters. Then, one of the farthest swans raises its head, tilting it toward me. The expression in its eyes is somewhere between haughty, suspicious, and vaguely murderous.

“There you are,” I greet. “I’ve come to keep my side of the bargain.”

Swan-Marie approaches me with hesitance, gliding smoothly through the water. I sit at the end of the dock and cross my legs, pulling the owl-face pendant from my pocket.

“All right,” I say to it. “Here goes nothing.”

As I stare at the glinting pendant in my hand, my stomach begins to churn nervously. Not only am I breaking my promise to my father, but I’m going against his teachings, ignoring his warnings about the consequences of undoing spells. This could go very, very wrong .

And yet… hasn’t Regnault also told me magic is my birthright? Hasn’t he taught me to be clever and resourceful? Surely I can figure this out.

All I need to do is find the right thread.

There’s a muted splash, pulling me from my thoughts. I look up to see Swan-Marie staring at me intently, her breast nearly touching the dock. To say she looks skeptical would be an understatement.

I quickly wipe any uncertainty from my face. “I know what I’m doing.”

She makes a noise that sounds almost like a snort.

Slowly I focus on the goddess-gold, finding the little ball of magic stored within and tugging it to the surface. The spell appears around the pendant in a tangle of a thousand threads, golden and shimmering like spider silk at sunset.

Something inside me quivers at the sight. This spell is nothing like the one on Buttons—that one was far less intimidating, every thread clear and legible. This is more of a cobweb, an unforgiving knot of crisscrossing lines.

“See this spell?” I say to Swan-Marie, because talking distracts me from the unnerved somersaults of my stomach.

“My father wove it. Each thread means something else. By pulling the right one, I can undo the curse he placed upon you. So remember whose mercy you’re at,” I add, because I can’t help myself.

“If I’m feeling cross, my fingers might slip.

Instead of a human, you might wind up turned into something horrible, like a toad. ”

Steeling myself, I hover my fingers over one of the farthermost threads.

It glows brighter, and the taste of magic coats my tongue.

My mind fills with a thought: not quite an image, not quite a word, but a loose suggestion, a concept.

Borrowing. Like a coin passing from one hand to another, meant to be repaid.

I pull away, reach for another. Replacement.

A guardsman takes the place of his comrade as he finishes his shift.

Fledged. Feathers sprouting over delicate skin.

The rush of air over wings. It intersects with a thread that rings noblewoman, makes me feel the weight of invisible skirts around my legs.

Confusion swamps me, and my heart beats frantically. Could it be one of these? But what if I’m wrong? When you touch a thread, your will becomes tied to it, Regnault had said. Even a stray thought can change its meaning or render it incoherent.

So how do I make sure that doesn’t happen? How do I ensure I don’t accidentally turn Marie into a toad… or worse?

I rub my temples, trying to keep any frustration I feel off my face.

Then I go over the threads again. And again.

And once more, my impatience growing, my composure fraying.

I should have found it by now. Why can’t I find it?

The right thread is here somewhere, yet none of them feel right, and there are so many —

A flash of white in my periphery alerts me to Marie, stretching her wings to get my attention.

There’s an inquiring look in her eyes. She inclines her head toward the threads and the pendant in my hand.

I’m hit with a sudden memory of a much younger Marie sitting cross-legged on the bank of the lake, trying to teach me how to solve her wooden puzzle toy.

“No,” I snap. “This is sorcery, not some paltry riddle.”

She sighs.

“I know what I’m doing,” I repeat.

She shuffles her wings in irritation.

And, because the sunrise is drawing closer, because I am already tired of sitting here staring at magic strings, I give in. “Fine. But if anything goes wrong, you’ll only have yourself to blame.”

I pass over the threads again, explaining each one. I know it’s dangerous to make Marie aware of the magic binding her, but it’s not as though she can change the spell on her own. And I need the information she possesses. For the Couronne’s sake, and my brother’s.

“This has to be it,” I say at last, pointing to noblewoman. But when I reach for it, Marie extends her neck and bites me.

I yelp, dropping my hand. “What was that for?”

She glowers, then eyes another thread, one passing just beneath the intersection of noblewoman and songbird.

I hadn’t paid it any heed before: it’s the shortest of the threads, so fine, it’s nearly invisible.

My attention had skipped over it previously, but now I reach for it.

This one is perhaps the most abstract of the spell-threads so far: I feel the passage of day into night, the cracking of a caterpillar’s chrysalis after a long slumber.

Metamorphosis. This is the one—there’s a rightness to it I hadn’t felt with any of the others.

I should be relieved, but instead, my cheeks grow hot with anger.

Somehow, Marie saw what I could not. How is it that a red-blooded, pampered princess—trapped in the body of a swan, no less!

—found what I was looking for, while I did not even notice it?

But of course. Of course. Is this not just typical Marie d’Odette?

Even now, she must remind me how perfect she is, how terribly inferior I am.

I might as well be thirteen again, cowering in a dusty stable as Marie abandons me to my fate, the feeling of her hands on my throat still lingering like a burn.

Well, there is one thing I can do that she can’t.

Morgane, I think, wherever you are, do me a favor and don’t let this end in disaster.

I touch the thread once more. This time, I hold the images it forms in my thoughts, let them wash over me. Then I imagine them unraveling. Dawn returns to night, butterfly to chrysalis, swan to girl. A reversal, an undoing.

My fingers tingle, my body hums. I squeeze my eyes tighter, focusing fiercely.

A trickle of warmth pulses from the threads into my body.

Then another. Then a third, this time more painful.

I gasp—it feels almost as if my very blood is aflame.

It is painful, yes, but also pleasant somehow. Like the burn of a long-unused muscle.

I open my eyes to see the thread shimmering in the moonlight, flickering like a distant star. For that brief instant, excitement surges through me. Is it working? Could it truly be this simple?

Then the flickering stops. The thread returns to its usual steady glow. Before me, Marie remains unchanged, still watching me through the dark eyes of a swan.

My stomach drops. It didn’t work. I’m doing something wrong. But what?

I close my eyes again, this time trying to think of one thing and one thing only: Marie as she had been before her transformation, with pearls in her hair and her sky-blue gown.

She leans over the railing of a theater box, eyes moon pale and bright with wonder.

Enthralled. Ethereal. As though she were standing on a precipice, longing to take flight.

The spell-thread flares bright as sunlight, sending a pulse of pain through my arm.

Then it explodes.