Page 6

Chapter 4

Nora

“Miss Honora.” Margarete opened the door for Nora as she dashed up the Holtzfall mansion’s steps, past the hungry flashes of cameras and shouting reporters, closing the door quickly on the chaos outside. The charms on the doorway instantly shut out the noise from outdoors, sealing Nora into the sanctuary of her ancestral home.

“May I take your…” The head maid hesitated, realizing Nora wasn’t wearing a coat, in spite of the early spring chill. “Newspapers?” Margarete recovered elegantly.

“Thank you, Margarete.” She didn’t miss Margarete’s quick glance at her stocking-clad feet as the long-suffering head maid took the papers. Unlike some of her ancestors, Nora wasn’t a mind reader, but she knew Margarete was already worrying about all the city dirt Nora was bound to track through the house. The staff would be blamed if the carpets were any less than impeccable.

She needn’t worry.

Nora might not be the type to make it home by midnight wearing both shoes. But she was the type to make a charm on the fly using nothing but a hairpin and two gold bracelets. It had taken Nora only a few minutes to scratch in the symbols that would shape the magical energy to its intended purpose, before attaching the bracelets to her ankles.

It was the sort of work most people would need to go to an expensive charmerie for. But Nora wasn’t most people.

The soles of her feet were pristine.

“They’re expecting you in the Blue Salon.” Margarete curtsied.

They. Nora couldn’t ask whether she was the last to arrive, at the risk of seeming like it mattered. Which of course, it did. They were in competition now. Everything mattered.

As Margarete turned away to store the newspapers in the closet, Nora quickly pressed her fingertips against the polished top of the nearest console table, channeling the innate magic of her Holtzfall gift. After generations, the Holtzfall bloodline was so oversaturated with magic that even without a charm, some of them could practice magic. There were empaths, clairvoyants, and on occasion, the odd mind reader, though not for a century now.

Nora could scry, which was to say she could read anything that had captured an image. Mirrors or photographs were best, but anything that caught a reflection would do in a pinch. She’d once read a reflection in a glass of champagne, albeit a slightly bubbly one.

A huge vase of roses occupied much of the surface of the table, but there was still enough clear space that Nora’s gift ought to… There! As she flicked the image backward, she saw two bright blonde reflections captured in the polished wood.

Constance and Clemency being ushered in by their father.

Followed closely by Modesty and her mother.

Wonderful. All three of her cousins were already here. No doubt hoping to impress their grandmother. Punctuality might be a virtue, but there was such a thing as being impolitely early, some might say. Nora would probably say it behind her cousins’ backs later, for instance.

At least Nora would get to make an entrance.

Her diamond bracelet was a vinder charm. The circuitry carved into the gold band was designed to move air around the wearer when activated. It had long since replaced the delicate charmed fans women once carried on hot days. Now Nora fed hers with a surcharge of magic as she approached the Blue Salon, turning the delicate breeze into a violent gust of air.

The double doors burst open dramatically, revealing her family on the other side. Five faces turned toward her, all wearing shock, annoyance, or a combination of both.

It was always nice to feel so welcomed by family.

“Nora!” Constance’s hands were clenched in her lap. “We were beginning to think you wouldn’t make it.”

There were two empty seats left at the table. The hand that had been clamped around Nora’s chest loosened its grip. She had made it to breakfast before her grandmother.

“You were hoping I wouldn’t, you mean.” Nora flicked a finger, sparking the vinder charm again to close the doors behind her. She didn’t need to use magic. The point was that she could afford to. Constance’s mouth opened then shut mechanically, stumbling for a polite retort, but her sister, Clemency, got there first.

“We were worried!” Clemency had the tact to look fretful. Constance and Clemency weren’t actually twins, but they might as well have been. Constance was seventeen to Clemency’s fifteen. They had identical Holtzfall blonde curls and milkmaid-pale skin. And today they were wearing matching dresses, one yellow, the other pink. They were porcelain dolls crafted from the same mold.

“We were just saying we ought to send a knight out to find you. Weren’t we saying that?” Clemency waved vaguely to Sir Galdrick Rydder, one of the family knights, who was stationed like a silent statue by the door. Nora was only partly successful in stifling a scoff. Clemency didn’t have the authority to send the knights for milk , let alone to fetch Nora. Besides, she was sure someone had been sent for her the moment they realized she’d slipped the guard at her apartment.

The breakfast table was dressed with a white linen tablecloth, seven elegantly patterned maiolica service chargers, fourteen pairs of silver forks and matching knives with ivory handles, and seven long-stemmed crystal glasses with needle-etched charm patterns designed to keep the drink inside cool.

And one ancient ax, buried blade first in the middle of the table.

Mercy Holtzfall usually favored calla lilies for a centerpiece, but today was a special occasion. The family had changed since their days as woodcutters in the forest, but their traditions hadn’t.

Nora should be used to seeing Honor Holtzfall’s ancient ax. But here, embedded in the table, it sent a twist of anticipation through her that it never had when it simply hung on the wall in her grandmother’s office.

In spite of being the eldest cousin, Constance hadn’t been given the traditional place at the right hand of the head of the family. That seat was empty, waiting for Nora. Which partly explained why Constance looked like she’d been sucking on lemons.

The end of the table, the place of least importance, was occupied by the previous generation. Or what was left of it.

Mercy Holtzfall once had five children.

Prosper, Grace, Verity, Patience, and Valor.

Three were still alive.

Only two were in the room.

Uncle Prosper, Clemency and Constance’s father, slumped in his chair, toying sullenly with a silver cigarette case marked with charms to keep the cigarettes fresh. A waste of magic. Uncle Prosper had never given a cigarette a chance to go stale.

Aunt Patience was next to him, sitting ramrod straight and shooting her brother annoyed looks every time the cigarette case hit the table. On the other side of the table sat her daughter, Modesty.

Aunt Grace was conspicuously not invited.

That shouldn’t have surprised Nora. Aunt Grace had no children to compete in the Veritaz. But Nora hadn’t realized until this moment that she had been tacitly expecting her favorite aunt’s support, since she was the only competitor there without a living parent.

But Aunt Grace was probably pouring herself into bed just about now, like Nora ought to be.

“Well, unfortunately for you all, here I am.” Nora took her place at their grandmother’s right hand, aware of Constance’s face pickling even more as she did. Constance had clearly inherited her poker face from her father, if Prosper Holtzfall’s gambling debts were anything to go by. Nora rubbed it in with an arch smile. “You can’t get rid of me that easily.”

“I guess we’ll all have to work harder at it, then.” Modesty laughed in a way that was clearly meant to cover up that she really meant it.

Aunt Grace and Verity Holtzfall had been sisters the way people said sisters were supposed to be. Friends and allies in all things. Nora had spent so much time with them both that it was easy to forget everyone else in this family loathed each other. Uncle Prosper and Aunt Patience resented Verity for winning their generation’s trials. They resented Aunt Grace for not resenting Verity. And they resented each other for taking money from the family coffers, leaving less allowance for the other one.

For her part, Nora had always known her cousins didn’t like her. They had been deferential to her while her mother was the Heiress. One day she would inherit all the family’s money and magic, and unless they wanted to do something as distasteful as get a job, or they managed to marry well, they would spend the rest of their lives dependent on her.

She’d seen it happen with her mother’s siblings. The deeper Uncle Prosper was in gambling debt, the more he’d drop by the apartment with a smile and a bottle of champagne for his “favorite sister.” But when he was on a winning streak, he’d had no time for Nora’s mother.

At the age when other children played dolls, Nora’s cousins had begun playing the long game. They probably knew they weren’t fooling anyone. But Nora had her part to play too, pretending she believed that their fawning was real affection.

Now the game had changed.

Since her mother’s murder, the heirship was no longer guaranteed to Nora. And she could feel years of tamped-down resentment spilling over in her cousins. But the heirship wasn’t wholly out of her grasp yet either. There was still a one-in-four chance she would be Heiress. Nora glanced around the table assessingly. Well, if she were the gambling sort, like Uncle Prosper, she would say her chances were better than one-in-four.

The disadvantage of keeping her cousins at arm’s length was that Nora didn’t know them well enough to be sure. Though underestimating Constance and Clemency seemed almost impossible. Somehow they always managed to limbo under the low bars she set them.

But the fact that Modesty had been seated at their grandmother’s left didn’t escape Nora’s notice.

Neither did her perfect morning dress of ecru floral lace that accented her pale blonde hair and icy eyes, and complemented the décor of the house. Clever. She had dressed very deliberately to look like she belonged here, something that Nora with her Mirajin dark features could never quite pull off, no matter what she was wearing. No matter that she belonged here more than any of them.

“You were missed at Modesty’s premiere last night.” Aunt Patience finally broke the tense silence. “The papers are saying she gave a radiant performance.”

Aunt Patience used to be an empath, able to read feelings on people. When she lost her own Veritaz, she had lost all her magic, including her Holtzfall gift. Apparently she’d lost her tact too. The attempt to focus the attention back on Modesty was embarrassing.

“Oh, yes, Modesty’s job .” The word dripped with disdain. Jobs were for needy people. As in people who needed money. Not Holtzfalls. Though if Aunt Patience hadn’t started pushing Modesty into the cinema when she was only six, she likely would be broke by now. “Well, I must apologize for my absence. The truth is I really, really would just have rather gouged out my own eyes than spend two hours watching Modesty do almost anything.”

Across the table, Uncle Prosper choked on a laugh he turned into a cough as Aunt Patience’s normally hunched countenance drew up in sudden pique. Nora’s mother and Aunt Grace used to laugh about Aunt Patience’s legendary tantrums as a child. The neglected second-youngest Holtzfall. The daughter who sullenly accepted the scraps left of their parents’ attention when Grace and Verity had used up their share. Until it suddenly overboiled into red-faced rage.

Nora had seen it only once, when she and Modesty were about seven, Aunt Patience shrieking and shaking Modesty over a lost silk glove. It had taken three knights to pull her off her daughter.

As Patience’s face turned red, Nora wondered if sixteen years of resentment was about to spill out at her. Now, that was a performance Nora would watch. But Modesty glided in first, snipping her mother’s sparking fuse.

“Oh, don’t worry, dear cousin.” Modesty’s mouth drew into a self-satisfied smile. “You’ll have the chance to see me at my next premiere! It’s only that you missed the exciting news! Mr.Hildebrand is making a film about Temperance Holtzfall.”

Temperance Holtzfall was their ancestor from six centuries ago, at the time of the last king of Gamanix. The young king had fallen desperately in love with Temperance and asked for her hand in marriage. But Temperance refused the crown, choosing instead to compete in her generation’s Veritaz Trials. She gave up the certainty of becoming queen for a chance at her family’s heirship. Everyone thought she was a fool. But her gamble paid off. Temperance Holtzfall entered her Veritaz Trials alongside her six brothers. She was the only one to come out of them alive. Meanwhile, the king never married and died with no legitimate heir to his throne. Thus, the rule of kings ended, and the Holtzfalls took their place as the greatest force in the country.

There were always whispers about Temperance’s children looking like the king, but Nora had a feeling those whispers were started by Holtzfalls wanting to elevate the grandeur of their bloodline.

“You don’t say?” Nora pushed herself up from her chair, reaching for the silver teapot in the middle of the table. Her cousins were all politely sitting around with empty cups. But Nora knew she could get away with murder. Or at the very least, having a cup of tea impolitely early. “And he came up with that idea all on his own, did he?”

Modesty’s Holtzfall gift was among the more insidious in the family bloodline. She could plant the seed of an idea in your mind and let it grow there until you thought it was your own. For instance, a director might think it was his own idea to cast Modesty, instead of someone with actual talent.

“And he wants me to play Temperance.” Modesty brushed by the implied accusation. “After all, he says I do look the part of a Holtzfall Heiress.”

That blow struck true.

All Nora had to do was look at the portraits that lined the walls of the Holtzfall mansion to know she was out of place in her own family. It was an uninterrupted sea of fair skin, pale eyes, and paler hair. Nora’s dark hair looked like a blot of ink among her cousins’ golden haloes.

The Holtzfalls might have tried to claim royalty through rumors about Temperance Holtzfall’s children. But Nora didn’t have to claim anything. She was royalty on her father’s side. Her Mirajin features marked her out as descended from generations of desert-born rulers. She was the granddaughter of an exiled princess. Nora might not look like the Heiresses who came before her, but she looked like the Heiresses who would come after her.

“How thrilling for you.” Nora aggressively stirred her tea with the silver spoon. “At least you’ll get to playact being an Heiress if nothing else.” The motion of the spoon sparked the charm engraved on the handle, designed to make the tea stronger when stirred clockwise and weaker counterclockwise. “You’ll come to me if you need any tips from real experience, of course.” Nora wouldn’t need to stir so many times if Mercy Holtzfall would just serve coffee. But coffee, like Nora’s other grandmother, came from Miraji, and Mercy Holtzfall begrudged its foreignness.

The drink darkened gradually as Nora’s spoon clinked against the porcelain in the suddenly uncomfortable silence of the room. Nora had heard that there were families who gathered for meals because they actually liked each other, not because they were competing for a thousand years’ worth of money and magic.

“Good to see everyone is here on time.” The voice seemed to come from thin air, making everyone at the table scramble to stand. Everyone except Nora. “Punctuality is a virtue, you know.”

“Not a virtue that has ever been tested in a Veritaz,” Nora muttered into her porcelain cup as her grandmother stepped into the breakfast room, emerging from a panel in the wall that Nora had never noticed.

The Holtzfall home stood in the same place it had since it was nothing but Honor Holtzfall’s cottage a thousand years ago. It was a hundredfold the size that cottage had been, sprawling wider with every generation, with new wings and secret passages and doors charmed to open to a half dozen other places scattered throughout.

Mercy Holtzfall was wearing a high-necked blue day dress, her blonde Holtzfall hair swept up. She wore a series of charms disguised as jewelry—rings, brooches, hair clips, and even buttons. At sixty, Mercy was as beautiful as she had always been, her face unlined despite the four decades she’d spent ruling the family.

Her grandmother’s personal knight, Commander Liselotte Rydder, followed behind. She had led the Holtzfall’s guard for as long as Mercy had led the family, but she wore the same uniform as every other knight. A gray doublet with the family’s crest sewn over her chest: a silhouette of Honor Holtzfall raising the ax high in the air. Nora had always thought it looked like the figure might drop his ax straight into the knights’ hearts at any moment.

Commander Lis’s gaze landed on Nora, her normally impassive face betraying a flash of annoyance. Wordlessly, she signaled to another knight positioned at the door, who silently exited the room. No doubt she was calling back whatever hunt she had sent out for Nora after she’d slipped out of the apartment last night.

“How did you all sleep?” her grandmother asked, gesturing at them to sit around her.

“Oh, I slept wonderfully, Grandmother,” Constance piped up as she tucked her dress below her primly. “I felt like it was important to get to bed at a responsible hour to be prepared for today.” She cast a not-so-subtle look at Nora.

“I wouldn’t have been surprised if you hadn’t.” Mercy laced her fingers together over her plate. “I didn’t sleep at all the night before my Veritaz Ceremony. A restless mind means you understand the importance of a day like today.”

Down the table, Constance dropped her gaze, suddenly not so hungry for their grandmother’s attention. Nora could have told her cousin that the question was a trap. Most conversations with her grandmother were.

“The Veritaz Ceremony is a family tradition in which every head of the family should expect to take part twice in their lifetime. Once when they are competing, and once when they are finding their successor. It is my great tragedy that this is my third time.” Her grandmother’s eyes drifted, not unintentionally, to Nora. Seventeen years ago, Mercy Holtzfall had sat here with her own children. Now two of those children, including the Heiress, were dead.

Valor Holtzfall, the youngest, had lost his life in the trials themselves. The five Holtzfall children had been skating on the frozen river when the ice collapsed. It was a test of their sangfroid. No pun intended. Though Nora was sure the irony of that concept wasn’t what they were thinking of when the ice magically sealed over them. Aunt Grace had been the first to fight her way out of the frozen water, then she fought to pull her siblings out after her. But she hadn’t reached her youngest brother in time.

Valor Holtzfall was just fourteen when he was buried.

And the Veritaz Trials continued.

Aunt Patience and Uncle Prosper had sat here seventeen years ago too. Neither of them won a single trial. In the end, the competition had come down to Verity and Grace. Nora’s mother, Verity, had edged her sister out for the win. Barely.

Now, seventeen years later, here they all were. The next generation competing for the prize Verity Holtzfall hadn’t lived to claim.

“None of you have been prepared to take part in the Veritaz,” Mercy spoke to her four granddaughters, gesturing for a servant to pour the tea. “But that is for the best. The Veritaz is not meant to be prepared for, and it cannot be cheated. It will reveal the truth of who you really are. Which of you is cleverest, which of you is bravest, which of you is worthiest to carry on this family name.”

Mercy looked around the table, taking in each of their faces. Nora’s gaze followed her grandmother’s. Clemency’s and Constance’s barely concealed excitement and terror, while Modesty feigned serenity. “I expect that several of you, like your parents, will want to tell me how the Veritaz isn’t fair .” This time her eyes went pointedly to Aunt Patience’s sour face. “Predictably, like in life, the only ones who complain about fairness are the ones who lose . And I will tell you what I always tell those who come crying to me: Life is completely fair to those who deserve it.”

It was a philosophy Nora had heard dozens of times, in every Heiress lesson with her grandmother. The poor were poor because they lacked the virtues of the rich. If they were as intelligent, as industrious, and as wise as the rich, they would be rich too. And within the Holtzfall family, virtue meant everything.

Around the table, all eyes were being pulled by the ax.

The Veritaz had evolved over generations. But the final aim of the trials remained unchanged: to be the first to retrieve Honor Holtzfall’s legendary ax from the woods. Tonight, Mercy Holtzfall would give the ax to the immortal Huldrekall and ask him the same question Honor Holtzfall had asked a thousand years ago: Who is most worthy to inherit this powerful gift? And like every generation before theirs, the Huldrekall would agree to help determine which of the candidates was the worthiest.

Then the trials would begin.

They might come at any time and take any form. They might test bravery, or honesty, or temperance, or any of a dozen other virtues. The competitors might face the trials all together or separately. It might be clear as day that they were facing a trial or it might be disguised. But the outcome was the same: The victor of each individual trial would receive a ring that granted passage into the woods. And with that, a chance to be the one to retrieve the ax and become the heir.

There were as many ring trials as there were candidates. A fair chance for each of them to prove themselves. At the end, they might all have a single ring on their hand, and with it admittance to the final trial. Or a single one of them might have all four rings and the other three challengers would be disgraced. Or dead.

“Now,” Mercy said, lifting a small finger and sending a spark of magic through the ax in the middle of table. “Who would like to go first?”

The table was silent. They all knew what they had to do. It was the reason they had been summoned here this morning. To tie their magic to the ax and agree to forfeit it to the winner.

A hefty wager for a gargantuan prize.

Modesty’s starlet bravado was suddenly gone, Constance and Clemency’s snideness faded.

Nora stood abruptly, her chair squealing across the floor of the breakfast salon.

The only reason to hesitate was if Nora didn’t think she could win.

The ax was still sharp, even after a thousand years. Sharp enough for Nora to nick her thumb against the blade. She felt the magic inside her blood come to life, snagging onto the ax. Like an invisible thread twisting around the blade. The charm tugged on the magic inside her, threatening to unspool it all and drag it out of her. But it wouldn’t yet. Not until the game was over.

Not to be outdone, Modesty stood next. Then Constance, and finally, Clemency.

Until all four of them were standing. Facing each other as the ax drank up their blood before even a drop could fall onto Mercy Holtzfall’s spotless tablecloth.

Finally, their grandmother’s gloved hand closed around the handle of the ax, tugging it out of the table and sealing the charm within. The magic of the ax would stay dormant until one of them reached it in the woods. The moment any mortal hand closed around the ax, the losers’ magic would spool out of them until each one of them was nothing but an empty bobbin, while the Heiress would suddenly have four times the amount of magic she was born with.

And would inherit the generational treasury of magic to boot.

A weighty silence hung over the pristine breakfast table. They had arrived as cousins; they would leave here as competitors.

“Now.” Mercy Holtzfall shook out her napkin, draping it over the ancient ax as servants swarmed in, bringing food to the table. “Honora, perhaps you’d like to start by telling us why you are so overdressed for breakfast?”

“Am I?” Nora sat back down, plucking a sweet roll from the tray in a carefully calculated act of nonchalance. “I like to think everyone else is just underdressed.”